Alexisonfire Interview

Tuesday 30th June 2009 - 15:00:00

As Alexisonfire pat themselves on the back with a fantastic new album, Old Crows / Young Cardinals, I caught up with the lovely George to find out everything you need to know about the band… plus a bit extra!

So hello sexy face, how are you ?

Feeling sexy

Your new album , Old Crows/Young Cardinals is out the week before my birthday, tell us a bit about it.

Well we planned it specifically around your Birthday, so you know, we wanted it to come out and you have a nice little surprise for your birthday. But yeah we spent a long time writing it and uh, it’s a bit of a change for us, but its something new and I think people will like it.

So if you could recommend one song, what would it be ?

I’d have to recommend that everybody listen to ‘Old Crows’ the first song on it. It’s a great song.

So are you excited for Leeds Festival? I’m gonna come and find you!!

Your gonna come and find me ? That’ll be difficult coz there’ll probably be a lot of people there! (Laughs) But yeah we’re excited! Doing two shows a day- one on the Radio One Lock Up stage and one on the main stage- so it’ll be something we’ve never done before. I really enjoy Reading / Leeds festival. This be our fourth time I think playing so yeah! It’ll be awesome!

Its also your fourth album. How do you keep the motivation going to keep moving forward with your career ?

The fans make it pretty easy to do so. I mean like, I think if people didn’t care about us, we probably wouldn’t. I mean, we’d probably continue on but the fans enthusiasm; it really fires you up. When you see that people are really taking an interest, in what you do… So that’s probably why we keep going cause you know there’s people who I think have put a lot of themselves into coming to see us live, and kinda egg us on. So yeah we keep going!!

Where do you get all of your fresh new ideas from, so that each album is even more epic than the one before ?

We all have a very wide array of influences. Musically and literary, you know? I don’t even know if that’s a word. ( laughs) You have to pardon me- I’m only high school educated. None of us went to college. Instead we decided to join the band! But yeah influences are all over the place- musically and as I read a lot of books...

So for band who’s kinda starting out now, knowing what you know now four albums in, what advice would you give to bands just starting out in their career

Listen to a lot of music. Listen to as much as you possibly can. From all different styles of music. That will effect the way you play. When I listen to a record I can tell what type of music that person listens to most of the time, or if they listen to a lot of music, or they just have a few specific influences.

Also make things happen for yourself- don’t necessarily rely on the idea of getting a manger right away or like a booking agent and all that stuff. Try and set up shows for yourself, try and figure out stuff for yourself before that way your not completely reliant on someone else doing something for you. You can kinda make it happen for yourself, and it’s a lot more rewarding that way.

So, for anyone who’s had their head in a steel box, since 2002, how would you sum up Alexisonfire in five words

5 words, ‘We will fuck you uuuuup’. That was lame, That was really lame!! (laughs). How about um, how about, let me think here, five words. Spellbound, categorical, antidisestablishmentarianism, ethno-botanist and uh, metaphysical. ( laughs)

Niceee, so we’re having a bit of an economical crisis, and if people wanted to spend their last tenner on a cd, for my birthday, which as I said is in June. Don’t forget. Why should they buy yours ?

Um, they don’t have to. I mean like… I know the people at Roadrunner will hate us for saying this, but you know, If you wanna download it  or bit torrent it and times are tough you can do that.

But you should probably buy it because the artwork is so nice, and the people at Roadrunner records are so nice, and they need to buy cat food for their numerous cats and you know you don’t want their cats to starv. They’re very, very cute and some of them are growing- some of them are just little cats. So yeah, that’s it, if you don’t buy our record, a bunch of beautiful cute little kittens will die!!! (laughs)