On Tuesday, Dawes’ new album Nothing Is Wrong was released by ATO Records.
The L.A. folk-rock quartet recorded the disc at producer Jonathan Wilson’s Echo Park studio late last year in between touring commitments. Jackson Browne appears on the record and band leader, Taylor Goldsmith, says the band was aiming for an “American rock & roll” sound inspired by artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Bob Seger.
I really like the first song on the record, “Time Spent In Los Angeles.” In an interview with Street Date Radio, Goldsmith is asked if there intentionally a California vibe to this album?
Goldsmith: It’s not an intentional thing, I just write about what I feel like I have a good concept of and everybody feels like they have a close relationship with the world that they come from…It’s not like I’m trying to represent California, I’m more just trying to represent me and I happen to be in California when I’m not on the road. “Times Spent in Los Angeles” (and this goes for anyone from anywhere, I just happened to use the town LA), but when there are a hundred people in the room and two of them are from LA, I believe that they can kind of pick each other out. I think that the environment that we all come from dictates who we are and I feel like there is a complicated quality to someone from LA. It is half cynical and half just devastatingly realistic and I have a complicated relationship with it. I think that exists anywhere and I love that.
Darby and I saw Dawes last year at this time, when they opened for Josh Ritter at The Wonder Ballroom. This is a band that’s making progress and I expect their new album to be well received by skinny jeans-wearing hipsters and old folk rockers, alike.