Aaron Solowoniuk
In 1997, at 24 years old, Aaron Solowoniuk was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. At the time, he had a full time job at an assembly plant, a girlfriend, and a drum kit he played in an indie band called Pezz. He wanted to be a father one day. He wanted to make a living playing music. For a moment, MS made all of that feel impossible.
Aaron refused to accept that. He started taking Rebif, one of the first disease modifying therapies available at the time, and he told his family and closest friends what he was dealing with. He didn’t want sympathy. He wanted normal.
“I remember just telling everyone not to treat me any differently. I just want things to stay the same.“
Rebif kept the disease at bay, and Aaron kept moving forward. Over the next few years he got married, had his first child, and signed a record deal with a group of friends he’d known since high school.
That band became Billy Talent.
For nearly a decade, Aaron kept his diagnosis out of the public eye while the band’s career took off. He drummed through four studio albums and toured the world, building a career most musicians only dream about, all while quietly managing a disease most people had no idea he was living with.
By 2006, the weight of keeping that secret outweighed the fear of sharing it. Aaron went public with his diagnosis and founded F.U.MS, turning years of frustration into something built to help other people instead of just himself.
F.U.MS has since raised more than $700,000 for MS awareness and support. Aaron also launched Someone Like Me, a youth blogging community for people living with MS who needed to see someone else doing what he once needed to see, someone living openly with the disease instead of hiding from it.
In January 2016, after four studio albums and years on the road, Aaron decided to step back from touring to focus on his health. His Billy Talent bandmates stood by him without hesitation, a fact that says as much about the culture he built within the band as it does about the friendships behind it.
That loyalty, and the work Aaron built through F.U.MS, helped earn Billy Talent the 2026 Juno Humanitarian Award. Aaron would probably tell you the award isn’t the point though. The point is every person who heard his story and felt a little less alone because of it.
