City and Colour

Dallas Michael John Albert Green (born September 29, 1980) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who records under the name City and Colour. He is also known for his contributions as a singer, rhythm guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. In 2005, he debuted his first full-length album, Sometimes, which achieved platinum certification in 2006. City and Colour began performing in small intimate venues between Alexisonfire tours. The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas, a city, and Green, a colour. His reasoning for the name was that he felt uneasy "putting the album out under the name Dallas Green".

Green was born on September 29, 1980, in St. Catharines, Ontario. Green was named after Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green. Green has stated that he had gone without a name at first; his mother was considering naming him Graham-Todd Green, but his father had bet on the Phillies during the 1980 World Series that October and, after the team won, his parents decided on the name Dallas after the Phillies' manager. Green started playing piano at the age of 8 and writing music since he was around the age of 14. The first album that he bought with his own money was Alice in Chains' Dirt (1992). He bought it on his 12th birthday, on September 29, 1992. Green said that if people want to get to the bottom of why he makes music the way that he does, it is because of Alice in Chains.

Before joining Alexisonfire, Green was in a band called Helicon Blue, producing several songs before breaking up. The three piece band also featured Marcel Lanteigne on bass and vocal, and Nicholas Osczypko on drums. The band recorded a self-titled release on their own, subsequently recording a second EP with Greg Below from Distort Entertainment. A collection of nine Helicon Blue tracks were released by Dine Alone Records in 2016 as a part of their 10-year anniversary celebrations.

Dallas began playing with Alexisonfire in late 2001. They released four albums (Alexisonfire, Watch Out!, Crisis, and Old Crows / Young Cardinals) and two EPs before disbanding in 2011 due to Dallas' decision to focus on his work in City and Colour full-time.

Dallas came up with the name of the band from an episode on Discovery Channel. This specific episode was about contortionism. In this show there was a segment on a stripper who added contortionism into her show, as well as lactating and breathing fire. The woman's stage name was Alexis Fire, and the segment was called Alexisonfire. He thought that this would be a cool name for a band, and that is where it all started.

In 2003, Dallas appeared (along with Alexisonfire vocalist George Pettit) on Jude the Obscure's album "The Coldest Winter", doing additional vocals on 3 songs. He contributed vocals to Neverending White Lights' collaborative album Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies, released in 2005, on the song "The Grace". Green provided additional vocals on the track "INRihab" with Every Time I Die as well as on the track "Black Albino Bones" with Fucked Up on their second full-length album, The Chemistry of Common Life.

Green began releasing City and Colour songs on the internet for fans to download. Green said that he had been writing material for it as early as when he was 16 years old. Eventually, he compiled and rewrote several of these songs to make his first album, Sometimes. The full-length debut was released on November 1, 2005, to a good reception, described by one reviewer as "dynamically gentle and vulnerable". The cover art was designed by Scott McEwan, in a tattoo-esque style; Green "still may decide to have some of them inked at a later point in time".

Green indicated that his view that the "best music for [him] is sad music", influenced the type of songs he created. He stated he helped Kelsey Brown with the playing of guitar. He also said that he "love[s] music to sort of escape to" and the idea of sad music that people could identify with. Green said of the album that, "a lot of those songs are written on some of the experiences I've been through and stuff and that's just how I deal with it. I just write songs when I'm bummed out and I feel happier." Sometimes won the 2007 Juno award for Alternative Album of the Year.