Back when Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith was growing up in Malibu, California, he found a kindred spirit in fellow fledgling musician Blake Mills. While still in high school, the two formed a group they called Simon Dawes, drawing from Blake’s middle name (Simon) and Taylor’s middle name (Dawes). Simon Dawes toured the country (opening for such acts as Band of Horses, Wolfmother, Silversun Pickups) and also recorded a few EPs as well as the 2006 long-player Carnivore. However, within a year of Carnivore’s release, Goldsmith and Mills moved on to other projects.
Mills has since established himself as a dynamic solo artist and an in-demand producer, working with Alabama Shakes and Sara Watkins, as well as upcoming records by Jim James and John Legend. Goldsmith has gone on to record five albums with the band Dawes, which features his brother Griffin on drums along with bassist Wylie Gelber (another Simon Dawes alum) and keyboard player Lee Pardini, who joined in 2015 after the departure of Tay Strathairn.
Dawes’ new studio record We’re All Gonna Die finds longtime friends Goldsmith and Mills collaborating once more, with Mills serving as producer (and also as co-songwriter on a number of tunes). We’re All Gonna Die is something of a departure from 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands produced by David Rawlings. While the former record had more of a raw, live feel, on We’re All Gonna Die the band takes full advantage of the studio setting, layering instruments and adding textures to good effect. The album debuted at No. 18 on the Top Current Album charts and No. 1 in overall vinyl sales following its release in mid-September.
In the following conversation, Taylor Goldsmith looks back on his Simon Dawes days and explores Dawes’ current course (starting with how the band nearly named itself after an obscure fictional character from 19th century German literature). The group just appeared on the Charlie Rose show and Prairie Home Companion and is now embarking on a mini-tour of the U.K., which kicks off on Wednesday.
The first time I ever saw you perform, which was about 10 years ago, you were opening for Band of Horses in Boston with Simon Dawes. We’re All Gonna Die, finds you working with Blake Mills again, How did that come about?
It’s something that we have wanted to do for a while. Even with our third album, Stories Don’t End, we went into the studio with Blake for a handful of songs. Due to schedules and stuff like that, we didn’t end up making that record together but we got a lot of mileage out of it. Ideas came from that session that stuck to the final recordings. Then with All Your Favorite Bands, we’d been talking to Dave [Rawlings] for a while and it felt like that’s where things were leading. Similarly to We’re All Gonna Die, it felt right at that moment. Especially with this album because I think in the past, we’ve kind of let it present itself to us, instead of, “What’s the best thing for this album?” Whether that’s making the first two with Jonathan Wilson or hanging out with Dave when I was writing those songs.
With this record, the first song I wrote was “We’re All Gonna Die,” and I knew at the outset, “This is gonna be something that goes beyond what a rock and roll quartet does when they learn all the chords.” I felt like the mood or identity of the song was going to be more tied up in the recording. That’s when I thought of the work that Blake had done with his own music and the other stuff he’s produced. So we decided it just had to be done with him.
In terms of album’s aesthetic, can you talk a bit more about what you had in mind before you entered the studio? Have you approached your past albums in a similar way, going in with particular expectations about the shape of the music?
That happened mostly with All Your Favorite Bands, where we intentionally made sure the lead vocals were sung with the band, and that the guitar solos were played with the takes. We wanted to challenge ourselves in that way, to do what we did on stage and really capture that on a recording. We felt like we had never been able to do that for three records. As much as we love them, we felt like there was a gap between what we could do on stage and what we could do in the studio. We didn’t like that anymore. So we put ourselves under the same pressures in the studio as we do on stage and it ended up giving us the results we were looking for. Because we made that record in the way we did, it kind of cleared the table. For the first three records we added more flavors to each of the records we made. I felt like at that point, in terms of sonics, Stories Don’t End, was probably our richest album. So we did All Your Favorite Bands and pulled all that back and stripped it down. Then we felt, “Alright cool, we did that thing that we had wanted to do, that we felt like we couldn’t do. Now what?”
