songwriter – Dawes

Wylie’s Next Chapter

February 28, 2023

So I have some really tough news.

After these two runs in March and April, my main man Wylie Gelber is going to be leaving the Dawes lineup.

Some of you may have noticed him building basses, guitars and pedal boards for the band through the years. Well this kind of handiwork of his goes way beyond the music realm and he has become something of a designer/contractor/builder all rolled into one. He’s kind of a genius at all of it (no surprise there) and he’s realized he needs to commit to this path more fully. He still loves us and is going to be cheering us on from the sidelines. And we completely understand and support this big shift in his life despite the Wylie shaped hole in our hearts that no one is ever going to be able to fill.

We’ve been playing music together since he was 15 and I was 18 and Griff was 13. I don’t know what being a musician is without him. He has set the bar for what great bass playing sounds like to me. It’s gonna be hard and tears have been shed but change always leads to some kind of newfound strength and Dawes isn’t going anywhere, I promise.

I admire the hell out of Wylie for making these realizations about himself. But oh will he be missed. There will be a time when he won’t be on the stage with us but he will ALWAYS be a member of this brotherhood and one of my best friends I could have ever asked for. I love you so much, Wylie.

To our sweet fans – we look forward to celebrating Wylie’s last ride with you all on these next two runs. See you out there.

The Live Album is Here

February 17, 2023

HAPPY RELEASE DAY

You can finally listen to our live album anywhere you stream music! Find it in our Misadventures of Doomscroller Deluxe Edition.

It was a marathon to get through all this material and committing to completely live takes all in one night in the studio. But it lent the performances a sense of urgency bordering on desperation.

These live recordings feel like how these songs were meant to live. I hope you enjoy!

Stream it now at https://found.ee/Dawes_MisadventuresDeluxe

Get Dawes Sheet Music

February 7, 2023

First Dawes song as sheet music. “Little Bit Of Everything” Let us know if you learn it so we can hear you.

Grab sheet music here: https://found.ee/q5JCdH

Watch: Jimmy Kimmel Live

December 15, 2022

Thanks again to Jimmy Kimmel Live for having us and giving me an excuse to keep writing this song. Hope you all enjoyed it.

New Song: Interest of Time

December 14, 2022

Today is the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook. This song, ‘The Interest of Time’, is about the impossible thought process a parent goes through some version of in the aftermath of such an unthinkable atrocity. I wrote this and sang this before either of my sons were born but I don’t think I’m gonna sing it again.

It’s a sad song. It would be strange to say I hope you enjoy it. But I hope you find some kind of meaning in it for you. A small effort to bring the humanity back to a desensitizingly regular piece of the news cycle.
-TG

Listen at https://found.ee/dawes_interestoftime

Dawes is donating all of their proceeds from this song to the Brady Campaign / Team ENOUGH, and we want to thank our record label, Rounder Records, for their donation to Brady Campaign / Team ENOUGH.

2023 Tour Dates Are Here!

October 18, 2022

Happy to be announcing the Misadventures of Doomscroller headlining tour. We’re back to the Evening With format. 2 sets. Just us. Long nights. Full hearts. Buy tickets. Come early. We’ll all have to break out the catalogue master lists and bingo cards as we try to get to every song we’ve got. On Sale Friday!

3/2/23 Iron City – Birmingham, AL
3/3/23 The Eastern – Atlanta, GA
3/4/23 Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN
3/5/23 Headliners – Louisville, KY
3/7/23 Bluebird Nightclub – Bloomington, IN
3/8/23 Taft Theatre – Cincinnati, OH
3/10/23 Thalia Hall – Chicago, IL
3/11/23 XL Live – Harrisburg, PA
3/12/23 Warner Theatre – Washington, DC
3/14/23 Ridgefield Playhouse – Ridgefield, CT
3/16/23 The Fillmore – Philadelphia, PA
3/17/23 Roadrunner – Boston, MA
3/18/23 Beacon Theatre – New York, NY
4/6/23 The Factory – Dallas, TX
4/7/23 The Heights Theater – Houston, TX
4/8/23 ACL at Moody Theater – Austin, TX
4/11/23 JJ’s Live – Fayetteville, AR
4/12/23 The Pageant – St. Louis, MO
4/14/23 Majestic Theatre – Madison, WI
4/15/23 Palace Theatre – St Paul, MN
4/16/23 Liberty Hall – Lawrence, KS
4/18/23 WAVE – Wichita, KS
4/19/23 Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
4/20/23 The CommonWealth Room – Salt Lake City, UT
4/22/23 Neptune Theatre – Seattle, WA
4/23/23 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR
4/26/23 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
4/27/23 Belly Up – Solana Beach, CA
4/28/23 Belly Up – Solana Beach, CA
5/5/23 The Theatre at Ace Hotel – Los Angeles, CA

New Studio Album Available Now

July 22, 2022

Our new album ‘Misadventures of Doomscroller’ is here! Listen Now!

About Someone Else’s Cafe / Doomscroller Tries to Relax – Every time a take was completed felt like a major accomplishment. It being 10 minutes really raised the stakes. Didn’t wanna be the guy to mess up in minute 7 or 8 with everyone playing flawlessly up to that point. This whole album, and this song especially, felt a little beyond our comfort zone and I’m really proud of what that’s done to the music. I like to think that you can hear the eye contact, that you can hear us thinking on their feet. It’s already become a top 5er to play live. Happy to finally have it out in the world.

Track 2 – Comes In Waves – I had this riff and one of the verses for a while. Griffin, Wylie and Mike Viola came over to my backyard (this was peak covid) to just play music together for one of the first times since lockdown. I started sharing the song and Griffin and Mike started singing their background parts you hear on the choruses on the record immediately. It inspired me to finish writing it.

