City + Colours?

Canadian musician takes collaboration to vibrant new heights

By Sharon Miki, Humour Editor

Bored and totally lonely after spending years as a one-man frontman for his beloved Canadian wistful-rock solo band, City + Colour, singer Memphis Green has come forth with a series of new musical collaborations that can only be described as—quite literally—very, very colourful.

“So my main band, City + Colour, is a play on my name: I’m actually a city and I’m also a colour. While I love City + Colour and think it’s super clever, I wanted to imagine ways that I could maybe not be alone all the time while still having a really cool and deep band name—so I started thinking about Bob Ross painting mountains and the answer just came to me: shading,” said Green.

Green’s first collaboration with singer P?nk is already released, and their joint album is, quite appropriately, called Rose Ave.

“P?nk was the first to approach me, and even though our musical styles vary widely, I was really attracted to the fact that her stage name was a colour. Kismet,” explained Green.

Going forward, Green has plans to approach a number of other colour-themed bands for new, artistic projects.

“I’m really courting Jack and Meg,” said Green, “because if they could get back together, and then I could join them, we could totally be Light Green. Or, you know, maybe Mint? The guys from Green Day are always looking to do something out of the paint box too, so I’ve approached them about a Broadway collab tentatively titled, Really Dark Green. Then there’s also the other side of things; I could go mainstream and work with Adam from Maroon 5. In that case, I think we’d have to for sure go with a Christmas jazz album, something like Christmas Colours would be cool.”

In the end, it seems that Green isn’t all too picky about who he works with, so long as there’s a colourful angle to the project.

“Hell, I’d even work with the Black Eyed Peas. That’s how much I want to make friends and mix colours.”