Alexisonfire - Interview - 2006

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The amplified windy intro of Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ swishes out of the Alexisonfire tour bus’ speakers. Expectant grins spread across quietly faces as the opening synth hook slices through the gusting quiet. The flimsy door to the sleeping quarters opens abruptly and a half naked figure in a lace-up wrestling mask stands in a warrior pose before us. Everyone cheers.

The apparition strikes a pose before administering some noxious ‘real’ tequila to the collected company. Alexisonfire’s tattooed guitarist, Wade MacNeil is treating Metal Hammer to a performance of a different kind on this, the final leg of the North American Warped Tour; one bordering on pornographic. Earlier today the band played in Barrie, Ontario alongside fellow Canadians Thursday, Billy Talent, and their good friends Moneen. Tomorrow’s Montreal date signals the end of the tour and the week-long run-up to the release of Alexisonfire’s third album, ‘Crisis’.

In June 2005 ex-Alexisonfire drummer, Jesse Ingelevics, left, four years into the band’s promising career. It was officially cited that he personal reasons, but it seems strange that someone would want to leave a band on its upward trajectory to the big time. Hammer asked Alexis’ ever-upbeat and invariably shirt-less frontman, George Pettit, what really happened.

“He didn’t necessarily want to leave,” he begins, before pausing for self-censorship. He looks around our blistering Ontarian surroundings for inspiration. “I have to think about how I want to word this.” He pauses again and watches some familiar drunken lunatic zip past on a mini-moto. “There’s definitely a story going on that’s not what we put on the website. We don’t want to advertise the truth of the situation. It’s bad enough he had to leave the band, so I don’t want to slag the guy.” George looks around at Barrie’s sparse but extensive fauna and begins.

Jesse had a fiancé. They would constantly argue on the phone. It was hard to be around; the guys were slipping away from him. Alexisonfire had reached the end of a great tour. Tomorrow would be the last date, a sold out show. And Jesse announces that he was leaving the tour there and then.

“We were at the hotel late at night,” he continues. “Jesse went up to [singer] Dallas [Green] and simply said, ‘I’m going home’. Dallas says, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? We have a sold out show tomorrow’. He just took off, and we had to cancel the show.”

And that was it?

“Something else happened after that that I’m not going to talk about,” explains the bespectacled singer, allowing diplomacy to get the better of him. “It just got to a point where it was tough for us to get back into the swing of it.”

George continues carefully. With a forthcoming European tour and Jesse’s unresolved domestic issues, AOF hired current drummer, Jordan ‘Ratbeard’ Hastings.

“Ratbeard just fit right in,” George says smiling again, “Having a new person in the band really changed the dynamic of the band. Ratbeard just helps everyone get on with everyone else; there’s so much more camaraderie between us than ever before.”

And Ratbeard is a really good drummer. Jesse was no slouch, but as George explains, the guys could really hear that driving kick and snare at last - the rhythmic glue that finally cemented AOF’s groove in place.

We walk and talk. A distant wasp-like buzzing becomes louder, until it’s just behind us. We spin round to see Bullet For My Valentine drummer, Moose speed past on the previously sighted mini-moto. On the back Aiden frontman, Wil Francis, clings on for dear life.

“Fucking crazy,” says George half under his breath, grinning a wide infectious smile. “This tour has been so much fun man. I don’t want it to end.”

The early afternoon heat is well into the thirties. It’s 3:29pm and the band are heading to their merch tent. Wade’s younger brother, Jordan is manning the fort. Wearing his Turbonegro Turbojugend jacket, he proudly states that, “I set up the St Catherine’s Chapter”. This is Alexisonfire’s manor, and the turn-out for the signing is expected to be good. The merch tent is only ten feet wide and built from thin aluminium poles and some cheap synthetic yellow textile. In front of it, and snaking 50 metres into the distance is a ten-fan-wide queue.  The guys arrive and things get hairy. Everyone surges forward, pushing the tent backwards. The adjacent tents heave and creak in a worrying fashion, as a rain of arms hold out CDs, posters and disposable cameras.

“There is something inherently Canadian about what we do,” admits AOF’s ever-playful frontman, as he poses for a fan’s photo. “I think we band together as Canadians – within our band and with other Canadian bands. That’s why the Canadian media backed us too.” The band recount their history in between hand-shakes, photo-ops and frantic signature scribbles.

Alexisonfire started in the Torontan satellite city of St Catherine’s in 2001. The name comes from Alexis Fire, the world’s only lactating contortionist stripper (Google that kids). Their beautiful yet brutal post-hardcore quickly found underground favour in the cities surrounding Lake Ontario, and after the release of their eponymous debut in 2002 the band attracted the attention of the local and international rock press alike.

“The scene that we grew up in was capable of being strong because there were maybe like 5 big cities around Ontario,” he says. “Mississauga, Oakville, Toronto, Burlington and Hamilton are all within an hour’s drive of each other. In a week we could play three shows in big cities.”

This strength was the leg-up Alexis needed. The grassroots support put the group in position for subsequent support from Canada’s national media.

By the time their 2004 long-player, ‘Watch Out’ hit shelves, the band were a national concern and began winning a number of musical accolades; not least for their clever and funny videos.

Two years have past and the band have since become national heroes, eclipsing the likes of many a compatriot, and selling out 8,000 capacity venues in Toronto. The year is now 2006, and the guys have a new collection of more consummately expressed emotion and barely tethered aggression: ‘Crisis’.    The guys manage to escape the unending fanatical onslaught. Back at the bus they prepare for their mid-afternoon set. George sits across the cluttered table and makes himself a very large Jack Daniels and coke.

