Dashboard Confessional: The Festiva Interview

About 30 minutes before I was going to have a phone interview with Dashboard Confessional, I got the call every entertainment writer fears: "We'll have to cancel that phoner."

Ugh.

Apparently Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba had a pang of inspiration and hopped in the studio, where he would be with the band "for the next five or so hours," the voice on the other end said.

• One day left to win tickets to see Dashboard Confessional on Saturday! Click here to enter.

Despite my consternation over the loss of that Q&A, a little part of me was happy. It's always nice to hear that an artist you like (or at least once did) is making new music, because that means it might soon trickle down to the fan. On top of that, it means that the pioneers of old school emo rock still have a pulse.

About six years ago, an article in Newsweek warned the demise of the emo rock era was nigh, quoting Carrabba as the main source of the prophet-like prediction.

• What is emo exactly? Click here for a quick study guide. 

At least in Dashboard guitar player John Lefler's opinion, bands are labeled (emo rock or otherwise) simply to define the sound for the moment, but not forever.

"I think that movements come and go ... something you label on reflection. And some of the bands they put in that category are still playing and some aren't. At some point, you stop worrying about calling it anything else other than the band name," he said during a luckily rescheduled interview.

• WATCH THE INTERVIEW OR READ IT BELOW

"I don't think Dashboard sounds like anything else they put in that category."

And to an extent he's right. So-called emo rock has been replaced with power pop, emo punk rock, power pop-punk rock and other tongue-twisting labels that mean little to most people and have hard-to-peg-but-I-know-it-when-I-hear-it definitions. What has changed in this new and only slightly happier music culture is that the skinny jeans, thick-rimmed glasses style once frowned upon by the masses has become "the masses."

But many of those who remember the yesterYeahrs of emo excitement (uhm ... paradox?) will resurface on Saturday at Edinburg Baseball Stadium when the band who made the genre mainstream takes the stage with OK Go.  

• WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH OK GO

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Festiva talks to Dashbofard Confessional guitar player John Lefler.

I HEARD YOU ALL fJUMPED INTO THE STUDIO IN FRIDAY. THAT TRUE?
That is true. I'm at home now. I just got back yesterday night. We were in the studio. We started a week ago for that run. We've kind of been sneaking in weeks before shows for the last couple of months. We just finished what will be the new record. I think I have three more days left in the studio and we are done. As they say, the dishes are done, is what the kids say these days. Uhm... (laughs) I don't know why they do that. We're coming to see you on Saturday.

ARE YOU GOING TO BE PLAYING ANY OF THE NEW STUFF?
Probably not. We don't even know it yet (laughs). We really want to put our best foot forward for the shows. Also, we've recorded a lot of songs for this album over the last duration, and it's kind of less certain which ones will even be on the record because there are so many that we like. So we don't really want to go out there and play a song that no one is ever going to hear from again. Time will tell. We'll practice them, know the songs and the next time we're near McAllen-Edinburg area we'll play them. Personally, I've never been down this far and I'm from Houston. So I've been as far south as Corpus Christi. I know people who I went to the University of Texas with from McAllen, but Yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to see what it's like.

I'LL GIVE YOU CREDIT FOR JUST KNOWING WHERE IT IS.
Yeahh, well, like I said I'm from Houston. And I have MapQuest (laughs).

IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOUR LAST RECORD. WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS ONE?
I think that it's a natural, more focused progression since the last -I guess I'll say - full -band rock album, which was the Dusk and Summer. We did back in 2007, a largely acoustic record, which was The Shade of Poison Trees, which you know, I really liked that album. But this is obviously more aligned with Dusk and Summer, (in that is has) ... a lot electric guitars, drum, bass, that sort of thing. I think Chris' writing, this is a great selection of songs that he's come up with on this new batch. For that, that's where everything kind of hangs. And we've obviously put X number thousands of miles of touring ... between then and now, so it's going to be a more focused band. ... I'm looking forward to people hearing it and them making up their own minds as far as what style they think it is. Ift's not like we've done 180 degree changes or anything. It's a natural progression and this has a lot more melodic twists in this one and hopefully more interesting instrumentation. And we think it came out really well. Right now we've got 16, 17 to 18 contenders and we're trying to put out a 12- to 13-song album. We know the ones that are going to make it probably but we'll have to have the vote and vote songs off and that sort of thing. Sad, but necessary. And hopefully those other ones will pop up in some other form.

LIKE THAT SONG EVEN NOW DID ON THE CSI SOUNDTRACK LAST MONTH, RIGHT?
Yeah. Absolutely.

IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO HAVE THAT LUXURY, TO KNOW THAT YOU CAN HAVE OTHER OUTLETS TO RELEASE SONGS YOU WERE PULLING FOR THAT GET CUT.
Yeah. For a rock band, the MTV and VH1 aren't as large of an outlet as they used to be or as they were in 1992. So we're fortunate that there are a lot of acceptable outlets, such as TV shows, and I've heard a lot of great bands who play their music in commercials and you know, sounds great to me. There was a stigma to that before, but I think there's a lot of viable outlets for that than before and we could always put this stuff on a smaller B-side record or rarities. We've been keeping track of those for a long time. There are enough of them where it could make for a pretty strong record. So it's win-win.

I'M SURE IT WILL BE. I KNOW PEOPLE ARE SO EXCITED. I WAS CRUISING YOUR BOARDS LAST WEEK AND PEOPLE ARE ALMOST AGGRESSIVE ABOUT WANTING THIS STUFF OUT. IS THAT A LOT OF PRESSURE WHEN YOU READ THOSE COMMENTS?
I think that, first of all, we're glad they're excited that it's coming out. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is ‘Dashboard, who?' I think that (laughs) we're definitely excited that they want it to come out and we want it to come out. We've worked on it a long time. It's kind of when you buy a Christmas present for someone really far in advance and you can't let them know what it is, and you want to, but you have to wait for Christmas. ... It's kind of like that. We want to share it with them and I don't think there's any negative pressure, like ‘Oh my God, we're going to be irrelevant if we don't put this out next month.' We'd like to have it out, that's for sure.

No target date has been set for the release of the album, Lefler said. Dashboard Confessional will perform April 25 and the Edinburg Baseball Stadium. Buy your tickets at www.ez-tixx.com.