It’s freezing cold outside Nottingham’s Rock City but that doesn’t stop the excitement from fans waiting patiently outside to see the Canadian rock spectacle that is Alexis On Fire.

Everyone is quite rightly excited to see them but there’s no anxiety. The band have gained a highly credible rating via the fans for their live performances so the expectations are high for the punk fuelled rock fest ahead.

Amid all the hype, in the hub of Rock City that is the dressing room, Bandidge sneaked in a chat with the guys to talk about playing live, directions for new material and oddly, dating Pete Doherty…

You’re near the end of the tour over here, how has it been and how’s Nottingham treating you?
Dallas Green (Vocals/Guitar/Piano): “More excited right now, Nottingham was our favourite venue on the Taste of Chaos tour. Now we’re back.”
Wade MacNeil (Guitar/Vocals): “I think it’s a cool club, everyone that works here is a Hell’s Angel and that makes me happy! We like the bikers!”

So do you have a favourite place to play in the UK?
Dallas: “Here’s the thing. When people ask us we say always say Canada.”
George Pettit (Vocals): “So it’s pretty much anywhere.”
Wade: “We play Scotland a lot. They go crazy. And Glasgow, that was one of the rockiest craziest nights ever on tour!”
Dallas: “We played at Leeds the Cockpit and that was pretty cool, probably my favourite England show.”

Fans of yours rave about the live shows and the experience you offer. How do you think your gigs define Alexis?
Dallas: “On my behalf, I love playing live music, like I have a lot of fun.”
Wade: “Yeah we have a lot of fun. We want to do what the fans like rather than being up there going through the motions. It bothers us to see a band we like just, well you know, that bothers me.”
Dallas: “The live element has always been an important part of music and being a fan. Live elements divide listeners from the music.”

You’ve got three albums under your belt now. What songs make it onto the live set? Is there any you prefer?
Dallas: “Its not like we have songs we prefer, more like we have songs we will never play and they don’t go into the set.”
Wade: “Songs we play a lot we change around, for instance we got an email from a fan who was desperate to hear Girls Pointing and Laughing so we’re doing it. It’s like the second song we ever wrote but we play it different.”
Dallas: “Some songs we write just don’t feel right live for some reason, you can’t get into it or it just doesn’t make sense. With the last album though, Crisis, we play pretty much everything live.”

Having Platinum albums in your home country must feel like a real achievement. Does this mean people delve into your private lives?
Dallas: “We’re not that kind of band, like we’re from Canada!”
Wade: “There’s no big bolted quote like one I read earlier like, I’m not going to say “If it wasn’t for this I’d be dead or locked up in jail!”
Dallas: “None of us have had big addictions or left with depression. We play music. We write songs. We’re not American where fame is a lot more glamorous.”
Wade: “It was pretty crazy last year when I was dating Pete Doherty though. That was weird.” [Cue lots of laughing]

You guys have other bands aside from this; does it ever conflict or affect the group?
Dallas: “Jealousy!” [Cue even more laughing]
Wade: “Dallas is great dealing with his time, like he doesn’t sleep so he has the time to do both! He just does not sleep.”
George: “Everyone’s really supportive of anyone doing anything outside the band.”
Dallas: “Like I’ve never said I cant go on tour because I’ve booked a tour, our calendar gets booked for us and if we can do some other stuff we will. But we try and fit stuff around.”

I hear you will be writing after you finish touring. Where do you see yourselves going next with the music?
George: “To hell baby!”
Dallas: “We can’t really tell you how it’s going to sound. You know how all three records sound different but they sound like us? We won’t put a record out that sounds like the last. There’s bands that find a sound and stick with it. Some that don’t. We just kind of go in and see what comes out. That’s really it. So watch out for it.”

Their live performance says everything about them. There is so much dedication paid to what the fans are asking for in terms of both their aura on stage and the music they are playing. Rocking hard and playing classics from all three albums, Alexis screamed with the fans and showed some love for a blow up doll that was crowd surfing.

And if you were wondering if they played the song for the emailing fan, they did, making someone pretty happy!