Jason Boesel Hires Dawes as His Touring Band

When drummers decide to become frontmen, you can end up with Phil Collins, or you can go the way of Jason Boesel, who pounds the skins for Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst's Mystic Valley Band. Boesel recently took a cue from the company he keeps and decided to try his own hand at songwriting. It went well for him -- so well, in fact, that he turned the results into his debut album, 'Hustler's Son,' which hit store shelves earlier this month.

The album is loaded with help from his friends, including Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Blake Mills (Band of Horses), Orenda Fink and David Rawlings. But faced with the task of assembling a touring band to go out on the road with him, Boesel decided to pick a band that was ready-made: fast-rising upstarts, Dawes.

"The first time I played a song with a band was with Dawes in the house they lived in, in North Hills, Calif.," Boesel tells Spinner. "I've seen friends struggle to put together touring bands, and I feel really fortunate to have ended up with a great one without having to go through any of that brutality."

Of course, Boesel can't take credit for the idea -- chalk that one up to the booking agent. But fans get a win-win situation out of it as Dawes will play their own set after playing one behind Boesel. The tour kicks off on Feb. 2 in Santa Cruz, Calif. and horseshoes around the country before taking band and band back to their Los Angeles homestead on March 11.