Exclusive Q and A: Chris Carrabba Talks 'Penny Black,' Reuniting With Further Seems Forever

posted in: Exclusive Interviews • Rock

It’s been more than a decade since Further Seems Forever recorded new material with their original vocalist, Chris Carrabba. After Carrabba left the band in 2000 to pursue his solo project, Dashboard Confessional, his shoes were competently filled by subsequent vocalists Jason Gleason and Jon Bunch. Still, hardcore fans held out hope that someday the original FSF lineup would reunite and maybe even release new songs. To the elation of all of those who have waited a long decade, Carrabba and Further Seems Forever have finally joined forces once again and are set to release Penny Black, the band’s fourth album, this October. We caught up with Carrabba to talk about the band’s older material, the meaning behind the album title, and the enduring artists that he aspires to emulate.

OS: What influenced the band’s decision to release Penny Black on Rise Records?

Chris Carrabba: We had heard such great things about how the label was run and the people who run the label.  There are a lot of bands on the label that I like a lot and some of them are my friends and they all raved about their experience being on Rise.

OS: The Penny Black was an early British postage stamp from the 1840s. What connection does that idea have to the lyrical subject matter of the album?

CC: I was reading a book that was set in the mid 1800’s and a major theme in it was the tendency of those in power to be driven only by the desire to amass more power.  The stamp wasn’t mentioned in it but I connected them for some reason.  The stamp was a paradigm shift in communication.  It made the world smaller, like the Internet has done in our era, but it also gave those in power to spread that power wider and wider

OS: Does the band have a desire to write about different themes and ideas than you did on The Moon Is Down?

CC: I don’t think we think about being thematically different from Moon.  We are different.  This happens naturally over the decade or so between records.  I think it’s exciting that in just a few instances we did find ourselves closer than we would have expected to Moon.  But for the most part this record is written from our point of view, which is different now than it was then.

OS: How has it felt to revisit some of the songs from The Moon Is Down, which were written during a much different time in everybody’s life?

CC: To tell you the truth the songs on Moon have a surprisingly strong relevance to our lives now.  I think they mean different things to us now than they did now, but they are no less powerful to us. Some more than others.

OS: There are a lot of FSF fans that are now in their late 20s/early 30s, but were teenagers when they discovered the band.  Have there been any artists or bands that have grown with you as you’ve gotten older and they continue to release material?

CC: Many of the bands that I listened to when I was younger are as important to me now in their contemporary work as they were with their early work.  Some not so much.  I hope our new music connects with our early fans in the way that Dylan and Paul Simon and J. Robbins, and David Bazan, Fugazi, and Bob Mould’s music, old and new, connect with me.

OS: Your songs incorporate a lot of shifting time signatures and odd meter lengths that break from the standard 4/4 feel.  How do those parts materialize during the songwriting process?

Our usage of odd time and cut bars is hard to articulate.  We never try to write in strange meter.  I think the five of us together just write the parts and we write by feel not by numbers.  We have less luck when we try to stay in 4/4.

OS: Will material from How to Start a Fire and Hide Nothing appear in some of your upcoming live sets?

CC: We have played The Sound for a while and I would like to sing Light Up Ahead but I haven’t convinced them yet.

OS: FSF was a seminal emo band in the late“90’s, from which many subsequent young groups drew inspiration.  How do you think about yourselves in relation to that genre these days?

We are really proud that bands tell us all the time that we inspired their writing or even staring a band.  I can’t think of a better compliment to give a band.  We are greatful for that.

Pick up Penny Black on October 23 and check out the video for the first single “So Cold” below!

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