Dallas Green, under the clever moniker of City And Colour (his real name contains both a city and a colour), has been writing songs for his solo side project for several years. "I've been writing stuff since I was 14 or 15 years old. A bunch of the ones on the album, I wrote when I was 18 or 19, and then a few in my early 20s, and then the rest in the last year." The result is a collection of candid songs in the form of an album called "Sometimes" that describe his life experiences over the past decade.

"The first song that I wrote was probably Sam Malone, but I rewrote it. The first person that people heard was a lot faster and sort of more, immature. Me just strumming and yelling with my acoustic guitar. Then I rewrote it to sort of fit the record, the way I wanted it to sound. The new version of Sam Malone fits more with the way I write songs now," Dallas explains.

On the topic of character names, when asked why he chose to use a pseudonym instead of his actual name for his solo project, Dallas is matter-of-fact. "It always made me feel uneasy whenever I thought about putting the album out under the name Dallas Green. With City And Colour, if I want to have people play on the record, or make a band out of it, I can - it doesn't have to be Dallas Green AND or Dallas Green WITH. It can just be City And Colour."

One listen to "Sometimes" makes it clear that Dallas Green is a complex man with many ambitions beyond the scope of Alexisonfire, the band he's co-fronted since 2001. He cites City And Colour as being a good way of expressing things that he might not have been able to within the limits of Alexisonfire. Bandmates Wade MacNeil and George Pettit have also branched out with their side project, The Black Lungs. "We've been on tour with Alexis for 3 years and we've been playing the same songs for a long time. We all like different types of music as well, so it was just a way for us to sort of express our own sides as musicians and music fans in general. I don't think we're the type of band that would put an acoustic song on the record just to show diversity. We know what we want Alexis to sound like, and we know where those boundaries are."

In addition to making a shift to acoustic guitar and considerably tamer vocals, Dallas is also credited with playing piano on "Sometimes". It's a talent he picked up in his spare time during high school: "I used to sneak into the music room during double lunch and sort of taught myself how to play. I take the knowledge I have of the guitar and turn it [sideways] onto the piano. I'm not classically trained but I can make it sound pretty," he explains, adding that he recently added a piano to his collection of instruments. "I'm trying to get better at it. I want to do a City And Colour EP that's just me playing piano and singing."

City And Colour's first single is "Save Your Scissors", a song that addresses an on-again off-again relationship that Dallas had for many years, in which a girl wanted him to be somebody that he essentially wasn't. "It's sort of a metaphor for girls who have tried to change me from who I am and what I want to be, into what they want. And it's like, no, save your scissors for somebody else. Don't try to change me cause it's not gonna work." In one lyric he asks: "Why does it always seem that every time I turn around, somebody else falls in love with me?" Dallas explains: "I think that a lot of girls tend to think I'm somebody who I'm not, or I'm something different from what I am. I don't say that in a conceited way. I think when you put yourself out in the public eye people think they have a relationship with you that they really don't."

In the upcoming weeks, Dallas and the rest of Alexisonfire plan to start writing material for their follow-up to 2004's "Watch Out", which will be recorded in February and will hopefully see a Spring 2006 release date. Also keep an eye out for City And Colour's debut video "Save Your Scissors", directed by veteran Alexisonfire video director and pal Marc Ricciardelli.

~ Katharine Foster