Life and times of Dallas Good

The full Hearts on Fire interview from May 2021

Today: an interview from the Hearts on Fire archive. It’s with Dallas Good of the Sadies, from May 2021. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack, at age 48, in February 2022. For all I know, this may have been one of the last interviews he did. Most likely one of the last he did to cover his entire career.

As they have every New Year’s Eve for more than 20 years (plague notwithstanding), the Sadies—joined by Jon Langford and Sally Timms of the Mekons—will be playing the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto (and December 30 as well). It will be their first time doing so without Dallas. The Sadies’ new album, Colder Streams, was already finished and scheduled for release when Dallas passed. It was rightfully hailed as one of their best yet (I wrote about it here; Dallas wrote the best press release in history here). They decided to carry on without him.

On the one hand, a shocking decision: the vocal and guitar interplay between Dallas and his brother Travis is the foundation of the Sadies’ sound, and now one half would be missing. On the other hand: the Sadies are lifers. This is what they do. They had watched their friend and collaborator Gord Downie carry on in the face of a terminal disease after finishing a new album. The Sadies would do the same—for now. Right before the July tour, drummer Mike Belitsky broke his wrist and required surgery. He was advised not to tour. But the band did play one gig on Travis’s farm, for friends and family, and filmed by Ron Mann for a new short film that has just been released. It’s in full here:

At the time, they thought that might be their final gig. But after Belitsky recovered, they did a full tour to support Colder Streams. I saw them at Lee’s Palace in October. It was emotional and ultimately triumphant— but also undeniably strange. Now they’re playing the Horseshoe’s New Year’s Eve, with some Mekons lending hands. After that: who knows?

When I first reached out to Dallas to talk for Hearts on Fire, he was reluctant—which surprised me. This is part of his email from March 11, 2020:

“I'm definitely not NOT interested, but I've vowed to stop being a talking head or, in this case, someone who was also there. I can't stress enough how much I appreciate being asked. If there is anything you wanna talk about specifically towards the end of your process, I'd be happy to babble a bit but I always end up hating what I contribute. Please don't mistake my reluctance for ambivalence. Best of luck, Dallas” 

That threw me off, even though as a refusal it was as humble and friendly as possible. The Sadies were one of the most important bands of the era I was writing about, and they had to be in the book. But, as one does with a project of this scope, I moved on to other pursuits before circling back. After 14 months of interviewing almost everyone else I wanted to, I reached out again in May 2021. This time he agreed to talk: “I played on at least 12 records in those five years. A couple of them had to be good. X”

This is the full transcript of our conversation. I suspect it will appeal only to hardcore Sadies fans and historians—but I also suspect there’s more than a few of both who subscribe to this newsletter. It’s also for anyone who ever spent time at 624 Queen Street West.