For some, learning that you are the #1 album in Canada, ahead of heavyweights Lady Gaga and Adele, would be cause for a lavish champagne-fueled celebration. Something you should know about Dallas Green is he’s not a champagne wishes and caviar dreams kind of guy. When he got word of his newest album Little Hell‘s ranking (it was also #2 in Australia and #28 in the US) his reaction was to carry on with everyday life.
"It is always nice when you hear things like that. I honestly don’t really know or try and worry about numbers, I don’t know what they mean. I appreciate that it sold so many copies. It is a great accomplishment I guess. Somebody asked me how it felt to be number one, well I still took the trash out yesterday."
GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine spoke with Dallas in our third interview with him, just 1 day after the announcement. He had just wrapped up 6 interviews with media in Mexico, where Little Hell is the first City and Colour album released there, and was enjoying doing media from the comfort of his living room. A lot of media focuses on awards and accolades, which Dallas says has never mattered to him.
"I think if you let it overwhelm you it can [matter], but I don’t care about stuff like that. I am more concerned with writing a good song and singing well and performing well, that’s what I care about. If I had to choose, I could do without the interviews and photo shoots and awards. I appreciate that it is part of it and comes along with it, but it’s not why I do it. I have been playing guitar and singing for more than half my life, it has become something I need to do rather than something I enjoy doing. Winning a Juno doesn’t make me a better songwriter or sing better. It is just something else for people to talk about. I still have to work and worry about the song, which is why I concentrate more on that."
Little Hell is Green’s third City and Colour album, and combined with the three albums released as part of Alexisonfire, it is his 6th since 2004. I asked Dallas when he last took time off.
"It depends on how you look at time off. I have days off between tours where I am at home for a week. I haven’t really taken time away from music since 2004. Right before Watch Out came out was when I had some time. Then Sometimes came out in 2005, Crisis in 2006, we toured on that for two years, Bring Me Your Love in 2008 and Old Crows/Young Cardinals in 2009 and now Little Hell is out. So I guess 2004."
When Alexisonfire wrapped up touring in December, Green was already recording in the studio in January.
"I have a lot going on in my brain. If I had just said ok we finished touring with Alexis I am going to take a year to myself, I wouldn’t have been able to do that because I had all these songs demoed and in my head, I had been sitting on some of them for almost two years. It took me a few months after Bring Me Your Love to start writing what would become City and Colour material because we were so fixated on doing Old Crows. I don’t think I could have taken a break. We finished touring in December with Alexis and I was supposed to finally go on my honeymoon, it has been two years since we got married and I still haven’t gone on one. We ended up canceling because I didn’t think I’d have enough time between the vacation and going into the studio because I had already booked it and I knew I needed to prepare mentally. With the attention span being so short today, you have to keep people interested in what you are doing. I guess I fear one day people won’t be interested so I might as well give them everything I’ve got now. I guess I just have a problem, and a very understanding wife which really helps. Hopefully one day I will take a break or have a nervous breakdown and force myself to take a break."
When the first single Fragile Bird was released, the rock style of the music came as a surprise.
"The first version of that song was acoustic and very slow, reminiscent of my older stuff. I just thought there was more to discover from my own perspective to that song. So I kept trying to re-work it and re-work it and one day I discovered the groove that is now recognizable with that song. I demoed it in my basement and at first I thought it was a little weird for what people would assume is a City and Colour song. Then I realized City and Colour can be anything I want it to be, because I’m in charge."
"The reason I made it the first single was because I wanted to put something different out and see how people would react. It is a good sign of if people are going to grow and evolve with you. I know there will always be people who just want me to put out a record of me playing acoustic guitar sadly or quietly. I like lots of different music which in turn makes me create lots of different styles of music. I thought it was a good song so it is on the record, which is full of peaks and valleys and ups and downs."
"Most of the stuff I have been hearing is that people are liking it. There are definitely some people who aren’t fans of it, but I think they just want me to be the way I used to be. As a musician and songwriter you always have to deal with that because music is such an emotional thing, you get invested in certain songs and people, and when they change you aren’t ready for it. What people forget is that they also change as well, they are not the same person they were six years ago - when Sometimes came out and they fell in love with that record - they are different and have different tastes. I can’t really worry about what people will say, because if I do that, I won’t be writing honest music from my perspective, I will be thinking about what other people think. That works for other people that are trying to be the biggest and best in the world but I just want to write the songs that make me happy and hope some people get it."
At first, Green planned on naming the album after the first song We Found Each Other In The Dark.
"That was what I was originally going with, when I first started thinking about a record and writing new songs. I wrote that song early on and thought it was a cool title. Then I wrote Little Hell and started thinking about what Little Hell means to me on a grander scale, and it just seemed right. And the title is shorter which is always good."
