The up-and-coming British folk-rock band The Dunwells are coming to UCSB this Friday, April 26, to play a free concert in Storke Plaza at noon. This is just one stop on their U.S. tour, which began at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, continued to Dallas, Denver, Boise, Los Angeles and will “end with a bang” at the Lollapalooza festival in August. The band is promoting their debut album “Blind Sighted Faith,” produced by John Porter (producer for Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music as well as B. B. King, The Smiths, Los Lonely Boys and Ryan Adams).
The Dunwells are made up of brothers Joseph and David Dunwell, cousins Johnny Lamb and Rob Clayton, and long-time friend Dave Hanson, who have “all grown up together” in their hometown of Leeds. They formed the band about four years ago and have since gone from playing small gigs and festivals around the UK to the famous Bedford club in London, and then Missouri’s International Folk Alliance conference in 2011, where they got signed. Since then, the band has been rapidly gaining recognition and fame.
“We just love playing music … we were never looking to be signed. We were just in the right place at the right time,” Joseph Dunwell said.
The Dunwells have been compared to Mumford & Sons, with whom they have played before, but they maintain a unique sound of their own.
“Personally, my influences come from the likes of Damien Rice, Glen Hansard … recently I’ve been listening to the new Imagine Dragons album … it’s awesome,” Joseph Dunwell said.
He does the majority of the songwriting with his brother but says that “every song is really individual … there’s no format that we stick to.”
Joseph Dunwell’s advice for aspiring musicians and bands at UCSB is to “play as many shows as you can play whether they’re unpaid or paid. As long as you believe in what you do, just keep doing it, it will happen.”
Catch The Dunwells’ free performance at Storke Tower this Friday, April 26 at noon.
