Did the project inspire your writing of Dawes’ newer songs?

It definitely did. I mean, we went down there and, again, John is so off the cuff and sporadic in the best way. A month before we got there, actually weeks before we got there, I asked, “Do we have songs for this record,” and he said, “No, I just plan on writing them when we get there.” It was part of the project. And so we got there with very little material for the record, and I wrote three songs in two weeks. I’ve never done that, I’ve always been [writing] one song a month or one song every two months. It’s a very slow process for me, so for me to have done three songs in two weeks was so exciting for me. I have tried to take that approach with me now with Dawes. I’ve learned that if I have two weeks in my own privacy and time and quiet, I can really put my axe to the grindstone and crank some shit out, whereas before it was like, “I have to wait ‘til the inspiration hits me, I am totally at the disposal of the song.” I always have ideas that I know there is something to, and those ideas did maybe come to me in moments of inspiration but once they come, all I gotta do is really apply the work, and I have to just round it up. So that’s what I learned in Nashville with those guys: there is a part of this that is the romantic and inspiring aspect of it that is necessary, but there’s another aspect… you know, great writers work every day, and I feel like that is not a coincidence, it’s across the board. So yeah, it’s a little bit of both, a little bit is romantic and a little bit is unromantic.

You’ve played with Deer Tick, and with Delta Spirit too.

Yeah, that was our first tour. We are eternally indebted to Delta Spirit, because we had no manager, we had no label, we we’re just buddies of Delta Spirit and they were like, “Look we’re gonna part with a little bit more money for the sake of being able to bring you guys on tour, and our agent’s telling us not to, no one’s happy we’re doing this but we’re gonna do ‘cause we love you guys.” And so we locked things down with our agency. If it wasn’t for Delta Spirit, things would look different right now, so we are eternally indebted to them.

And they covered “Peace in the Valley” on their Daytrotter.com session too.

Yeah. That was before the tour together, even! That was such an honor, for them to do that felt amazing.

Which other band has been the most fun to tour with so far?

Edward Sharpe [and the Magnetic Zeros] was really, really fun. It was really good for us, ‘cause they’re 10-12 people in the band at any given time and their sound is so huge. Most audiences doesn’t expect that, so for us to have to play for an audience that expects an energy level that high, it really forces us to step up our game, and learn how perform in a different way and learn how to get a bigger sound. That was really good for us.

In terms of live gigs, how was playing Bonnaroo?

It was great, it was so cool. It’s crazy how wonderful Bonnaroo was, it’s such a big deal that it’s a big part of anybody’s career at any point. It did a whole lot of good for us: a lot of people would come to our shows in the month leading up to Bonnaroo, and they would say, “We’ve heard you’re playing Bonnaroo,” and I would say, “Cool, then we’ll see you there,” and they would go, “No, we’re not even going, we just looked at the roster, and we wanted to check you out.” So it was crazy, what being on that bill did for us. It was bigger than Bonnaroo itself. And then when we played Bonnaroo, we played on one of the smaller stages. Initially, we were like, “Man, this is gonna be rough because no matter how hard we play, no matter how well we do, they’re gonna go and see incredible acts like Dr. Dog and Avett Brothers and just the sheer number of bands that are going to have a lot to do with people’s experience. It’s gonna be hard for us to match that because we’re playing on a smaller stage.” But I was sort of wrong, because we played smaller stages and people would come up to us and sort of take pride in the fact that they saw the small stage show, and be like “This was one of my favorite moments of Bonnaroo.” So that was a cool thing too.

It was also good for us a as band to watch bands like Kings of Leon and Jay-Z and Stevie Wonder on these huge stages, and look at how well-oiled machines they all are. It’s not a coincidence that those bands are where they are now. Those guys work so hard, they’re so tight and they really know what they’re doing. And there are so many bands that we are friends with at home, some that we’ve played with, where it’s like they’re so good and so fun, but they’re either a little loose or crazy, there’s just not that quality of like, “I could see them play in front of 50,000 people.” Watching Kings of Leon do that, watching these bands play in front of that many people and then on top of that keep every fan like they’re with them is a really humbling experience.

If you have a dream band to tour with, who would that be?

Do you mean playing right now or ever?

Ever.

(Laugher) Well, I think it would be really fun to play with the Grateful Dead when Jerry was around. To play in front of audiences that want you to open up and take chances that you wouldn’t be able to take otherwise. Playing in front of some audiences, you know, people want to hear the song, they want to hear the choruses and that’s it. And then there’s other audiences, where you go for a guitar solo or something, and they pumped—those are my favorite audiences because they’re there to hear music.

Finally, where does your band name come from?

It’s my brother’s and my grandfather’s first name. A lot of music he showed us was something that we didn’t really listen to when he was alive. And then when he passed on they sort of became big influences, like Hank Williams, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and stuff like that. It was sort of, even though he was gone, it was trying in our way to involve him in the experience.

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