Chris Carrabba - Dashboard Confessional (13/02/2012)
In the lead up to Soundwave, we caught up with Chris Carrabba, frontman for Dashboard Confessional, to discuss his views on the perils of social media, keeping a sense of mystery and the adventurous side to being on your own.
You’re the driving force behind Dashboard Confessional; would you consider the band part of a solo project or more of a group effort?
It began as a solo project; it became more of a band as years went by. I met players in my travels and it took on more of a band dynamic, but as it began it was a solo project and I think the heart of it stayed that way even though presentation of it didn’t stay that way. I’ve examined it a lot recently and realised how important it is to do shows without the protective armour of a band, it’s kind of liberating to go out there by yourself and either fly or fall on your own.
So what’s the process like when it comes to writing / recording material now?
It’s a pretty varied process, I guess there’s multiple processes, sometimes songs come out of nowhere and sometimes you’ve got to hack away at them. But for the most part I feel like song writing continues to kind of just be a mystery for me, it just kind of pops out of thin air. I work at it all the time but it doesn’t bear fruit all the time and then out of nowhere I’ll have three or four songs kind of just spring up out of nowhere.
The recording process is not much more than that, I have my own studio that I’ve built and it’s a small little workspace but it does me just fine. So as I have a new song I just record it and sometimes I record all the instruments or sometimes I include my band mates if they’re here. But to be honest with you nobody lives around here, there are four guys in the band and we live in four different states.
Wow that must make it pretty difficult!
It does, it does, so I’ve learned to make do and get by and all that on my own.
The band’s music has been categorised across quite a few different genres, how would you best describe the type of music you produce?
I don’t really know how to describe it well, it hasn’t seemed much different and it’s hard, it just feels the same as a singer and songwriter as it feels to me. But we’ve taken great liberties I think in how we arranged the songs and present the songs. I guess I would categorise us as a rockish sound? Yeah I wouldn’t know how to do that.
The ten year anniversary of your first album ‘Swiss Army Romance’ was celebrated a couple of years ago, how do you think your sound and general outlook on life has changed since then?
Well as my life has changed, I think my outlook on life has changed. But you know what that record was, was a snapshot in a truer sense of where I was in a couple of months, over ten years ago. It’s where I was for a minute and I guess that always changes, it’s reflective of how you live your life, song writing, and your life is constantly changing it changes who you are. So I think your outlook on life, is the same as your outlook on songs and song writing is sort of ever changing.
I mean I sound like me, maybe my voice has changed over the years I give you that. I mean I was pretty damn young when I did that stuff so yeah things change but I think I’m still connected to the heart of that stuff. It’s interesting you grow as an artist but when your career is to go out and perform those songs; you got to sing your whole catalogue night in and night out even as you’re going forward you’re constantly reflecting on what you’ve done before because it’s what people bought a ticket to see tonight. It’s always with you, where you’ve been is always with you.
A limited edition split collaboration with New Found Glory was released titled ‘Swiss Army Bro-Mance’ to coincide with the anniversary. What was it like collaborating with those guys and how did the idea for that come about?
Those guys are probably my oldest friends in music, we’re all from the same area, we all started being in a band together. All those years ago I played in New Found Glory as a fill in guitar player a long, long time ago. They’ve accompanied me on shows. We continue to be close friends, so when I was talking to Chad, we were talking about how excited we were about the tour. Like a long time ago they had talked about covering, I think it was ‘Saints and Sailors’ they talked about it so long ago, like right when that song came out.
I found that like kind of an exciting take, I would have been excited to hear it and he brought it up again when we were talking about the tour like you know maybe we should just do it and I said that would be a great idea and I knew the New Found Glory songs because as I said, I played guitar for them as a fill in so for me it was like yeah I’ll give you my go ahead with this.
So yeah I don’t know what led to the idea, the idea took a long time, but I love it and I love the artwork and it was really fun to have that experience with my buddies.
You’re on the line-up for Soundwave, is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing?
I’m kind of excited about everybody, Bush is playing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them. It was a long time ago since they were playing shows. I’m excited about the side wave shows and stage I’m sharing with Reliant K. I mean the best part about festivals is that there will be bands that I’ll be excited about seeing and then inevitably when I went to each festival, the band I was thinking about or talking about most when I get home, it’s somebody I didn’t even think I’d wanna watch when I went on the tour. I’m always excited about that little bit of mystery. And my opinion turned around on some bands that I never gave a chance because I didn’t think, you know, just never got across my desk or whatever.
