It's been over 20 years since Chris Carrabba, frontman of Dashboard Confessional, became a poster boy for a then-burgeoning emo scene. It was a scene well suited to Dashboard's overwrought, highly emotional lyricism, something that resonated with his also-burgeoning fanbase. A lot has happened in that time. The scene came and went in, and with it a lot of the bands it supported.
Dashboard Confessional however always remained steadfast, growing and maturing alongside their audience; releasing a steady stream of albums across a 22 year career. The latest, and eighth of which, ‘All The Truth That I Can Tell’, is the reason we caught up with Carrabba for a chat.
It almost didn't happen however. Both the album, and our conversation.
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A hectic press and show schedule in the US saw our conversation arranged multiple times. Even the day we finally do catch up, Carrabba is scheduled to play both a show in LA, and appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Not bad support for a record that almost never existed.
Back in 2020, as the record was being mixed and mastered, Carrabba suffered a near fatal motorcycle accident almost put a stop to both the album, and any further music Dashboard could make. For a singer renowned for baring his soul, something as life-changing as a motorcycle accident must have had an impact on his work.
“I've never had this experience before, with any body of work,” Carrabba explains. “You know your interpretation of your songs. And then you will come to know how those songs have been interpreted over the years and that re-interpretation, or shared interpretation really informs how you feel about those songs. The shared version of the song becomes more definitive than your original.”
“Now this is the first time I've ever had records be imbued with additional meaning, that's a really unique experience. And what I was really surprised to find is that they seem to foretell what I would need. They seem to also share the experience of what I would also be going through; to be lessons I would later soon need. And that's a unique experience, and one that I don't expect I'll ever have again.”
In that, Carrabba has something. ‘All The Truth That I Can Tell’ is a unique record. It feels like their most honest in years. It also feels like their most optimistic. Tracks such as 'Burning Heart', 'Here's To Moving On' and 'Pain Free In Three Chords' all bristle with an understated optimism and catharsis that hasn't been seen since their early days.
“It's hard to categorise it myself as you can imagine, but I'll tell you this. I would agree that it's a bit of a return to a place I've been before as a writer, and I'd hope to get back to for a long time. I had trouble getting back there and there was a kind of deeper contemplation, asking myself some hard questions, but what comes with that is my urge to arrange it in a really sparse way. And so what you can expect from it is some similarity, in approach and presentation to my first two records, Swiss Army Romance, and more specifically, The Places You Have Come To Fear the Most”.
He's not wrong. Despite it being a unique album within Dashboard's cannon thanks to its optimism, it harbours more than echoes of those first two records. This is thanks in no small part to the production talents of James Paul Wisner, who is back behind the desk for the first time since 2001. It's a welcome return. One that brings with it a sense of nostalgia whilst coming from a wiser, more mature position.
“What James is particularly good at with me is drawing me deeper into the song, challenging my writing a bit to really mine for something a little deeper. It's not always really immediately evident to your average music lover what a producer actually does. But in their best moments, they're shaping the sound of what your experience is.”
“A minute ago I started talking about how I'd come back to this place as a writer, this place being a very specific kind of introspection. I haven't been back there, at least not for this length of writing, which for us, over a 12 song record? That's like 30 songs worth of time that you're spending in a place that's very difficult but incredibly rewarding. It was a joyful, but at times, Herculean effort to just stay in that place, but it was important me to stay there.”
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Indeed, much like those early Dashboard records, there's a sense of personal catharsis that runs through the centre of ‘All The Truth That I Can Tell’; a feeling that this is Carrabba return to his confessional roots, working through his demons from a more mature, but also more optimistic standpoint.
“I think when you're young and you have had hard things happen to you, but you haven't had the totality of life experience you will come to have, the weight of those things, joyous or hard, can be overwhelming. One thing you gain with years is an appreciation for how things simply are. You just kind of come to appreciate what they really are. And I think life has shown me there is a reason to stay optimistic.”
So, with Carrabba's music now coming from a different, more optimistic perspective, does a more mature Dashboard Confessional still hold the same relevance within today's emo scene?
“I was always an outlier sonically,” he explains. “I don't share the same kind of incredible, theatrics that other bands employ to great effect and which I love. I'm just always just a dude with a guitar, I guess I used to be a boy with a guitar, and now I'm a man with a guitar. And I feel largely the same but I am watching with pride in my heart, the rich return of emo to a broader cultural moment. And this is also from the place of a fan.”
“I feel really proud and excited just in the way our fans built this whole scene in the first place and made it break beyond us. They've done it again. And we've done it again. So where do I fit? I'm A fan too. But that epiphanous moment that many people are having, I'm not having, cause I haven't stopped. I took a break for about three years, but my shows didn't get smaller. So, things didn't materially change for me when the pop culture moved on from, from emo as a genre.”
“The way I'm looking at it now, though, is that not everyone was quite as lucky as me. It was a large stroke of luck to have been able to maintain career pre, during and post the boom. But not everybody got their due. And some bands were woefully left behind or overlooked. And I'm really excited for those bands to have as many eyes on them as they do.”
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With emo currently enjoying both a musical and cultural resurgence, and with a younger generation of fans now discovering those that paved the way 20, or even 30 years ago, does Carrabba still harbour the same doubts about the future of Dashboard Confessional he did between the last two records? Or is able to take the new found optimism forward into thoughts of a ninth record?
“When I finished ‘Crooked Shadows’, I didn't think I'd gotten it all that right. And I thought this could be going into the territory where doing more work that was just almost right might start to make me feel dissatisfied with all the work that I'd ever done and any of the work that I felt that I'd gotten all the way right in here in my heart, now I sit in a place where I'm experienced enough to know like I don't know that I have another record in me.”
“I sit here though different to how I felt after ‘Crooked Shadows’, with a burning desire to do another record and I hope it's almost lovelorn about the idea that I could make another one of these, but I don't. There was a finality that felt more defeatist after that record, but there is an understanding that if this is the final one, I'll be able to look backwards. But I believe there's another record to come.”
There's a confidence in Carrabba when discussing the new record, not one that belies his vulnerability (his voice cracks several times over the course of our conversation), but one that's hard to imagine coming from the same person who penned Dashboard's first two albums. And while there may well be a realistic degree of uncertainty when discussing a future record, there's no doubting the belief he harbours in this new one.
“All I can do, all any of us can do, is try to grow while being authentic to who we were and who we hope to be and who we are. And we're all just doing the best we can/ I've gotten it right. I've gotten it wrong a few times but I've been lucky to get it right enough times that it's continued to resonate.”
“And I'm aware when I've gotten it wrong and that makes me really grateful for moments like this record. I really believe I've gotten it right. It's very authentic. And in that authenticity I'm absolved of a reactionary kind of viewpoint when I see whether people like it or not. I surely hope that people embrace this record with both arms, but I'll be okay if they don't. Cause I know I'm proud of this.”
And well he should. ‘All The Truth That I Can Tell’ is Dashboard's strongest record in years. 11 tracks of lilting indie rock that exudes all the anxieties, catharsis and charm of Dashboard's earlier records, without once feeling needlessly embellished or overwrought. If this did turn out to be the band's final record, at least they'll have bowed out on a high.
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'All The Truth That I Can Tell' is out now.
Words: Dave Beech
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