My Canadian Indie Music Blog: DALLAS GREEN IS SUCCESSFUL. AND WORRIED STIFF.

The City and Colour songster tells us why having the top-selling album in the country is giving him the heebie-jeebies.

BY ALEX NINO GHECIU

“I live in this world of self-doubt,” admits Dallas Green over the phone from his Toronto home. “I know it sounds weird coming from somebody who has the number one record in Canada.”

Clearly, the songsmith known as City and Colour has got some confidence issues. Recently, his third studio album Little Hell debuted at #1 on the Top 200 SoundScan Chart in Canada, making him the first Canadian artist to reach the top of the heap this year. Between seeing his first two solo albums also go platinum and co-fronting mega-popular post-hardcore act Alexisonfire, he’s one of the most bankable names in Canadian music. You’d think that’d make the guy breathe a little easier.

“That stuff doesn’t mean that much to me,” says the 30-year-old. “Sometimes it’s a bit of a bummer to never really be excited or satisfied, but it’s the way I am and the way I work. The way I constantly try to get better and evolve is by always wondering if what I’ve done is good enough.”

One could argue that being a bundle of nerves is exactly what’s made the tattoo-laden folk troubadour a Juno-winning, chart-busting success. Not only has his neuroticism compelled him to continuously push himself as an artist, but there’s something about a dude with a guitar brooding over his innermost anxieties that legions of young ladies can’t seem to resist.

“I’m not really sure why [I'm popular]. I just write the songs that make me happy first and you hope that people will dig it. I’m an independent artist who doesn’t have this big team around me telling me what kind of songs I should write and how I’m going to be marketed best. I just write songs and that’s it. So it’s hard to say what it is that people are interested in. And maybe it is just that—maybe it’s the honesty in the music.”

The man speaks the truth—more so on Little Hell than ever before. Whereas his previous releases were rife with vague heartbreak anthems that could easily be MacGyvered into panty droppers, this record confronts palpable issues so candidly it’d make Charlie Scheen blush. On “O’ Sister,” Green addresses his sister’s mental health problems in a barefaced manner (“Does it have something to do with the pills they gave to you?”). Meanwhile, “The Grand Optimist” sees him lament the schism between his father’s rosy world view and his own pessimism.

Rather than kvetch about his girlfriend being in a different area code, Green’s now more inclined to roll up his sleeves and face the things that are really keeping him up at night—quite literally. Lead single “Fragile Bird” tackles the frequent night terrors suffered by his wife, which is particularly revealing considering she’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada host Leah Miller.

“It can be a really, really terrifying experience,” he says. “You know when you’re asleep and your alarm goes off and you’re having a dream and then it starts to seep into your dream? Well imagine that, but imagine it’s your wife screaming at the top of her lungs that someone is in the house.”

“She’s happy I wrote the song. It’s not like I’m writing about her being messy or a bad cook, which she isn’t either of. I’m writing about something pretty serious.”

Pretty serious is an apt way of describing Little Hell, which Green says deals thematically with the roadblocks—or so-called little hells—that prevent us from experiencing the good parts of life.

But wait a second. He’s a famous rock star. Living life in the fast lane and such. What road blocks?

“For anybody who would say that, I would say A) I never look at myself as a rock star,” the songwriter argues. “I look at myself as a musician. And B) I don’t look at myself as famous. Some people just like my records and that’s that.”

“But the thing is, too, it doesn’t matter what you do in life, everybody has problems and goes through ups and downs. Yes, I’m successful, but there are still things that I go through with my family and in my life that put me in a mood where I need to write a song to get through it.”

Regardless, this time around Green’s managed to stretch outside the confines of his slow and somber shtick. From electrified blues-funk grooves (“Fragile Bird”) to bouncy roots-rock gems (“Natural Disaster”), he’s actually written songs that sound (gulp) danceable.

“I’m not a slave to just one style of music,” he insists. “I think for this record I had some different ideas for my songs and I didn’t just want to throw those by the wayside because people have a certain idea of what they think City and Colour should sound like. City and Colour can be anything I want.”

At the moment, City and Colour is primed to become a bona fide international big gun. Not only have critics around the globe been hailing Little Hell as Green’s coming-of-age album, but he’s got a slew of big-ticket festival slots in the pipeline, from Lollapalooza to Austin City Limits to the VOODOO Music Experience.

Still, he won’t be patting himself on the back anytime soon.

“It happens, you know? You start believing the hype and thinking, ‘Oh, I really am the best at what I do.’ Or ‘I’ve got the number one record in Canada and that means the next record’s going to be number one too.’ If you start thinking like that, then you’re not going to have that line where you can differentiate what is shit and what isn’t.”

“But I’ll still write a song and go back to it the next day thinking, ‘This is horrible.’ That’s just me being a whiner, I guess.”