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Last week I posted part one of my interview with Dallas Green, and as promised, here’s the second beefy round - this time, talking about his new album (out next week!)!

Can I just say that the album art looks amazing! Who designed it?

My friend Dan, who plays guitar and singer in Attack In Black, he painted it.

You guys have a whole family affair thing!

Yeah, we’re a team. Well, he helped me with the record - he played a lot of the instruments on it. He’s very talented at everything, so I asked him if he’d be interested in doing the artwork for me. After a couple of weeks he was like, I told him I wanted white - I’m not very good with visuals at all - I wanted white and painted. And that’s all I said. He came back a week later and said, “how do you feel about a painting of your face?” And I was like, *shrugs*, “oookay!” He actually did one before the official one that really looked like I was dead. It really looked creepy. It was all pale. And he was like, “I’m gonna redo it.”

The fact that you’re laying down in the video for “Waiting”, does that correlate with the album art or is it a coincidence?

Kind of, I think so. A lot of the songs on the album are about death and my insomnia, so I think that the face laying - my eyes are closed so you don’t know if it’s a dead face or if I’m just sleeping. We started the video like that too cause it goes with it.

Why did you decide to make this album more than “man vs guitar”?

I think that with the first record, it was never really supposed to be a record. It was just a couple days in the studio, I recorded some songs just to have and then we decided to put it out and see what happened. So, if I could go back and have more time, I think I would have made some of those songs more.. full band-y? But with this record I had some of the songs in my head for a year, and I started to learn how to play more instruments - I learned how to play the banjo and I learned how to play the piano a lot better. So I was like, why not just do it? A little extra stuff here and there adds to the mood sometimes.

For sure. Wait, the banjo?! You could totally sit out on the porch –

I look forward to doing that in the summer, as soon as it gets warm, to sit out on my porch and play the banjo. Yeah, we were on tour in the states and our bus driver at the time told us he plays the banjo. And I told him I’d love to learn how to play. We swung by his house in Florida and he grabbed his banjo and brought it for me. So I sat with him for the rest of the tour and learned how to play. But it was fun!

That’s so awesome. It’s just an odd instrument.

It is. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people love it. Cause it’s kinda weird sounding. Like, plinky.

Do you own the vintage guitars you used to record the album?

No, Dan Aiken, whoh owns the studio and helped produce the record, he has an unbelievable guitar collection. I was able to use them all, and there’s just something about playing guitars that have been around for 50, 60 - there was one guitar I played that was from 1910. There’s so much history involved. To think that it’s been around for so long and it’s still making music. It was really great to just hold those and play them.

All of the stories that have been told with that guitar kind of rub off on you. I don’t know if that’s just me.

What was it like recording with [Tragically Hip's] Gord Downie?

Scary. Even though he’s super super nice guy, and he was awesome about the whole thing - but when he came to record, for the first three takes I just couldn’t look at him. Even though I was supposed to be telling him how I wanted to do it, every time I was like, “that was great!” I think I would have taken anything he would’ve given me. It was amazing. He’s Gord Downie! So for him to come and sing a song that I wrote … and he said, “I really want to sing it the way you did it”, cause I sent him a demo. And to have him say that, and he said really nice things to me - it’s just a really great feeling to have someone who’s been around for so long and recorded so many great albums to be a part of something you’ve created.

It’s huge.

It is. I just couldn’t look at him. I remember looking over at Dan and Gord was singing behind us and Dan was like, “this is awesome!” - he totally just mouthed the words to me, and I was like (mouthing), “I know!”

Do you keep a journal that you draw inspiration from for lyrics?

You know what, lyrics and me are not friends. I know a lot of people - like George, he just writes all the time. On tour, he’ll grab his book and write tons and tons of lines. My problem is I can’t do that. I write melodies first a lot of the time, and then I try to fit words to it, and usually the first line I come up with is what I’ll build the song from. Sometimes I write a line, and then that’s it, and two weeks later I’ll come up with another line. I wish I could write more stream of conscious and have a wealth of lyrics to choose from. I just can’t do it. It’s just not my way of doing it.

Sometimes it might be better that way, cause you’re really thinking about it …

I have a really hard time writing abstract lyrics - you know, sometimes you listen to a song and you’re like, “I don’t know what that means!” But obviously it meant something to them when they wrote the words. But for me, it has to be more concise, cause I feel like if one line doesn’t match up with another line, I can’t do it. I do keep a journal though - if I’m sleeping or I’m in my bunk on tour, I’ll think of a line and write it down and then look at it for a real long time, hoping I can write another one. And then it doesn’t work and then I go back to sleep.

Read part one here!

*****

Answer Dallas’ Questions And WIN!

So, City & Colour will be performing at a very exclusive concert at the Music Gallery in Toronto, which is pretty much invite only. But we’ve got ONE PAIR OF TICKETS to give away to the fan who can answer these three questions, which Dallas came up with himself. Oh! And we’re also giving away a signed copy of City And Colour Live, so two people get to win something .. wee!

1. What do his knuckle tattoos say?
2. What kind of guitar does he play?
3. Who is his favourite singer of all time?

Email your name, age and answers to redhot@muchmusic.com - you have until February 7 (that’s tomorrs!) to enter!

Don’t forget to read the Rules and Regs!

Posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 5:48 pm by Kat and is filed under Music & Videos.

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