Alexis On Fire: 'Tables have turned. Take that Taking Back Sunday!'
- Oct 19, 2009
Alexisonfire have been busy-bees this year - touring, album releases, award ceremonies etc. After eight years working under a band name coined after the world's-only-lactating-contortionist-porn-star the British fan base are lapping it up more than ever. Andy Burton caught up with lead vocalist George Pettit at the Eastpak Antidote Tour to talk new album, life on the road and to dig for information about their EP release scheduled for next year…
Andy Burton: How's the tour been going so far?
George Pettit: Yea it’s going very well, we get to play some cities we haven’t been before and ye it turns out like full rooms with enthusiastic kids so it’s good.
A: Did you have a good summer? What were your highlights?
G: Umm – Reading and Leeds Festival was pretty amazing…
A: You played twice at each right?
G: Yea, yea that was good. We did the Warped tour - there were a couple of highlights on the Warped tour (laughs) – there were probably as many, if not more you know, bus parking lots and porta-potties and shit like that you know. So yea, I dunno, pretty much just been playin’ the shows, the new record came out – that was a big highlight – so yea.
A: It seems every time you come back to the UK your fan-base has bred and multiplied, would you say that the UK is your home away from home?
G: I think that’s very safe to say, it’s the second biggest place for us to play in the UK next to Canada, which you know is country of origin. So it’s, yea, we love coming here. We’ve also invested a lot of time in playing in the UK and this is easily, I think this is like the 20th time we’ve been over here, you know, or somethin’ like that so, yea, we love it here.
A: That’s cool, have you played The Forum before?
G: Erm yea, we played here with Taking Back Sunday a long time ago – maybe like four or five years – we opened for them and now…
A: You’re headlining tonight?
G: Yea I know you know! Tables have turned. Take that Taking Back Sunday!
A: I hear you’ve been looking forward to another tour with Anti-Flag?
G: Yea well we’ve done some touring with them before and they toured South America a long time ago and it was a fun tour for us and they’re really great guys to spend some time on the road with so… yea.
A: In Canada, your home town, you’ve had Juno’s and stuff – how does that feel?
G: We didn’t mean to start our band because we wanted to win some award for ‘Best Band’ - that doesn’t make any sense to me or anything like that. It’s neat… it’s flattering that you get recognised by like you know, I dunno, yea it’s neat that you get to do things that, you know, most people don't. We don’t do it for awards, we don’t do it for like gold record plaques or whatever – we do it because we like playing music and as cheesy and as clich� as this sounds; playing every day, travelling, is its own reward in a lot of ways. That’s just it.
A: You were saying earlier about your latest album – 'Old Crows/Young Cardinals' – how’s that going for you guys?
G: Great, great … the kids know it a lot better now. When we were first touring on it sometimes there was like that little lull when you play a new song because maybe they don’t have it yet or something like that, and now like it’s been a few good months so the kids kinda have a better… they have a better grasp on the record and you play ‘Young Cardinals’ live and you can really hear the kids singing along and stuff. It’s great so, yea, we’re very happy. We’re very proud of the record.
A: What struck me about the record was that your vocals had changed, or progressed if you like. Was there a particular reason for this, or did it just feel natural?
G: Yea I think that I was just kinda disenchanted with a lot of screaming, like the screaming had become a bit of a … a bit of a clich� I think, like it was something that I wanted to avoid with this record and try something different. I wasn’t listening to a lot of screaming bands and we’re at a time like, when I first started in Alexisonfire bands that screamed - I was listening to a lot of them - and it was neat and interesting, kinda scarier you know, some punk that screamed kinda thing. And now it’s safe you know, mom and pop know it and it’s just kinda like, there’s nothing all that scary about it so if anything it just felt like a more aggressive thing to do to try and take a step away from that.
A: Was it a particularly long writing process? Did you go in knowing what to do or did it take some time?
G: It took a while but I think that it was not because we were having troubles writing, it was more just we were thinking about what we were doing a lot more. Like the songs with the first three records they were written in a month and recorded in a month you know, and then back on the road. And this record we took six months to write it and we took another like three months, ermm, month and a half to record it and it was… I think that was beneficial. I think there is definitely older songs that, when I listen to them now, I’m like ‘well if we had more time we would have thought about that one a little bit more' or it would have come out differently. With this record there were no knee-jerk reactions it was all methodically thought out you know, so yea.
A: I know that when you recorded the album, you recorded it mostly live instead of layering it all. Did you find this a better way to capture your music?
