There’s a good chance that you might be more familiar with Dallas Green’s work on the post-hardcore Canadian outfit Alexisonfire but City and Colour has been going strong for more than a decade now. Their fifth record, If I Should Go Before You, was released last year and we had the pleasure to talk with Dallas Green on the phone about not only what City and Colour is but also about the specificities of this new album.
You’ve confessed that when City and Colour started you didn’t known what it was going to be. Where do you find yourself now, 12 years down the line?
I guess probably in the same position. I’m still not really sure what it’s going to be from day to day, or I guess from record to record. I think that’s good, you know? I think it’s a platform for whatever I seem to be feeling like singing about or whatever style of music I might feel, or it seems to be of interest to me at that time… and I kind of like that. I like that there’s sort of a lot of freedom involved in it, because the way it started, with no real clear agenda I can kind of move in and out of different styles and things like that. I think that as long as the songwriting at is core is still from my point of view and voice, I think people seem to kind of move with me, which is nice.
You were always very open about the fact that you’re not the kind of songwriter that will just sit down an entire day to try and create music. Did that change in any capacity for this album?
No, not really. I knew before I had written any songs that I wanted to make a record with the band. Just having that idea in my head sort of made the songs… when I started the record I already had a good idea of what I was going to get out of them. That was probably the only thing that changed. It still took me a while to kind of come up with the material because I wasn’t… I didn’t get home from tour and then just sort of get up and going into the office start working. I can of just hope that stuff shows up. I think the idea for things was always there but whether or not is going to actually turn into anything is a whole different story.
Did it make easy know, from the beginning, that you wanted the band involved in the process?
Yeah, that made it a lot easier just because we had toured for a couple of years together on the record before [2013’s The Hurry and the Harm] and just kind of seeing how well they took care of my old songs… Because we had to basically create new versions of those old songs for ourselves for the band, because a lot of the guys had never played with me before and they had never played any of the music before. They had to sort of create their own parts, in a sense. It was almost like we were sort of writing songs together already. That gave me a really good insight into how it would be when we went to make a record together.
It seems to exist a sort of consensus that If I Should Go Before is the record that more accurately represents City and Colour’s identity. Does it feel that way to you?
I think so. I guess the identity of it is just to be whatever it happens to be at that time and as much as people like to call it a solo project… and it is, but I was never interested in being alone or solo or being the face of that. That’s why I think I probably didn’t call it Dallas Green. It’s an umbrella for me to do whatever I want under it. Right now… that’s why I don’t stand in the middle of the stage. I’m just not interested in that. I’m interested in…
“I always want to be playing but I don’t want to have the door completely closed to the idea of collaborating with people.”
The possibility of sharing the creative process is there. It’s not off the table.
Exactly! There might come a time where I just have nothing to write about, or inspiration to sing about something that’s happening to me, and I might want to open it up to other ideas. I’m a singer and musician as well as a songwriter. I always want to be playing but I don’t want to have the door completely closed to the idea of collaborating with people. I think that was what was good about this experience… I get to write all the songs but just having a group of people in the room together to just sort of bounce ideas off was great.
Do you find hard to keep the spotlight away from you? Let’s be honest, everyone looks at City and Colour and thinks, “Dallas Green”.
I guess the answer to that would be: I just don’t necessarily care about the spotlight. And I think that as long as I don’t care about it I think it stays away because I always wanted to be just about the songs and the music, and I think I’ve tried hard to continue make about that. I do appreciate that, yes it is me and yes they are my songs and a lot of the songs are very personal about things in my life, but I think most people understand that I’m not seeking the spotlight and all the other stuff that comes with it. I just like to sing and write songs, and I’m just glad some people listen to them. That’s how I’ve always been and I don’t think I’ll ever change because I’ve been doing for so long now and I still feel the same way.
There’s a heaviness to the title If I Should Go Before You. Where it comes from?
First of all is, obviously, the name of one of the songs on the record. Whenever I have a record done and I start to think about what I want to call it… First, I always delve into the songs to see if there’s one, maybe a lyric or song title that seems to represent more than just that singular song and to me If I Should Go Before You was that. Not only it is one of my favorite songs on the record but because the title can suggest… The song itself is about an everlasting love, a love so powerful that would outlast death. To me that’s also how I wanted to feel… That’s how you kind of feel when you’re making a record, you want it to outlast you. It’s sort of a way of saying to that for some reason if I should go before you here there’s a body of work that I’m very proud of and that will be in my place, hopefully forever.
There seems to be a lot of irrational thinking, which often comes along with love, on the title track. Would it be fair to say so?
Yeah, I think so. I think that’s one of best parts about love. Being in love or falling in love is the irrational thoughts that goes through your head and the way it makes you crazy and the way it may affect you and makes you think things that probably you wouldn’t in an ordinary situation.
You decided to open with an ambitious 9-minute track. Did you struggle with the idea of opening with a song like “Woman”? I mean, most people would place it in the end of the record.
People get so stuck with the idea that there’s rules and ways to make records. For me, after we recorded that song the first thought was obviously, “It will be the last song.” But then when I start working on the sequence of the album it didn’t make any sense at the end. It was almost like I was bored by the time I got to it, like I had said all I needed to say, but then when it tried “Woman” as the opening song it just made perfect sense. I can’t see anywhere else. I didn’t think people were going take it the way they have, but it’s nice… I think that just proves it, so many people at first would go, “How can you put a 9-minute song first?” but then everyone that listens to it really likes it. “Woman” is like an intro to the album, in my mind. Not just an opener in the sense that is the first song but I think it’s its own introduction, in a way.
On “Northern Blues you say, “I’ve got too much in front of me. I didn’t leave enough behind.” What do you mean by not leaving enough behind?
I think too much, and I think too much about everything, and sometimes I think too much about the past. Things you can’t change and things you wish you could go back and change but you can’t. Sometimes I find myself dwelling too much on that instead of just looking ahead of me into the future. Hopefully I have all of this in front of me but I need to leave more behind, on my way to the future I need to leave a lot of what’s going on behind because there’s no changing.
You’ve returned to Blackbird Studios in Nashville and you decided to produce the album yourself with some help of Karl Bareham (engineer). How did you find the experience?
The thing is, I was in a very lucky situation to not only have extreme confidence in the band but also extreme confidence in Karl. He’s one of my best friends, I know him forever. He’s a studio genius as well. I spoke about it with different people and spoke about with Karl and the band… What is that a producer is going to do for me at this point? A lot of times you need a producer to come in and take you out of your comfort zone, challenge you, or give you some direction, but to me I had already made all of those decisions. I already had taken myself out of my comfort zone by recording my live band, which I had never done before. All the songwriting was already leaps and bounds different than my past work. I had already made all of those decisions and I knew Karl was great as far as the technical side of things, and I knew that the band wasn’t going to let me down because I had spent two years playing with them. So, for me all of those decisions that could be made with a producer were made so I just figured… The biggest thing I think I did as a produced was putting everyone together in the same room. It was wonderful but I think it was the situation that allowed it to work and be wonderful.