DAWN BROTHERS BIOGRAPHY JANUARY 2023
Who said roots music can’t ever be cutting-edge? While the Dawn Brothers embrace an authentic old school approach in music, these players are focused firmly on the present and the future.
This band just oozes musicality: they could pick up two soda bottles and a tooth brush and make it swing. And to top it all, their vocal harmonies will make the dental enamel pop right off your teeth. No gimmick, show, or schtick: the Dawn Brothers are as close to the real deal as it gets.
However, they would never tell you any of the above themselves: they’re from The Netherlands’ port city Rotterdam. It’s a place of humble and hard-working down-to-earth people. And it’s this combination of apparent casualness and utter craftsmanship that makes the Dawn Brothers so damn delightful to watch.
Ever since the release of their debut album Stayin’ Out Late in 2017, the band toured throughout The Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Hungary and France, performed at Oppikoppi festival in South Africa and played the legendary Americanafest in Nashville, TN. In 2018 the band released their second album Classic, followed by a headline tour in NL and Germany and two support tours for DeWolff, which led to the following:
The 2019 project titled Next Of Kin, a collaboration featuring some of the best roots/rock acts the Netherlands has to offer. Joined by DeWolff and Tim Knol, the Dawn Brothers delivered a 6 song EP followed by a headline tour through The Netherlands.
In 2020 the Dawn Brothers recorded Dusk. They took a convoy full of equipment to a villa in France and together with their good friend Tim van der Burg they set up a studio in the living room, fired up the barbecue, put on swimmers and started recording the album. This hassle free mentality resulted in a certain pureness of the sound and the simplistic character of the songs.
After the making of Dusk, Levi Vis the group for an individual path in music. Tammo Deuling, who has been a good friend of the band for years, a talented bass player, singer, and songwriter, was the perfect match to reinforce the group again. Dusk was released in July 2021.
During Covid, the Dawn Brothers recorded the soul album Double Cream together with DeWolff and a horn section. In their own bands they have always been trying to build a bridge between “then” and “now”, but this time they just wanted to build a time machine that takes you right back to the 1960s utilizing the same gear, recording techniques and musical mindset.
The album contains fourteen songs in the vein of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, the Coasters, Clovers and all those other great soul and rhythm & blues artists that started it all: the musical deities that got hips shaking all around the world, the instigators that laid the foundation for basically all music that has inspired the Dawn Brothers an DeWolff for so many years. Everything on the album was recorded live to analog tape with 6 to 11 people together in one room having a ball.
Double Cream was released in September of 2022 and had very good acclaim. The single What Kind Of Woman received a lot of national airplay, and was rewarded with Veronica’s Oorkonde. The group did two limited capacity release shows, but in 2023 the group is on a tour including Paaspop, Paradiso, North Sea Jazz and open air theaters.
In the fall of 2023 the Dawn Brothers will release a new album, produced by Paul Willemsen. Stay tuned!
Rafael Schwiddessen: drums and vocals
Bas van Holt: guitar and vocals
Rowan de Vos: keys and vocals
Tammo Deuling: bass and vocals