G: We still layered tracks but like all the beds were recorded live off the floor…
A: The foundations…
G: Yea like all the rhythm guitar and stuff like that – right off the floor – and then we did overdubs after that. And I think that gave the… I think it’s possible to lose a certain something about a recording when you’re playing along to like headphones as opposed to when you’re looking at you know Rat Beard drumming and stuff like that. I mean that’s something the other guys would have to comment on, they were the ones doing it live. Still that’s what it looked like to me, it looked like you could feel like there is an energy in the room. Blast through the song three or four times – take the best take and done and done.
A: Now you guys have had four proper albums out I think you’re in a place to be able to reflect upon what you’ve done. Is there anything you would change or do differently? Likewise is there anything you guys feel like ‘yea we really did that’?
G: (Laughs, and pauses). I think that, without completely slagging off like our early records, when I listen to them, I think that we were kinda like searching out our niche and we wanted to find out what we were doing and I mean I don’t want to say that I regret those records because they definitely brought us to where we are today. But I think that knowing what we know about the studio we could have recorded our first record better, you know. I think that we could have made a better record if we had our understanding that we have now to make them, so yea there’s little regrets along the way but I mean on whole I think that there’s stuff that still stands up. And it obviously means a lot to the kids who listen to it and the kids who buy the records.
A: I’d say that 'Old Crows…' is definitely different and more mature sounding that the other albums. Was this a conscious effort?
G: No no, I think it was just eight years on the road and then, you know, we’re all constantly listening to different types of music and our tastes and influences are evolving constantly so that’s just kinda where we were at the time and what came out of it when were inspired enough to write a record.
A: Where did the idea for the ‘Young Cardinals’ video come from?
G: That was just an older music video idea. I think we’d talked about doing a video where we’re on a boat and then Dallas said something about The Maid of the Mist and I think back during ‘Crisis’ that idea came up and then we were like, first one - ‘let’s see if we can do it’ – and then we called up our guy - Marc Ricciardelli - who’s done a tonne of our music videos now. He called up The Maid of the Mist and they were really enthusiastic about doing it. They thought it was a great idea so, yea, we did it.
A: Nowadays you’re releasing through Roadrunner in Europe. How did that come about?
G: It was just we were done with our contractual obligations when we finished ‘Crisis’ and were kinda just shopping around to see who, to what we could do to kinda stir the pot and try… you know, mix things up a bit. And yea they came to the table and they were interested and we thought it was an interesting idea to be involved with a big heavy metal label and I knew that they had a really good team of people working for them so yea, we decided that. (Laughs) It’s not a really exciting story really like ‘Our management called around and blah blah blah’ and yea no.
A: Roadrunner are the only label to have put one of your albums on Spotify. Do you know Spotify?
G: Ermm...
A: I’ll explain – it’s been described as ‘God’s iTunes’ – users can go on and stream music for free with an occasional advert here and there.
G: Oh yea that’s right…
A: That’s the only album of yours on there but what do you think to the free availability of your music?
G: Well, I mean obviously it’s great ya know. I think music is expensive and this is tough economic times and if people wanna like save their money and maybe spend their money on concert tickets I don’t blame them. Obviously we’d love them to buy our records ‘cause at the end of the day we’ve got bills to pay and it’s not free to do, but yea, it’s not hurting us I’ll say that much. If people wanna download our records or listen to it free then they can listen to it for free.
A: You did the Switcheroo with Moneen back in 2005 right? If you had the opportunity to do it again with any band who would you choose?
G: Oh I dunno… I dunno if we would like do it… See there’s bands I really like that I think would be really cool to do it with but I think it wouldn’t be good trying to turn another bands song into an Alexis song. Like Moneen there was a little bit of give there, we were kinda from the same scene and we could do different takes on their songs but I dunno, I think I’d be uncomfortable doing it again unless it’d have to be… I don’t even know what band I’d do it with.
A: I heard through the grapevine there’s an EP release next year entitled ‘Dog’s Blood’. Could you tell me more about that?
G: ‘Dog’s Blood’ – it’s gonna be four songs, two of which are really heavy and two of which are kinda ambient, like slow-long ones kinda thing and we’ve got an artist lined up to do the art, I’m not gonna say the name because I don’t think it’s 100%. But yea, I dunno, it’s something we started talking about at Reading and Leeds Festival and yea it’s in very fledgling stages right now but I think we’re gonna record in the winter, in December sometime, and should be out next year sometime.
A: My final question now and its words of wisdom time. There are obviously a lot of post-hardcore bands emerging at the moment and they look up to you. What would you say to them?
G: Listen to lots of music, it’ll make you write better music, so listen to all different types. I think it’s easy to kinda like fall in love with a genre and then just only listen to bands that sound one way. We all listen to just like all across the map, every single segment, as much as possible, like weird pre-war blues, dub reggae, and you know Swedish punk bands like all kinda stuff, all over the place. That’s it.