So with this album, the main thing was just making sure we were taking steps and challenging ourselves, and that we were making sure we were as excited and inspired as we were making the four records that came before it. We didn’t know what that was going to sound like, it wasn’t like we had some aesthetic of “Here are our benchmarks” or anything. I still don’t think it ended up too far from any other Dawes records, as far as what ingredients go into them. But all we knew that we wanted to take steps and make sure it was as thrilling for us as when we made our first record back when all it took was an acoustic guitar and a vocal harmony for us to be like, “Oh man, this is so exciting!”
Within the context of your live sound, what impact will this material have on your show?
It’s funny because as strange or different the sound is to some people, it’s very easy to recreate it live because we’re working with the same instrumentation. On something like “We’re All Gonna Die,” the only strange sound is that weird keyboard sound that, live, we actually play on guitar. You would think it’s always been guitar because it sounds identical. Then there’s Griffin’s tiny snare drum but other than that, it’s how we have always played. It’s not like we can’t recreate these sounds, it’s easy as anything else. In a lot of ways, it’s made us better players.
I think the most outrageous thing is that this album has more acoustic guitar than any of the others, at least since our first record. Actually, live, we play acoustic guitar on seven of the ten songs. That has forced us to be smarter about our playing and more dynamic. On certain songs like “Quitter” or “Less Than Five Miles Away” we were able to create a bed for the keyboards or lead guitar, in a way that I probably couldn’t have if we just took the All Your Favorite Bands approach to the live show, where I would pick up my Telecaster and play whatever I like and just sing all the words. With this, it’s a lot more arranged in a way that helps this material stand out against the rest of the stuff. I hope all the records do.
You had Duane Betts in your touring band for a while and now you’re out with Trevor Menear. What has been the impact of that second guitar and why did you decide to add it?
When we finished All Your Favorite Bands in the lineup we were in with me, Wylie, Griffin and Tay, the way that the band had always worked was that I would take all the solos. It wasn’t like we thought about it, that was just how it came out. Tay is an incredible keyboardist and a lot of what he did was more supportive as a player, more like a Richard Manuel kind of thing. However with that, it allowed our show to only go so far. I feel like when you have one voice, in this case it’s me on guitar, leading an audience through all these instrumental moments, it gets to a point after an hour and a half where you’re like, “Okay, I think I get it now.” As opposed to Lee [Pardini, the current keyboard player], who has soloist chops from this musical school he came from, and then playing with Trevor or Duane, there were these new voices. We could speak to each other.
It also gave more gravitas when those moments happened. When I did take a longer guitar solo, it wasn’t just me doing it for the third or fourth time, rather it was a special part of the show. By doing that, it allowed us to have these shows that still felt vibrant and alive, even though we were two plus hours into it. Whereas previously, it never felt like we could go that far because the arrangement we had could only power a show for so long.
Jumping back to We’re All Gonna Die, most of the songs are credited as co-writes, which differs from past Dawes records. Was that by design going into the sessions or was that simply the path that it all took?
On the ones that list Jason Boesel as co-writes, we’d get together and work out stuff. He’s an amazing songwriter. He made one record several years ago [ Hustler’s Son with Jonathan Wilson, our first producer, and the songs are amazing. He hasn’t really been doing that since, but he still writes great songs as evidenced by “Roll Tide.”
The co-writes with Blake, something like “One of Us,” was conventional songwriting. I had this riff and melody, and Blake suggested that we take the chord to this place, and we worked from there. For a song like “For No Good Reason,” by Taylor and Blake, it was a song that was brought in and I felt like he deserved co-writing credit because the song was different and stronger because of his contribution.
It’s just so strange because exactly what songwriting is, that’s a nebulous phenomenon. I was totally on board but I’m still learning how songwriting gets broken down in this day and age. Blake’s been operating in a world where he’s working with guys like John Legend, getting into specific percentages of songwriting. More power to him. Blake said it’s part of what he does as a producer, which I thought was great.
