In a Year Marred by Fire and Loss, Brothers Behind L.A.-based Band ‘Dawes’ to Play Kalispell Show

“Mister Los Angeles,” the opening track on Dawes’ newest album “Oh Brother,” is the kind of song that can only really be written about a place that you know and love. Or at least, it’s the kind of songwriting that’s best left to the people who know and love a place.

For Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, the two brothers who make up Dawes, that place (if you haven’t guessed it) is Los Angeles.

With a propulsive guitar riff humming through, “Mister Los Angeles” is an account of the life of a sort of L.A.-equivalent to the mythical “Florida Man.” Between verses, the song falls back on the refrain that begins with a declaration that the rumors are true, and ends with the promise that “this is where the magic happens.” The official music video features a bewildered Goldsmith auditioning in a darkened garage for an audience of one, which happens to be the comedian Conan O’Brien, who watches, and then participates, in increasingly unnerving ways.

In a series of anecdotes that come with a tone that verges on confessional, “Mister Los Angeles” sings of how his personal fitness trainer tells his clients he’s a shaman and they smoke DMT before they bench. He shares that his therapist has confirmed that he’s a victim, that everyone around him is bad, and that they end every session with “this was rad.” He explains that he just booked a Taco Bell commercial in which he eats a bag of cheese without his hands.

“My agent thinks it’s slightly controversial, it’s not great for the image of my band,” Mister Los Angeles says in the song, which signals a fun, self-deprecating start to an album that seems unafraid to have a good time.

“Oh Brother” is the band’s ninth studio album going back to the 2009 release of “North Hills,” and “Mister Los Angeles” represents an energetic start to an album that mines its affinity for — and exasperation with —Tinseltown sometimes with nothing more than a guitar, a drum, and a microphone.

“I tend to feel like you can’t kind of poke fun or anything unless you have a real deep regard and deep love, you know,” Taylor Goldsmith said in an interview. “Like, siblings can tease because they love each other and get each other, but if someone else that doesn’t know them tries to make the same joke, it’s like, you should f**k off. And that’s kind of the energy for that song for me. Like, I’m definitely making some jokes, but I’ve never lived anywhere else and I love it deeply. I’m so proud to be from this city.”

But Goldsmith’s city, his slice of it included, has been hurting in recent months. “Oh Brother” came out on Oct. 11, just about three months before the devastating L.A. fires ignited amid windy conditions on Jan. 7, ultimately killing dozens of people and destroying or damaging more than 18,000 structures. The Eaton Fire in Altadena destroyed the band’s studio, and Griffin lost his house, his private studio, and his private collection of music gear and drums accumulated over two decades.

“Someone said the next Dawes album is going to be really heavy,” Griffin Goldsmith joked during a late-January interview with CBS Mornings.

The experience of those fires, and their association with them, came to define some of Dawes’ public performances in the immediate aftermath. On Jan. 14, they played a quiet, stripped down version of their song “Time Spent in Los Angeles” on the Jimmy Kimmel show. The song, played in front of a big screen showing scenes from the fires, opens with the lyrics, “These days my friends don’t seem to know me without my suitcase in my hand. And when I’m standing still, I seem to disappear.”

On Jan. 30, they played in the FireAid L.A. concert to raise money for wildfire relief as part of a lineup that included the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Earth, Wind and Fire, Joni Mitchell, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Billie Eilish, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, and Anderson .Paak, among others.

Then, on Feb. 2 at the Grammys, Dawes played a cover of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” with John Legend, Braid Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Brittany Howard, and St. Vincent on behalf of a MusiCares fundraiser for fire relief.

Although he has lent himself to the effort to help support the victims of the fires, Taylor Goldsmith said that he remains uncomfortable being seen as a victim, although he says he’s grateful for the love and support people have shown him. He’s cognizant of the many people who are worse off than he is, and he says he’s been left with a feeling of gratitude for the things that didn’t go wrong. “I don’t feel like a particular, like a spiritual giant, but I do feel like sometimes … I’m like, wow. Like, how lucky are we that no one died? How lucky are we that, you know, our house is standing?”

Taylor Goldsmith and his wife, the actress and musician Mandy Moore, have three kids, with the oldest recently having turned 4, and he said they’ve helped keep him focused on the present. The fact that they’re happy is a blessing, he said.

Goldsmith said that he’s not writing anything at the moment, but that he’s found that when he’s listening to music he’s more focused in on it than he normally would be after an album’s release, and that he’s been very much enjoying the way he’s interacting with music. When the time comes to start writing again, he’s sure the inspiration will be there, and that songs will come falling out. But for the time being, when he isn’t touring or performing, or being a parent, his free moments are spent on the phone with contractors, or insurance companies, or visiting disaster recovery centers to figure out which permits he needs to remove fire debris from his property.

Playing music right now, he describes as a way of getting past all of that.

“For me, it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s move on. Let’s have a good time.’ So if anything, our shows try to bring that. It’s not necessarily to like, you know, to retell any of it or to relive any of it, or to like, order to kind of ask for anybody sympathy or pity. If anything, let’s celebrate the fact that we can still do this.”

Dawes is playing at FVCC’s Wachholz College on Friday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. with special guest Michigander. For more information, go to wachholzcollegecenter.org.