“I never really had a dream to be a successful musician. I just started singing and playing from a young age and that’s all I latched on to. I was never really interested in anything else. I’m glad it worked out, ‘cos I didn’t have a back up plan.”
Dallas Green didn’t need Plan B. With four albums in the history books as a member of Alexisonfire, one as half of You + Me, alongside Pink, and ‘If I Should Go Before You’ about to make it five as City and Colour, he’s been consistently busy for over a decade.
So, the question is not just how does he find the time but, with such an erratic career path, where is he going next? Standing in front of me a few weeks removed from his 35th birthday, Green is approaching another turning point. He started writing City and Colour tracks in his early teens, before he’d even created the moniker, but ‘If I Should Go Before You’ represents the first time he’s had company during the process.
The lyrics of Mizzy C show that the change in process is one that he was initially unsure of: “I keep on recycling stories from my youth, that I’ve told before. If I try to change direction, I might not find what I’m looking for.” It seems he did find it, and it turns out it had been touring alongside him all along.
“I guess the main difference with this record is that it’s the first time that I ever made a full record, front to back, with a specific group of musicians,” he says. “With this record it’s the same guys that have been touring with me for the last two years. So instead of writing the songs all alone, I just wrote them with my band instead. I had all the songs written, but then instead of writing a drum part and writing a bass part, or writing an extra guitar part, I just did the ideas with them, because I trust them, I know they’re good at what they do.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted it to be, a band. It was never supposed to be a solo project with just me and a guitar. It’s just what it was as the beginning out of necessity. I had some songs and I didn’t have that much time. But when I write a song I hear all that other stuff, I hear drum parts.”
Green hasn’t just shaken up the manner in which he composes, but also the way he writes lyrics. He no longer feels the need to sabotage something in his life to be able to write about it, even if he still draws inspiration from the people close to him. Though acoustic acts can get swallowed up when bringing other musicians into the mix, this is not the case on ‘If I Should Go Before You’. Green’s candid, relaxed style remains, but has evolved and, dare we say it, mellowed further.
Woman, the album’s opener, is understated and beautiful, perfectly illustrating the vast soundscapes that Green is capable of creating with a full band backing him. Wasted Love and Lover Come Back are two of its more uplifting songs, alongside Runaway, on which a self-deprecating Green sings: “I know that I’ve earned it, but most days I don’t feel like I deserve this.”
“A lot of my songs in the past were a way of trying to deal with a situation I found myself in,” he says. “Whereas now I’ve gotten older, I don’t have as many things to actually complain about, but I still do think that I can write songs. So as a person who always wrote songs very personally, I had to learn to step outside and write in the way that people enjoy what I did in the past.
“On this record there’s a bunch of deeply personal songs and a couple of them are about the guys in my band actually, feeling very happy about finding them, feeling grateful. There’s a song called Friends which is about them. Then there are some songs that are about my own life.”
Having recently reformed Alexisonfire for a run of shows, it was perhaps inevitable that Green fans would start asking questions as to where he was headed. Are Alexisonfire back for good? Is City And Colour going to take a back seat if they are? Will there be another You+Me album?
“I don’t know,” Green says. “It’s really whatever I’m feeling at the moment, which pisses people off. Some people wanted me to stay in Alexisonfire, some people wanted me to keep making the first City and Colour record over and over, and some people really like the band records, some people don’t. But for me, if I’m going to be afforded the opportunity to be in this position, I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity to do what I want to do. It’s what I’ve always done. If all of a sudden I started going ‘people really like this one thing, I’m gonna keep doing that ‘cos people like it’, it wouldn’t be what got me here in the first place.
“So right now I’m having a great time with these new songs and I’m really proud of this new record and I love the whole band I’m in. But that’s not to say that the next batch of songs I write, I might want them to be really quiet. It’ll all depend on what the situation is once I’m done touring.”
In the hours following the interview Green takes the main stage at Reading Festival with Alexisonfire. His falsetto vocals are stronger than ever, proving that however nostalgic reforming the band may be, he owes it to his talent to take centre stage himself. With his laissez-faire outlook it’s impossible to get a definitive answer from the troubadour as to where things may lead, but it’s clear wherever it may be it’ll be on his own terms and he’ll damn well be ready for it.
“If you had asked me two years ago would I be at Reading playing with Alexisonfire again I would have said: ‘I don’t think so!’ But I’m here now,” he says. “Whatever happens, happens I guess.”
'If I Should Go Before You' is out on October 9 through Dine Alone/Caroline.
City and Colour Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu February 18 2016 - BRIGHTON Brighton Dome
Fri February 19 2016 - CARDIFF University Great Hall
Sat February 20 2016 - MANCHESTER Albert Hall
Mon February 22 2016 - DUBLIN Olympia
Tue February 23 2016 - BELFAST Mandela Hall
Wed February 24 2016 - GLASGOW O2 Academy Glasgow
Fri February 26 2016 - LONDON Troxy
Sat February 27 2016 - LONDON Troxy
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