Dashboard Confessions: Chris Carrabba's Songwriting Inspirations

Few recent singer-songwriters have injected their audiences with as much fervor for the song as Chris Carrabba. His troubadour revues under the stage name Dashboard

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Confessional are showcases of youthful longing come lyrically alive. To watch 2500 of his fans sing along to every tune at the top of their lungs is to behold a catharsis seemingly unmatched in alternative pop-rock circles since the mid-'80s heyday of the Smiths. VH1 caught up with Carrabba and asked him a couple key questions.

VH1: How old you were when you started writing songs and what were some of your early inspirations?

Chris Carrabba: I began writing at about age 15, because that's when I was given a guitar, but I noodled with melody all the time. That's the one gimme I got: I had to work hard to become a good player and singer, but hearing melody and harmony has come pretty easily to me; it's something I'm really interested in other songwriters, that added thing that draws me into a song, really deeply. When I start to take pieces apart, I realize that the part that grabbed me was this strange harmony.

VH1: What's a good example of that early in your life?

Carrabba: The Beach Boys . One summer my mother got All Summer Long on cassette and put it in the car, and I flipped out. I was like, "This is incredible," and it was the only thing I'd listen to because it was so saturated with these melodies and harmonies. She recognized right away that I was responding to the music, so she [bought] more of those Beach Boys records. I also got really lucky that no one handed me Pet Sounds, that I kind of stumbled on it one day when I was about 13. It could have been just as easy for my mom to buy that one when she bought the others, but she probably thought that the cover looked not as fun as All Summer Long. So I have these experiences with the Beach Boys: [They were] kind of gifted to me, but then I also stumbled onto [them] and it was a revelation. What inspired me [in Pet Sounds] was the bittersweet nature of these songs. The way they were lush, so clearly orchestral, and they were so joyous on the surface. But that was almost like an aftertaste. You can almost feel it in the back of your throat. Even before you started gathering like "Caroline, No," they felt like there might be something sad in there too. "God Only Knows" sounds really happy, but it's so sad, and I responded to that, digesting it -- like, "Wow, you can draw people in with one thing and keep them with another." I took that as a useful lesson for later in my life when I became a songwriter.

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VH1: What about the idea of being a central character and letting the songs be about an "I" as opposed to a "You." Where did that come from?

Carrabba: They say authors are every character in their own books. It was a conscious change when I changed "he" to "I" at one point, because I realized that I was reacting differently to it. At that point, I was discovering music like [Bob] Dylan and Townes Van Zandt; I wasn't hearing a lot of ["I"]. Then I started investigating Dylan a little more and found, like, Blood on the Tracks, where he's changed from the talking blues to a kind of confessional. (Which is funny, that I named the band Dashboard Confessional, having no idea that the term was relevant, but knowing Bob Dylan and many other confessional songwriters. I had just never heard that term. Someone wrote about me, that "in the spirit of confessional songwriters, he's named his band Dashboard Confessional." And I thought to myself, "What's a confessional songwriter? Oh, I am, and so was he and she for that matter.") So when I heard Blood on the Tracks, I realized that, [while Dylan] had been saying many jarring things previously and they were potent, they sunk a little deeper [this time]. Their teeth got a little bit more skin with me. It wasn't like I knew -- I was just like, "Oh, he's baring it for us." Maybe I'm a dullard or something, but I needed it to be more personal to him for it to be more personal to me. Maybe it was just as personal for him. I know that when I write songs as narratives versus as monologues, I believe it more. I'm still more drawn to somebody that tells me their own experience, and if it's fictitious, I'll fall for it. There's also a lot to be said for saying something beautifully but saying nothing at all. You can be regarded as a genius or a hack for that. You could also be regarded as a genius or a hack for being evidently personal. It's just opinion, I guess.

VH1: How often are you actively inspired by other songwriters?

Carrabba: I'm inspired all the time by songwriters, inspired to sit down and write. Not to write as they've written, but just lament that I didn't write that. There are times when I think, "I'll never be that good at that one thing that they're good at." But I'm pretty good at one thing that maybe they're not so great at.

VH1: Who has made you feel that way recently?

Carrabba: The Hold Steady. I don't think that there's anybody that weaves a story quite as well as [Hold Steady songwriter] Craig Finn does. There are people out there that I think are on the same sort of timeline as I am, like Conor Oberst [a.k.a. Bright Eyes]. I think he's a master of language in a way that I am not. He's clearly an educated poet, and I'm not educated in that. I'm feeling my way through it probably like most writers. I listen to a guy like Conor, and I think, "Well, that's really good and it's really beautiful music, but I won't feel envious; I'll feel inspired, entertained and intrigued." But when I hear the Hold Steady, I realize there's a guy that does the same thing that Bob Dylan did to me. It's almost like a blue-collar poet, like a throwback to the Beat Generation, and he's astounding. And then there are people that inspire me that keep inspiring me. Like, I'll never stop listening to Superchunk. There are a lot of bands that I started listening to as passionately as when I started listening to Superchunk, but for some reason, this one doesn't fade. I listen to every single record that [Superchunk frontman] Mac [McCaughan] makes and inflate it with optimism. I don't know why. Maybe I believe that his musical creation could change the world -- 'cause it changed mine. It's amazing that kind of thing can happen. It sounds so lofty, but on a singular level, it changed my world -- and not as a player, but as a person.