How did you come to work with Jason?
It was the theory of happy accidents. It’s interesting how the recording of a song and arrangement of a song can dictate how powerful it can be. Sometimes it still kind of blows me away—“Picture of a Man” was recorded for Stories Don’t End and for All Your Favorite Bands but neither time it felt like it belonged on the record. Then this version of it for We’re All Gonna Die, is my favorite track. So much of it came down to interpretation. Jason and I had worked a lot together three or four years ago, with Stories Don’t End but that just kind of sat around. Then when we were doing some preproduction for All Your Favorite Bands, there was an after-party thing in Pioneertown. I got there sort of late and Jason had been there already and when I got there I asked if there was anything to drink. He said there was a little bit of tequila, “but once that’s gone I have this sparkling cider.” As the night went on, we came up with this line of singing would be become the chorus, “When the tequila runs out, we’ll be drinking champagne.” We thought it was funny and it was fun to sing together. At that point we were just drunk. The next day we were texting each other, thinking it was pretty cool, and that we should see if there’s something in that. Again, it was an accident.
Then when he wrote “Roll Tide” and played it for us, we were all floored. We were all blown away by what a great song it was. He sweetly kind of gave it to us and said if we wanted to play it, it’s ours. It’s really exciting because I feel like his sensibilities as a writer sit so well in what Dawes does. In a lot of ways, there are lines where I totally would have wanted to have written, whether I could have or not. And he has the same sort of feeling. It’s cool to have another singular voice to be at home in this band.
I think it’s quite possible that people who don’t look at the liner notes will assume that you wrote “Roll Tide” because it shares a similar narrative slant with a number of your songs. Having said that, I also feel that some of your appeal to certain listeners comes from their assumption that your compositions directly reflect the events in your life. How accurate is that? To what extent do you write in character?
When you listen to a songwriter you want to identify with a songwriter. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be identifying with the songwriter’s experience, that can be simply identifying with the songwriter’s outlook, a songwriter telling stories that have nothing to do with them but very much represent how the songwriter sees the world. Someone like Randy Newman, I feel like you know him. When you listen to his records, they’re never personal. Well, rarely personal. And when they are, he seems to have even more joke-y walls up. When you hear songs like “Birmingham” or “Louisiana 1927” or “Sail Away,” he seems to be embodying characters yet he has such an identity and personality. That’s something that really interests me.
It’s tough when people assume that every song I write must have to do with a feeling I’m dealing with. It’s uncomfortable sometimes. I want to be able to write a song about exploring a concept like loneliness without everyone assuming that’s what’s going on in my life. A lot of great songwriters don’t have to put themselves on the chopping block to deliver the great material. You see them leading very normal, happy lives, and still being able to evoke empathy and compassion and love.
As I’ve gotten older, I look back and there are a number of songs that are very much about me and a specific person. I kind of shy away from that now. I don’t even like singing those songs because I feel like it’s exploitive of my younger self and the people who never asked to be included in this stuff. I think there’s potential for more connections between an audience and writer when you kind of keep it detailed and specific, but don’t necessarily have to make it personal. When you’re able to tap into the universal elements of any situation, it allows an opportunity for more people to connect and relate, rather than getting high off the fact that they feel the behind the scenes footage of someone breaking down.
I think one of your gifts is that what you write is so narrow that it’s broad.
I appreciate that because that’s how I want it to be. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not inspired by the things that are going on around me. A lot of the songs off this new record are just that. There’s specific things happening in my life that find their way into a song. I don’t want to necessarily give you a map to decode it, to find out who and what exactly I’m talking about. That’s not what it’s about. Like you said, it’s about turning the narrow into the broad.
Can you remember the first song you ever wrote?
I was 12 years ago, and it was a piece of junk. I think the best thing about it was that no one had told me it was hard to do, so I just did it. I feel that if you tell a little kid that everyone can swim, then maybe he’ll jump into a pool and be able to swim. For me, I didn’t know that it was something that people spent a lot of time on, learning certain devices and tools.
