CITY AND COLOUR
J—Right. Which is a clever name, by the way.
D—Oh, thank you very much.
J—I actually only understood the origin of the name about a year ago, and I was like, “How could I ever miss that? What an idiot!”
D—I’m going to tell you right now, no one, and I repeat, no one, has ever gotten it.
J—Are you fuckin’ serious?[laughs] I felt so stupid. Dallas Green. A city and a colour. Genius!
D—Don’t, you don’t have to. No one’s ever gotten it. Everybody’s like, “Wow, you know what I just realized?” and I’m like, “What?” I really didn’t think it was that clever, I just thought it was a good way to go, to put out a record that I didn’t have to put my name on, you know?
J—Well it works, in a cryptic way.
D—I guess so, yeah.
J—I’m interested in the song “Sleeping Sickness” because I personally relate to what I think it means. I used to be so scared to go to sleep, scared of what I was going to see when I shut my eyes, because sometimes the images would be so real and horrible and as a child you don’t know how to handle it, I guess? So I’m interested to hear the origin of this song, it seems really dark to me.
D—Yeah, well, that song I’d been writing since I was a kid, I had this really old version of it and it actually started out as a love song. When I was young that’s all I was writing about, just because when things happen to you, emotionally, when you’re younger, it’s like the end of the world, you know?
J—It’s like if you cut your finger, and it draws blood, you scream, “It’s gushing! It’s gushing blood, I’m going to die!” [laughs]
D—[laughs] It kind of never came to fruition as a song, but then as the years went by, I started to have trouble sleeping and that song sort of came back to life and turned into a song about how I don’t sleep just based on all of the worries that I put on myself. It’s kind of like what you said, when I shut my eyes and it’s dark and quiet, and where most people would use that time to relax, that’s where my mind kind of comes to life. I start thinking about the worst things.
J—Yeah. It’s a scary feeling.
D—You know, the little things that build into big things.
J—Well let’s stay away from the bad thoughts and go back to our happy land filled with music, love and art. [laughs] So, by being in two bands, Alexisonfire and City And Colour, you must be working a lot. How do you step away from that and balance your personal life?
D—I don’t know if I’ve figured out how to step away yet. If anything, I’ve just gotten more involved in not having any time away from music. Because with City And Colour, like I said earlier, becoming something I never thought it would be, it now turned all of my time that is supposed to be spent not thinking about music, or doing music, is spent doing music, so…
J—I think that’s what we call “dedication”.
D—I’m sure there’s going to be one day where I just snap and have a nervous breakdown.
J—It’s scary. Start drinking some green tea, I’m telling you! It helps.
D—I know, I gotta do that…
J—It’s good for your heart.
D—I know for sure, there’s going to be a day when I just say, “Okay, I need to go away for a year, and not talk to anybody, or look at a guitar,” sort of reinvent myself. I guess reinvent the idea of why I started in the first place.
J—Yeah…
D—Right now I’m still very excited about it and I still can’t go a minute without thinking about music.
J—I can tell through listening to your music and now talking to you, that it’s something more than just a job for you. So, why stop when the inspiration to create is staring you in the face?
D—Exactly.
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