Music

Dallas Green offers up more details on the Alexisonfire farewell tour

by Sam Sutherland

In a wide-ranging interview conducted with Dallas Green prior to his headlining slot this weekend at the Festival d’été de Québec, the City and Colour braintrust discussed his upcoming show at the Molson Amphitheatre, baseball fanaticism, and his outrageously adorable dog. The latter was mostly us, probably. More on the former in a couple of days.

Towards the end, we kind of had to ask him about the suggestion of a proper farewell tour for Alexisonfire, as reported by Spinner last week. Not because we want to dwell on the past, but, like a lot of folks in Southern Ontario (and around the world), Alexis played a major role in our weird teenage years, and when they unceremoniously called it a day late last summer, it didn’t seem totally fair. Seems like the band agrees.

Here is the later portion of our conversation, including confirmation that yes, they’re totally serious, plus a few tidbits about songs to expect, how it all came together, and what George Pettit has been up to.

AUX: I have to ask this – what is the status of the Alexisonfire tour-thing?

Dallas Green: It’s moving forward with a head full of steam. We’re just trying to figure out the best way to play in as many places as we feel we should, in a timeframe that works for everybody. Wade is busy, and he’s going to be super busy when the Gallows record comes out. George is becoming a firefighter – did you know that?

No, I haven’t talked to George in a while, I was wondering what he was up to.

He’s getting really strong. And he is licensed to drive a bus, which I guess is because he’s going to drive a firetruck, which is awesome. So he’s doing that. We’ve got to work on trying to make it work for everybody. It’s definitely in the works. I’ve probably already said too much and everybody’s going to get mad at me.

Was it an easy conversation to start, though? Based on the letter George wrote, it wasn’t the world’s most amicable break up.

I don’t think it was an easy conversation at first. But so much time has gone by. For the public, it hasn’t been that long. But for us, the guys knew I was leaving so far before anyone else knew. It’s been over two years since I told them, you know what I mean? And I think everyone’s in a good place. So since it came up, everyone’s been super excited about it. We’ve had enough time to let the wounds heal, and we really want to do it for ourselves and everyone who supported us. We want to do it now. We owe it to everyone and to ourselves.

I do think it’s a classy move.

I know there will be people who say, ‘Oh, they’re doing it for money.’ We are really honestly doing it because we need it. Our last show was such a sad, depressing experience for the five of us. It was our last show, and no one knew it was. It wasn’t even supposed to be the last Alexis show because the guys were going to keep going. But then it just fizzled out. And that sealed the deal on us wanting to do this. We did such a cool thing with that band, I think. We were a pretty weird band when you think about what we accomplished in Canada. We owe it to that to not pervert that legacy.

That’s great.

I think we might even play some songs off the first record. [Laughs] We swore them off for the last four years, but there’s been some talk of that. I don’t know if we’ll do that because it means we’ll actually have to learn them again.

Well, as someone who grew up with the band, I appreciate that.

That’s what I’m excited to see. Older people come out, getting stretched out and trying to get in the pit.