Chris Carrabba's confessions

MANILA, Philippines - The American band Dashboard Confessional has been dubbed as a leading purveyor of emo-rock, but its singer and main songwriter Chris Carrabba said there’s no conscious intention to emote and bare soul via song.

“I don’t tend to make a choice between vague and emotionally heavy songs when I’m writing,” Chris explains. “I’d just come up with a chord progression, and it’s sort of evocative of some kind of feeling and I just chase that feeling with some kind of story that I remember from my own life experiences. I think it is because I like vivid detail in songs (as) that gives them a bit more punch.”

The boyish-looking 36-year-old rocker, who could pass for an actor, was in town as a solo act for last Thursday night’s Smash Project 2012, another “collective” concert of sorts that Manila had in less than a month (note that a concert headlined by boy bands of the late ’90s capped February). Smash Project 2012, which also featured The Cab, The Used and Cobra Starship, was mounted by Dayly Entertainment and Dickies Philippines.

Songwriting for Chris is also a form of release, but not necessarily “aggression.” “Sometimes, it’s aggression, sometimes it’s happiness, sometimes it’s sadness, but a lot of times, it’s elation,” he says.

One thing is for sure, the muse is in the melody. “Whatever the underlying melody feel likes… It’s like a fishhook, and it kinds of snags me and I’m just being pulled along. I guess it’s not really up to me, I just follow it.”

Because songwriting has somehow helped him exorcise hurts and heartbreak, he advises, “Well, just get a guitar. It helps.”

As a teenager, Chris lived for skateboarding and punk rock. When an uncle gave him a guitar, there was no turning back. He was part of an indie rock band when he formed Dashboard on the side.

Calling himself a true music fan, he claims his influences run the gamut because “there’s no music fan that just listens to one genre.”

One of his biggest musical influences, however, is R.E.M., known as a pioneer of alternative rock.

“I’ve made no secret of it. R.E.M. is one of my favorite bands; I’ve covered so many of their songs. We even recorded together. Those guys are the most artistic guys I’ve come across; they’re irregular and the strangest guys  the purest artists. I’m so sad that there’s no more of R.E.M. When they broke up (last year), I covered End of the World because that’s how I really felt.”

Since forming in the early 2000s, Dashboard has released half a dozen albums including its most commercially successful A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar. During the same time of that album’s release, the band recorded what could probably be its famous hit worldwide, Vindicated, due in part to its inclusion in the soundtrack of the mega blockbuster Hollywood flick Spider-Man.

Chris doesn’t deny why Dashboard has been noticeably lying low in recent years. He is very candid to confess to recently suffering from a writer’s block.

“I kind of took that as a (sign) that I could be re-treading the same territory. So I decided to let those things go,” he shares.

But Chris has just snapped out of the creative lull, with his most critical turning point coming in the form of a new song The Burning Fuse.

“It’s hard to describe what makes it different from what I was doing, but it’s a different kind of melodic sense, longer notes… I’ve also been writing songs which can be considered not Dashboard. We’re always finished a new record now, after 12 years or something like that.”