Dallas Green finds his confident side
Whether it’s a full-band or intimate collaboration, City and Colour frontman on a high after months of touring
Titling an album If I Should Go Before You seems somewhat ahead of your age when you’re 37. But Dallas Green has always been one to dwell on the downer side of things with his solo City and Colour project. From the moment he dropped his debut Sometimes (2005), he was often quoted defending sad music as his best vehicle.
Over the course of three more albums, the singer has learned a few key things, including how to write his best-charting single, the R&B-favouring Love Come Back.
“The last year and a half of touring these new songs with the backing band has been fantastic and probably left me feeling more times than ever before that I am doing what I should be doing and can be confident, which is something I really never truly am,” said Green. “And that American media is still amazed at how quickly I could go from hardcore Alexisonfire stuff to this mellow, introspective thing, even though it’s been a dozen years.”
Certainly, his audience for City and Colour and Alexisonfire, the screamo band that first brought him to fame, differ greatly. He still gets together with that noisy former crew when their schedules allow. He also mixes it up with City and Colour, switching from the full-band backing he had on the first go-round in support of If I Should Go Before You to the solo (with additional guitar player Matt Kelly) presentation he’s bringing on the most-recent, cross-country tour. The truth of the matter is all of these configurations make him feel complete.
“It’s always been my answer to everyone that I have the absolute best thing, which is an outlet for my aggressive and extreme side as well as my more introspective one,” he said. “If I could have split myself in two, I would be doing both full on, but that couldn’t happen. So it’s great that 15 years later, we can still come together and play Alexis shows in Australia that blow us all away and then I can come home and book a 28-city solo tour.”
There was also an unexpected collaborative project with pop singer P!nk that came out two years ago. You+Me’s Rose Ave. had a No. 1 Canadian album chart debut and entered at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. That success put Green more into the spotlight than he had been previously. Particularly after the two musicians did a limited series of performances.
At the time of this interview, he wasn’t sure anything from that album would appear in his sets on this tour or not.
“I’m planning on this being an enjoyable evening for everybody with a lot of songs I haven’t played in a long time as I’d been doing more of the band-related material,” he said. “But with Matt there to pretty up the set in spots, I don’t know what we’ll play. He did play on the You+Me, so who knows?”
One factor that is always looming for the singer is ongoing problems with his back. He dates the injuries as cumulative problems that began nearly 17 years ago and never were properly handled. Just before Christmas, he was sidelined once again with issues and was forced to look at his work differently.
“I reinjured it right before last Christmas, right before we were due to do the Alexis shows in Australia, and for the first time ever I had a moment of wondering if I could even go,” he said. “Since that point, I am looking at how I’m doing physically in a way I haven’t before. This solo tour is a response to that because it’s easier and takes me to a lot of places I’ve never played before and always wanted to.”
It’s meant that he has taken time off for the first time. And it also meant he’s rethinking his relentless cycle of tour/write/record and looking at enjoying other aspects of life.
“I’ve been putting out records every two years for 10 years, but for the first time I’m not thinking about the future towards the next one,” he said. “Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have some new ones, that’s what being a songwriter is, and I may be talking to you in a few months about the new record. But right now, I’m just reflective about the songs I’ve already got and what I can do with them and take it day by day.”
The future will show what new emotional palette City and Colour paints with next. Green teases that he’s very likely to throw in some offbeat cover tunes.