Dream continues for Dawes
In the early days of Dawes, the Los Angelesbased folk rock band coming to The Signal on Saturday, the goal was to play music that the members of the group liked. It was a massive bonus that lots of other people seemed to like it, says frontman Taylor Goldsmith.
“When we made our first record, I was working in a homeowner insurance company calling contractors. We put together enough money and recorded our first record, and I was certain nobody would ever hear it and we’d go back to our jobs.
“I mean, I understand that this type of music doesn’t have a large share of the market, so we have been so lucky.”
He says the band never considered recording “North Hills” in 2009 with an eye toward sales.
“We set out to do what we love to do. We could have set out to do what is more trendy, but I think it would have been transparent.”
Now, with the recent release of “Passwords,” their sixth album, the band has a new set of goals, Goldsmith says.
“I think the thing that we’ve always wanted was to grow and evolve, but also to have a huge body of work. We’d like to look back and realize we’ve recorded 20 albums or
so. I don’t know if it will work, but that is the goal.”
He says the band strives to remain true to their original goal of being true to themselves, and that keeps them, and their sound, grounded. He’s also learned to balance the praise with the criticism.
“You have to respect them all the same. It can knock the wind out of you if you pay too much attention to it,” he says.
The band has released 10 singles that have charted, with “Things Happen” and “When the Tequila Runs Out” reaching the Top 10. The latest, “Living in the Future,” gets regular airplay locally on Alt 98.7.
For “Passwords,” Dawes created a marketing campaign that sent fans on a scavenger hunt for “passwords” posted throughout the internet. Once a password was found, it needed to be entered onto the band’s official website, where each part of the password represented a musical note.
These musical notes played various musical refrains from the group’s songs and unlocked exclusive content, including the singles “Never Gonna Say Goodbye” and “Telescope,” as well as a Spotify playlist curated by Griffin Goldsmith.