Boys Like Girls and Dashboard Confessional have teamed up for a new collaborative single, the beautiful and anthemic ‘Watch The Fire’.
The two bands have been on tour together across the US and gave the track its debut during some recent sets.
Writing on Instagram about how the song came to be, Dashboard’s Chris Carrabba said “Many of us live around Nashville and some of us spend the rest of our time down in South Florida. We started making plans for dinners etc but to be honest I really wanted to sit around with these fellas with some guitars in hand. So I texted Martin one day and invited myself over. Martin and I had bonded over some horrific accidents we’d had and about the recoveries that we had both worked our through. I would come to have those same conversations with Johnny Keefe. Life hands every one of us their ration I guess. Martin and I had bonded over those recoveries and discussed those lessons you can only learn through complication. 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.”
He continues “I went over to Martin’s and sat in his home with his beautiful wife Naomi and their beautiful daughter and with our common friend Brandon Paddock. Eventually, we gravitated to guitars. I guess I do know one sure way of putting the past down. For a little while anyway. Pick up a guitar. I believe I may have mentioned that to Martin and Brandon. I think that’s how it stopped being a visit and started to become songwriting. Hard to remember. Things, when they’re good, move fast. I have many more things to say about this song but I think I will wait a bit and let you form your own relationship with the lyrics first. I will leave you with this for now. Reckoning with your past can be painful and ugly. It can also be rejuvenating and beautiful. I don’t know whether you get to decide. I just know that it’s worth it.”
In a press release, Boys Like Girls’ Martin Johnson adds “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.”
Listen to ‘Watch The Fire’ below:
Dashboard Confessional will perform at When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas this October, with Boys Like Girls also appearing at a festival sideshow the night before (October 18) alongside Simple Plan.