Los Angeles based roots-rockers Dawes play gorgeous Americana that sounds as sunny as the state where they formed. The band has mastered everything you could want from the genre—tight guitar picking and strumming, pounding piano, and perfect, soulful harmonies straight out of the late 60’s (think Crosby, Stills and Nash). Having released their debut album, North Hills, in the latter half of 2009 and touring extensively with other acts like Delta Spirit, Dawes are now embarking on a headlining national tour of their own to make their mark as one of the most promising emerging bands in Americana. With their track “When You Call My Name” featured on NPR’s Song of the Day last month and a boot-stomping live show that focuses on the “rock” in roots rock, the band is sure to be riding a ton of momentum when they make a stop in Allston this weekend.

I had a chance to talk with Taylor Goldsmith, the band’s singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter, right before Dawes started up their tour about two weeks ago. He gave us some insight into the band’s varied influences, their excitement to step up as headliners, and why Boston is such an entertaining place to play. Taylor also mentioned that Dawes will be playing as the backing band for opening act Jason Boesel, so head out to Great Scott this Saturday for a double dose of Dawes.

–Kevin Junker

How’s it going? You guys are about to take off for your tour, right?

Yeah, we’re heading out early in the morning, we just finished up our final rehearsal before heading out. It’s fun being out on the road so we’re looking forward to doing it again.

So the tour is in support of your debut album, North Hills. Can you tell us a little about the record?

We’re very happy with it. It’s funny—we recorded it about a year before it actually came out, maybe a little longer, and we’re still happy to play the material. We aren’t like, “Man, just let us play new songs,” or anything like that. We’re very proud of the record and we’re glad to be playing it on the tour.

We saw back in January that Dawes was featured for NPR’s Song of the Day. How did that come about?

It was kind of a random surprise. We played the World Cafe for NPR in Philly and that went really well, but we didn’t think anything like Song of the Day was going to come out of it, so that was a big, pleasant surprise.

How do you guys go about writing your songs?

I write the songs by myself and then we all arrange them together. I mean, it’s more or less straight up folk music or whatever you want to call it, but there aren’t too many elaborate arrangements or anything like that, so each guy figures out the chords and whatever feels most appropriate and direct, and that’s what we do.

You’ve played and worked with some pretty big names in roots and Americana music—who would you credit as influences?

I guess it’s constantly changing. I consider myself to not really be familiar with as much material as I’d like to be. For a while I couldn’t listen to anything but Bob Dylan, and for a while I couldn’t listen to anything but Will Oldham, and for a while I couldn’t listen to anything but Tom Petty, so it just kind of goes on like that. I know that we all kind of have our own artists, like my brother, our drummer, has been listening to a lot of Bill Withers. Like anybody, we all go through phases and I think our music is directly influenced by that.

Were there any influences in particular on North Hills?

It was kind of all over the map, and it’s funny because a lot of the artists that people compared us to, for better or worse, were really artists we weren’t very familiar with. People would say “Oh you guys must listen to a lot of Jackson Browne,” and I would say “Well, I’ve never really heard him,” then later did and became a big fan, but when we made the record, I never really listened. Anyway, yeah, our influences were all over the place when we made the record.

So the tour is kicking off and then going straight through pretty much until SXSW—what are you looking forward to on the road?

We’re going to be playing last on most of the nights this time around and we’ve never really done that on a national tour, so we’re pretty excited to see how that turns out. In a lot of cities there have already been a lot of tickets sold, so after almost a year’s worth of being the support band I’m really curious to see how it goes for this first try being the last band of the night. We get back to L.A. on March 11 and then leave for SXSW with our buddies Delta Spirit on the 14th and we are playing some shows with them along the way.

What kind of history does the band have with Boston?

We played TT the Bear’s with Langhorne Slim and played Downstairs at The Middle East with Delta Spirit and they were awesome shows. Each time we’ve come to Boston it’s been really fun. Our original piano player who is no longer with the band, Tay Strathairn, his brother was going to school at MIT so we’d always stay at his brother’s place. He and his roommates were these sweet guys who also happened to be brilliant people and so they all had these funny devices, you know, like any movie you could ever want to watch recorded on their TV and that kind of geeky stuff that only students at MIT could have. I don’t mean that to sound mean—it was cool, I was really into it!

Have you noticed any type of dynamic between music here in Boston and music back in L.A.?

I think shows play a very different role in Boston than they do in Los Angeles. [L.A.] is so immersed in music and art and that sort of stuff, to a point where you go to a show and the audience consists of all these people who are considering it and critiquing it and comparing it in terms of whatever art they make. It’s much more of a sit down and consider the experience rather than take advantage of it and cut loose. When we’ve been to Boston it’s a good contrast to that because people are there to not do anything but enjoy themselves. I find they’re much more willing to really get into it and respond to what’s on stage and it makes for a better night. I definitely notice that difference.

DAWES play this Saturday February 20th at Great Scott in Allston, MA