What kind of experience would you like the Soundwave audience to take away from your set at the festival?
Oh that’s a good question! When I go up on stage I carry with me a celebratory spirit, some of my songs are I think may be perceived by people that don’t really know anything about the music I make to be sad and dour, and you know maybe that’s fair. But the truth is they’re meant for people who don’t want to feel that way. They’re liberating from that kind of feeling, it liberates you or at least it liberates me from that kind of feeling. So, elation is my aim!
I’ll make sure I look out for that when I’m there!
[Laughs]
So it’s been a while since you’ve been back to Australia, are you looking forward to coming back?
I’m really looking forward to it for a number of reasons, probably chief among them is the fact is that it’s occurred to me, that everywhere else in the world that I’ve gone to I went to by myself before I went there with the band, which is a totally different experience on stage but also in the way you travel to that place, because when you’re travelling with your band and your crew, it’s you and twenty other guys.
It’s very easy to isolate yourself from everything beyond the architecture of the place that you’re visiting and whenever I go to any place by myself obviously I’m eager for, an open to, and available to new adventure in the way that I’m not when I’m travelling with so many of my established life long friends.
So I get a pure spirit of adventure when I do that, I garnish one anyway, I’m looking forward to that.
You’ve recently completed some tour dates in California including a gig for non-profit organisation TWLOHA (To Write Love on Her Arms), what was that experience like?
Well the benefit show, it preceded those other shows by a couple of weeks, it was an event I’d been looking forward to for a lot of reasons, I believe a lot in that organisation and the fact that there were an incredible poet that I was a fan of that was part of the speaking engagement section of that show. I’m a big fan of William Fitzsimmons and David Bezan and Noah Gunderson, all the Yaks that joined in so it was a fun night, to be frank it was more like a party. That was the kind of experience it was for me.
But the shows on the West Coast, that one was on the East Coast down in Florida, were completely extraordinary to put it bluntly, the audiences were incredible. I’ve taken in the last two years to forgoing the set list so there’s this air of mystery about how the night’s going to evolve, just some staples you can always count on. I have a song that I rarely play that I have my own reasons for rarely playing, and when I do play it, it’s pretty much be the last song that I’ll play because it cooks me man I’m done, at that point there’s no more throat left to sing with, and somebody called it out on song two and sure enough I played it. I knew from that set, that moment on, that these shows were going to be special, you know it was anything goes kind of run. I hope to carry that through, especially at the side wave shows.
It seems you’ve gotten onto the Twitter band wagon
Well I did and then I think I’ve taken a leave of absence
So do you think social media has changed your connection with your fans?
Obviously you get the more personal aspect from it, access to certainly more people. Basically why I pulled back from doing it was I realised that I wasn’t really going after shows out to the bar to actually meet these folks or to talk to them, because I feel like I talk to them all the time. I felt like Twitter actually became the line of division between my actual interactions, the social part of social media. The actual socialising is robbed once you add that word media to it, so I like to do Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff but I realised that I was relying on that as my only means of connecting with the audience who was literally in the same building as I was after a show. I realised in the old days maybe I had just walked down the stairs and now I’m sitting in a room on my phone engaging with those same people who are thirty five feet away from me. I decided to give up twitter, not like a hard line or I’ve given it up but I’ve realised that I’d better make sure that I’m actually engaged with these people not just on my phone.
It’s been a bit quiet on the album front with your sixth studio album ‘Alter the Ending’ being released in 2009, are there any projects in the works?
There’s always projects in the works, I’m gonna make a Further Seems Forever record, I’ve just made a covers album. These are lower key releases I suppose in the grand scheme of things especially that covers record. I’m always working on my next thing; I just stopped feeling like I had to rush it anymore.
So you can’t give me any details on any further tour plans or single releases, or anything like that?
Ah nah I can’t, I wish I could, if I had it done in my hands right now you’d be the first to know. I got myself in some trouble with giving myself goals that box me in, in a way that I feel like that I’m doing it for the wrong reasons you know. Trying to get a record out just because I love to tour so much, is not the right reason necessarily to get a record out.
