CITY and Colour

The smashing success of City & Colour came as a surprise to many, not the least of which being Dallas Green himself, the man behind the haunting songs. For those not in the know, the band name is a mere typecasting of the nouns that comprise his name. I admit I feel silly for never having even realized that before, even though I’ve mused in the past about what an interesting name ‘Dallas’ is. Just thought I’d point that out, as I read through 4 or 5 articles on the guy before I came across that seemingly-obvious bit of information.

Anyways, I caught up with Green in a veritable whirlwind of activity.  unsecured loans As you likely are aware, he is also one-fifth of the very popular Canadian screamo/hardcore/whateveryouwannacallit band Alexisonfire. Green was in the midst of not only his own tour, but some downtime-style promotional touring courtesy of Alexisonfire. Due to such an overwhelming schedule, Green’s ‘people’ were withholding in-market press… yet somehow… made an exception for us! Oh happy day! Cord was allowed to get close to the hoodied wonder between the end of his promotional duties and his taxi ride to sound check for his show that evening at Mesa Luna.

When I arrived at Metrotown, the largest mall in BC, and second largest in Canada behind West Edmonton Mall, I navigated as per instructions, through the corridors until coming bad credit loans across “a noisy mob” of fans. They weren’t kidding. A huge set-up was constructed in the middle of a three-story court midmall, with giant video screens, lots of people in red shirts, vendors, the local radio station CFOX doing a live broadcast, Rogers representatives schilling their video games (this was the Rogers Power Play National Gaming Championships), and indeed, a noisy mob of fans. A couple Alexisonfire guys were on stage I think playing a hockey video game with some fans, and Dallas Green was sitting calmly and barely visible on the edge of the stage, signing autographs and chatting with fans who would sit beside him on stage for a thrilling moment. He seemed polite and gracious and real, and the fans seemed excited and nervous.

I was directed through a pile of folks and stood around to the side of the stage waiting for Green to become available for a few moments. In the meantime, the rest of Alexisonfire circled the inner barricade perimeter signing yet more autographs for eager, yelping fans. Green remained by the stage with the line of fans still waiting to meet him. I think he got dragged away from there before everyone had seen him, I’m not certain, but he came by our area shortly after with his hood snugly wrapped around his head, as though going incognito all of a sudden. He hunkered down in a directors chair, instructed me to do the same, and leaned right in for a close, intimate and hush-hush interview in the middle of a massive circle of chaos. An upstanding gent, I felt like I had his undivided attention for the brief five or so minutes I had with him.

Brief though it was, he divulged a lot of information. Seemingly out of breath from the day already and speaking in quiet tones, I asked him what he thought of the massive brouhaha surrounding him and the band that day (and in many days past. “Yeah it’s cool,” he says, looking around at the audience. I didn’t join him in this look-about, but I imagine that we were being watched by oodles of curious fans. “It’s insane, but cool, you know, hanging out with people who are really excited. It’s cool to meet people.”

He offers up some insight about how the tour’s gone for him so far. “The tour’s been good so far, it’s just ending! I’ve been playing in some theatres lately and I love it. It’s just so much better for this type of music, you know, it’s pretty quiet. And in a theatre, people tend to behave better. When I play the bar shows… you know when people go to a bar, they’re sort of in that mood, it’s natural for them to talk a lot and just be really noisy and obnoxious. [I mention crowd surfing and he agrees]. And when I’m playing this soft music, I don’t want to be competing with that.”

Back in time, when Green started doing interviews for this project, he seemed to imply that he had no plans to really tour behind the album. A lot of folks have been asking if this means Alexisonfire is breaking up, and the answer is a resounding NO. “I’m only doing this project [and touring] because Alexisonfire happened to have some downtime. We’re so busy but right now, we finished the next album and there was nothing going on in March except [the Rogers promo tour.] A lot of people seem to think we put Alexisonfire on hold for this, but we didn’t. It was just the right time. People wanted it so I was just able to, why not, play a few shows. The band comes first though, I would never just be like, ‘hey guys, can we put the band aside for a while so I can go play some shows by myself?’”

At this point he is scurried away by the CFOX crew for a photo opp. He apologizes profusely for the interruption and then sits back down with me.

At this point I’m interested in dipping into his past. I ask if he can think of a definitive point in his life where music just suddenly made sense to him. “I know there was but I can’t remember exactly what it was. I just always remember music meaning so much, even way back when I was buying Alice In Chains and Guns & Roses records and stuff. I mean I’ve been playing guitar since I was 8 so it’s just sort of always been there.” He goes on to explain that he took guitar lessons but then quit after three years once he realized they weren’t doing anything for him. He taught himself how to play piano, being one of those instruments it just seems like a songwriter ought to know how to play, and certainly never took any vocal lessons. He instead would sing along in his room or wherever to those old Alice In Chains and Guns & Roses records. “I never used to like singing in front of people, I would always just sing in my room or whatever. But one day I sang in front of some people. I guess I was 16 or 17. And they were like, ‘hey, that’s not so bad.’” He drew the songs for “Sometimes” out of his vast and far-reaching collection of music from over the years. I’m wondering if it was tough to pare that collection down to just the selection found on the album. “I think having more than 10 or 11 songs on a disc is just too much, so it was no problem for me to have just those songs. And it wasn’t hard to pare down to those particular songs. They’ve always just been my favourite songs from over the years so it was easy to choose them.”

Realizing the reps and the rest of the band are starting to get antsy, knowing the taxi could show up any moment to whisk Green away to his soundcheck, I finish up lightly. You all know our Ten Questions feature and the always-entertaining bear-vs-shark debate, but since I have interviewed Green before as part of Alexisonfire and have already asked him that question, I modified the query for him here to make it a little more City & Colour-centric. It went something like this : There’s a shark and a bear in a bar in Delaware. Neighbourhood bar, you know, everyone knows their names, like “Hey Sharky, the usual?” that sort of thing. Now they’ve both had a lot to drink. In walks this beautiful woman and she sits down next to the bear. He starts chatting her up and is doing pretty good until the shark moves in. First he knocks a beer into the bear’s lap, and then he starts mackin’ on the girl. Well that’s it, the bear loses his temper, shoves the shark, and suddenly it’s a bar-bound cage-match. The shark has a pair of scissors and the bear has a knife. They fight for the girl. Who wins?

Green answers seriously and animatedly : “The shark’s gonna win because sharks are smart you see, so he’s gonna break the scissors apart so it’s like he’s got two knives and he’ll beat the bear with those.”

Okay. So, does the girl buy this act? Who does she go home with? “The girl will go home with the bear because she feels sorry for him, but she really wants to go home with the shark cuz he’s a badass.”

And that’s pretty much that. Relieved of his interview duties, Green gets up and wanders back to the throng of whooping fans to sign some more autographs. I’m listening to Alexisonfire singer George Pettit tell a story about some kid who met Weird Al Yankovic, and was so nervous all he could do was timidly walk up to him holding out a pen and a pad of paper. Yankovic took the pad and the pen, exclaimed, “Wow, thanks!” and took off. True story? Who knows. But damn funny. In the meantime, Green has sat back down in his director’s chair, thoroughly absorbed in reading a two-page letter I assume was handed to him by a fan. Apparently, it was a “real sad one.” He takes things to heart, that one. A few minutes later the taxis were announced as having arrived, security sprung into action, and the entire band was herded out to the parking garage and away from Metrotown Mall.

Thus concludes my five minutes with Dallas Green.