Dashboard Confessional - Chris Carrabba

Interview with Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional in December of 2006.rnrn

How has your current tour with Brand New been going?rn

CHRIS CARRABBA: It’s been really fun for us; thank you. It’s been really great. The response to the new material has been great, and everyone seems to be digging it really well. You’d have to judge for yourself on how well the new stuff goes live, but I think it’s been going very well. We’re very pleased. They’ve been really flipping out.

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What brought about you choosing Brand New for this tour?rn

Well, we’re really good friends with the guys in Brand New. This is our third tour together so it fit well. Our connection together through this tour has been great.

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You guys are filming a PBS special on Friday from what I hear? How did that come about?rn

Yes, we are recording a special at Madison Square Garden on Friday for PBS. They do a concert series and approached us about performing for it. Keep an eye out for that.

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Have you been writing a lot while you’ve been on the road?rn

I think I’m pretty far into the writing process for a new album, but it’s hard to tell. Sometimes I take a left turn and have to start all over again. It’s reminiscent of some of my earlier work that fans have seen come out in the past with more acoustic material. I think you get interested in something and do it a lot, but then you kind-of wear it out and can’t relate to it as much. After you move away from it for a while, the idea of it comes back and becomes creative again for you. That’s how it’s been for me lately.

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Have you gotten to the point where you have been able to preview tracks to other people or at a few shows?rn

Well, I’m not keeping anything hidden. I’m not very good at keeping things under wrap. I haven’t finished anything to the point where I feel things are done yet. I’ve played tracks for a few friends and stuff though. I wait until I get a little electrical charge that lets me know when a song is feeling finished and right. I’m pretty close to that with most of these new songs. I’m going to wait for it though before I play it to crowds.

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Have you been demoing them out on a smaller recorder on the bus?rn

Sometimes I record them into a digifone, and that would be the only time I record it before I go into the studio. Other times, I record it in my apartment. I’ll record all the elements of the songs in complete fruition. I try to not let anything sound sonically too good because I don’t want to bury myself into a certain recording I have. If the demo is really good, then you don’t have the freedom to change it when you are in studio because you are like, “Well it sounds so good!”

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What brought about your storyline for the video Stolen that just recently came out?rn

The director I worked with wrote out the storyline and such. I usually write the stuff for my videos, but for a song like Stolen, it is a narrative so I only know how to express it by having what I’m telling in the video. I thought I would work with a director so I wouldn’t get that feel on the video. You’d have to ask him personally about where he got the idea for the storyline though. I really think the video looks beautiful though.

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How does it feel when you watch a movie like Spiderman II, and you hear your song being played in the background?rn

This probably will keep me from sounding cool, but that experience is one of the flip-out I-love-it moments for me. I really do love it when I hear my stuff in movies. That was a really big goal of mine when I first started learning and playing guitar. I wanted to write songs for movies. When they pick my songs for TV shows or movies, I really do get a kick out of it. I would love to do that maybe as a career when this is all done.

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In 2005 you got a chance to reunite with your old band Further Seems Forever for one show. How was it reminiscing in the past and playing old songs from those days?rn

I thought it was great, man. Really great. First of all, it was great to play with the guys again. Secondly, it was great to play in front of those people again. When a band breaks up or members change, there’s always that speculation on what really happened in the band. It was funny because we’d be like having barbeques and laughing about how everyone talks on the internet about how we hate each other. Here we are in Josh’s back yard or something. *laugh* It was nice to stand up there and feel relief from that legacy. Life goes on, and we really enjoyed the music. I still love the music. We actually still play together all the time, just not in front of a crowd any more.

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How have the past six years since the release of The Swiss Army Romance changed your life?rn

I think I have become very appreciated about how really lucky I am. Let’s be honest. This is the culture we live in and the kind of things we are involved in. How long do you think a band can last? We’ve been very fortunate to last this long, and I hope we get the chance to last even longer. In these six years, I feel like I have a lot more than most people do because I want to grasp every opportunity and create every memory I can. It’s been tireless.

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Down the road, how would you like Dashboard Confessional to be remembered as by the people who look back?rn

Well, I hope we are remembered for at least being genuine in our writing. I hope we’re remembered for being musical, because we are all pretty musical guys as a band. I can only hope, but I think we’ll be remembered as generous performers because we really don’t hold back. We give everything we can in our live performances.

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What’s the most meaningful thing you’ve ever been told by a fan?rn

There are many things that people have told me that make me able to tell our music has very great meaning to them. That’s really something that I take to heart. Some people have even gone as far to say that they were in a bad place at the time and that our music saved their lives. Although I think that maybe that’s a little too much credit given to us, I think that is the most incredible compliment that you can paid with. And also, Eddie Vedder told me to lose my voice, which is always cool.