Nazia Hafiz
You’re the driving force behind Dashboard Confessional; would you consider the band part of a solo project or more of a group effort?
It began as a solo project; it became more of a band as years went by. I met players in my travels and it took on more of a band dynamic, but as it began it was a solo project and I think the heart of it stayed that way even though presentation of it didn’t stay that way. I’ve examined it a lot recently and realised how important it is to do shows without the protective armour of a band, it’s kind of liberating to go out there by yourself and either fly or fall on your own.
So what’s the process like when it comes to writing / recording material now?
It’s a pretty varied process, I guess there’s multiple processes, sometimes songs come out of nowhere and sometimes you’ve got to hack away at them. But for the most part I feel like song writing continues to kind of just be a mystery for me, it just kind of pops out of thin air. I work at it all the time but it doesn’t bear fruit all the time and then out of nowhere I’ll have three or four songs kind of just spring up out of nowhere.
The recording process is not much more than that, I have my own studio that I’ve built and it’s a small little workspace but it does me just fine. So as I have a new song I just record it and sometimes I record all the instruments or sometimes I include my band mates if they’re here. But to be honest with you nobody lives around here, there are four guys in the band and we live in four different states.
Wow that must make it pretty difficult!
It does, it does, so I’ve learned to make do and get by and all that on my own.
The band’s music has been categorised across quite a few different genres, how would you best describe the type of music you produce?
I don’t really know how to describe it well, it hasn’t seemed much different and it’s hard, it just feels the same as a singer and songwriter as it feels to me. But we’ve taken great liberties I think in how we arranged the songs and present the songs. I guess I would categorise us as a rockish sound? Yeah I wouldn’t know how to do that.
The ten year anniversary of your first album ‘Swiss Army Romance’ was celebrated a couple of years ago, how do you think your sound and general outlook on life has changed since then?
Well as my life has changed, I think my outlook on life has changed. But you know what that record was, was a snapshot in a truer sense of where I was in a couple of months, over ten years ago. It’s where I was for a minute and I guess that always changes, it’s reflective of how you live your life, song writing, and your life is constantly changing it changes who you are. So I think your outlook on life, is the same as your outlook on songs and song writing is sort of ever changing.
I mean I sound like me, maybe my voice has changed over the years I give you that. I mean I was pretty damn young when I did that stuff so yeah things change but I think I’m still connected to the heart of that stuff. It’s interesting you grow as an artist but when your career is to go out and perform those songs; you got to sing your whole catalogue night in and night out even as you’re going forward you’re constantly reflecting on what you’ve done before because it’s what people bought a ticket to see tonight. It’s always with you, where you’ve been is always with you.
A limited edition split collaboration with New Found Glory was released titled ‘Swiss Army Bro-Mance’ to coincide with the anniversary. What was it like collaborating with those guys and how did the idea for that come about?
Those guys are probably my oldest friends in music, we’re all from the same area, we all started being in a band together. All those years ago I played in New Found Glory as a fill in guitar player a long, long time ago. They’ve accompanied me on shows. We continue to be close friends, so when I was talking to Chad, we were talking about how excited we were about the tour. Like a long time ago they had talked about covering, I think it was ‘Saints and Sailors’ they talked about it so long ago, like right when that song came out.
I found that like kind of an exciting take, I would have been excited to hear it and he brought it up again when we were talking about the tour like you know maybe we should just do it and I said that would be a great idea and I knew the New Found Glory songs because as I said, I played guitar for them as a fill in so for me it was like yeah I’ll give you my go ahead with this.
So yeah I don’t know what led to the idea, the idea took a long time, but I love it and I love the artwork and it was really fun to have that experience with my buddies.
You’re on the line-up for Soundwave, is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing?
I’m kind of excited about everybody, Bush is playing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them. It was a long time ago since they were playing shows. I’m excited about the side wave shows and stage I’m sharing with Reliant K. I mean the best part about festivals is that there will be bands that I’ll be excited about seeing and then inevitably when I went to each festival, the band I was thinking about or talking about most when I get home, it’s somebody I didn’t even think I’d wanna watch when I went on the tour. I’m always excited about that little bit of mystery. And my opinion turned around on some bands that I never gave a chance because I didn’t think, you know, just never got across my desk or whatever.
