Kind Of Amazing
A bit of Simon Dawes history along with an unreleased outtake from ‘Carnivore’
The year was 2005. I was 20 years old and my partner Blake Mills was 19. We were recording the first record for our first real band, Simon Dawes.
Let me back up a little…Blake and I met when I was 12 and he was 11. He was already a virtuosic musician with highly mature tastes and I was still vibing on singing Lion King songs at talent shows. Suffice it to say, it took a few more years to reconnect. Once I was around 14 or 15, our paths crossed again. Initially we were just products of whatever we could find on those weird 90’s mail order CD clubs or the music shelves at our local Blockbuster. That somehow led to an obsession with Dave Brubeck, Steely Dan, Queen, Allman Brothers, etc…hyper musical stuff that was perfect for us to sink our baby teeth into. We had already grown up with our folks showing us the basics like The Beatles and Otis Redding, so this was a solid introductory education for young players like us that wanted to stretch our knowledge and capabilities to the maximum.
It was around this time that we met the producer Tony Berg. We were connected through our manager at the time who was a friend of his. At this point in 2024, Tony is a bit of a storied character among LA musicians. It seems like just about everyone I know spent some of their formative years getting turned onto some of their favorite music over at his house. He has strong opinions (hates The Boss), refined tastes (every record he’s produced is beautiful) and an amazing way of communicating he loves what he loves. It’s intoxicating for a young kid figuring it all out. My high regard for Elvis Costello and The Kinks, among so much other music, is easily traced back to him. In fact, for my 17th or 18th birthday he gave me a big paper bag full of every Bowie record between Space Oddity and Scary Monsters. He showed us records like Blonde on Blonde, Armed Forces, Loveless, Arthur, Third/Sister Lovers etc. All for the first time! We were at extremely impressionable ages and he was showing us only the best stuff. It was an incredible education and we’re both forever grateful. Tony and Blake even share a studio space these days.
So through his guidance we start making Simon Dawes demos. We made them at our drummer Stuart’s house in Venice. We met him through some mutual friends in other bands playing the same spots as us (which was really only the Malibu Inn at this point). I was in my first (and only) year at Pepperdine and Blake was finishing his last year of high school. So every weekend we’d schlep off to Stuart’s with whatever songs we were able to write that week. Then we’d create some nasty demo with Blake and I playing pretty much everything (Side note: Stuart is one of the greatest drummers I’ve ever played with and I suck at drums, but I think he got a thrill from watching us trying to make shit work in this weird, fearless discovery period we were both in. So we played most of the drums). We felt like the fucking Beatles. It felt like we were inventing recorded music for the first time. It’s truly all over the place. Not all of it is particularly good. Some of my contributions make me cringe. But at the risk of overpraising - Blake was always amazing. Maybe I’m just a proud friend, but he had that innovative, redefining-what-guitar-can-do quality even back then. 6 of these home recordings from that time were released as the Simon Dawes EP “What No One Hears.” You can go listen to it right now. And there are sooooooo many more of these demos sitting on outdated laptops somewhere in storage. Maybe we could find and share some more on here at some point down the road, if you want.
This catches us back up to 2005. After making a mountain of these demos, Tony introduced us to Jordan Tappis and the good folks at Record Collection records who gave us the opportunity to make an actual album. We had just met Wylie Gelber to round out our quartet and we were officially done making demos for the time being. We were finally gonna make our debut record with Tony in the producer’s chair. That’s what became Carnivore. It took us 6 months. Way longer than anything else I’ve ever been a part of, but as you can imagine, it was extremely important to us at the time and we wanted to get it right. I think it was an essential experience, something that every artist has to have some version of. We probably lacked a certain self awareness, a certain depth (me especially, no pun intended), and we probably got a little too precious about it all. This was still before I had any sort of ontology as a songwriter. I just threw shit at the wall so I could get back on stage and do a composite imitation of everyone else I was into at the time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply proud of the album. I just don’t think, looking back, that I had the tools to contribute as much as I would have liked to. I was a kid and it sounds like it - in all its glory and in all its inexperience.
The record clocked in at 12 songs. We had 2 or 3 leftovers and what I’m sharing with you today is one of them. I’m surprised it didn’t make the cut, frankly. It was a good example of what we were all about. Wylie and Stuart play great, Blake’s parts are extremely thoughtful and musical and it’s one of the better lyrics of the bunch, if I may say so myself. The title came from hearing Tony constantly describe just about everything he loved as “kind of amazing.” So we took it and ran with it. Hope you enjoy.
Here is “Kind Of Amazing” just beneath the paywall…