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A few years ago, when the words 'Canadian music' were mentioned, our minds would automatically jump to images of the pop-punk of Sum 41 or, the even moreso 'pop-punk' of Avril Lavigne. Now in 2007, Canadian music is showing itself as serious competition for the American market, and screamo geniuses Alexisonfire are right in the thick of it. With an album that was named one of the best of 2007 and dates all over the UK completely sold out to the adoring masses, we caught up with them on their last date to see how it was all going.

OS: So, this is the last show of your UK tour. How has the trip been for you this time?
Dallas Green (Guitar/Vocals): Fantastic.
George Pettit (Vocals): Yeah, really good.

OS: What sort of reaction have you been getting?
Dallas: A very good one.
George: Really positive.
Dallas: A very warm reception.

OS: Which show has been your favourite?
Dallas: I liked last night a lot.
George: Yeah, Cardiff was really good. Glasgow was really good. But, they've all been awesome. The UK in general. I mean, like, crowds are pretty across the map and it's pretty even.
Dallas: I'll tell you one thing though. I do not know how I feel about when I come off the bus after just waking up and there's a group of kids who are waiting, asking me if they can get on the guestlist.
Jordan Hastings (Drums): Oh yeah, I had that too.
Dallas: That just happens here, it only happens here.

OS: I think people just get a bit too pushy if they don't have tickets.
Dallas: Yeah like, they get mad at you.
George: I mean, I don't have a problem with meeting kids - meeting kids is great.
Dallas: But then they're like "can I get on your guestlist?" and you're like "I don't think so" and then they're all "grr". [cue angry-looking stare]

OS: Did you manage to steer clear of any fights while you were in Glasgow this time?
Dallas: Yes, there was no fights.
George: No fighting.
Dallas: There was only a couple fights with a tattoo gun.

OS: Oh, you've been getting more tattoos?
George: More tattoos.
Dallas: Yep.

OS: Have the crowds been much different to back home in Canada or the US?
Dallas: Definitely different from the US.
George: Yeah, there's small differences.
Dallas: Kids are pretty excited over here - it's good. For us, in the States, it takes a lot to get everyone going and by the end of the set we've got them all going, but here it's just straight like woo; they're excited and ready to go.

OS: Yeah, at Taste of Chaos as soon as you came onstage it was just like an explosion in the crowd.
Dallas: Yeah, it was great. That's awesome over here - it's like, they give you what you're asking for right away. Over there it's our job to get everyone going but here it's like a team effort.

OS: You're playing Give It A Name festival in April. You played the first ever GIAN so is it odd to see how much bigger it's gotten, knowing that you were a part of it's debut?
Dallas: Yeah, it's cool that it's a three day thing now and in three different cities and it's going to Paris and Germany. It's awesome and I'm glad that we played the very first one.

OS: It's like being a founder, isn't it?
Dallas: Kinda, yeah. And now we're playing really high up on the bill this year and maybe we'll headline in a couple of years!

OS: Are you excited about playing it?
Jordan: Yeah.
Dallas: Yeah, it's cool. We've toured with The Used but we haven't seen those guys in a long time. And a band called The Sleeping and they're good friends of ours.

OS: Last November you played on Taste Of Chaos - how was that tour for you? And, did you find it any harder coming onto the tour later than the other bands, since Thursday had played the Australian and European legs before you got there?
Dallas: No, I mean, we knew most of the bands that were on already and plus, coming over to the UK, we knew it was gonna be okay for us because we know that we have such loyal fans over here, so I was just excited to come over here. But we know Underoath pretty well and Senses Fail and we know the Taking Back Sunday guys so it was fine. It was just like seeing friends and stuff.

OS: George, was there much going through your head when you decided to climb up onto the balcony at the date in Dublin?
George: Yeahh...the 'Even Flow' video by Pearl Jam definitely. I just wanted to and the opportunity was there. I kinda sized it up earlier that day and thought "yeah, I probably could climb up there" to put that one [show] really over the top. And then I ran around the crowd. But what I was planning to do was go up the one side, run around the top of it and get down on the other side, but there was no way to get down on the other side. So, I just went down the stairs and around the back of the building and up and back onto the stage. It was pretty ridiculous.

