Artist News

Alexisonfire guitarist becomes new Gallows frontman

By | Published on Wednesday 10 August 2011

Wade MacNeil

In a statement published earlier this week announcing their split, Alexisonfire frontman George Pettit said that part of the reason they had decided to call it as day was because lead guitarist Wade MacNeil had quit to join another band. Who could that band be, we all wondered? Well, it’s time to check your sweepstakes, because MacNeil has now revealed that he is to be the new frontman of Gallows, replacing Frank Carter, who left earlier this year.

Speaking to Alternative Press, MacNeil said: “After the boys decided they were going to keep going, my name kind of popped up, and they all thought it made sense. It didn’t overcomplicate itself.  I talked to Steph [Carter, guitarist], and I said I was definitely interested. He pretty much said: ‘Okay, let’s do it’, and I got on a plane and we’re writing right now. Everything’s happened within the last couple weeks”.

On the subject of new material, he said: “I flew over here and got here in the morning two days ago. I didn’t sleep on the flight; I was listening to the first two Gallows records and writing lyrics, trying to get the right headspace for it. We showed up, and I wasn’t really sure what the guys wanted to do, if they wanted to run the old stuff. I said: ‘Let’s just jump into some new stuff’, and they played me some tracks. We arranged stuff a little differently, and I told them some ideas where I wanted to go with stuff. The first day, we wrote something that I think is the most brutal thing the band has ever written. It’s just the harshest, heaviest song that’s, like, 35 seconds long. I think that’s going to be the first thing the band puts out”.

Meanwhile, Alexisonfire’s other guitarist, Dallas Green, who was the first to announce his departure from that band, has told Spinner why he decided to leave and concentrate on his other outfit City And Colour instead. He said: “They didn’t want me to leave the band. They said: ‘Why can’t you just keep doing what we’re doing, go back and forth?’ Well, that’s why I’m leaving, because it’s killing me. As much as they saw me always on tour and always putting records out back to back to back, I don’t think they really understood that I was literally never home. I’ve had nervous breakdowns. I was in the hospital with pneumonia. I’ve lain in the bus crying uncontrollably at night … It just got to a point when I had to make a decision. But after ten years, part of my heart is there [with Alexisonfire], but most of my heart is with this [City And Colour]”.



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