California indie-folk-rock turned jam-curious brotherly band Dawes will get back to basics on its ninth album, fittingly titled Oh Brother. Out October 11th, the studio release comes in the wake of two band members’ amicable departures last year and is the product of a renewed creative closeness between brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith. The band will take the new LP out on the road with the Oh Brother Tour, with headlining dates in November, December, and April 2025 [pre-order here].
Fifteen years into its career, Dawes found itself at a turning point last year after multi-instrumentalist Lee Pardini and original bassist Wylie Gelber left the group on good terms. The band was already in a period of evolution surrounding its last album, Misadventures of Doomscroller, when Dawes embraced expansive compositions and began regularly performing with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. Eschewing the grandiose arrangements that earned the band the record for the longest live performance of a single song on TV (“Someone Else’s Cafe/Doomscroller Tries to Relax” on CBS Saturday Morning), Dawes simplified operations for Oh Brother. The brothers recorded each of the nine tracks live with just Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums, later bringing in additional studio instrumentation and touring guitarist Trevor Menear. The result is an aerial overview tracking Dawes’ history, from folk-rock singalongs and piano ballads to sweeping jams. Oh Brother charts the band’s and the brothers’ personal progress as they navigate this next chapter, remaining committed to their creative vision and each other.
“All you can really do is find out what are the most essential, truest, and idiosyncratic parts of yourself,” Taylor Goldsmith said of Dawes’ Oh Brother. “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.”
Along with the album announcement, Dawes shared the lead single “House Parties”. The song’s unabashed nostalgia is only propelled by the crowd-sourced music video, documenting the kind of good times that Taylor breezily sings of. “House Parties” is about how the best finds aren’t on tourist maps or travel blogs, but rather through connecting with actual people at the titular homely soirees, hole-in-the-wall bars, local concerts, and anywhere else the soul of a community can be found.
“A song about how true cultural experiences aren’t in the tourist traps but within human connections among specific communities,” Taylor explained. “It’s a goofy lyric but the sentiment is not. We can all relate to feeling truly alive at a dive bar or a stranger’s home, getting access into a universe we didn’t even know existed…Whether across the planet or just one town over.”
Dawes — “House Parties” [Official Video]
The Oh Brother Tour will kick off on November 7th in Knoxville, TN, with almost 20 dates scheduled through the end of 2024. Dawes will tour coast to coast, with stops at familiar venues including Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium (11/10), Chicago’s Salt Shed (11/16), San Francisco’s The Fillmore (12/6), and Austin City Limits at the Moody Center (12/15). The tour will pick back up in April 2025, with shows at the newly relaunched Bearsville Theatre in Woodstock, NY (4/9), New York City’s Beacon Theatre (4/12), Madison, WI’s The Majestic (4/17), Denver’s Ogden Theatre (4/23), Seattle’s Neptune Theatre (4/26), and more. Prior to the new tour, Dawes has a mix of previously announced headlining shows, opening gigs for The Revivalists and Brad Paisley, a special set at Newport Folk Festival backing up Conan O’Brien & Real Musicians, a performance with Phil Lesh & Friends at Sunday Daydream, and more. Tickets for Dawes’ Oh Brother Tour go on sale to the general public on Friday, Jul 19th at 10 a.m. local time. Scroll down for a complete list of tour dates and visit the band’s website for tickets.
The post Dawes Heralds New Album ‘Oh Brother’ With Unabashedly Nostalgic “House Parties”, Announces Tour [Video] appeared first on L4LM.
