In August 2010, the band Alexisonfire broke up. In a letter posted on the band’s website singer George Petit wrote that the breakup was "not amicable" and that he, Dallas Green, Chris Steele, Jordan Hastings and Wade MacNeil were going their separate ways. Green left to focus on City and Colour, while MacNeil departed to join UK punk band Gallows.

"Dallas had told us he was leaving and we set out with the idea of getting a new singer. As you play music and get older, life has a way of catching up. You can always put things on hold and go on tour, it gets harder to do the older you get. It seemed like Alexis was getting farther and farther away from all of us. It had been about a year since we had done anything, I was feeling like we weren’t moving forward. As much as it had been my entire life until that point it felt like it had come to a close," MacNeil recalled.

"Around that time I got asked to join Gallows. It was odd, they didn’t know what was going on with Alexis, I was starting to tour with Black Lungs full time. (Gallows) guitar player Steph Carter called me up and told me their singer had quit and asked if I wanted to replace him. I felt it was something I would be sorry if I didn’t do. Timing wise it was strange to get that call, but it made sense. I was on a flight a week later. Within a few weeks of me joining we recorded an EP and then toured across the states for six or seven weeks and did some shows in the UK. It has been really go go go since I joined, and I think that is what has worked about it so far."

MacNeil spoke with GayCalgary backstage prior to a recent Gallows show in Calgary about his experiences in the UK band as well as the upcoming Alexisonfire farewell tour. MacNeil, Laurent Barnard, Steph Carter, Stuart Gilli-Ross and Lee Barratt took the stage at the Republik with a high energy, in your face set of punk music. Fronting Gallows is a very different experience from Alexisonfire and his side project The Black Lungs.

"I’ve always sang in the projects I have done but never without a guitar, so I guess that is the immediate thing. That in itself allows you to sing a little bit differently. It makes the most sense for a band like this for any punk or hardcore stuff to have a singer that just sings. It has been cool and I have grown a lot as a musician doing it, but also regressed a little bit from doing it as well because of the music we’re playing. I love it. It has been cool to tour with Gallows and really interesting. I’ve spent so much time in the UK so it has been really cool and eye opening experience for them to see where I am from."

Constantly working is nothing new to MacNeil who has always kept busy with various projects. After wrapping up the Gallows tour he is reuniting with his former band mates for a farewell tour. In the month of December the band will play 15 dates in Brazil, Australia, The UK and Canada. The insane schedule brings the band to the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton December 19th and the BMO Centre December 20th.

"At first we were thinking, let’s just do a final show in Toronto. Then we thought of doing a couple of final Toronto shows. What opened it up was the Sao Paulo show, we were like, well we should go because we’d never had the chance to play there. When we agreed to do that it was on – how many days could we play this month – and we filled every one of them. We are going to every one of my favourite places we have ever played. Canada has been so supportive of our music and allowed us to be a band and with the support of everyone here to go and play in the States and Australia and the UK and build it up over there because we had such a loyal fan base here. It is everywhere I would want to be going."

Unfortunately many cities won’t have the chance to say farewell to the band, but MacNeil explained the reasoning why such specific dates and locations were chosen.

"The band isn’t getting back together. I am glad we can do these final shows for our sake and our fans sake. That is really exciting, but it’s not a world tour because we are not a band anymore. It will be nice to close things off properly. We aren’t getting back together so we aren’t going to play in Pittsburgh or Regina, even though I am sure those shows would be cool."

Just a few days after MacNeil returned home it was off to London for the first shows December 2nd and 3rd. Time heals wounds and MacNeil is confident that things will go smoothly.

"I fly home and we have 2 days to rehearse. We played those songs for 10 years so it should come back really quick. Dallas, Jordan and Chris got together but George and I weren’t around. We haven’t rehearsed in 2 years so it will be funny when we get together in that room for the first time. Steel and George were at the Gallows show in Hamilton, City and Colour and Gallows played in Phoenix the same day and I went and saw them. We’ve seen each other and hung out. Putting a bit of distance and time between the breakup, it made sense. I always wanted to do it but I wasn’t sure where everyone’s heads were at.  There are a few things that happened to each of us that put the band in perspective, these really cool moments we had with fans. Dallas met some guy in Australia who told him how much the band changed his life. I was in Thailand and walked past this kid wearing an Alexisonfire shirt and I started talking to him about the band. Everyone started emailing each other about these little things that had been happening like that. We wrote two records in my mom’s basement and another two in this terrible insulation factory in St. Catherines. The fact that those songs mean so much to somebody in Southeast Asia and touched people’s lives all around the world, I felt like the band deserved to go out with a bang, and I am glad we can."

When the band broke up there was immediate anger from fans, many of whom hurled insults at the band as well as Green for the breakup. Some of these same fans are angry that the tour isn’t coming to their city. MacNeil is amazed at the passion both positive and negative that the band has elicited.

"When you have a career like this, the passion is something that comes along with it. It is very strange. People relate to a band because they love it and relate to it and it hurts when bands break up. I just try and look at it in a positive way that it is cool this band meant so much to everybody. They don’t really need to tell us to fuck off to show that, but that is how I look at it."

A question that always comes up when any band splits is if they will get back together. For Alexisonfire this is truly the end. They plan to go out with a bang.

"We were never a band with pyro or anything like that. What we are going to do is really try and play a set that spans our whole career and dust some off we never had a chance to play. It will be really interesting and cool that we can have it as a celebration of the band. If we had known we were calling it a day on our last Canadian tour I think it would have been under really negative circumstances and none of us would have enjoyed it. It is something we all look back on really fondly, and I want to end it on a positive note. It will be good for our fans to do it in the same way."