OS: And that Dublin show was the smallest show on TOC?
Dallas: Yeah and it was awesome. It was our first time playing in Ireland.
George: I was really excited about the fact that we were playing in Ireland and I feel bad that we've been neglecting it for so long.

OS: But you're going back after Give It A Name?
George: Yeah, for two shows.

OS: Last year you obviously released 'Crisis' and it's been a huge success, and so critically acclaimed and such, so how do you feel about that?
Dallas: It was good for me because like, when we'd finished recording, I listened to it every day until it came out and it got to the point where I was listening to it trying to find the things I didn't like about it and then I got to the point when I was listening to it wondering if people were gonna like it. Then, I was at the point where I was just panicking. And then, it was just "thank God that people like it".

OS: The reviews were amazing.
George: Yeah, the media over here has been unbelievable - just very, very, very polite and we've made lots of friends that are journalists and it's cool to come back and talk to the people who you've done an interview with before and have this fun, working relationship with them. Everybody's been really great.

OS: How do you think it differs from your first two albums?
Dallas: It's more punk. I think it's a bit more aggressive, a little more straight ahead.
George: And I think we had a lot more conventional song writing structure and stuff like that too. Our first record is a lot of us being kids and noodling and doing part after part after part, but here we really wanted to write some songs that had choruses and stuff.

OS: Do you have a favourite out of your three albums?
Dallas: Crisis.
Jordan: What about him? What do you think? [points to Wade who's been sitting on the floor, reading Rocksound.]
Wade MacNeil (Guitar/Vocals): I like it.

OS: Not many bands seem to pull off what you do successfully - with the whole melodic vocals and the screaming all working together. Plus, it's very rare for a band to have three main vocalists, so how do you think you managed it?
Dallas: I dunno. I think we're getting better at knowing our limits when it comes to the three vocals too, but I don't know why it works.
George: It's kinda easy to spot when it gets tacky.
Dallas: I think we all have really distinct voices too. Usually with the screaming-singing, it's the same guy or it's one guy over here screaming exactly what the singer just sang, just to add the screaming. But, with us, George is the front man and he screams, I'll sing my own parts and Wade will sing his own parts. A lot of kids who've seen us for the first time will come up to me and say "I didn't know you were the singer. I thought it was the same guy doing both". But, it's cool that when we play, to watch the kids that are singing with George and watch the kids that are singing with me. There's groups of them that sing George's part and groups that sing mine and groups that sing Wade's and it's cool. They decide they're gonna take that part and these people decide they'll take my part and it's cool. It's like watching ourselves.

OS: Does that completely effect and change your writing process, since some bands are just "you do music, you do vocals"?
Dallas: Not really. I mean, when we write a song we can usually tell where I'm gonna sing and where George is gonna sing most of the time. If not, we figure it out pretty well. There's never been a point when I've been like "well, I wanna sing here" and George has been like "well, I wanna sing here."
George: It's always just like, whoever gets to it first. You're like "hey, I've got this part and it sounds like this", then you're like "oh, that sounds cool, I'll go here".

OS: Right now, Canadian bands are getting so much more recognition in this scene. For once it doesn't seem like the Americans are dominating everything because there's bands like you guys, Billy Talent, Moneen and Comeback Kid, as well as Cancer Bats who have been hailed as one of this year's acts to look out for, who are doing so well right now, so what's that like?
Dallas: I'm pretty excited, mostly because all those bands are our friends. I hope the Cancer Bats do amazing. They're awesome. They're coming back over here with Rise Against so you should go see them. It'll be a good show - The Bronx are playing too. But, yeah, it's awesome that we get to be apart of that and it's great to see all of your friends' bands doing well and making it and doing their best to do what we're doing.

OS: Over the years your lyrics have cover a wide variety of topics, so where do you draw inspiration from?
Dallas: Pretty much from everything.
George: Whatever's around. Things that have happened to us, other songs, stuff that's going on in the world. Whatever you kind of think of, day to day life. Memories of childhood. Things like that; anything.

OS: What are your plans for the rest of this year?
Jordan: Touring.
George: Touring and touring.
Dallas: There's a couple of months we'll take sort of off here and there and we'll probably be back soon. We're gonna try one more, like, world tour: a North America and Europe tour before we're done.
Wade: That sounds funny.
Dallas: Before we're done Crisis touring, we're gonna do a full UK tour and play places we've never played before and do one last big run before we take time off to do a new record.

