Dallas Green Comments on Alexisonfire Breakup
Yesterday’s Morning Music Notes told you about the weekend breakup of Alexisonfire. Lead singer George Pettit went a bit on the offensive, claiming that the split wasn’t amicable. Most splits often aren’t, so no big surprise there. After his Lollapalooza set with City and Colour, Dallas Green clear the air a bit on the Alexisonfire split (via Spinner). Exercepts below in case you don’t feel like checking out the whole sob story article.
The press release said you quit over a year ago. Why keep it a secret until now?
I wanted to do it 15 months ago. But when I told the guys that I was planning to leave the band when we finished touring at the end of last year, they didn’t want to say anything because they thought it put a lot of pressure on them to come up with a decision right away about what they were going to do. I wanted to announce that I was leaving the band so that people who maybe weren’t going to come to those shows because “I’ve seen Alexis five times, I’ll wait ’til they come through again” would know that it was going to be the last time you’d get to see Alexisonfire as what we were.
But everyone else wanted to wait, and I respected their wishes, because everyone knew what I was going to do, and obviously they were shocked and didn’t have a gameplan. Then as time went on, it started getting tough because I was doing press for my new record and I had to lie. I felt really weird about lying about it, so I tried to answer it a vague way so that when it did come out it didn’t sound like I was completely lying. But I was.
He described it in the announcement as “not amicable.”
It’s the truth, right? They didn’t want me to leave the band. They said, “Why can’t you just keep doing what we’re doing, go back and forth?” Well, that’s why I’m leaving, because it’s killing me. As much as they saw me always on tour and always putting records out back to back to back, I don’t think they really understood that I was literally never home.
When people would ask me when I’d make the decision, I’d joke, “When I have a nervous breakdown.” But I have already had those. I was in the hospital with pneumonia. I’ve lain in the bus crying uncontrollably at night. I was living this unbelievably blessed life but I had no idea how to enjoy it because I was running myself ragged, trying to appease my commitments to Alexisonfire but also trying to appease all the people that were showing interest in City and Colour. It just got to a point when I had to make a decision. A very hard decision. But after 10 years, my heart … well part of my heart is there, but most of my heart is with this.
*
Something HAD to give. Even Maynard James Keenan, who is in 3 bands, knows to come out with an album every 5 years for Tool. How one chooses between their 2 babies is pretty tough, but I suppose don’t choose the ugly one artistic freedom and more success (read: money) is always nice.
City and Colour – Comin’ Home
[youtube NjMsWarn8BI]
