this bag was one of the first to be
labeled emo for its expressive music and
lyrics hi I’m Rebecca Braden and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with Chris Carrabba from
Dashboard Confessional to learn more
about the band and what emo means to him
so why don’t we start as we often do by
having you tell us the origin story of
Dashboard Confessional well it’s pretty
simple I just was messing around with my
acoustic guitar in my living room and I
accidentally wrote a record and I
recorded it that way I did that a couple
of times so the first couple records
were just me and an acoustic guitar
there wasn’t a band or anything like
that and then over the course of the
years of touring that way I would make
friends in different bands that’s a
great guitar player if I ever have
another guitar player I could remember
that kid you know that kind of thing we
tacked the band together after a couple
of years of traveling like that what
kind of music did you grow up listening
to my music fandom is kind of broad you
know my exposure to it was pretty broad
too because some my my mom was into this
kind of stuff my brother was into this
time stuff and if there’s music
everywhere a lot of Bruce Springsteen a
lot of macho v and also then I got into
a lot of punk rock in my tweens although
they didn’t call it tweens then that
stayed with me pretty hard I followed
all these different kinds of music as
just a fad passive fan and then also as
a musician trying to deconstruct them in
my mind and and they stay with me you
know it’s amazing how you find yourself
listening to records you listen to when
you were 10 and they still are as
meaningful as records that just hit you
like yesterday you know
if someone had a gun to your head how
would you describe or label your music I
would just say singer-songwriter that
seems to be the right name for but you
know they they call us emo they’ve
called us that for a long time when they
started calling us that it was not
negative you know that it started out as
a thing that was exciting and maybe new
to most people and they applied to tell
these bands I didn’t kind of sound
anything the same I didn’t think it was
an appropriate name in terms of being
able to group us together but it stuck
for all of us and you know as the cycles
of new bands came out they did kind of
sound more and more like each other and
so now when you say you know there’s a
kind of clearer picture than that
generation of fans that I’m from but
it’s like I just I said this earlier
it’s like the term hipster recently was
very cool and that is now like a an
insult that’s what happened with grunge
and that’s what happened with email
I wanted to ask you what is emailed to
you people think or assume because it
was said in print this way that my
generation of bands that I’m from we
were the originators of this scene but
that term predates us by probably ten
years which is why I thought it was
inaccurate early that was just a term
floating around that and they had all
these new bands to write about they
didn’t know what to call them because we
were the alternative to what was on the
radio at the time which were things if I
remember like limp Biskit alternative as
a term was taken and misappropriated
eventually which i think is what was
what happened with emo a appropriated it
for what we were and then it was
misappropriated later for what would
come out of the next few cycles bands
and there’s some great bands that came
out of that My Chemical Romance one of
my favorite bands I think felt was a
great band and I think it became really
popular to not like them for a minute or
maybe take shots at them but I think
that good songwriting will show that
there will be an important thing when
they’re no longer in tabloids or
whatever you know their songs are still
good
the audience is quite varied who do you
think listens to Dashboard Confessional
you know this is what I think I think
it’s everybody in terms of like social
groups genders races ages but it is the
niche within all those demographics seem
to gravitate towards what I do which is
different from other bands I’ve been in
which it was specific to a scene where
this is more the fringe of everybody
else’s scenes sort of kind of fit
together
labeled emo for its expressive music and
lyrics hi I’m Rebecca Braden and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with Chris Carrabba from
Dashboard Confessional to learn more
about the band and what emo means to him
so why don’t we start as we often do by
having you tell us the origin story of
Dashboard Confessional well it’s pretty
simple I just was messing around with my
acoustic guitar in my living room and I
accidentally wrote a record and I
recorded it that way I did that a couple
of times so the first couple records
were just me and an acoustic guitar
there wasn’t a band or anything like
that and then over the course of the
years of touring that way I would make
friends in different bands that’s a
great guitar player if I ever have
another guitar player I could remember
that kid you know that kind of thing we
tacked the band together after a couple
of years of traveling like that what
kind of music did you grow up listening
to my music fandom is kind of broad you
know my exposure to it was pretty broad
too because some my my mom was into this
kind of stuff my brother was into this
time stuff and if there’s music
everywhere a lot of Bruce Springsteen a
lot of macho v and also then I got into
a lot of punk rock in my tweens although
they didn’t call it tweens then that
stayed with me pretty hard I followed
all these different kinds of music as
just a fad passive fan and then also as
a musician trying to deconstruct them in
my mind and and they stay with me you
know it’s amazing how you find yourself
listening to records you listen to when
you were 10 and they still are as
meaningful as records that just hit you
like yesterday you know
if someone had a gun to your head how
would you describe or label your music I
would just say singer-songwriter that
seems to be the right name for but you
know they they call us emo they’ve
called us that for a long time when they
started calling us that it was not
negative you know that it started out as
a thing that was exciting and maybe new
to most people and they applied to tell
these bands I didn’t kind of sound
anything the same I didn’t think it was
an appropriate name in terms of being
able to group us together but it stuck
for all of us and you know as the cycles
of new bands came out they did kind of
sound more and more like each other and
so now when you say you know there’s a
kind of clearer picture than that
generation of fans that I’m from but
it’s like I just I said this earlier
it’s like the term hipster recently was
very cool and that is now like a an
insult that’s what happened with grunge
and that’s what happened with email
I wanted to ask you what is emailed to
you people think or assume because it
was said in print this way that my
generation of bands that I’m from we
were the originators of this scene but
that term predates us by probably ten
years which is why I thought it was
inaccurate early that was just a term
floating around that and they had all
these new bands to write about they
didn’t know what to call them because we
were the alternative to what was on the
radio at the time which were things if I
remember like limp Biskit alternative as
a term was taken and misappropriated
eventually which i think is what was
what happened with emo a appropriated it
for what we were and then it was
misappropriated later for what would
come out of the next few cycles bands
and there’s some great bands that came
out of that My Chemical Romance one of
my favorite bands I think felt was a
great band and I think it became really
popular to not like them for a minute or
maybe take shots at them but I think
that good songwriting will show that
there will be an important thing when
they’re no longer in tabloids or
whatever you know their songs are still
good
the audience is quite varied who do you
think listens to Dashboard Confessional
you know this is what I think I think
it’s everybody in terms of like social
groups genders races ages but it is the
niche within all those demographics seem
to gravitate towards what I do which is
different from other bands I’ve been in
which it was specific to a scene where
this is more the fringe of everybody
else’s scenes sort of kind of fit
together
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