“We’re all Gonna Die”
Artist: Dawes
Having heard a few songs by Dawes from earlier Albums and I liked their sound of Acoustic Rock with a heavy emphasis on Song-writing and lyrical aspects. When I heard the album “We’re All Gonna Die” I was intrigued with how different the band sounded. The band had chosen to work with producer Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes, Laura Marling, John Legend) for this album and in doing that you can hear Mills’ influence and productions ideas laced throughout.
Mills’ artistic vision with the album was to keep the fundamentals of the group in place but to completely change the way each member approached their instrument. The Track “roll with the punches” demonstrates this. Instead of a lead guitar taking centre of focus and being accompanied by keys as a rhythm instrument they achieve this “Lead Tone” by playing a Clavinet keyboard directly through a Fender Blackface amplifier whilst heavily driving the tubes in the amp. This creates a tone that has a guitar vibe but offers the ability to make the notes much more staccato and harsh. The drum setup for this track is also unique as Mills took all of the sustaining cymbals (crashes,rides) out of the studio, leaving just HI-Hats, kick and snare. This made Griffin Goldsmith (drummer) play in a much more minimalist style
,making the feel of the groove the primary focus. These productions aspects that Mills’ uses on the track are not overly-complicated technically, but instead challenge the performers thinking and in an in-direct way dictate how they react to their instrument, resulting in them playing in a certain way they to which they might not have done before.