Dawes: Brothers in Arms Play Stephen Talkhouse

In the annals of rock and roll, there has been a number of sibling-led groups that range from those that maintained the family peace (Allman Brothers Band, Heart), were prone to squabbling (Oasis, Creedence Clearwater Revival) or fell somewhere in-between (The Black Crowes, The Kinks). Count Dawes in with the first group, a distinction all the more important for Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, who are now front and center on the group’s ninth album Oh Brother. With the amicable departure of bassist Wylie Gelber and keyboardist Lee Pardini in 2023, the Brothers Goldsmith forged ahead with this latest chapter of Dawes. For Taylor Goldsmith, it’s a part of how bands have always evolved and as such, he felt it important to be front and center with his group’s fanbase about what was going on internally with Dawes.

“I think we live in this wild time where that story is unfolding in front of everyone,” he explained. “There’s the title of that Lou Reed album Growing Up in Public and I think that is what it means to be living with social media in today’s world. If we have a community and we have a relationship with our audience, it’s because we’ve been forthcoming about every step along the way. If we were to get a little bit shadowy about [line-up changes] now and be withholding of information, I feel like the first people that are going to be suspicious are going to be the fans. Instead, let’s continue with this connection that we’ve built and bring them into the whole story. Let’s call the album Oh Brother. Let’s put us on the cover. Let’s have this be something we celebrate.”

The other side of deciding to forge ahead as a creative duo yielded nine songs steeped in the rich Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter tradition, Dawes literally came out of in the late aughts, when the Goldsmiths were part of loose jam sessions hosted by producer Jonathan Wilson. Ironically, one of the newer cuts is “House Parties,” a slide guitar-kissed jam that gives off a George Harrison-meets-Jackson Browne vibe about “the human connections among specific communities.” Other highlights range from a ruminate narrative about aging (the shimmering “Surprise!”) and an off-kilter treatise on living in the now (a gnarly “Front Row Seat”) to a snappy opener poking fun as his hometown punctuated by some crackling riffing (the delightfully quirky “Mr. Los Angeles”).

With a catalog nine albums deep, the Brothers Goldsmith get to walk an interesting tightrope on tour that will find them dipping into Oh Brother while doing justice to the breadth of the band’s catalog. It’s a challenge Taylor Goldsmith welcomes.

“We don’t want to go so deep that a fan who only knows their four favorite songs will feel like they don’t know any of this,” Goldsmith said. “We do a good handful of favorites and always like to touch on songs we haven’t done for a while so that people will feel like this was a special moment. Writing these setlists and showcasing a new album like we always do means that there are four or five songs from the new record. The two songs that get played just about every night are ‘When My Time Comes’ and ‘All Your Favorite Bands.’ If there’s a third that I feel is close to that is ‘A Little Bit of Everything.’”

The idea of building a musical mini-verse like his heroes Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Frank Zappa and The Grateful Dead is something that’s not only very appealing to Goldsmith, but a big part of why he considers himself a music lifer.

“There is a part of me that’s kind of giddy that without really planning on it or really trying to fabricate it, that we just gave birth to a new phase of the band and people are going to be able to say —‘Oh Brother is the only record I like’ or ‘Oh Brother is the beginning of the end and I hate it,’” he said with a chuckle. “I just feel like being able to polarize a fan or give someone something to hate or love — that’s what I do. I’m eager for people to be able to do the same. I feel like when you transcend being an artisan, then you become this institution. You become this flag that gets waved on behalf of a community. That’s always been the most attractive stuff to me and that’s what I’ve always wanted to offer. In that sense, we have a lot of work to do.”

Dawes will be appearing on July 13 at Stephen Talkhouse, 61 Main Street, Amagansett. For more information, visit stephentalkhouse.com or call 631-267-3117.