OS: Do you have any ambitions as a band, or personally, that you'd like to achieve in the future?
Dallas: I'd like to play Brixton, on our own. It'd be a good a one.
George: That'd be great.

OS: It's such a huge place that it doesn't seem like an Academy.
Dallas: I know. We sold out the Astoria the other day and that was really big, but our booking agent said "next time you're here, we'll put you in Brixton," and it's like "umm okay".

OS: It's so prestigious too though.
Dallas: Yeah!
George: It feels crazy.
Dallas: When you see everyone playing there and stuff. I think that would be cool. But, you know, there's other things. I'd like to play in Brazil and I'd like to play in Moscow - that'd be cool.

Jamie Ashton: What inspired you when you wrote 'Happiness By The Kilowatt'?
Dallas: There is an author by the name of Kurt Vonnegat and he has a book called 'Welcome to the Monkey House' which is a book of short stories of his. And, there's one story called 'The Euphio Question' and it's about this scientist who has this huge telescope that monitors radio waves in the universe and he finds this radio wave, that, when you hear it, you go into a state of euphoria. You're just content and happy. And his friend; they decide they're gonna market it and they're gonna make radios where you can tune into it and just be happy. And they try it out with a few of their friends and they turn it on, but then the power goes out and it knocks the radio out and they realise that they've been in this state for four days and they haven't eaten or done anything. It's actually ruining them but the one guy really wants to market it and he's all "We'll call it 'happiness by the kilowatt'" but the scientist says "No, no, because it's temperamental and it's gonna kill everybody". So, basically, yeah, I wanted to write a song about it because I thought it was a really good idea. And it's like, money over happiness.
George: Yeah, happiness without pursuit. Things like, is happiness truly happiness unless you have to pursue it?
Dallas: Yeah, so I thought that was really cool. And the way we wrote that song, the way the instruments and the music was sort of, slow and moving, I felt like that fit it perfectly. But, that was a long description and I apologise.

Ryan: Which tattoo is your favourite?
Dallas: Well, I have 58 of them. I don't know; I like the one on my neck a lot - that means a lot to me.
Wade: We counted our tattoos yesterday. He [Dallas] has 58. I have 46, on my upper body, but we haven't got to my legs yet. We'll count those today.
Dallas: That was just for fun. But, yeah, I don't know. I've got too many. Ask these guys [points to Jordan and George]. They've got little ones, like not a lot of them, so they could pick a favourite.
George: I like this one that says 'Have Love Will Travel'.

Anna: Do you like sausages?
Dallas: Sure, yeah, love 'em.
George: Delicious. Nice little breakfast sausage there.
Wade: By on large, I don't like breakfast sausages.
George: I love them.
Wade: I always want them at breakfast but then I get them and they're always disappointing.
George: I love them.
Dallas: They're good at Denny's.
Jordan: IHOP!
Dallas: IHOP!
George: IHOP!

OS: We don't have IHOP and stuff over here.
George: You know what else you don't have? You don't have Taco Bell.
Dallas: I imagine it being really bad over here if it was though.

OS: I'm sure Pete Wentz once said that if a guy put a Taco Bell in the middle of Birmingham, he'd become a millionaire.
Dallas: Probably.
George: Why not?
Dallas: I'm gonna open a Pizza Express in Toronto.
George: Mmm Pizza Express.
Dallas: We don't have Pizza Express in Canada and I want one.
Wade: You know what? That's the next step of Pete Wentz' plan. Sign Fall Out Boy......I mean, Panic! At The Disco. Then, open up a Taco Bell in England...become the Mayor of Earth.

Richard Ellis: What's your favourite cheese?
Jordan: Cheese?!
George: I like a Havarti.
Jordan: I like a good Swiss.
Dallas: I don't eat too much cheese, so I don't know.
George: Dallas is lactose intolerant.
Dallas: I only eat cheese on pizza because it's so good. So, mozzarella because I think it's the only one I think I've ever had.

Holly: Dallas, would you grow your moustache back?
Dallas: Yeah probably. Might do it soon.
George: I've got a pretty good one going on right now.
Jordan: Yeah, I've got a moustache right now.
Dallas: Yeah, but you need just a moustache.
Jordan: Yeah, hmm.

