Dashboard Confessional: The Godfather of Emo

One of my personal favourite bands out there, Dashboard Confessional has brought me out of the darkness of depression with powerful and deep stirring lyrics. Frontman, singer, and acoustic guitarist Chris Ender Carrabas first started out in the band "Further Seems Forever", another emo punk rock band as the singer. Wanting to try going solo, he left the band to create a one man performance called Dashboard Confessional.

It consisted mostly of Chris and his guitar, occasionally having a drummer, violinist, pianist, or back up singer in his albums or on tour. His first album, "A swiss army romance" was an underground hit, although not popular in mainstream circles, it was successful none-the-less.
His music was different, how could one man with one guitar invoke such passion and emotion all by himself?

His lyrics are what really catch you. Instead of writing the music and fitting a song to it, he takes his lyrics which read more like word smithed poems, and fits the music around them. He's also a very skilled guitarist, a friend of mine tried to play a song of theirs on his own guitar and couldn't do it. He told me that Chris likes to switch it up while he plays, jumping from one end of the guitar to the other, and at times it seems like Chris had gone and created his own scale or style of playing! His lyrics are also self written from personal experience. Experiences ranging from being cheated on, battling depression and drug dependency, an argument, being ignored by your loved ones, to even happy moments such as the best date he ever had, planning a date, being nervous about it, etc.

Dashboard Confessional proves it's more about quality than quantity to make a great song or album. Chris has a soft spoken voice, heavily tattooed, and has struggled with depression most of his life. His singing voice is strong and powerful, hitting long hard notes and holding them for prolonged amounts of time. You can hear the edges of his voice crack as he belts out an extremely personal and emotional song for him, one can feel the grief, heartache, and utter sorrow just by listening.

At concerts, Chris likes to back away from the microphone, letting the audience join in with him singing, so that only the crowd is heard while he plays. He also likes to hold really long notes at random parts of a song, empowering the expression and angst.

Dashboard's second album, "The places that you've come to fear the most" was what got them into a larger spotlight, though they were still not mainstream. "Screaming infidelities" scored them a music video, but they were still considered "Non-radio friendly music". With this album, Chris gets extremely emotional, letting loose with even more emboldening material. His last song on the album "Bitter pill" speaks of being dependent on pills that make him hostile and aggressive towards his loved ones. Towards the end of the track, he's crying, still trying to sing, making the last notes of the song even more amazing. You can't help but feel and sympathize for Chris, his lyrics are like confessions.

The next big break was when Chris went "Unplugged on MTV", where he was able to assemble a group of musicians who would later form his full band. He got a drummer, bassist, rhythm guitar who also played the piano. This performance really helped promote the band, who then would write the theme song "Vindicated" for the Spider man 2 soundtrack. With that one song on radio waves, it sat on the top 20 list for months.

Now popular and well known, they released another album, "A mark, a mission, a brand, a scar" which introduced the now fully manned band. Now that Chris had a full group, he redid a few of his older songs, making the once quieter tones now louder with exclamations rather and undertones. For example, the popular song "Hands down" was performed on an acoustic guitar, sounding sincere and honest. Now performed with a full band, it sounded more like an anthem or a ballad about the best date and day in Chris's life. I liked the changes Chris made because now it was simply fine tuning and adding more meat to the meat and potatoes.