The lyric is about the arbitrary demands I make on myself. I want to perceive me or my life a certain way but I make no exceptions for an off day or a misstep. Whether it’s a win or a loss, it’s all transient, and only when I can live in some version of that awareness (which is itself transient) am I able to bat away any fears or anxieties or the consequences of an over indulged ego.

Track 3 – Everything Is Permanent is a song (about how everything about us is tracked, documented, recorded, filed, mined, bought, sold, etc. etc. on some level) that is wrapped around a molten core of a breakdown/freakout/majorminorinterweave that is probably the moment I’m most proud of on the whole record. After showing you the blood and guts, we gently sew the song back together again and end with what could be the tagline for all of social media and the screen-life-culture that we subscribe to these days to varying degrees: “Did you really need to cry? Or be seen crying?” – TG

Track 4 – The words to Ghost In The Machine are about the early days of a band. Playing small clubs and going on small tours. As hard as it is in the moment, it’s hard not to look back at those times through rose colored glasses. It’s all a lot more romantic now. And it’s also what built our foundational faith in what we do.

It’s the first time we’ve ever had a song with this kind of feel. We got Jonathan Wilson to play a second drum kit for the live take. Griffin and he switch off taking those drum breaks at the end. The solos were live on the floor and there’s no BGVs so other than extra percussion, a rhythm guitar, and an extra keyboard part, it’s all one live take.

Feels like it’s gonna be a mainstay in the live show for a long time to come.

Misadventures of Doomscroller, produced by Jonathan Wilson. Grab your own vinyl copy now!

Setting TV Records This Saturday

July 21, 2022

We got a Guinness Book performance coming out this Saturday for CBS Saturday Sessions. It’s the longest song that’s ever appeared in a TV performance. Really grateful that they let us perform our song in all its glory.

Free Concert Film Stream

May 5, 2022

Gonna announce our record and release a song this Friday. But we’re also gonna stream us playing our entire new record from East West studios and it’ll only be available from 9:30am PST Friday through Sunday at https://found.ee/DawesConcertFilm. Spread the word!

The New Live Album Is Here

April 8, 2022

Our new live album ‘Live from the Rooftop (Los Angeles, CA 8.28.20)’ is here! Listen at https://found.ee/DawesRooftopLive

Give us all your thoughts. Tell us all your highlights.

Swapping Songs with Conor Oberst

September 18, 2021

From the Bullpen # 10

As far as I’m concerned, between Bright Eyes and his solo records, Conor Oberst is one of the greatest songwriters that has played the game. I remember hearing Fevers and Mirrors when I was 16 and feeling my sense of song permanently rewired. So it was a big deal for me when went on tour with Conor as the opening act as well as his band. To celebrate our worlds coming together we decided to cover one of each other’s tunes and release it as a limited 7 inch. We tried our best to make Easy/Lucky/Free sound like a Dawes song and Conor did the same thing to Million Dollar Bill. Happy to bring these recordings back to life.

CLICK HERE to Listen

Art by Ian Bush

We Have A Podcast!

March 4, 2021

When we talk to each other about our band, or just music as a whole, I feel like there is an added depth and level of comfort than there is when we’re talking to someone outside the band (nothing against interviews…I just think that’s the nature of conversations between people who know each other intimately). And yet, I don’t think we’ve ever brought anyone else into those conversations. So I sat down with each member of the band individually over the last several months and had a conversation. This first one is with Griff. We recorded it months before GLWW came out. The album barely comes up but we ended up finding several enjoyable threads to follow. Hope you dig it too…
LISTEN TO ‘EPISODE 1’ HERE
(Like this podcast image, designed by Michael Carney? It’s available on a t-shirt RIGHT HERE)

Catch ‘Free As We Wanna Be’ Acoustic + Live

February 26, 2021

Today we’re releasing Free As We Wanna Be as a single along with an acoustic version and a live version LISTEN HERE

Single version: Since this baby already clocks in at 3 minutes, you’ll be hard pressed to find any differences between it and the album cut. But I implore you to give it a re-listen anyway in this new context as a “single” rather than a Track-8-On-A-9-Song-Album. Who knows, maybe you’ll love it more. Maybe you’ll hate it more. Either way, the tiny space it takes up in your brain currently is begging to be re-shaped by this new digital packaging. LISTEN HERE

Acoustic version: When the Powers-That-Be hit me up again to record some sort of acoustic version of this song to include in this extended-single/mini-EP, I thought, “With MY pro-tools home rig? With these plug-ins? With THESE mics? No thanks!” But then I remembered I bought a 1979 Tascam Portastudio 4-Track Casette Recorder about a year ago but was too fearful to figure out how it worked. Until now. I dug into the instruction manual, I plugged my mic into my reverb tank, the reverb tank into the Tascam and did my best. You’re gonna hear a good amount of hiss, some weird ghost flares (maybe something to do with power in my house?), and way in the background you can sorta hear when I’m cutting in and out of overdubs. Suffice it to say: it’s scrappy. But I love it. It feels like a living recording. It’s the first thing I’ve ever made on this 4-Track and I’m damn proud of it. LISTEN HERE

Live Version: This was recorded the same day we made our North Hills live stream (for you Dawesians out there that were able to catch that set and know what I’m talking about). It’s live from the amphitheater at Griff’s and my old high school. Last time we were there was Griffin’s graduation when we were a few months away from recording North Hills back in 2008. Looking forward to getting this tune on the road so the live version can get hairier and hairier, but it feels good to have a documentation of what it sounded like the 4th time we ever played it live. LISTEN HERE