Dallas Green: shaping City and Colour with a harmonious bent

Dallas Green and his band City and Colour make their debut tomorrow night at Bluesfest in Byron Bay.

City and Colour's Dallas Green released new album Should I Go Before You. Picture: Supplied

When Dallas Green was in Byron Bay in 2014, he and his band City and Colour ended up being one of the headliners at Splendour in the Grass after the main act, Northern Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club, pulled out of the NSW festival.

This weekend Green, pictured, returns to Byron, but under the banner of Bluesfest.

City and Colour makes its debut at the annual roots music celebration tomorrow night alongside The National and the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, among many others.

It’s a different demographic for the Ontario-born, Nashville-based musician, but he’s used to that.

Green dropped his earlier incarnation as a post-hardcore muso in the band Alexisonfire to become a more roots-based singer-songwriter.

Five albums later City and Colour (taken from Dallas, the city, and green, the colour) is a well-established rock act, but Green says he has had to work hard to make it a proper band rather than just a vehicle for his songs.

“It has taken me five records and 10 years of doing this to find people I felt comfortable enough with,” he says. “It is a strange position to be in when you’re a singer-songwriter, but you have to have a band. It’s your music, but I want us to be a band on stage. I don’t want to be a solo artist. These guys take such good care of my songs.”

That band featured on City and Colour’s most recent album, last year’s critically acclaimed If I Should Go Before You, and Green says it cements the group that they will be on stage playing material that they also recorded together for the first time.

“Touring with the last record was me teaching everyone all of the old songs,” he says. “This time we’re playing a record that we made together.”

City and Colour’s music draws from a variety of sources, from folk to pop to soul, blues and rock ’n’ roll, so it should be well suited to Bluesfest’s roots demographic.

Green has a tattoo that features the face of blues legend Son House. He’s also a big fan of Sade, Otis Redding and Willie Dixon.

“I’ve always been a little bit scared to show those influences because I wasn’t quite sure how to do it,” Green says. “It’s a fine line to walk. I want my records to sound like me.”