almost monday is a pop trio from San Diego, California consisting of Cole Clisby (guitar), Dawson Daugherty (vocals) and Luke Fabry (bass). The group started in a garage band together in high school and after a cold email to producer Mark Needham (The Killers, Fleetwood Mac) the group wrote and released their debut EP don’t say you’re ordinary in 2020. Now, just two years later the band has quickly amassed over 100 million streams and played giant stages like Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo.
We met the band and Gov Ball and got to interview them after the festival. Cole and Dawson joined The Road Trip Playlists podcast and shared amazing stories of the DIY start to the band, their cold email to Mark Needham, and more. Listen or read the full interview below.
So this is the Road Trip Playlists Podcast, I usually start by asking what is on your road trip playlist. But I wanted to ask which of your songs you would say is best for a road trip playlist?
Dawson: Oh I like that, I think probably ‘sunburn.’ Right? Yeah, I’m imagining like yours too. But yeah, I feel I like was with some friends the other day, like, in kind of a scenario like that. I think in an ironic way, he was like, putting it on just because like, I’m there and stuff. And I was kind of like, this kind of, you know, it’s obviously a little weird. You never like, love listening to yourself, or with your friends. But I was like kind of looking around and like, “Yeah, this feels right. This feels like the right way to listen to this,” like just being in the car by the beach, you know, on the way to the beach.
Cole: I’d probably say sunburn too.
A Beach road trip feels like the perfect place to listen to almost monday. Like when I think of California, your music feels like that. So finding out you were from San Diego made sense. I wanted to ask about the San Diego days. You started in High School and first started playing on a make shift stage behind a surf shack ‘Univ.’ What were those early days at Univ like for you?
Dawson: Yeah, man. I love it. We started the band, I think because we just really wanted to play live music. And like, for some reason, we were never focused on actually recording music. It was like, for real we just would write these songs to invite friends to our show. Then this surf shop wasn’t in such a great area (for shows). It was in Encinitas, which is a really great surf town. That’s where Cole’s from. And they were always so fun. Like, you would just get super packed in there, and people were just excited to like mosh around and just listen to music. So it was probably one of the cooler ways to jump into live music. It was such a cool space and cool time and cool people and everything. So definitely, we did a lot of shows there and we set it up, played a bunch of covers. But no, those were really great times. It would be really fun to do one again, but univ is not there anymore. So that’s kind of unfortunate. But they were these great times.
That’s incredible. Was it just you telling people at your high school to come out? How were you getting people to shows at the surf shack at the time? And when did music become something you wanted to do beyond the Univ stage?
Cole: Yeah, in northern, like North County, San Diego, We all grew up there, and they don’t actually have any like non 21-and-up venues. So Univ that was one of the only places we could actually play and have like our friends come and not have to drive, 30 minutes down to downtown San Diego or something like that. So that was kind of one of the only places you could play in our area. We kind of just started doing that like, and you know, we like we were a true garage band back in the day. We would hit the garage a few times a week and just mess around and stared writing originals but also played a lot of covers to pretty much just get ready for whatever show we’re trying to put on. I think after getting so many reps of playing live shows and kind of figuring that process out. Then we started being like “hey guys, we should probably like you know, start writing songs and start getting into a studio and learning how to record and stuff,” but we definitely had like no strategy.
Dawson: Like no strategy or end goal at all.
Cole: It wasn’t like “we need to write this hit song” or anything. We were just having fun.
Dawson: Yeah, then I think we started recording music when we all went to college. There was this moment where I think Luke or both of you guys were considering or because I’d already committed to like going to college in like San Diego. But I think when Cole and Luke, you guys were looking to maybe to go somewhere else. And then I think we all landed, on like, let’s keep making music. So the boys also went to schools in San Diego, and I would say that was probably the point where we’re like, “okay, let’s, let’s record music now.” I mean, we’re like, kind of going past high school and into college, we should probably try doing it in a real way. And that was probably the turning point, I would say.
So you mentioned not having a strategy, when did that come in after choosing to stay in San Diego and start recording? What were the next steps in the early almost monday?
Dawson: It’s funny, we’ve told the story before. But it’s probably a little bit dense of us, but we just started recording music and we’re really lucky to know some of the guys from the band Switchfoot, which is also a San Diego band. And they have like this amazing studio that they work out of, and we were lucky enough for them to let us record there. So we did like one demo, and then we looked up, we literally Googled like, who mixed like Hot Fuss for The Killers. We were like looking at all these great albums that we loved, and we found who mixed it this guy named Mark Needham, and we literally found his website and decided to just cold email him and we were like, “Hi, how much do you charge for mixing?” Like, really no strategy at all. And that email ended up you know, sparking kind of where we’re at today. Because oddly enough he kinda liked the demo. I think like his assistant, or somebody that responded. Mark saw us play and was like, You guys need to get better. We got a little better. I sent him another demo, and then he helped kind of get us in not the real music world, but you know, a place where it was like, “Okay, we’re gonna really make music now.” Like, he introduced us to our producer, who we still work with and we’ve always worked with Simon Oscroft. So there was just a lot of like, random little events, I think of us not knowing what we were doing, but oddly enough things working out for us. So yeah, it’s really really strange. But yeah, we got really lucky looking back at it.
