Dawes’s last wish for you was: “May all your favorite bands stay together.”
Perhaps this time it’s: May none of your favorite bands remain the same. Because their latest album, “We’re All Gonna Die,” doesn’t deliver quite the same sound that, since 2009, has earned the LA-based alt/indie band comparisons to ’70s Laurel Canyon folk-rockers. It’s a new, more distorted, bass-heavy, synthy Dawes. And they wear it well.
To be sure, there is Dawes in the album’s bones — that is, short stories written into catchy grooves. But producer Blake Mills has done what Danger Mouse did for the Black Keys — take a band with an almost demo-tape-raw sound and polish it until it almost — aaalmost — feels like a new band.
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The band — frontman Taylor Goldsmith and his brother and drummer Griffin Goldsmith, bassist Wylie Gelber, and keyboardist Lee Pardini — has a date at the Orpheum Theatre March 11. The Globe caught up with Taylor Goldsmith, 31, by phone in LA, while the band took an on-set break from shooting their music video for “Roll With the Punches.”
Q. The feel and production of this album is so different from your older albums. Was it your goal to find a new sound with Blake Mills?
A. I don’t think we approached it with “Let’s be different for the sake of it.” You’re always chasing the same high you get from the first time you make music. But if we were to continue to [do the same thing], that high would wear off. So for “We’re All Gonna Die,” we wanted to find new attitudes, new roles for ourselves to force something new out of these instruments.
Q. The title, “We’re All Gonna Die,” was that tongue-in-cheek about the election year?
A. [Laughs] No. When we were recording during the election year, it definitely felt like a phrase that pervaded the cultural climate. But it’s not a panic song; it’s to remind, myself at least, not to take things too seriously.
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Q. Did that cultural climate of the election year influence your writing?
A. You know, it’s so strange, it’s such a cynical time we’re in, where even the slightest comment can be used against you. Even taking the approach to come together, it’s easy to spin that to make anyone seem divisive. I mean it’s no surprise that four young guys from Los Angeles, California, aren’t psyched about Donald Trump, but I look forward to a time when we can stop using terms like liberal and conservative. It’s hard, as a songwriter, to put [political ideas in song] without feeling like this is just something people will throw away.
Q. Is that why you think artists on the whole don’t really make protest songs anymore — like a Dylan or Seeger or Baez?
A. In the time of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A Changin’,’’ it was easier for people to rally behind a hopeful message like that. I don’t want to insult [those songs], but I think there’s a reason Bob Dylan moved on from those kind of songs. There’s too much vicissitude now to say “Let’s come together; we’re all going to be OK.” People need more to chew on today. I sound blasphemous, putting down some of the best songs ever written [laughs].
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Q. Speaking of Dylan, the first time I saw you guys you were opening for him. How did that come about?
A. His agent reached out to our agent. Most likely it was his agent’s idea and he just signed off on it. But it’s nice to imagine it was his idea because he really loves our band [laughs]. It was incredible to connect with his fans, because they’re there to see the Man — you’re not necessarily welcomed with open arms.
Q. Right. Did you meet him?
A. We didn’t cross paths. I met him at the end, he came up and thanked us; it was nice of him to take a second out of his time.
Q. “We’re All Gonna Die” hit No. 1 on vinyl sales in the country. Are you guys big vinyl fans?
A. We’re way into vinyl. We still try to create our records according to record play: How does side B start? How does side A end? We love to talk about records in terms of sides — like how side two of the Rolling Stones’ “Tattoo You” is the greatest album side ever.
Q. What do you think of Spotify?
A. We dig Spotify, but we’ll always continue to look at albums as full albums, not necessarily singles. That’s just the way we like music, the kind of fans we are.
DAWES
At the Orpheum Theatre, Boston, March 11. Tickets: 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com
Interview was edited and condensed. Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@
gmail.com.
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