City And Colour: 'I Feel A Lot Of Gratitude I Get To Travel Far Away & Sing For My Supper'

It’s not a stretch to say City And Colour is a musical wizard. His voice, a marvel of human nature, has the unique ability to extract your heart and then massage it with emotional comfort.

Conjuring magic from the mundane for nearly twenty years now, City And Colour creates music that feels earthy and timeless, like his lyrics were inscribed onto an oak tree that was born thousands of years ago. He’s also just a regular guy from Ontario.

Dallas Green, or City And Colour, as we know him, is currently sitting in the ‘writing room’ of his Toronto residence. Dimly lit, with scents burning in the background and six guitars adorning the walls, it looks exactly like the kind of place you would expect the Juno Award-winner to craft his greatest tunes. Green quips, “It’s just my basement where I smoke a little too much marijuana.”

Smiling through his wispy, wizard-like beard, Green is telling me about his 2023 album, The Love Still Held Me Near. The title served as a sense of comfort when Green endured the winds of loss. Holding onto it with a near-white-knuckle grip, this album was what carried him through.

“The idea of the positivity, the light, and the things I was holding onto. It’s what held me through,” Green says of the album. “The love for the people still in my life. The love for the people I had lost. That was the thing that was holding me together near to myself.”

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Emerging in 2005 as an offshoot from the Canadian hardcore rock band Alexisonfire, for whom he still plays guitar, Green successfully built his own lane as a solo act. He has been so successful, in fact, that he just booked another tour of Australia set for January 2025—something that Green and his band are literally counting the days until.

“I’m over the moon. I’ve spent more time touring Australia than anywhere else. The number of times I’ve come over and toured in whatever version of myself I was presenting at the time. There’s a resonance and a familiarity that’s still a little shocking—that a place so far away can feel like home. Anytime I go back, I feel a lot of gratitude [that] I still get to travel far away and sing for my supper.”

For this tour, Green will be joined by American folk singer Nathaniel Rateliff and his backing band, The Night Sweats. Although Green and Rateliff have only known each other for a few years, they had instant chemistry upon meeting.

“He played a show in Toronto in March of 2020. We met briefly backstage after his performance and got on, but it was very brief,” Green says of their initial meeting. “Then, after that, we lost touch through COVID.”

Early last year, however, the pair reconnected, this time with intentions to go on tour together.

Rateliff also expressed interest in touring across the middle part of America. This, to Green, made Rateliff stand taller than the rest. The pair eventually toured across Canada together in February of this year. “It was a beautiful experience,” Green noted. “There was a real symbiosis on the road. I knew we had to do it again all the way in Australia.”

However, these City And Colour shows are different from Alexisonfire shows. "In City And Colour, it’s my vision,” Green noted. “The people I’m there with support my vision and the things I am hearing in my head. They try to make it the fullest version of what I’m hearing.”

By contrast, at an Alexisonfire show, Green contends he is instead “One part of a five-headed monster that each has their own crazy brain, and it crashes into one another, and it ends up a weird cohesive agreement.”

Initially inspired to get into the music industry by American grunge band Alice In Chains, Green was a child raised in grunge. After first being introduced to ‘cool music’ by his sister and cousin, his first taste of the sweeter world came when he started listening to rock bands Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses.

Then, when grunge came along, Green could not help but find himself attracted to it. “I was twelve years old when [Alice In Chains’] Dirt came out. It was the coalescing of me turning into this impressionable young kid with a guitar and then grunge happening at the same time. Nirvana, Pearl Jam—it just sunk its teeth into me.”

Alice In Chains also became something of a north star for Green's career. Green has subconsciously mirrored similar choices the legendary rock band made. In speaking on this, Green offered, “They would put out an acoustic EP highlighting their songwriting ability, then some hardcore aggressive record. When I look back at my career, I realise that’s what I’ve done.”

The truly full circle moment came for Green when he got the opportunity to support Alice In Chains on their tour across Canada. Performing an acoustic set was an experience that Green fondly remembers as the “experience of my lifetime.”

It was one of those rare situations where meeting your heroes exceeds your expectations. “To meet them and have them be incredible dudes and so kind and see the way they ran their operation, it was an awe-inspiring moment, too. To be inspired once again by them 30 years later.”

Despite all his achievements, Green continues to be humbled by the success of his career. Wielding his musical powers like a benevolent wizard, he still sometimes cannot believe that he makes music for a job.

“I always just feel grateful that I can continue to do this thing,” Green offered. “I loved the idea of writing down my thoughts and singing them. I didn’t think I would get to do it. Every day that I get to continue to do it, it’s unbelievable and humbling.”

Tickets to City and Colour with Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats Australian tour can be accessed via the Frontier Touring website.

Presented by Chugg Entertainment, Frontier Touring & Love Police