Alexisonfire (Interview)

Free drink, a chance to hang out with some musical legends and a free takeaway. It isn’t all bad being an editor for 4Q magazine as I found out when I caught up with Alexisonfire in Manchester.

I spent the beginning of October, impatiently gazing across at my wall calender, awaiting the arrival of Alexisonfire to sunny Manchester. With a week to go, the arrival of my ticket only further accelerated my impatience, I was sure that this was to be a brutal night.

Then around four days post gig, I arrived at the 4Q office, in an irritable and comatose state. Just another Thursday morning. As I sipped down the first coffee of the day I came across a message between the usual junk in my 4Q email account. “We would like to confirm that you have been authorised to meet with the guys from Alexisonfire on Sunday 18th October in Manchester at the Academy. Please let us know when and how long you need so we can make arrangements”. I made the arrangements, and had a memorable night. So lets get to business.

Alexisonfire is a five-piece post hardcore band that formed back in St.Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It was mid 2001 when the guys first got together as a result of other projects fizzling out. Having known each other through performing live together, the guys had instant chemistry.

Wade MacNeil (guitar, vocals): “We’re all from a really small city, there isn’t a big scene there and we were always the most focused members of all the different bands we played in. To begin with we did our best to play as much as possible. We often had to play to nobody, this was the way for a really long time. Quite often we would get the same people coming to all our gigs which was kinda cool as they knew the songs. On the other hand we wanted to play to more new people. It took a while to gather pace, we were happy to just play the music we liked to be honest.”

When asked, what best describes your sound? They’d say “the sound of two Catholic high-school girls in mid-knife-fight” (a reference to their song “A Dagger Through the Heart of St. Angeles”, also the inspiration for their début album cover art). The band’s name was derived from Alexis Fire the world’s only lactating contortionist stripper. This caused problems when she discovered that they were using her website name as their band name, and she threatened to sue the band for copyright infringement. However, it was discovered that the web address was not registered, and no further action took place.

On September 9, 2002, Alexisonfire was released, the cover art featuring two Catholic school girls engaged in a knife fight. The album was distributed by EMI and most of its success was accredited to word of mouth which stems from the bands religious live performances.

Wade: “We have always preferred playing over here as opposed to the states. When we first came here we were really surprised by the crowds reaction. People here just seemed really passionate about the music, especially in Manchester. There is such a rich heritage in Manchester, we see it from the record shops we got a chance to visit. It reminds me of the bands I used to listen to when I was growing up. So yeah, I love the crowed over here. Everyone is crazy.”

Alexisonfire had attracted considerable attention from major record labels, due to the success of their self-titled début. However, when they started considering making a second album, the band felt that, for artistic reasons, they should remain independent, as it would give them better chances of developing and deciding their direction.

Wade: “A lot of my favourite songs come together purely by chance, one of us will usually have an idea, or a riff in mind. We tend to mess around, or try slotting in some small melodies. We generally come up with something that fits perfectly. Sometimes we come across ideas from mistakes made, off-key licks and riffs that seem to tie in perfectly. I think a lot of the development comes from our ability to be critical of other members. It can sometimes be hard when you have an idea for a song and the rest of the band shoots it down. I think its good that we’re in a position where we can treat each other with some criticism. There are no ego’s involved and it helps us to make a song that everyone agrees is in the right place. We believe it’s important to push each other to get the sound right.”

When they started considering making a second album, they decided instead of using a famous producer, they would stay local to where it all began and recorded the album with Julius Butty at his studio near Hamilton, Ontario.

Wade: “We rehearsed together all the time rather than doing anything creative separately, I think if we did things separately it would fuck with things a bit much and make working difficult. We have rehearsed in the same place for a really long time, we practice above an insulation factory in St.Catharines, its a good place for use as its so familiar.”

Having created a strong group of initial records the band proceeded to tour their album, crossing Canada twice, and began stepping into the United States and European scenes, playing with Billy Talent, Godsmack, and Glassjaw.

On August 22, 2006 the band released their third studio album Crisis, which was widely regarded as there best release to date. The album conveyed a great balance of melodic and heavy music which outlined the diversity of the bands influences. With a strong underlying post-hardcore tone they ushered in a sound which many other bands in this genre took a page from.

After relentless touring of the Crisis album the band chose to take a break from each other to work on other projects. As a result the band was linked to mixed reports that they had decided to split. This, as per usual was highly exaggerated in the press and the bands label were quick to set the record straight. “There’s more to come.”

With three years off between albums, and a ton of side projects in the interim, Alexisonfire have re-emerged with a new release. It seems like the breather has done them well, as Old Crows/Young Cardinals is bringing the band back as a machine that sounds more mature, and more punk rock.

Wade: “I think we do our best not to repeat ourselves from record to record, and changing George’s (George Pettit, lead vocals) vocals seemed to be the next step this time around. It was good to distance ourselves from the more screamo genre which we tend to get attached to. Vocals was defiantly the biggest thing we changed when making this record. I think George’s new vocal was a good move because it allowed me and Dallas (Dallas Green, Guitar, Vocal) to sing more with George on certain parts of the record. This opened us up to do a lot more different things, and it allowed us to really focus the songs. We were able to convoy more concise messages in the lyrics and its much easier to hear what we’re trying to get across.”

Wade: “Our main aim in this new record was to try and get a more live sound across in the recording. We spent most of our time, the four of us playing together in a room, we wired everything up and just played together. We then just added the vocals later. Its a method we hadn’t tried before and it worked really well. We just wanted it to sound more like music being played in a room rather than this big wall of processed sound. We had to do quite a few takes, maybe six or seven and then cut it and move on.”

It seems like this will be a direction the band will continue to head in, if the album’s opener, “Old Crows,” is any indication. One could easily interpret the song’s chorus of “Now, we are not the kids we used to be/stop wishing for yesterday” as a simple message to their fans – this is how we sound now, get used to it.

Wade: “The new record has been going pretty good. Its been out long enough now for people to start reacting to it, learning the words. I have noticed people have become more comfortable with the new sound. I’ve seen people dancing in the crowd and really getting into it which is great. We really get a kick from that. The thing that is most important to us is writing honest music, and hopefully we can write some songs that sound relevant. Hopefully the songs will age well and down the line you will be able to listen to them and see where we were coming from, and understand what we were going through at the time they were written. Just listen to them and make up your own mind is all I can say I guess.”

Alexisonfire is making an evolutionary regression from post-hardcore to hardcore, and it works so well that I hope all of the screamo bands out there take note. With plans to release an EP on vinyl, entitled “Dogs Blood” next year, and extensive tour schedule, the guys are sure to get there new album out to the masses. I personally had a great Sunday night when they rolled up to Manchester, I just hope they return soon.

P.S. Monday morning was a complete write-off……

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