Lola & Kate: How long does it take to write an album?
Dallas: Depending.
Jordan: Depends on how much time you have.
Dallas: Depending on how much time you want to take. Some people take years, some people take months, some people take weeks.
George: You can have little bits and pieces of an album over months, during touring and stuff, but then we get into a jam space and spend every day writing songs so the time changes a lot. It's tough to gage how long you take to do that.

Samantha: What is your favourite thing about touring in the UK?
Dallas: Pizza Express.
Jordan: Yep.
Dallas: No, just playing and the kids.
George: The distance from home also makes it really cool to come over here because like, we had to cross an ocean to get over here and the fact that people care about us this far away from home is amazing.

Lola: What inspired you to start playing?
Dallas: My parents got my guitar lessons when I was eight years old, so, my parents, because I didn't really know what I was gonna be doing.
Jordan: Yeah, the same.
George: I'd say music. Listening to music mostly, got me into wanting to play live and start bands. Going to shows, going to concerts. If you watch bands play every weekend, you kinda wanna get up there and do it yourself at one point.

Josh Duhigg: What are your houses like and is Greg Below okay?
Dallas: Woah, that was a really long time ago.
George: Greg Below had a collapsed lung one time.
Jordan: What are our houses like? Well, my mom's house is fabulous. I live in a room in my mom's house.
Dallas: My parent's house is pretty awesome. I live in the basement. It's cool.
George: I have an apartment that's, you know, a medium-sized apartment. It's got a bedroom, living room, a dining room kinda area.
Wade: In the ghettoooooo.
George: Yeah, in a bit of a bad neighbourhood in Hamilton, Ontario. There's a lot of halfway houses around my house. And, that's it.
Wade: My house is haunted.

OS: Do you know who by?
Wade: I don't know. Some Mormons lived in my house before I moved in. I don't know if that has anything to do with it' [cue a lot of laughter from everyone]
George: It's the ghosts of polygamy!
Dallas: Isn't that just because you're really into Halloween?
Wade: No. There's like, it's brutal. People walking around, opening doors, shutting doors. When I was in my basement once somebody walked right up behind the couch and somebody was right behind me and my girlfriend and we were freaking out and didn't wanna turn around.
Jordan: I would've turned around.
Dallas: I think that's just the Halloween thing.
Wade: I am really into Halloween, but I dunno!
Dallas: One time, a homeless man slept in my house. We found him in the morning. Because, we didn't lock our doors and he came into my house because he thought it was his. And we found him sleeping in the front rec room on a couch. And we said "who are you?" and he said "I don't know" and we said "you should probably leave" and he said "okay" and left. Case closed. So, there you go. Canada. Even when people sleep in your house that you don't know, it's still okay.

Hannah: Do you like Gogol Bordello?
George: Yeah, they're good. They're like gypsy punk kinda stuff. We saw them on the Warped Tour and then when we were in Sweden last time, we saw them as well.

OS: What is Warped Tour like, because we don't really have anything like it here?
Dallas: It's really hot and there's dirt and it's dusty.
George: There's a lot of not showering and a lot of sitting on lawn chairs and err...
Dallas: A lot of bands.
George: A lot of bands, yeah.
Jordan: A whole lot of guys in vans.

OS: Because we do the whole Leeds/Reading type festival here, so you don't see anything like it.
Wade: It's like a huge travelling festival that just pops up everyday.
Dallas: It's like a carnival.
Wade: Yeah, it's like a huge carnival that pops up in parking lots or fields everyday. And there's probably like, eight or nine stages of varying sizes and every band has a t-shirt booth. There's people selling overpriced water.

OS: Oh, they have cans of water don't they?
George: Ohhh yes. Warped Tour Water.
Wade: It's cool. It's a good way to see bands. If you see a band on Warped Tour and they're tolerable, that means they're probably really, really, really great live and you should go see them play at a club. It is a festival kind of thing, so by on large, it is atrocious to watch.

OS: So are you gonna do anymore UK festivals apart from GIAN?
Dallas: Not this year.
George: We kinda did the whole thing last year, so we don't wanna overplay it.
Dallas: Plus, we're gonna come back in the fall and do our own tour again.

Danny: And finally, Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
Dallas: C'est soir?
Jordan: That's good.
George: Not even c'est soir. It's just an open-ended invitation. But, um.... No. Nothing personal, Danny.