I picked up the guitar and learned my first three chords. I think it was G, B7 and A minor. That’s all my fingers could do. I thought, “Cool, I know these chords, I can write a song now.” So I did. I think it was called “Why Don’t You Like Me?” or something like that. It was very appropriate for being 12 years old. Looking back now, I feel like one of the biggest gifts that my dad, who was also a songwriter, gave me—never letting songwriting feel like it was hard or something only certain people can do. It felt like, “This is something everyone does,” especially if you know how to play three chords on a guitar. It just started happening right away.
Looking back for a moment to the transition from Simon Dawes to Dawes, I once heard that before you named the group Dawes, you were thinking of calling the band Old Shatterhand after the character in German author Karl May’s frontier novels from the late 19th century. Is that true?
The guy who named Dawes is Alex Greenwald, he’s now in the band Phases. He was playing a lot of our first shows before we met Tay—it was Wylie, me, Griffin, and Alex. I think Alex was talking about the Old Shatterhand thing in a Phases interview.
What happened was we couldn’t come up with a band name. We were playing around LA, had finished being Simon Dawes and there was one show where it said, “Taylor Goldsmith and Friends,” or something, even though it was Griffin and Wylie. It felt really inappropriate because it very much felt like a band. We didn’t know what to call it. I was reading a lot of that magazine The Believer at the time, and there was a whole article about the history of that character and what he came to represent. The article was about why Hitler was such a big fan of the character and writer—what that character meant to him and what that character meant in a broader sense.
Thankfully, Alex quickly talked me out of that. He said, “You should name your band Dawes. You’ve been Simon Dawes, people know you as Dawes.” When he says people he meant like, twenty people. It was alright at the time, I was twenty years old and I was terrified of the fact that a band that I was in was already over. Especially my first band where I had put all my hopes and dreams into it and I thought, “This is it.” Then it fell apart and I had to come to terms with it. By calling it Dawes at that point, I got to hold onto that dream a little bit.
As you look back on the Simon Dawes era nearly a decade later, what is your takeaway? How do you characterize that period of time?
I think we were bouncing off walls. We would find an influence and latch onto it because that’s how it felt at the time. I felt like we were a bunch of chameleons. That was a time of discovery. Someone would ask, “Have you heard of Elvis Costello?” and I’d say, “Who’s that?” Then we’d devour all of those albums and shamelessly imitate them. Then hearing David Bowie, and the Kinks, doing the same thing with every band we would come across. I still don’t feel like any of the songs I wrote then were really about anything or worth anything. I think I was learning more about shapes and how songs worked. I was writing songs without having anything to write about and not knowing how to channel anything I was feeling or thinking into a song.
When I look back, I just hear a mish-mosh of influences without any sense of personal identity. It made me kind of cringe at one point but now it makes me smile and makes me proud. It feels like it should be. While there are some genius songwriters at 16 and 17, I wasn’t one of those. I was sort of figuring out as I went along. There’s a lot of recordings to show for it.
Final question: This past summer you reunited Middle Brother [the project also features John McCauley (Deer Tick) and Matt Vasquez (Delta Spirit)] for a performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Is there a chance that the three of you will record or perform live again?
We haven’t really talked about it, I love those guys and that show was a blast but it’s tough to know when to call it. You don’t want to ruin a beautiful thing. I would love to play more with them, and record with them more. I know Matt just finished another solo record, I know that Deer Ticks in the process of finishing their record and we just put out a record a month ago. It just seems like, for the immediate future, everyone’s going to be really busy. To me, Middle Brother is so special with it being just one tour and one record. God forbid if we made another record and it was anything less than people’s expectations, which it’s obviously gonna be, because it’s become a myth for anyone that gives a shit. It’s like, “How do you ever approach it again?” Well we did it, it’s great, I love it. And if we don’t do anything again, as bittersweet as that would be, I would understand.
