Dashboard Confessional is hitting our shores this week as part of the Soundwave Festival. It has been a couple of years since Dashboard have toured down under although time around it is just singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba accompanied by his trusty guitar.
“I am more than anything else excited that I get to go over on my own with just my guitar. The first time I came to Australia by then I already had a band. Other places I have gone like the UK or Canada and certainly America and Germany I started the same way. I just brought my guitar and showed up and played. I think that’s it an important connection to have. There is the backpacker mentality of going there without any kind of safety net. Just going over, you feel a lot closer to the people you are playing for, and ultimately you get a closer connection to the place you’re in. Well I do anyway.”
The last few years for Carrabba have resembled a roller-coaster. 2010 lead to the release of A Swiss Army Romance limited edition 10th anniversary vinyl with some unique packaging. “The finally release was based of this concept I came up for the packaging for the vinyl. it would kind of be, essentially a Swiss army knife. Like an army knife, switch blades with moveable blades, each blade containing 4 songs from the record, a 7”, 45 record. I always wanted to release a vinyl and have a couple of times, very earlier on, done a pressing or two. I thought it sounded great so I wanted to do another.”
While during the making of Alter, The Ending in 2009, Carrabba went through multiple ordeals with his sister in a coma, one relative having a heart attack and another with the sudden need of a liver transplant. These ordeals not only shaped Alter, The Ending as a record but put a halt to Carrabba’s plans.
“I have had different plans for the last few years of touring but like you said there was compilations in making the Alter record, making Alter, The Ending. Those complications kind of stepped over the plans that I had made. So, I didn’t really tour extensively on that record, certainly not like the degree I have always toured. A big part of what I hoped to do was to spend a lot more time abroad then I was able to in the couple of years before that record came out. ”
Soundwave has sold out across the country and Dashboard’s sideshow with Jack’s Mannequin and Reliant K proving to be popular, selling out in both Sydney and Melbourne. Carrabba is not only excited to be coming to Australia to play our festival but also because he gets to play alongside some of his treasured friends.
“It’s amazing you know, I am really excited to be playing to the kind of people, rather than the number. When you do a festival there is a portion of the people there because they love you and then there is a portion that are there because they are curious about seeing you and there is a portion of them there who are 100% indifferent. That is a great feeling trying to reach out to those people; maybe they have never even heard of you or maybe they have passed judgement. Maybe you can turn them around, maybe you can’t, but it’s fun trying.”
“Then the shows with Jack’s and Reliant K, they are going to be a blast, these are friends of mine. I think it’s one for the memory book. The risk with the live shows, when it starts going off the rails that’s when it comes fun. That can happen with 50 people in the room or it can happen with 50 thousand people in the room.”
Although Carrabba won’t fully share his plans for 2012, he hints that there will be a lot more touring. “I have something I am working on. A lot more touring, I have finally gotten out from under the rock I was hiding under, well forced to anyway, and I am excited to be on the road. I certainly hope it won’t be the only time that I’ll be in Australia this year. This conversation is taking place in my home town and this is one of the few days I will actually be here this year so I am excited about that.”
Chris is in town for Soundwave (kicking off in Brisbane tomorrow) as well as his headline Sidewaves with buddies Jack’s Mannequin and Reliant K.