What kind of experience would you like the Soundwave audience to take away from your set at the festival?
Oh that’s a good question! When I go up on stage I carry with me a celebratory spirit, some of my songs are I think may be perceived by people that don’t really know anything about the music I make to be sad and dour, and you know maybe that’s fair. But the truth is they’re meant for people who don’t want to feel that way. They’re liberating from that kind of feeling, it liberates you or at least it liberates me from that kind of feeling. So, elation is my aim!
I’ll make sure I look out for that when I’m there!
[Laughs]
So it’s been a while since you’ve been back to Australia, are you looking forward to coming back?
I’m really looking forward to it for a number of reasons, probably chief among them is the fact is that it’s occurred to me, that everywhere else in the world that I’ve gone to I went to by myself before I went there with the band, which is a totally different experience on stage but also in the way you travel to that place, because when you’re travelling with your band and your crew, it’s you and twenty other guys.
It’s very easy to isolate yourself from everything beyond the architecture of the place that you’re visiting and whenever I go to any place by myself obviously I’m eager for, an open to, and available to new adventure in the way that I’m not when I’m travelling with so many of my established life long friends.
So I get a pure spirit of adventure when I do that, I garnish one anyway, I’m looking forward to that.
You’ve recently completed some tour dates in California including a gig for non-profit organisation TWLOHA (To Write Love on Her Arms), what was that experience like?
Well the benefit show, it preceded those other shows by a couple of weeks, it was an event I’d been looking forward to for a lot of reasons, I believe a lot in that organisation and the fact that there were an incredible poet that I was a fan of that was part of the speaking engagement section of that show. I’m a big fan of William Fitzsimmons and David Bezan and Noah Gunderson, all the Yaks that joined in so it was a fun night, to be frank it was more like a party. That was the kind of experience it was for me.
But the shows on the West Coast, that one was on the East Coast down in Florida, were completely extraordinary to put it bluntly, the audiences were incredible. I’ve taken in the last two years to forgoing the set list so there’s this air of mystery about how the night’s going to evolve, just some staples you can always count on. I have a song that I rarely play that I have my own reasons for rarely playing, and when I do play it, it’s pretty much be the last song that I’ll play because it cooks me man I’m done, at that point there’s no more throat left to sing with, and somebody called it out on song two and sure enough I played it. I knew from that set, that moment on, that these shows were going to be special, you know it was anything goes kind of run. I hope to carry that through, especially at the side wave shows.
It seems you’ve gotten onto the Twitter band wagon
Well I did and then I think I’ve taken a leave of absence
So do you think social media has changed your connection with your fans?
Obviously you get the more personal aspect from it, access to certainly more people. Basically why I pulled back from doing it was I realised that I wasn’t really going after shows out to the bar to actually meet these folks or to talk to them, because I feel like I talk to them all the time. I felt like Twitter actually became the line of division between my actual interactions, the social part of social media. The actual socialising is robbed once you add that word media to it, so I like to do Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff but I realised that I was relying on that as my only means of connecting with the audience who was literally in the same building as I was after a show. I realised in the old days maybe I had just walked down the stairs and now I’m sitting in a room on my phone engaging with those same people who are thirty five feet away from me. I decided to give up twitter, not like a hard line or I’ve given it up but I’ve realised that I’d better make sure that I’m actually engaged with these people not just on my phone.
It’s been a bit quiet on the album front with your sixth studio album ‘Alter the Ending’ being released in 2009, are there any projects in the works?
There’s always projects in the works, I’m gonna make a Further Seems Forever record, I’ve just made a covers album. These are lower key releases I suppose in the grand scheme of things especially that covers record. I’m always working on my next thing; I just stopped feeling like I had to rush it anymore.
So you can’t give me any details on any further tour plans or single releases, or anything like that?
Ah nah I can’t, I wish I could, if I had it done in my hands right now you’d be the first to know. I got myself in some trouble with giving myself goals that box me in, in a way that I feel like that I’m doing it for the wrong reasons you know. Trying to get a record out just because I love to tour so much, is not the right reason necessarily to get a record out.
Nazia Hafiz