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| Photography: Vanessa Heins |
10 December 2012
When Alexisonfire announced their
split in August last year, fans of lactating, contortionist strippers
and Canadian hardcore went into mourning, but while most cursed
themselves for encouraging linchpin Dallas Green to pursue a solo
career, the dichotomy of City and Colour’s success wasn’t wholly to
blame.
“The confusion that lies in the whole process about what
happened,” says Green down the phone from the US, “was when I left the
band, the band didn’t break up. They spent a lot of time deciding
whether or not they were going to continue as a four-piece or add
another member, or whatever.”
After guitarist/vocalist Wade MacNeil got an offer to
front English band Gallows in July 2011, the band accepted their
collapse and Green could finally breathe easy. City and Colour
interviews and fan interaction underwent a year-and-a-half of white lies
and diversions, and for an artist renowned for his blunt honesty and
allegiance to his band brothers, the repression was difficult.
“I had been holding the fact that I had left the band in
for so long,” he admits. “I had to deal with people finding out that it
was me who started the demise of the band. I think that the general
response was good because for one, we could talk about it, but it was an
interesting period… I sort of twisted [the band’s] arm and forced them
into a tough situation, so I can appreciate how they were looking at
me-or not at me-at that moment in time.”
With the Australian leg of band’s farewell tour just days
away, it’s an awkward feeling to know that their last visit in 2010 was
surrounded by tension in the band. “At the time, only ten or twelve
people knew that I was leaving the band so we were on the road with all
of our friends touring, trying to have a good time and show everybody
that we were happy-go-lucky,” says Green. “Meanwhile, every time we
played, we knew that we were getting closer to the end, it was hard to
celebrate.” The shows were feverish and raw, their onstage brotherhood
seemed more devoted than ever; but as Green explains, between each
performance came an uncomfortable quiet.
“Everyone was really depressed when we
were playing that last tour, I think that a lot of that depression had
to do with the fact that we weren’t talking about it,” Green considers.
“It was really a bummer, but I think it’s good that we didn’t [tell
people] because it hadn’t really allowed us to sort of move on with our
lives.”
With just fifteen dates and a rightful US snub on their
final tour together (“Those people should have come to see us play at
any time in the last ten years,” MacNeil told Tone Deaf),
Alexisonfire have been marking their ten-year anniversary with the same
energy yielded during their embryonic years when they were “five kids
who decided to try out this weird style of music and write songs.”
“I think everyone is in a wonderful place
right now,” says Green sincerely. “Almost back to the beginning in a
way, but we don’t have anything to lose or gain from it, it’s more of a
twelve-year-old celebration of what we’ve accomplished, which will allow
the legacy of our band to live on instead of the hope of that last
tour.”
While City and Colour releases reach Gold and Platinum
status across the globe, missing the camaraderie within Alexisonfire is
only a faint throb. “Even on the worst days we’d still be able to talk
to each other and go onstage and put on a great show,” he reminisces.
“We’d sort of all forget about it after the show, because of the
performance, because of the music, you know?” However, a life that could
turn a man into a self-entitled, sycophant-seeking, rock star has only
had positive effects on Green, who can thank the band for his “motherly
instincts” and accolade acknowledgement.
“In the first few years with those guys, especially in the
early years when they were still teenagers and I was at the old ripe
age of 21 years old, I definitely had to take on a more responsible role
than I thought I’d have to.
“I also think it’s allowed me to develop a sense of
appreciation for everything I had accomplished in my life creatively, I
had to work from the bottom up. I went through touring in a van where
you’d have to sleep in the van - we could never afford a hotel - I had
to sleep on people’s floors, things like that, that now whenever
something good happens I can look at it and think ‘I earned it’.”
With ten years of nihilistic fervour and poetic anthems
for the square-pegged, Alexisonfire won’t be easily forgotten. One could
measure their success on the sold-out tours, the myriad independent
awards and #1s, or their ARIA chart placings, but for Green, it’s always
been about the music’s integrity.
“The fact that we went on to make four
records, it’s pretty good that it sits how it is, I think that’s far
more – that we accomplished – than we had set out to do in the first
place.
“To quote a recent comment that I read about myself –
Alexisonfire is testament that you don’t have to be attractive to be
successful. I’m half joking when I say that,” he leers. “We were just a
bunch of weird kids who played this weird sound and people grew attached
to that. Hopefully we just inspired that honesty that there is a chance
for honesty in popular music, or hardcore music - I wouldn’t call us
that popular.”
Green strategically finished his latest City and Colour
opus before the tour (“so he could approach it with an open mind”), but
while Alexisonfire have released the obligatory anthology collection and
a new EP (Death Letter), it would take an ignoramus to not pre-empt and salute their intended parting gift.
“We didn’t start the band so we could become rock stars
and make millions of dollars and fly around in private jets,” Green says
with his infamous frankness. “I think a lot of band’s probably don’t
start off that way but often that’s why they want to get into it, that’s
what they deem successful. But with us I mean, we just wanted to play. I
still feel that way, I just want to play.”
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