Interview: Dallas Green of City and Colour

Dallas Green is the gifted creative talent behind City and Colour.  His recent tour with the fantastic Canadian duo Tegan and Sara is coming to an end but Dallas’ musical projects are only beginning (read the concert review).  BeatCrave had the chance to hang out with Dallas Green in his dressing room before his set at The Fonda in Hollywood and discuss his upcoming projects both with City and Colour and Alexisonfire, how touring influences the creative process, his latest album, “Bring Me Your Love” (read the review), and the five albums he wouldn’t be able to live without.

What are you currently working on?

Right now, I’m just finishing this tour up, which has a couple more days.  Then I am in another band, Alexisonfire, and we’re going to be finishing up some writing and make a new record in the winter.

How would you describe Alexisonfire’s sound?

It’s kind of punky, screamy, rockin’ stuff.  I sing a lot louder and there is another guy in the band who screams.  It’s kind of like hot water music but a bit more, a bit more, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, there’s a lot going on. Alexis and Fire and City and Colour are complete opposite ends of the spectrum, it’s nice to be able to do both.

Where do you get your creative inspiration from?

I think, just everything. You know, I am such a huge fan of music in general, not just one artist or one particular genre, I just like love music so much.  I am always sitting there, playing guitar, coming up with stuff. So it’s either that or, I read lots of books, or maybe hear something on the news or a movie I just saw.

What particular books have inspired you?

When I was younger, I started really getting into reading.  I read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut and wrote a bunch of songs based on stories I read of his.  What I read of his made me want to put my own perspective on it through music.

I really like the song, “Waiting” which is your number one played song on MySpace.  What was the inspiration behind that particular song?

There was a great singer Townes Van Zandt and he had a song called, “Waiting Around to Die.”  It was a really negative song, I love it but I wanted to write a sort of positive spin on it.  Even though it sounds negative, it’s really about the idea that people live their lives sweating the small stuff and worrying about little details even though there is always someone with a worse problem than you;  I’m like that too so it’s kind of like me telling myself and everyone to appreciate what you have because everyone is going to die.

When you tour with an album, does the process of touring reveal changes you wish you would have made to the studio recording?

Oh, yeah.  With the City and Colour stuff it’s always different because sometimes I tour with a band because we recreate the sounds of the full band tracks from the record.  But, like this time around, it’s just me, myself and a guitar so it’s almost like I am doing remixes of the songs.  It is fun, you know, whenever I play live, I like to do a song just a little different to make it more of an experience; it’s like a onetime thing you share with the audience.

Since the release of your first album in 2005, how do you think you’ve grown both personally and creatively?

Well the first record was just a culmination of a bunch of songs I had written as a teenager, it was never supposed to be anything, it was just a bunch of songs I had written that I wanted studio versions of as opposed to basement demos.  We decided to put it out because people thought it was good and people actually liked it. If I could have gone back and decided I was going to make a solo record, “Bring Me Your Love” is the record I would have made: it reflects who I am in my life right now whereas when the first record came out, some of the songs were like ten years old and not as solid a representation of me as an artist.

So now when I sing the older songs at night I have to fall back in love with them.  That’s why there are a bunch of songs off the first record I just will not play because I am just not in love with them anymore and I don’t want to give a dishonest performance: I don’t want to play a song just because someone wants to hear it.  If I am singing the songs I really love to sing then I am giving the best performance, there is more of a chance to have something with somebody in the audience.

What do you do like most about being a solo artist?

Well, it’s nice because I come from a band, a five piece band.  It’s nice because it’s a democracy and we all have our own say and we wait and change things and wait until everyone is happy.  But with this, it’s good because if I like it, I like it and I don’t have to answer to anybody.

I do love being in a band too though because, when you’re stuck and you don’t really know where to go with a song you can kind of lean on another musician which is great.  It’s good to have fresh ears but, sometimes, you just want to write a song and have it be done.

How do you choose the people that you work with whether while touring or playing in the studio?

Mostly they are just my friends.  The guy who came in and made the record, “Bring Me Your Love” with me, his name’s Daniel and he gets what I want to do, he’s able to know what it is I want to get out of my head without really having to describe it.  A couple of the other artists are also friends that I’ve known for a long time because, it just makes sense.

Are there any artists out there now that you would like to perform with in the studio or otherwise?

Sam Sparrow is definitely one, he put out this record this year and it’s kind of like a dancey, Scissor Sister type album.  Sometimes when I’m singing, I throw in the lyrics from some of his songs just for fun, I would love to work with him and make a dancey-type song.

What has it been like touring with Tegan and Sara?

This has been one of the best tours I have been on.  Really, like, we’ve never met until before the tour and I feel like I am a third part of their twins, I feel like I’m the triplet.

How did the tour come about?

I met Tegan first like a couple months before the tour and we just started talking about how we’ve never played together and it’s weird because we are both from Canada and we’ve both been around for a really long time and a couple weeks later they offered me this tour.

Speaking of the fact that both you and Tegan and Sara are Canadian, how do you think Canadian audiences differ from American audiences?

Well, it seems like American audiences are a lot more segregated.  The punk bands tour with the punk bands and the heavy bands tour with the heavy bands and the pop bands tour with the pop bands and the screemo bands tour with the screemo bands.  It’s like, if you put different genre bands on a tour together then the metal kids will stand outside while the emo kids play and the emo kids will stand outside when the metal kids play.  But, in Canada, it’s like were not as cool, basically, so we don’t know that were supposed to play together, we don’t know the rules.  Which, I think, there shouldn’t be any rules, you should be able to put a tour together where four different bands sound completely different and all the kids stand there and watch.

It seems like the progression of music is more and more electronic/technology based, do you think with the evolution of music there will always be a place for a guy and his guitar?

I think so, the reason I think that is because it’s been around forever.  People still like the idea of acoustic music and it’s been around since blues men were doing it in the thirties and before that there were the old beginnings of blue grass and stuff like that in the twenties.  Now, it’s 2008 and people are still interested in it. I stand up there with an acoustic guitar and people listen, well, some people talk because they don’t know who I am but most people seem to like it and that gives me faith that this type of music will last.

Where do you see your music going in the next five years?

Well, I am going to be making a record with Alexis and Fire and then I will probably be doing another City and Colour record.  I think the next City and Colour record will be much more piano based because I have been writing a lot of songs on the piano and I’ve always wanted to make a record that was a lot more piano driven.

Who are you currently listening to?

There is a band called Young Widows from Kentucky who are, I think, my favorite band right now.  I also just bought this record from this band called “The War on Drugs,” it’s great it’s like Bob Dylan vocals and My Bloody Valentine, it’s weird.  The first song sounds like a Bob Dylan and the then the third song is like this crazy instrumental interlude, it’s crazy, it’s really, really good.  Those two bands I definitely listen to a lot right now.

If you could only listen to five albums for the rest of your life what would they be? Why?

Ok, I am going to go in chronological order of the records that made me who I am.  I would have to have Alice in Chains, “Dirt” because that was the first album that blew me away; I was a total grunge kid.  Then there would be Mogwai, “Young Team,” Quicksand, “Slip,” this is very all over the place.  Next would be Jeff Buckley, “Grace” and Elliot, “False Cathedrals.”  Those are my five because they reflect me growing up and are the records that cultivated me as a musician and I feel like I draw from all of that as an artist.

Photos By: Natalie Balcerska