Everything That Led To The Grammys

Pt. 2 - FireAid

On the morning of Jan 12, our manager, Brian Schwartz emailed the folks over at FireAid in an effort to get Dawes on the bill. He knew it might be a hail mary, but it was worth a try. He didn’t tell us at first, but when he did he made it clear that his intentions weren’t to be opportunistic, but he saw us as ambassadors of Altadena and thought our inclusion would be appropriate. A few hours after he sent that email, he heard from Jim Pitt inviting us on Kimmel. Once the Kimmel performance happened, our manager sent the video over to FireAid and that’s when they gave us an official offer.

I had heard rumblings that something like FireAid was in the offing, but definitely never imagined it including Dawes. At this point, I had so little understanding of what it all even meant. I knew LiveAid and FarmAid and other Aids and knew what they all represented not only to the history of music but also to the history of fundraising. I also knew that these were all broadly televised, but for some reason I didn’t put two and two together with this one. Once we were added, I just thought this was gonna be a massive gig at The Forum and they’d put us at the beginning of the show. And had that been all it was, we would have been incredibly grateful. But my expectations were way off on this one.

We soon found out that along with playing a song of ours, we were being asked to back up Graham Nash and Stephen Stills on their songs Teach Your Children and For What It’s Worth (that second number was gonna include our old pal Mike Campbell on guitar as well). We were also asked by Blake Mills, who is now Joni’s MD, to come sing some backgrounds alongside Lucius on Both Sides Now with our Queen. Singing with Joni, or even just being in her presence, is an evergreen experience - every time feels as unbelievable as the first time. We had never met Graham or Stephen but had been raised on their music. The CSN self-titled and Deja Vu albums achieved that Beatles status of feeling embedded in our DNA. This was going to be a dream come true, to say the least.

The show was scheduled for Thursday, January 30th. The first step, just a few days before FireAid, was going over to Stephen’s studio at his house for a quick rehearsal. His home was that perfect canyon house you’d imagine belonging to the guy who wrote Carry On and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. A time capsule of that era of LA that you knew existed but gets harder and harder to come across in the modern world. Griff couldn’t make it because his baby boy had been born two days before. So it was just me, Trevor, Z, and Adam MacDougall on keys. Graham also didn’t come because he was comfortable with just running Teach Your Children at soundcheck. Stephen wanted to make sure we were up to the task, which I totally respected.

After explaining how he wanted it - a little slower than the record, a deeper backbeat, and no frills unless someone was taking a slow - we ran it. Stephen was playing what looked like a 50’s strat. A holy grail of a guitar. After our first run through he let out a laugh and said, “This is gonna be great! We’re done! Who wants coffee?” We stood around talking for a little while and ran it one more time to make a recording for Griff, but otherwise got out of there much earlier than we expected. We thanked Stephen for having us and told him we’d see him at the forum.

The next day was the run through on site. This is where we met Graham. Just about every single room in the whole place was being used for dressing rooms for the insane list of legends on the bill, so the only place available for us to go over the song before we hit the stage was a small gym. For the paying subscribers, we included the full take of the first time we sang the song through with Graham and Stephen. It’s not perfect, but hopefully you can see Griffin and I psychically pinching ourselves while we got to sing Croz’s parts with the two remaining members of the supergroup that means so much to us.

So that leads us to the day of FireAid, which was a Friday. Right around this time, the Grammys performance was also coming together - the development of which I’ll save for the next post. All that is to say - on that Friday, the day of the performance, we went to Jonathan Wilson’s studio in Topanga to record our cover of I Love LA all day in order to have it ready in time for a midnight release following the Grammys. Normally that kind of turn around with the DSPs isn’t possible, but considering the situation and the fact that all the proceeds were being donated, all the folks at the Spotifys and the Apples and the Amazons were very accommodating. We flew through recording it as fast as we could, which gave us a forensic sense of the tones and arrangement of what we realized is a VERY wild song, let alone a hit. Anyway, I digress. Talking about that song is for next post.

We got out of the session and at the Forum just as the show was starting. During the long drive over is when it started to sink in just how long the reach of this show was going to be. It had been all over social media and I was seeing that it was going to be available on pretty much every streamer and channel imaginable. I wouldn’t say I was exactly nervous but it definitely made me start to think about the experience differently.

Upon walking in, the broadcast was on every TV and I think Green Day and Billie Eilish were in the middle of their mini-set. Billy Joe Armstrong was pacing the stage and getting the whole room on their feet and singing along. It was really hitting me that, leaving the millions of people watching from their homes aside, these people in the venue were going to be experiencing the biggest names in music all night and we’d have to somehow compete with that. That wasn’t true exactly, but that’s how I felt before we went on. The stage was one of those lazy Susan stages, so one act could set up while another act played and then the stage would turn 180 degrees. As we were getting to stage and into position for Joni, Anderson .Paak was in the middle of Come Down and segue wayed into California Love, invited Dr. Dre onstage. The energy was insane and the crowd was losing its collective mind. It felt so bizarre to think that only 15 minutes later, we’d be playing Time Spent In Los Angeles for the same room. I have confidence in the product we bring as a band, but so much of that depends on context and circumstance. If

I’m being honest, for a brief moment I started to question whether or not our inclusion was a good idea.

But count on Joni Mitchell to always make things better. She was the perfect follow up to Dre and Anderson (which is a hilarious statement I never could have imagined anyone making). They were perfect and took the energy up into this incredible and essential place. But with Joni’s performance of Both Sides Now, the whole room felt recentered and integrated. When she sang the line “Something’s lost and something’s gained with living every day” I (and probably everyone else in the arena) was immediately reminded of why I was there and what this was really for. It definitely wasn’t to let my band-guy brain get caught up with how to match energies with other artists on the bill. It was for each artist to offer consolation in their own specific musical language. It was a chance to put on record how much we love this city. I suddenly lost any and all concern about how Dawes would “play” amongst these other artists. We were there because this was all close to the bone for us. And that’s all that mattered.

The performance of our tune felt solid enough and then we had the privilege of inviting out Stephen, Graham and Mike. Both of those songs went over great as well. On top of singing with heroes, I also had a newfound appreciation for the show’s producers asking us to sing with these guys. I feel like it gave anyone unaware of who we were (let’s face it - the vast vast majority of people watching) an opportunity to contextualize us and what we do. It was a thrill, a privilege, and an honor.

I’ve said in the past that being from LA can sometimes feel like not having a hometown at all. There’s just so much going on here that you don’t find the same kind of community taking pride in and claiming an artist the same way they would in most other cities around the country. But this night (and knowing what we were cooking up through that next weekend) was such a refutation of that kind of thinking. I felt so much support from our city. I felt seen as an LA band. Otherwise, there’s no chance we would’ve been there. It’s definitely changed some of my ideas about my relationship with my hometown. I know how much I’ve always loved LA, but this was the first big moment that I felt like LA loved me back.

Next up - The Grammys!

Below the paywall is that performance w Graham and Stephen in the little gym I was telling you about. I hope you enjoy.