What are your favorite solos to play live in the catalogue?
I think guitar solos are the closest I’ve come to understanding what meditation means. I have to take a deep breath and try to clear out all the mental static flying around my head: “Am I too loud?” “Is this the note I started on yesterday?” “Is this set going well?” “Am I making a dumb face?” “What song is next?”…Allllll of that (and so much more) needs to be quieted somehow. If I’m not in a good headspace, I won’t be able to stop these voices and center myself. But if I can, even briefly, much like meditation, it can feel great….unless I start to notice it. If the thought “I’m really in the moment” crosses my mind, it typically means the end of that moment. Instead I’m standing back and acknowledging my thoughts in a way that takes me out of it. I hope that makes sense. I have to be relaxed and connected to the music in a joyful, loose way to even stand a chance at playing well.
And then speaking technically, I don’t have the proficiency on the level lot of my gunslinging contemporaries so I have to rely on playing more lyrically, more melodically to make up for it. I can’t kick it into a fourth gear with speed or licks, so I’ve gotta earn that escalation in dynamics by a different route, if I can at all (I don’t mean to suggest I’m above speed and/or licks - I practice that stuff all the time. It just hasn’t found its way into my vocabulary yet).
With all that said, my favorite solos are the ones where the band breaks down and I can start at zero, building it up at my own pace until we all reach a 10 together. Band and audience. That’s songs like Somewhere Along The Way, Most People, Can’t Think About It Now and Peace in the Valley, to name a few. But make no mistake, I like them all. I love playing guitar.
What kind of scales are you using for your solos with all those sweet stanky notes?
(I probably should call this question 1A, since I’m sticking with guitar talk).
I don’t know scales or modes. I just play based on what the changes are as it applies to the key. Like if there’s a major 2 chord, then I know I’m gonna raise the 4th of the scale when I get to that chord, but I wouldn’t describe it that way in the moment. I just try to walk between whatever chords I’m playing in a graceful way. If I can add some chromaticism in there, then that helps decorate the journey. I guess the basis of that kind of playing (at least in the way I do it) would be bluegrass? But I don’t know a thing about playing bluegrass. I’ve just listened to a lot of guys like Jerry Garcia, Dave Rawlings and Mark Knopfler and have tried to take what I can and make it my own. I’m sure all the REAL guitar players reading this are throwing up. Sorry folks.
What’s the best question that Gus has asked recently?
“Hey dada, who put chocolate in your eyes?” (My eyes are brown)
Who were your biggest inspirations/influences for this coming album?
As always, there’s a lot. But for now I’ll answer this question with entire records.
Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
Los Lobos - Kiko
Dijon - Absolutely
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
U2 - Achtung Baby
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska and Born In The USA (I was reading that new Springsteen book about these two albums right before we went into the studio)
Lou Reed and John Cale - Songs for Drella
Pretty disparate group of albums, I guess. I don’t think our record sounds like any of these albums per se, but they are ones I was thinking about most while we were recording. Less on a track by track level but more how the entire record seems to hang together. I’ll leave it at that for now.
When did you start to consider yourself a success?
This might bother some of you, but I’ve never quite had that feeling. That is not to say I’m not extremely aware of how lucky I am to get to play my own music for a living. Based on that metric alone it’s very easy to feel like the most successful person I know. But being this entrenched in the business, being aware (thanks to social media) of everyone else’s skyrocketing from busking to selling out Red Rocks , it’s very easy to be left with this feeling of “what is wrong with me?” or just to feel like I’m on shaky ground and this is the end of the line. I know that’s a very self-centered reaction to other artist’s well deserved victories. But I’m just being honest with my Substack pals right now. If I zoom out, I know that it is a failing of my perspective and NOT a failing of Dawes. We are right where we should be. And we have so much to be endlessly grateful for, WHICH I AM. But there is always a voice in the back of my head telling me I’m gonna need a backup plan in the next 6 months. I know it’s crazy but it’s there. I used to try to silence the voice, or at least make myself feel endlessly guilty for giving it any quarter, but now I try to use it to my advantage.
It’s like this: I think this voice is the worst manifestation of my own creativity and my own ambition. If my creativity can’t find ways out of my skull through healthy ways like songwriting, or even just some old fashioned conversation with people I love, it seems to invert itself in these unhealthy ways of beating myself up, which requires a fairly active imagination (see?Creativity!). And if my ambition can’t be faced in ways that sometimes feel uncomfortable (i.e. admitting to myself what my goals for a song or an album might be), then it gets louder and just starts insisting I am a failure. All of this tells me that when these dark thoughts start showing up, it’s probably time to write a song and/or it’s probably time to realistically and honestly address what my goals are. When I do that, my you’re-a-failure-and-everything-is-falling-apart voice loses its power.
I’m sharing this stuff not to look for pity or consolation, but just in hopes that those of you that deal with a version of this same experience can see that no one is spared! And to share a way out of these low points that have worked for me at times.
What art form outside of songwriting/music inspires you most?
I guess books. But I sure do love movies too. I believe that the input dictates the output. If you’re a creator, it doesn’t matter what you’re into as long as you’re into something that fires you up and makes you dig deeper into whatever it is you want to create.
Favorite filmmaker?
So many. Herzog broke me open to movies. That led to Jim Jarmusch which led to Bergman which led to everything else.
These days my favorites are Michael Mann, David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Aki Kaurismaki, and Michael Haneke.
What are you currently reading?
Currently reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Expansive, dark, heartbreaking and hilarious. I thought I was going in for something Franzen adjacent. But it’s very much its own beast. Just finished Angels by Denis Johnson. Even though it deals with drug addicts and criminals, it somehow made my heart bigger. Next up is Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett.
Thanks for all the questions everyone! For the paid subscribers I’m attaching a demo of a song I wrote with Jonny Fritz about fatherhood called ‘Blame the Kids’