City and Colour & the Canadian Dish

Dallas, when did City and Colour start?

I was always playing City and Colour music but I never really referred to it as "City and Colour" . When I first started playing in front of people, it was just a guitar and I. During my last year of high school, I thought to myself, "Hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life." Back then, if I could just get a bar to book me as Dallas Green, it was cool.  But after that, I started making demo CDs to sell at some shows I performed at. Alexisonfire started a year later, which was right around the time file-sharing became popular as well.  I'd come across kids who knew about Alexisonfire but also had picked up my own solo demos from the internet. They'd approach me and ask about my earlier material. These kids all across Canada were sharing all these songs I had written as a kid, but had essentially forgotten about! I had moved on. I'm now in this crazy, loud, heavy band. But over time, kids kept on asking me about these songs so finally I got to the point where I was like, "if there is this much demand to these songs, I'm going to put out a better version of those songs." The album was called "Sometimes" and released in 2005. That's really how City and Colour started. It was a project fueled by the kids that knew about these early songs I wrote, so long ago. 

Since then, you have released two additional albums as City and Colour.

Yeah. "Sometimes" was a chance to give the fans the earlier songs they wanted. 2008's "Bring Me Your Love" was an opportunity to make a record fully knowing I had an audience for it. So I treat "Bring Me You Love" as my first, true City and Colour album. 

What can we can expect of Little Hell, set to release in June?

Musically, the music is all over the place.  I think people, as much as they love the acoustic records, know I have interest in heavier music as well. They know I'm pretty open-minded and influenced by a lot. Hence, Little Hell has peaks and valleys, quiet songs and louder songs, with more instrumentation than I've ever had. Lyrically it, too, is all over the place. There are songs about my own personal relationships, my relationships with family, lots of things.  I feel like I write these songs in a very relate-able way, where one can replace words with words from your own life and it could still make sense. 

What is the staple Canadian dish?

Maybe Poutine? As a traveler, mostly in and out of America, what surprises me most is that cheese, fries, and gravy - together are not a staple anywhere else. It seems so simple doesn't it? People in the States love fried food and all of those components independently, but it also tastes good together. I always hear Americans think it's gross. As Canadians, it surprises us. 

In Canada, the new, cooler thing now are these "Poutineries" where you can go in and actually get all different types of Poutine, from pulled pork, to vegetarian, to vegan gravy.  Anything.
There's this Poutinery I saw about a year ago and thought, "Well, that's pretty crazy."  Then, I saw another, and then another.  It's cool we're starting to see a different spin on that dish.

As a musician, you travel a lot. When you come home, is there a dish or restaurant you crave?
 

Canadian bacon. It's so good. Growing up in St. Catharine's, Ontario, my dad cooked barbecue sausage and Peameal bacon on a bun. He'd then throw some ketchup or mayo on it. So delicious.

Around the corner of my house, there is this unbelievable Thai restaurant called Sorn Thai in Toronto. They serve a mean beef & hot sauce entree. It's basically beef mixed in with red curry and peanut sauce. As soon as I come home, I always return to that place! My wife and I also have a couple of other staples around our neighborhood. We usually have our Thai night, Italian night, but there's actually this newer place called The Burger Cellar. I think burger is be back in a really big way. But, their whole thing is "good burgers and really good wine." That's it! When I first saw it, I thought it wouldn't do well because that combination just seemed odd, but it's pretty amazing!  They also serve deep friend pickles which you don't really get that often in Canada. 

If you were to put food to your music, what would it be? 

I'd say City and Colour would be more of a dessert? Like a banana cream pie.
The music is smooth and creamy, but it also has those hard chunks of banana in it too!