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Join us outdoors at Tree House Brewing Company Western Mass for an incredible performance with...
For the first time in almost a decade, brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith grace the cover of a Dawes record. It’s just the two of them this time, and as such, Oh Brother marks a distinctive new chapter for the California rock band — one that is both introspective and accessible, all while maintaining their beloved sense of sincerity.
After the amicable departure of two bandmates last year, Taylor realized that the group’s natural evolution was nothing to hide from Dawes’ dedicated fans. He likens it to looking back on The Rolling Stones’ career — eras with Brian Jones versus Ronnie Wood — or Dire Straits’ lineup with and without brothers Mark and David Knopfler together, or The Cure’s fluctuating cast encircling Robert Smith. People change. Music evolves. But a band is still a band.
“We’re not shying away from this information, because then it just seems cowardly or something,” Taylor says. “Rather than try to hide something, let’s celebrate it. Let’s call our record Oh Brother.” The title of Dawes’ ninth LP serves as a sort of double entendre too, an exasperated sigh acknowledging that change can still be challenging. “We’re gonna miss our dudes,” he says. “They’re still brothers.”
Still, Oh Brother steers Dawes decidedly forward, honoring 15 years of Taylor and Griffin’s musical relationship, as well as the next era of their band. That spirit informed much of the album’s writing and recording, too. Each of the nine songs began with just Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums. They initially tracked each one live together, before adding in additional instrumentation and collaborating with touring guitarist Trevor Menear in the studio. Additionally, Oh Brother is the first record the brothers have co-produced, working alongside longtime friend Mike Viola.
Lyrically, the songs on Oh Brother encompass personal moments in their lives and larger ideas of what consistency and stability mean. “House Parties,” a musical sibling to 2015’s “All Your Favorite Bands,” came toward the end of the recording process for 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscroller. Shortly thereafter, “The Game” and “Surprise!” — a six-and-a-half-minute not-quite-center, centerpiece about life not going as expected — came as Taylor was settling into fatherhood. Elsewhere, “King of the Never-Wills” subtly addresses addiction and “Mister Los Angeles” serves as a sardonically satirical commentary on their hometown.
At this point in the Goldsmiths’ career, Dawes has cemented itself as one of the most earnest, no-bullshit musical acts out there. To some degree, Taylor acquiesces, “I definitely choose to believe that definitive work can always be out in front of us instead of behind us, but it’s also a fact that we have established a personality.” They’re a band that can move seamlessly between folk rock, piano ballads, and sprawling jams while maintaining both an immediately recognizable sound and a freedom from expectations.
Across its heartfelt songs — sometimes silly and sometimes serious, and all filled with sing-along choruses, deeply felt poetic lyrics, and sterling musicianship — Oh Brother highlights the band’s independence. Even as the Goldsmith brothers navigate new chapters in their personal and professional lives, they remain creative, ambitious, and inspired. “All you can really do is find out what are the most essential, truest, and idiosyncratic parts of yourself,” Taylor says. “And I like the fact that Griffin and I are kind of clinging to each other and holding on to each other more than we ever have. We’re grateful for each other in a new way. But we’ve also been through a lot.
“It feels like we’re reborn in a way, and I mean that with so, so much love and gratitude to everyone we’ve ever played with before! This is what it means to be a lifer, to have iterations. It means having phases and chapters, and this is a very clear delineation as to the beginning of a new one. So Oh Brother feels like a ninth record, but it also feels like a first record.”
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They said it couldn’t be done. Four different songwriters joining forces to form a single band? There was simply no precedent (outside of CSNY, The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys, The Highwaymen, Monsters of Folk, etc). And yet Fantastic Cat did it anyway, defying the odds and teaming up to record their highly unanticipated 2022 debut, The Very Best Of Fantastic Cat. Hailed by Rolling Stone as "a wildly satisfying collection of folk-rock, country, Americana, and good old rock & roll" that offers “equal doses of Dylan and Springsteen,” the album earned the vocal-trading, instrument-swapping collective their national TV debut, sold-out headline dates around the US and Europe, festival performances everywhere from Sundance to Take Root, and a song in the Showtime series Tulsa King. In 2023, the unlikely four-piece teamed up with all-star producer Butch Walker for a 50th anniversary take on Wings’ “Band On The Run,” which prompted even more love from Rolling Stone, who dubbed them “the Harlem Globetrotters of Americana.”
Individually, each member of Fantastic Cat boasts their own impressive resume along with a litany of critical acclaim. Paste declared Don DiLego’s latest album a “stunner.” NPR said Anthony D’Amato “sings and writes in the tradition of Bruce Springsteen or Josh Ritter.” Rolling Stone called Brian Dunne’s new record “the sleeper album of the year” and praised Mike Montali’s band, Hollis Brown, as “the soundtrack for a late-night drive through the American heartland.” Collectively, though, the four transcend their respective roots, emerging as velvet-clad rock and roll cooperative far greater than the sum of its parts.
They say some cats are born fantastic; others have fantasy thrust upon them. These guys are somewhere in the middle.
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Jake Manzi is a Los Angeles based singer/songwriter, raised in Western Massachusetts. With a subtle touch for turning up pure song-stuff out of life, channeling the likes of Marshall Crenshaw and Tom Petty, of Lucinda Williams and Bruce Springsteen, Manzi offers you his singular take on what contemporary pop-rock can be. Opening for acts like NRBQ, Ron Sexsmith, Lori McKenna, M. Ward, and Joe Pug, and collaborating with artists like Don Was, Mikaela Davis, Madison Cunningham and Dawes’s Griffin & Taylor Goldsmith, Jake Manzi is a songwriter to be reckoned with and a unique talent to be enjoyed.