Asking Alexisonfire’s George Pettit for his top three touring stories was never going to be easy. After spending over 20 years in a band like Alexisonfire, the whole thing starts to blur together.
It’s a never-ending loop of van breakdowns, hangovers in strange cities, and half-remembered chaos. In preparation for their upcoming Australian tour in March, we asked the band to do some serious digging through the memory bank. Pettit has since managed to pull out a few exclusive stories just for you.
The Time No One Knew Alexisonfire Were Playing (2002)
Early 2000s DIY touring was exactly as grimy as you’d expect. Case in point: Alexisonfire’s second US run, when they rolled into Baton Rouge for a gig, only to find the venue locked up, the lights off, and no sign of life. Turns out, whoever booked the show just… forgot to tell the promoter. With no gig and no backup plan, they turned their sights on New Orleans.
Only Pettit and Dallas Green were old enough to drink, so they ditched the underagers at a sketchy motel and took off into the French Quarter. Broke and surviving on $10 a day, they couldn’t afford to actually do anything—until a couple leaving a strip club casually handed them their used cover receipt.
Inside, they found what can only be described as Cirque du Soleil: Horny Edition—a two-storey pole, dancers flipping between balconies, and the general kind of chaos you’d expect from Bourbon Street pre-Katrina. Pooling their last few crumpled singles, they scraped together enough for two beers, which they stretched for an unethical amount of time. Eventually, two college girls took pity on them and dragged them around town, covering their entry fees for the rest of the night.
Firefighter by Day, Rock Star by Night (2018)
Fast forward to 2018. I’ll set the scene. Pettit is at his family’s cottage in Northern Ontario, packing up to head home for his 24-hour shifts as a firefighter. The phone rings. It’s their booking agent, Rob Ziffarelli.
“What are the chances Alexis could play Festival d’été in Quebec Saturday night? Avenged Sevenfold pulled out, and they need a headliner.”
The answer? Zero. Pettit was working Friday and Sunday, and the festival was eight hours away.
Ziff called back. “OK, what if you leave work Saturday morning, go straight to the airport, fly to Quebec, play a giant rock show, wake up at 4 a.m., fly back, and get to work on time?”
Somehow, he agreed.
So, after pulling a full 24-hour shift fighting fires, he jumped on a plane, played a set in front of 70,000 people, got a few hours of sleep, then caught a 4 a.m. flight back—just in time to have breakfast with his firehouse crew.
A weekend that perfectly sums up his double life as an internationally touring musician and suburban firefighter. Other dads need to step it up.
Chasing a Bear on Psychedelics
For the final story, George had two options: something sentimental, like his kid losing a tooth in Melbourne Airport, or something unhinged. Obviously, he went with unhinged.
There’s not a lot of context here, but the gist of it is: a 500-pound black bear was loose in Whistler, and George—tripping his face off—thought it’d be a great idea to chase it. Why? Who knows. But if you’ve ever wondered what playing in a band for two decades does to a person’s common sense, there’s your answer.
At the end of the day, asking for just three stories is pointless. 20 years in, everything starts to blur together. “Did that happen in Antwerp or Prague?” he wrote to me in an email with simply no clue.
If you want to catch some of this chaos live, Alexisonfire are touring Australia in March. They will be performing in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Tickets can be purchased here.
