14 June 2011
For Dallas Green, making his third City and Colour album wasn’t all creative cultivation and love labouring, it was a little hell of his own choosing.
It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and Green’s distinct voice can be heard long down the hallway of the Adina Hotel in Sydney; he’s sitting on the apartment’s couch sipping a Crown Lager and looking rather chipper.
Green, 31, is in the midst of his first Australian headlining tour, which completely sold out and cemented City and Colour as more than just a solo project of Alexisonfire’s dulcet-hued counterpart. But whether the Canadian’s latest offering, Little Hell goes Platinum like his debut, and whether he continues to sell-out concerts and inspire fans worldwide, the Juno Award winner will always have little faith in his work and capabilities; he uses his new track Hope For Now to explain this internal hell.
“There’s a line in the chorus that goes: ‘How can I instill so much hope, but be left with none of my own.’ It’s a question I ask myself a lot,” he says. “It’s nice when people say [they love me]. People are always saying ‘how can you be like that? You’re selling out concerts, people love your music’. I appreciate that and it’s what I’m striving for but at the end of the day when I’m going to sleep by myself, it’s me and my thoughts, alone, wondering if it was good enough.”
Admittedly tentative about the fervid opinions of his fans, Green actually has them to thank for his solo success; even confessing that if it wasn't for him surrendering to their pleas for physical copies of his work in 2004, he may not have released anything until this year.
“Maybe right about now as I turn 31, maybe I’d be like ‘oh I’ve got all these songs’. But they definitely pushed me to release a record.”
Since the release of Sometimes in 2005, Green has stayed the indie route despite his heedless climb to commercial success and major label intrigue. This is partly a “creative control” decision but also comes back to the theme surrounding the record.
“I feel like life is all about the little hells that you go through that allow you to get through to the good parts of life,” he explains. “I spent my whole career with people trying to tell me what to do and telling me because of my voice I should go and write pop songs or try to be famous; but really I’ve just done it the harder way and done it the way I wanted to do it without listening to anybody. I feel like I’ve earned it.”
Of course, the fact Green is one of the most celebrated and successful artists of his kind hasn’t stopped the industry vultures from trying to make pop-meat out of him. Thankfully though, his view on the current state of music will have fans resting easy.
“Right now we’re in Backstreet-Boys-land which is where we were ten years ago, but that’s how music goes right? Now, you’ve got your Gaga’s and your Rihanna’s, she can’t sing, she’s never written a song either! You know what though,” he pauses. “She’s gorgeous. You can’t expect her to do everything,” he then points to a nearby FHM Magazine where Rihanna is ironically sexing up the cover. “I mean I can sing but I can’t wear a negligee like that.”
Green may joke about who’s topping the pop scene of late but quickly turns frustrated on the subject of pop juggernaut, Lady Gaga. “I read this interview with Lady Gaga where she basically talks at length about how she’s one of the best singers in the world, one of the best songwriters in the world, one of the best performers in the world, and I’m just like how can you fucken’ say that about yourself! What an arrogant person to say that,” he exclaims. “To a degree I understand… but to a point when you’re just being narcissistic; it’s not my way of doing things.”
Fortunately, Greens way of doing things has already gifted us with Sometimes and 2008’s Bring Me Your Love – with their stripped back acoustic-folk refrain – they were perhaps more of a pencilled outline of this ballsier, more candid record that has succeeded them. The new track O’Sister is an ode to his older sibling who struggled with a mental illness; Green says he wrote this song with the same intention he injects into all of his work, in the hope it will heal him and the person it’s about.
“She’s my big sister and to have her be helpless and sick, it was weird for me you know because I’ve always looked up to her;” Green slowly tears the label from his beer. “And then for me not to be there, to be on tour all the time; the way I deal with it is I write songs to try and help me and in turn to help the person.”
The tributes and sonic healing don’t stop at Little Hell, the album was in fact recorded at Ontario’s Catherine North Studios as a tribute to its late owner Dan Achen, a friend of Green's who worked with him on Bring Me Your Love. As thoughtful as this gesture was, it was also the biggest challenge he faced. It was mixed in true stereo using purely analogue equipment, creating a sound similar to that which came out of the late ‘60. It’s downfall: if you mess up, you have to take it from the top.
“It was harder because with Pro-tools and computers you can just correct mistakes and you don’t have to worry,” he says. “But with a tape you have to do it well or you have to keep doing it until you do it well.
“Again, another one of those little hells, it was harder, I was very frustrated at times but again, I’m proud of the finished product.”
Taking the road less travelled, it’s not Green’s intention to stand out from the rest, but rather to deliver his sound at its most raw and let the music do the talking. Green may have hit the nail on the head when he suggests that perhaps the public are ready for honest music sans bells, whistles and glitter suits.
“I’d like to think that it has to do with the honesty in the music and that people are maybe sick and tired of the gimmicks you know.
“They just want to hear somebody play a song they wrote, and sing it, that’s it, not do a poorer version of someone else’s song on TV with flames and smoke machines and costumes; maybe they just want to hear music as it is.”
Little Hell is out now through Dine Alone/Shock
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