Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba Talks ‘Beautiful’ Song for 'American Idol’

American Idol fans, and Dashboard Confessional fans, might have been surprised to find out a couple weeks ago that “Beautiful Life,” the coronation single by Season 14 Idol winner Nick Fradiani, was co-written by Dashboard’s Chris Carrabba. But during a recent interview for “Backstage with Citi,” the emo hero explained: “I’ve always liked to do more than one thing, so this was yet another adventure.” And he revealed that he felt a certain kinship with Nick from the start.

“I happened to feel like I had some understanding of this kid, because I’d lived in Connecticut for a while; a lot of my family’s there,” he said. (Chris was born in West Hartford; Nick is from Guilford.) “He’s another Italian kid trying to make it out of an area that’s not really supportive of [live] music… The school system is probably one of the best in the country for music programs, but it’s not L.A. It’s not Nashville. It’s a small state, and it’s a small scene. Anyway, I felt that there were things about him that I knew. I think we had the same haircut. There’s lot of things that I like about this kid.”

The feeling seems to be mutual, since Nick recently gushed to Billboard that he’s been a big Carrabba fan since his teens.

Chris penned “Beautiful Life” with composers Rykeyz and Ayanna Elese with another possible artist in mind (he wouldn’t reveal who), but said the song didn’t really come to fruition until Nick entered the picture.

“We were working on this song for someone else, so it was an existing, partially finished track… There was no centralized understanding of who I was writing it for…But once I knew who I was writing for — and I say 'I’ because the lyrics and melody were kind of my job in that — it just kind of happened like that,” Chris said, snapping his fingers.

While Chris has been busy writing for other artists, his attention is now refocused on the reunited Dashboard Confessional, who are hitting the road for the first time in five years (on a joint tour with Third Eye Blind). See Chris Carrabba and his Dashboard Confessional bandmates talk about their reunion and more in their full “Backstage with Citi” interview, coming soon to Yahoo Music.

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