Dallas Green on Shad Collaboration: 'He Raps Better Than Most People Speak'

Dallas Green had always wanted to team up creatively with rapper Shad, but juggling his band Alexisonfire and solo project City and Colour leaves little room for anything else. But after Green heard Shad's album, 'TSOL,' the guy made sure he made time.

The result is the new 'Shad & Dallas: Two Songs,' which is, quite literally, two songs, the new co-write 'Live Forever,' and a remix of Shad's 'Listen.'

"Shad put out an amazing record called 'TSOL,' and back when he was still doing pre-production, he sent me a song that he wanted me to sing on, but I never really had the time," Green tells Spinner. "Our schedules didn't connect well because we [Alexisonfire] were in Australia, I think, when he sent me the song and we went right into a Canadian tour.

"So when I finally got the record, I was just so blown away by it and I really wished I'd have somehow made time or figured out how I could get on the record. I came up with an idea -- why don't we do some kind of a remix of the song he wanted me to sing on originally."

That song was 'Listen.' So one afternoon last year outside of Toronto, he and Shad -- who became good friends when they shared a tour bus on the Warped Tour in 2009 -- got together in the studio. Green brought with him a musical idea he'd been kicking around for two years, "this little vocal hook-piano thing that I had laid down in my GarageBand."

Listen to 'Live Forever' Off of 'Shad & Dallas: Two Songs'
"I wrote two different songs, based on that idea, but I didn't really use the idea itself," Green says. "So I was laying in my bunk on tour listening to it, thinking Shad and I could probably make a hip-hop song out of this. So we ended up doing that; we made a remix of 'Listen' where I sing on it.'"

As for the original song, they just fleshed that out while in the studio.

"I had this vocal hook where I say 'I live forever' and then Shad just basically sat there in the studio while me and his DJ [T-Lo] created the song, and he wrote lyrics in 45 minutes based on that idea," marvels Green. "He's just unbelievable and he's unbelievably intelligent as well, which makes his rhymes even crazier."

Green, himself, while a fantastic singer, balks at the idea of ever trying to rap himself.

"No no no," he says. "I really love hip-hop and I love R&B and stuff like that. So I've always wanted to sing on a hip-hop song. So that's what I did. I sing the hook and Shad takes care of the rapping. I've said this before, but he raps better than most people speak."

A limited-edition vinyl edition of 'Shad & Dallas: Two Songs' is available on both artists' websites and the digital version through iTunes. All proceeds from the sale of the record go to Skate4Cancer.