Dashboard Confessional singer shares personal insights as band prepares for Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH -- Chris Carrabba is great with words, though he struggles to describe what it's like hearing a huge number of fans singing his lyrics back to him in unison.

"I'm going to make a terrible analogy," said Carrabba, frontman for Dashboard Confessional. "I've never been able to come close to describing it, but it must be like skydiving for the first time when you jump out of the plane and you're in this terrible state of panic but then your chute opens and you realize you're going to stay alive and then there's absolute euphoria that very moment. That's kind of what it feels like."

He can expect more euphoria June 22, when his acoustic-based rock band -- or call them "emo," which he's fine with -- co-headlines Stage AE outdoors with Third Eye Blind.

"I aim to play the songs you hope to hear," Carrabba said.

That would mean songs like "Screaming Infidelities," "Hands Down" and "Vindicated" for fans who grew up memorizing and reciting his poetic contemplations on love and longing. Many of those fans from the early 2000s later included his songs in their weddings, or had them tattooed to their skin.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

So imagine the consternation among local fans when Dashboard Confessional and Third Eye Blind first announced their joint tour without listing a Pittsburgh date.

Carrabba, in a recent phone interview, reassuringly said, "Did you really think we'd ever leave Pittsburgh out?"

He's got fond memories of playing Pittsburgh, including a 2003 sold-out show at the Palumbo Center. And with guitar player Johnny Lefler's grandmother hailing from Pittsburgh, the band often took extra time visiting the city, scouring neighborhood shops for "trinkets and treasures," Carrabba said, yielding take-home objects like an antique lead pencil sharpener that's still on his desk at home.

Dashboard Confessional hasn't toured much in recent years, as Carrabba admits he and his bandmates needed a break from the road.

"We really went from tours where we'd play 200 dates a year -- or literally 300, and that's not hyperbole," he said. "We'd sometimes play two shows a day just because we believed this might go away some day, so we thought let's do it all now. But we ended up burning out."

But a festival appearance several months ago felt good for the band, and when offered a chance to tour with Third Eye Blind, the alt-rockers famed for hits like "Jumper" and "Semi-Charmed Life,"  Carrabba queried his bandmates, "and this time, everyone said, 'Yes, we are ready to tour again.'"

Carrabba considers himself a ground-level fan of Third Eye Blind.

"Just before they broke on radio I heard some of their music and thought this is so special," Carrabba said. "I saw them play a really small club with the energy of an arena and that just knocked me out.

"Then they started to get their radio success, and I started seeing their T-shirts at our shows, and I thought this is too early for nostalgia, so I did a little research and learned that they had followed the same model we did, beginning real small and grassroots without the benefit of radio or a record label. The old-fashioned Dave Matthews Band way. It was great knowing we're kindred spirits."

As with any co-headline show, Carrabba knows his band will represent just the secondary attraction for many Stage AE spectators.

"There will be some distinction of some sort," Carrabba said. "You'll have people who say 'Dashboard is my favorite band ever,' and there will certainly be people who say Third Eye Blind is their favorite band ever. That fan base is exciting to me, because I'll get the chance to win them over. Some of them may have never even heard us before."

Dashboard may have ended up on the radar of some young music fans when Taylor Swift invited Carrabba to perform at one of her best friends' 25th birthday parties, along with Paramore's Hayley Williams.

"Taylor is one of the most spectacularly nicest people, irregardless of the fact she's the most famous woman in music," Carrabba said. "She doesn't act like she is. Though when you do hang out with her, it's a news story."

Indeed, entertainment websites and magazines gushed about Carrabba partying with T-Swizzle.

Much less observed by the media this past April was Carrabba reaching a milestone birthday. The sex symbol turned 40, but didn't make a fuss about it, celebrating his birthday with friends and family at a restaurant in his transplanted home of Nashville.

"I don't think I age the same way as other people my age," Carrabba said. "The career I have is so energized with youthful vitality. It's like I'm in the midst of an outdoor adventure every day, like when you're backpacking around the countryside right out of school.

"I run a lot. I do a lot of cycling and weight training," Carrabba said.

He also keeps tabs on new music, saying three of his favorite groups at the moment are Foxing, Civilian, and Into It. Over It.

He's a bit of a nature lover, too.

"I like to play music outdoors and sometimes when I do I like to put bits of grass into my guitar, where it'll stay for a way," he said.

Life's still a big adventure for him, and with the wisdom of 40 years now, "I don't get rattled as easily, though sometimes it's good to be rattled."

Carrabba gets a kick out of fans telling him they've played his music at their wedding, saying he likes how that breaks the stereotype that Dashboard Confessional songs are all sad.

One of these days, Pittsburghers will get to witness in person Carrabba's upbeat Americana-folk band Twin Forks, which released its debut album last year but only came as close as Warren, Ohio, on a tour stop supporting Counting Crows.

"I'd love to say (Twin Forks will visit Pittsburgh) this year, but it might be very early next year," Carrabba said. "It all hinges on when we finish recording a new album."

He had wanted to release an Americana/folk album for a long time.

"A very long time," Carrabba said. "Most of my covers are songs of that style." 

It's the kind of music he plays whenever he's at one of those parties with musical friends that turns into a "guitar pass-around," though he was hesitant to make an Americana album until a friend called him out.

"He said 'Why are you afraid to do what you love?' That was a rough one. I thought I already had proven I was brave enough," Carrabba said. "I pinpointed it to I was afraid to do a disservice to the bands I loved for years. But then I realized I am good enough."

He made headlines again a month ago when his co-written “Beautiful Life” became the coronation single for Season 14 "American Idol" winner Nick Fradiani.

Carrabba thought about slipping a couple new songs into Dashboard Confessional's summer setlist, "but then I was like no, that's horse----. If I am going to see a band I haven't seen in years, then I want to hear the songs I know. They can do the new songs the second time they return. So we jettisoned those new songs and made room for two more staples. And I know those staples are important, because people tell me."

Dashboard Confessional songs were among the first in the 2000s labeled under the newly defined genre of "emo," short for "emotional" and assigned to bands with sensitive, heart-tugging songs.

That seemed to fit Dashboard Confessional's breakout single "Screaming Infidelities," which Carrabba said he wrote for cathartic reasons, never expecting it to become a hit.

"I needed to tell the story of what I was going through at that very moment, how low and broken it felt. That song has a little spite in it, but it was mostly meant to bolster me. That idea of, I'm missing your bed and something so comfortable and possibly perfect, but it was never meant to stay that way long."

Carrabba's feelings for the "emo" term have swung back and forth like a pendulum.

At first he was reluctant to be called emo, noting there already was a style of underground punk referred to by that name.

"I didn't want my band to usurp that. That wouldn't be fair," he said. "But then I realized that's what we are and I started to accept it."

"But then that became a catch-all for a lot of bands, with some traits I've done -- like written a sad song -- and some that I haven't done, like wear makeup on or off-stage. I haven't done that. I mean, I wear tight jeans and I'm a thin man, but I don't see myself as a skinny jeans, eye-makeup kind of guy."

As emo evolved, he started to think of Dashboard as much more of a singer-songwriter band.

"Now I think we are an emo band, and also rock 'n' roll, and also just a singer-songwriter band," he said. "Parts of our songs are actually very emotional -- sad and pensive, or euphorically happy. I'm proud of that scene. I'll call us (emo), too."

Call them what you like, just be prepared to hear a multitude of fans singing along with his songs if you're headed to that Stage AE show.

Carrabba can't wait.

"It's been too long since we've toured, and I want to let people know that I know that."