Alt/rockers Dashboard Confessional and Boys Like Girls have teamed up to release new collab, “Watch the Fire.”
Recorded in Nashville, the track is cinematic and sentimental in a way that perfectly blends the hallmark sound of each band. Weaving in orchestral elements throughout, it’s a healing, cathartic tale of having to tear things down in order to restart.
Speaking to the natural draw he felt with Martin Johnson of BOYS LIKE GIRLS, Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional shared:
Martin and I had bonded over some horrific accidents we’d had and about the recoveries that we had both worked our way through. One of the things you carry heavily when your body is laid up and your spirit is heavy is, inevitably, the past. One thing Martin and I share between us was a desire to put the past down for a while. Maybe for good. I hope so. I guess I do know one sure way of putting the past down, for a little while anyway: pick up a guitar. Reckoning with your past can be painful and ugly. It can also be rejuvenative and beautiful. I don’t know whether you get to decide. I just know that it’s worth it.
Reflecting on the lifelong influence of Dashboard Confessional, Johnson remembers:
The year is 2002. I’m a sophomore in high school destroying the family PC to illegally download the early Dashboard Confessional EPs off Limewire. I eventually coughed up enough cash to cop the MTV unplugged CD and DVD at Newbury Comics in Boston and spun it into submission. I heard something interesting on those recordings that I had no idea would alter the rest of my career as a songwriter and guitar player — a certain tuning where all the strings were played open and strummed top to bottom. I studied the way Chris played and the interesting voicings I had never heard before and applied them to my playing.
Dashboard Confessional and BOYS LIKE GIRLS, joined by Taylor Acorn, are currently on a fall tour across North America.
- September 20 – Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live
- September 21 — St Louis, MO — The Pageant
- September 22 — Indianapolis, IN — Murat Theatre at Old National Centre
- September 24 — Omaha, NE — Steelhouse Omaha
- September 25 — Des Moines, IA — Val Air Ballroom
- September 26 — Minneapolis, MN — Uptown Theater
- September 28 — Chicago, IL — Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
- October 4 — San Diego, CA — SOMA
- October 5 — Anaheim, CA — House Of Blues (SOLD OUT)
- October 6 — Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Palladium
- October 9 — Wheatland, CA — Hard Rock Live Sacramento
- October 11 – Forest Grove, OR – McMenamins Grand Lodge
- October 12 — Spokane, WA — The Podium
- October 13 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
- October 15 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Complex
- October 16 — Denver, CO — Fillmore Auditorium
- October 19-20 – Las Vegas, NV – When We Were Young Festival%
- October 22 — Phoenix, AZ — Arizona Financial Theatre
- October 23 — Albuquerque, NM — Revel Entertainment Center
- October 25 — Houston, TX — Bayou Music Center
- October 26 — Austin, TX — Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
- October 27 — Irving, TX — The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory