Alexisonfire Reunion: City and Colour's Dallas Green Says His Old Band Will Return for Proper Farewell Shows

Posted on Jul 6th 2012 11:00AM by Aaron Brophy
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Dine Alone

Dallas Green, the main man behind Juno Award-winning sad-song project City and Colour says his old post-hardcore band Alexisonfire will likely get back together to perform some proper farewell shows.

"[Fellow AOF member] Wade [MacNeil] and I chat often," Green told Spinner in advance of his appearance tonight (July 6) at Ottawa Bluesfest. "We've actually been starting to talk about doing some final Alexis shows because when we did play our last show nobody knew it was our last show.

"Well, we knew it was our last show with me. But the guys sort of thought they were going to keep going and try something else and then Wade got asked to join Gallows and that was sort of the end of Alexisonfire. So we talked a long time ago about maybe doing just a couple shows to celebrate what Alexis was as opposed to have it fizzle out like it did."

Alexisonfire -- a near arena-level band in their own right -- split up abruptly in August 2011 when Green declared being in the band was "killing him" and that he wanted to concentrate on his City and Colour work, specifically his then-new album Little Hell.

The move worked out for Green, as Little Hell earned him the 2012 Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year, and City and Colour has become a legitimate worldwide touring act, selling out the likes of the Royal Albert Hall in London, England and Fillmore in San Francisco, CA. City and Colour was also amongst an exclusive list of Canadian acts that includes Deadmau5 and Michael Buble to go platinum domestically in 2011.

With all that in mind, Green isn't second-guessing his choice.

"Yeah, I feel like I made the right decision," he says. "I just sort of felt creatively I had run my course with Alexisonfire. I just, every time I picked up my guitar nothing would come out. Everything I would end up writing became Little Hell. So at that point I just figured 'y'know what I need to give this a shot.' Because at that point, and I guess for the last three or four years I hadn't really put all my focus on one side of it, I was just sort of splitting it down the middle [between AOF and C&C] and I think that was starting to affect me mentally and I was starting to worry whether I was going to be able to put enough of myself into either project. So I made the decision and I think it worked out. And I think now all of the guys appreciate it a little more now than they did when it first happened and we're all pals and talking and stuff like that."

Speaking of the band, unlike, say, the on-again, off-again Van Halen reunion, the various members of Alexisonfire seem to be on good terms again.

"[Singer] George [Pettit] and I go to Jays games and stuff when I'm home," says Green, who made four proper albums with Alexis dating back to 2002. "Same with Chris [Steele, bass] and I saw Beardo [Jordan Hastings, drums] at a NXNE barbecue.

"Obviously, I don't talk to them as much as I used to be because I used to see them every day of my life. But it was the same thing, when we weren't touring, we didn't talk every day either. When you're with someone every day when you get home you split up. I'd like to say that we're still all pals."

As for those actual reunion shows, don't expect one or two big money cash-grab festival appearances where the band laughs all the way to the bank. Alexisonfire were always willing to play club shows, or small, secret shows to support their scene if they thought it was a good idea and that's how they'd like to approach any farewell shows.

"I don't know what we'll do," says Green. "I don't think we'll play arenas. It'll probably be a bunch of shows, probably be a bunch of nights at a smaller place. Maybe we'll play every record or maybe we'll do different set lists and stuff. It'll be more of a happy-go-lucky vibe than 'hey, look at how big we were.' You know what I mean? It would be more about celebrating what we had and what we did and what we accomplished."

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