How is the tour going so far?
 | | Alexisonfire |
"Awesome. This is our third show on the Taste of Chaos and it’s been great. People are friendly, we’ve already got some friends out here, we’re making new friends and that’s what it’s all about." Do you see much of the other bands on the tour? "We got on really well with the Senses Fail guys on Warped Tour, so it’s fun hanging out with them. And the Underoath guys are a bunch of swell individuals, real friendly folks. Good God-fearing boys." So do you enjoy the whole 'bro-down' aspect of a group tour like this? "I think every tour is pretty much a bro-down, for the most-part. I’d like to think you come away from any tour with new friends or you bring your friends out on tour. You get to do your job and hang out with cool people. We tend to tour most often with bands that we love, and bands that are friends of ours." On a tour like this, with bands of varying degrees of success, do you ever have to contend with ego problems? | "I think I’d go insane. I’d probably become a Scientologist too - I mean, celebrities are crazy!" | | George on what it would be like to be super famous |
"If there are ego problems, I haven’t seen anything like that. Everybody seems pretty down to earth. A lot of the bands on this tour have been touring for over five years, and even the younger bands, all seem pretty happy with where they are. Medium sized bands like us, it’s tough to get big headed when you get off playing big shows like this, and head over to America where you could be playing to maybe 200 kids in Georgia. It’s very humbling sometimes." From playing venues like The Roadhouse, how do you translate the intensity and involvement to places like The Apollo? "It’s difficult. This is the size of shows we play in Canada, and you get used to it, but you gotta turn it up a bit, y’know? You don’t get that personal feel like you do at a small venue. You just gotta give a little extra. "I think we talk to the crowd like we would talk to our friends, there’s no real rock posturing or anything, no ‘HELLO, HOW IS EVERYBODY DOING TONIGHT?!’ We just crack wise, and I think kids respond to that more, it’s a change of pace. There are a lot of bands that have a set type of things that they say onstage. And there are no scripts with Alexisonfire. Well, with the exception of our setlist!" Are you happy with how your new record has been received?
 | | George Pettit of Alexisonfire |
"Well, it’s almost sold double the amount Watch Out! sold here so people seem to be really excited about it. The media over here has been really nice to us by giving us good reviews and stuff. England has definitely been a place we’ve been well received and it seems the more we come back, the bigger the shows get, more kids start coming out. I think Crisis has really got the ball rolling. The songs are great to play live, kids sing along, so it’s fun." You enjoy quite a lot of success back home... "Yeah, we do really well in Canada. The week our record came out, we were number one on the charts, which was crazy. We were a basement band five years ago, playing people’s living rooms, and it’s weird, but it’s cool, it definitely makes things interesting. It can be a little strange, like I’ll be in a restaurant back home, and people will recognise me, and that ‘celebrity’ is a weird side effect of the success." It must be a nice situation to have that fame in one place, but to be able to go relatively unrecognised elsewhere? "Yeah, I kinda like that. We have a small celebrity thing in Canada, where maybe a kid will come up to you in a mall and ask for an autograph, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to be Tom Cruise, and be so internationally recognised. I think I’d go insane. I’d probably become a Scientologist too - I mean, celebrities are crazy!" |