Wow, just a cold email. You mentioned Simon Oscroft, who you have also called a big brother to the band, and I wanted to ask how important that relationship has been with him being your producer for everything?
Cole: Yeah, he’s like our mentor, I think in a lot of ways. He’s been in multiple bands himself. So he’s kind of gone through the same process we’re going through now and he gives us lots of wisdom on everything from, you know, music to touring to just life. He’s been great in that regard, and he’s just like, an amazing talented producer. So we worked so well with him and we kind of can read each other’s minds on you know, what, what we’re going for, and, you know, the music and everything so, so great relationship with him.
Dawson: It feels great too, because I think a lot of times and this not necessarily is a bad thing, it’s something I think we really value having. We kind of look at him as like another member of the band, in a sense. I think it’s really easy when we’re up in LA and stuff, making music it’s really easy to do like a lot of sessions with like a lot of different people, which is probably a good idea for a lot of people. But it’s been really cool for us to kind of just foster this relationship with our producer almost as a member of our band. The music is very authentic, and there’s not really like this dance you have to do of like, okay, a new producer new thing. What are we doing? It’s so easy to be ourselves with him. And I think that’s been a really unique thing for us and something that’s not happening too much anymore in the music industry, so I don’t know. I think we feel really just grateful to have somebody like that in our lives. It’s truly amazing.
Well that consistency working together is key. You have worked with Simon on everything, but what has being in this band since high school to now been like for you guys?
Dawson: It’s definitely one of those things that we talked about you really need to like, love what you do, because music is one of those industries, I think, where the highs are extremely high, and the lows are very low. A lot of people start bands, like when they’re more established or in LA and stuff, but we’ve just been through so much together. I think really, the reason we’ve been able to do that it’s just because we love it so much. Getting to play shows for people. And for us, I think it’s always been like live music, bringing joy to people, its as simple as that. There’s nothing that brings me more happiness than like getting in a room with people, and helping kind of facilitate a good time. I don’t know, I think we’ve all really always loved that, and I think that’s just the root of why we keep doing it for so long, you know?
And that shows. I wanted to talk about two of the songs that you wrote in Brooklyn with ‘broken people’ and ‘live forever,’ what were the writing processes like for those songs and how has your life changed since the release?
Cole: Yeah, I mean, that feels so long ago now. I’m looking back because I feel like we’ve grown in so many ways, like musically and as people. So, we actually had gone out to Brooklyn to meet Simon because he lived out there at the time. He had a studio in Greenpoint and we like scrounged up some some money and went out and stayed in like this Airbnb in Bushwick and just wrote like five songs out there and broken people and live forever were two of those. So that’s definitely a time in our lives where things are very different now, I guess. We’ve grown a lot since then, but we always look back at that memory and you know, meeting Simon and making music in the early days pretty fondly, so yeah, it was a crazy time.
That’s so funny to hear. So was that like one of the first real writing things that you have done as a band?
Dawson: I think so. Well, we met Simon in LA, we did like two sessions with him before and that sparked the like, “this is so great.” We had such a great connection and then yeah, so the New York trip was like probably the first trip that was like, a week of writing music in the studio every day. So that was like a very, yeah, a very new experience for us. And it was really fun to do it in New York. Like, I would actually love to do it again, because you like wake up and I know you’re in New York. For San Diegoans. Like, you know, like getting on the subway and just like skating all over i so fun. I know that sounds a bit touristy of me, but it’s like such a good new pace thing. Like we’re in San Diego, you kind of need to have a car to get around. It’s not a great city for like, public transportation. So it’s nice to get out of your comfort zone a bit and like and see the result of that through the music. So that was really fun. It’d be fun to do it again. But yeah, that’s the first like, full trip writing thing.
I saw you guys live at Gov Ball and it was one of my favorite sets of the weekend. You’re about to go on tour supporting The Driver Era, what are you most looking forward to?
Dawson: Super, super stoked. We actually toured with these guys in South America. It’s probably the craziest shows we’ve ever played. And like Argentina and Mexico City and Brazil, Chile, like just insane shows. So they have a really amazing fan base, and they’re really great dudes. But um, I think we just put so much into our live show. I think we always approach whether we’re opening or you know, playing a festival or whatever it is, like, if we could simply facilitate a good time for people in some way. I think that’s always going to be our approach to you know help have a good time. So I think we’re just gonna approach it like that. Try to have fun. And yeah, it’s our first I mean, I guess we did a tour earlier this year with Joywave. But we didn’t hit like the East Coast. So there’s a few shows over there we’re excited about. We’re kind of hitting a lot of spots with them. So it’ll be really cool to finally get most places in the US.
What else does the band have going on besides the tour with The Driver Era?
Cole: Yeah, we’re about to go on this tour. Then we have a lot of new music geared up that we’re really stoked on. So we’ll be putting out some more music before the end of the year. And hopefully some more touring this fall as well.