Sole Focus

Dallas Green's beloved Toronto Maple Leafs are sitting on a 3-1 series deficit against the highly fancied Boston Bruins, but the 32-year-old musician can only see the positives of what the young team are experiencing. It's the first time in close to a decade that Canada's largest city has enjoyed playoff ice hockey, and even though the Leafs would eventually go down in seven games, Green says that what fans are seeing now is a good sign of things to come.

He holds those same upbeat vibes for his fourth studio record, The Hurry And The Harm, an LP he cites as “The best thing I've done” when put next to his first three albums. “I think that's how you should feel when you're onto something new, because I guess if you're not evolving and doing your best work then there's probably no point in continuing,” he states. “So I feel really good about it – I think it's different but still sounds like me, and there's nothing wrong with that.”

Speaking with Green in 2011 prior to the release of third album Little Hell, he appeared to be missing this spark. Yes it was midnight in Canada and yes he'd no doubt had hours and hours of press prior to our interview, but even though he was on the cusp of releasing his global breakthrough record, something still wasn't sitting right within the man. And listening to that album – especially when put against The Hurry And The Harm – that air of sadness is apparent.

“I love Little Hell but I definitely know what you're saying,” he agrees. “There was a lot of drama in my life at that time and making the record was a really tough time, so I think there is definitely that air in that record. But this one, it was probably one of the best times I've ever had making a record and writing the songs; as much as the songs still have that melancholic weight to them – which is just always something I tend to lean towards when it comes to writing songs – I feel like there's more of a warmth to it.”

One main thing that was bogging Green down emotionally back in 2011 was the approaching split of Alexisonfire, the St Catharines post-hardcore outfit he co-founded a decade before. The making of this latest record, on the other hand, was completed just prior to Alexisonfire's international farewell tour in December last year, and that approaching closure gave Green a clear head, something he necessarily didn't have when his old band originally broke up.

“Because the last tour that I did with the [Alexisonfire] guys [in 2010] – I knew it was my last tour, they knew it was my last tour but no one else knew. We kept a lot of emotions bottled up inside, and whether we wanted to admit it or not I think that affected us as people and it affected our relationships with one another. So all of that coming to the forefront and then ultimately seeing the closure in the distance I think really allowed me to go and make this record knowing it was going to be different. It was the first time I've ever gone to make a record and actually had the chance to let these songs marinate on their own without having to worry about what was going to be after it.

“[These] songs came at a time in my life where I had worked through some stuff,” he continues, “and as much as when I made Little Hell and as much as I was telling myself that that was the record that I was going to make to show everyone that now I'm doing this as my main focus, I didn't really realise that I was making that in the transitional period. I was making that record knowing that I had left Alexisonfire yet no one else knew that and when I started talking about the record I was still lying to people about the fact that I had quit the band, and so I wasn't able to fully immerse myself into the idea that this is what I'm doing. [But] rekindling my relationships with those guys and deciding to do the last tour – that really freed up a lot of space in my subconscious to just go and [dive into] this record, and I think it shows in the finished product.”

The Hurry And The Harm was recorded in Nashville with Little Hell producer Alex Newport, a man Green holds a strong creative bond and trust with thanks to their work together through that difficult time. As such, it's unsurprising that when Newport suggested going somewhere fresh and making the record special in a different way, Green embraced the idea, even though it meant sourcing session players the songwriter had never worked with, let alone been introduced to.

“The idea of having somebody I'd never met playing on my records was always scary to me because I didn't know what they were going to bring to it, whether the light or the warmth was going to disappear,” he relates. But he trusted Newport to find the right people, and did he what. Green ended up with a group of “wonderful musicians, but wonderful guys as well”, including Jack Lawrence from The Dead Weather and Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket. “They definitely didn't hurt things,” Green says, letting out a warm a laugh.

The accommodating record that resulted from the sessions was an extension of the good times shared, and proved to Green just how much Newport cared about the songs and how much they also meant to him. “Alex has all of the faith in me that I don't have in myself, I think that's the best way to put it.” Yep, even with number one platinum albums and sell-out tours in various corners of the globe – under two different performance banners no less – Green still has difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that the music he creates is something special.

“You can go two ways with that, and I tend to go down the other side of things – I'm a glass half empty kinda guy, I think I get it from my parents, my mother at least,” he admits, reminding of the lyrical content found on 2011 track The Grand Optimist. “But all of that doesn't make writing a song any easier for me, and I think that's okay, I think that's good. That's how I've always approached songwriting. It allows me to get better and it allows me to work harder at constantly improving and evolving.

“I don't know if I could handle having an ego and I don't know what I would do if I started to believe the hype, I guess. I don't know what music would come out of me, if any at all. So I tend to just keep myself grounded and to just write and get better.”