Dawes' sound can be traced to California based bands of the '60s—the Band, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash. The heart and emotion inherent in every soulful chord the band strums and the harmonies they make is a straight descendent of the California Dreamin' era.
Comprised of brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, Wylie Gelber, and Tay Strathairn, the men of Dawes have been garnering loyal fans and admiring reviews since the release of their first album, North Hills in 2009. Since then they have steadily gained momentum, peaking this last year when Levon Helm invited them to open for him, they played as Robbie Robertson's backing band at several gigs, Mumford & Sons invited the band to open for them, they played at Occupy Wall Street with Jackson Browne and they appeared on an episode of the NBC show Parenthood.
"It's been a busy year and a half," drummer Griffin Goldsmith admits. "It's hard to really look at it objectively when you're going somewhere just because we're in it all day every day. But it's been great. I mean, we're staying really busy and we're playing a lot of awesome shows and so far the response has been really awesome."
Catch them playing their LouFest show the week after their sold out Gentlemen of the Road Stopover show in Dixon, Illinois with Mumford & Sons and many other bands.