The band have enjoyed great national success, but faltered in the US. As the conservatively coiffed singer admits, the band have toured the US coast to coast more than nine times, and found the process arduous and often thankless. “If you don’t have major money backing you - putting you on television - you have to tour non stop to even make a dent.”

This nonchalance has not been reflected in the UK. At download this year the band had 12,000 punters jumping up and down like a million bouncy-balls thrown into a squash court, prompting George to crowd surf in a paddling pool.  

Alexisonfire’s Barrie performance is the stuff of legend. Insisting they play the smaller Vagrant stage, thousands and thousands of local fans swarmed round the small stage, back up the hill and clambered onto portaloo roofs – all hoping to catch a glimpse of the mayhem. It seemed as if there were as many punters surfing the dust-bowl as their were people holding them up. Moneen’s hyperactive singer, Kenny Bridges joins the band for a song and the crowd hit fever pitch. The scene is absolute bedlam.

After the show the band are as high as kites and proceed to imbibe the fluid contents of their tour bus. Except Dallas. Who goes to bed. The irony of which is that the quiet, dry and darkly humorous guitarist is an insomniac. Up front Ratbeard, talks drunkenly to the other bus drivers on the CB radio. With the subtlety and charm of a drunken man (read that as you will) he romances a girl two buses back. Apparently he does this a lot. 

Later on that night as we rattle across Canada’s lush rolling hills towards Montreal, Wade will combine tequila distribution with 80s stadium rock and a Luchador wrestling.

It’s the morning. 8:30am. Early. The back room of the tour bus is pitch black. We lift the blind. Outside is a small woody bank and a large stretch of water, on the far side of which is a glorious-looking city reaching elegantly for the sky in the Sunday morning calm – Montreal. 

“I’ve been quiet because I lost my voice,” admits Dallas looking out onto the scene of metropolitan tranquillity. “Onstage when you want to just lose it, you can’t. I’m like ‘fuck’. I fucking hate it. It bums me out. [On this tour] all I have to do is sing and play for half an hour a day, and when I can’t do that I feel like I’m letting everyone in the world down.”

We sense that Dallas is giving the quick answer to the more philosophical question of his often solitary nature, magnified by the comparative hi-jinx of his more extroverted bandmates. Dallas’ inner personality is as hidden as it is complex. Slowly he offers us a look.

“I love to be by myself,” he says quietly but emphatically. “I think that’s because I spend most of my life around people. That’s part of the reason I stopped drinking: I just didn’t like hanging out.”

Dallas takes a deep breath and admits that people probably do see him as the serious one. He adds in his own defence that he does have a sense of humour. He does: darker than Lee Dorrian’s hair dye, more cynical than Pete Steele, and dryer than Al Jourgensen’s back yard.

It’s not difficult to feel slightly like you’re imposing when talking to the sober singer, guitarist and co-songwriter. But when he smiles, you know it’s just his way.

“I don’t have a lot of faith in myself.”

How can you say that when your band is so successful?

“Because I’m just afraid.”

Of what?

“Of sucking,” he says dead pan. “I think that’s the way we get better. I’m always the guy who says, ‘that was awesome but we can do better’. If you start to believe your own hype, you stop trying and you start sucking. When I play a wrong note it ruins the whole set for me.”

Is that what makes you draw in on yourself?

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yesterday I was bummed [about my voice], so I was quiet. I’ll just come into the back of the bus and play my acoustic guitar and be the sappy fucker.”

Do you get a high when performing live?

“I love it,” he says shooting an earnest look. “Playing live is the only thing I live for. A lot of people like the party, but I just really like playing music. I’d play four sets a day every day if I could.”

Are you happy?

“I’m hardly happy.”

Why would you stay in the band if you were miserable?

“I’m not miserable,” he corrects, “but I’m just not happy that often. I hate it when people look at me and think I’m this fucking asshole. People from my home town think I’m full of myself because I’m on television. But I’m the complete opposite. That lack of faith in myself is often my downfall. I don’t sleep at night because I worry about things. Most people in my position should be happy: [they’d be] going out, getting drunk and having fun. We’ve put out three really good records. But I just worry.”

Dallas may appear sultry, stand-offish, depressed even: but he’s ok. At least, he’s as ok as he can be. He just remains unsatisfied; on a long and unending mission of self-betterment through words and music. But as he says, Alexisonfire wouldn’t be the animal it is were he any different. Thank fuck he’s not.  

Today’s gig is the last of the tour. It’s strange to watch someone fly into an energetic musical, emotional and almost shamanic trance, who only hours before was describing his strange unhappiness: Dallas bounces along with George as if attached to the same massive spring, Wade is in the air more than not, Steele throws himself about barely maintaining balance, and Ratbeard holds the rowdy litter together like a watchful mother.

Their last set of the tour complete, the guys say their last goodbyes. The closing day is winding down. After two amazing days with Alexisonfire we feel a little closer to understanding this dichotomous monster: introspection and showing-off; gentleness and rage; intoxication and sobriety; energy and calm; sadness and joy.

The sun is long gone. Roadies load the last bits of tour weary gear into the trailer. We bid farewell to the guys. In a final fleeting conversation Dallas admits that he can always tell if an interviewer hasn’t done their research.

“I lie a lot in interviews. If someone’s doing a shit interview we’ll just bullshit. I’ve just lied about everything to you.” He grins a warm and wide grin. “Not really.”