Since Bring Me Your Love was released, Green has toured the world with both bands, gotten married (to So You Think You Can Dance Canada host Leah Miller), played at the Vancouver Olympics, won awards, and made some awesome tall friends, among other things. Many of these experiences tied in with the songwriting for this album.
"The way I write songs is a very personal thing, I write about things in my life. All those things have affected the songs. O’Sister is about my sister, who went through some things and I wasn’t there for it because I was on tour so much with my two bands, which is directly responsible for the way I was feeling about it. I probably would have felt this strongly if I had been home but it may have come across differently because I would have been there to help and there to express my feelings. Because I wasn’t, I had to write a song about it."
"Touring so much you get to see a lot of different things in the world. Something that always resonates with me whenever I see it is boarded up houses, and nowadays there are a lot of those around the world. I always wonder whenever I see one, what got it to that point. What was it like before? I find myself staring at it and wondering if a family had lived there, what circumstances brought it to the way it is now. That is what Natural Disaster is about, which is something I probably never would have written about without seeing the world. My life directly relates to what the songs are about."
City & Colour returns to Calgary for the first time in 2 years at the Calgary International Folk Festival on July 21st. It is a stop among a number of festivals including well known ones like Glastonbury in the UK, Coachella in California, and Lollapalooza in Chicago.
"The main reason for doing festivals, especially ones around the world, is to play for people who don’t know who you are, or have heard of you but haven’t seen you, and are there to see their favorite band and will check you out. It is an opportunity to play for new [people] and create new fans out of that experience. You also get to see bands that you probably otherwise would never get to see. I got to play at Coachella the same day as Kanye West. I didn’t get to stay and see him because he played really late and I had to go and catch a flight but the idea that I got to play on the same day as Kanye West is pretty cool because it isn’t something that will happen very often. Eminem is playing Lollapalooza and we are playing that. It is cool to be on shows with such an eclectic bill of artists. We are playing a festival in England that The Eagles are headlining. I’m not an Eagles fan but it is crazy that we are playing a festival that they are at."
The challenge in doing a festival set is selecting a set list. Instead of 2 hours for a theatre show, they may have 25 minutes to an hour to leave an impression. With three albums plus often adding covers to his sets, it can be hard to narrow it down.
"With the festival slots around the world where I am not as well known as Canada, I have learned that you just have to go out and be short and sweet. You get half an hour, you play five upbeat fun loving songs that I can muster in the songs that I write, and that is it - go out, do your thing and come off. If I headline some festivals in Canada, I try to mix it up with new and old. I probably won’t play many new songs yet because I want to keep people interested and it is hard to play a bunch of new songs when people want to hear the old ones. We will save the new songs for when we come back on a headlining tour.
In 2007 Green upset a writer for refusing to play his "hit" Save Your Scissors at the Edmonton Folk Festival. Hopefully that writer isn’t planning on attending the Calgary Folk Fest, or he will once again be disappointed.
"That is definitely not going to happen, I have way more songs to pick from now."
One of the songs you likely will hear is Body in a Box off of Bring Me Your Love. If you search YouTube afterwards, hopefully you won’t find it; Green has been encouraging fans to put their cameras and cell phones away for the song.
"That is something recently that I had been doing at my shows, trying to have one song where people remember what it is like to just watch a concert. People are so focused on remembering the moment that they are actually forgetting to experience it while it is happening. I wanted to have at least one song where people put their cameras and cell phones down and just sang along and watched and didn’t stare at blue lights. Since I started doing that I haven’t seen one new video on YouTube of Body in a Box. That makes me happy because people are paying attention to that. I have had a lot of people come up to me after and say that they didn’t pick the camera back up for the rest of the show which is really cool."
In recent years, I’ve seen a large number of gay and lesbian patrons attending City and Colour concerts. On a recent US tour with Tegan and Sara, Green became aware of a number of them as well.
"I noticed, definitely, after I toured with Tegan and Sara in America. That opened up more of a lesbian crowd to me because they have a large gay and lesbian following... I would go out and sing a song with them and it would be 20 minutes before we got into the song because we would be yapping away talking about nonsense. They are two amazing, amazing women."
That said, while he embraces anyone who listens to his music, Dallas isn’t one to brag about who is in his audience.
"When you meet someone you can assume they are gay or straight but, I don’t know who is or isn’t, or if there are a lot of gay people who like my music. I never really like to go oh yeah I’ve got a huge gay following or I’ve got a huge straight following. I want as many people to listen to my music as possible and that is the main goal. You write a song and hope whoever is listening, it doesn’t matter what they are to me as long as they’re not an asshole then I am cool with it. As far as Canada I don’t really know where it comes from. I am not going to say gay people are more attracted to sensitive, honest music because I don’t know that for certain. I appreciate their support just as much as I do the support of anyone that listens to my music."