Dawson Fuss

Dear Montecito!

I miss you! I can’t wait to be home for Spring Break next week! I’m getting ready to finish my second year at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, and a lot has happened since the last time we spoke about my single “Oblivious,” which at the time was a track on my upcoming sophomore EP, Maybe.

The big news now is that the five-song EP was released on February 22nd and is available on all streaming platforms! This EP explores the major milestone of leaving everything I know in Santa Barbara and heading off into the unknown beyond our beautiful, safe, and supportive community. Moving across the country to Florida alone created plenty of moments of terror with equal parts excitement. I marked off the calendar for the first day of college. Those emotions also provided plenty of songwriting material. Like many things in life, with hindsight it wasn’t quite as traumatic as I imagined. But knowing that I always get to come home to Santa Barbara has made the transition a whole lot easier. My parents better never leave!

I wrote the title track “Maybe” during my senior year of high school when I broached to my parents my apprehension of leaving, and we had the whole “What’s the worst that could happen?” conversation. My dad reminded me of a story called “The Farmer’s Luck” from one of my favorite books. My parents would read to my sister Grace and I a book called Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth. It follows a panda bear named Stillwater who teaches kids important life lessons, one of which encompassed the idea of “maybe.” Sometimes, when things are scary or bad, they may end up being events that send us off in new and exciting directions. I have taken this positive “maybe” philosophy to heart, and the ideas are woven through all of the songs on my new EP.

Santa Barbara was such a great place for a creative kid like me to grow up. The community is so dedicated to ensuring that kids get exposed to art, music, theater, and a ton of other things. I was always drawn to music from a young age, and my parents made sure to find opportunities for me to explore my passions. The first venture they found for me was Kindermusik, a place where I could make noise, hit drums, and dance wildly. I was in love! At MUS we had music classes and even learned how to play the violin. Not necessarily my favorite but I do like to add strings to as many of my songs as possible, so maybe the root of this can be traced back to my own screechy attempts at the instrument. And like most “music kids,” I ultimately got involved with musical theater and Janet Adderley’s “Santa Barbara Youth Ensemble Theatre” where I started to discover “my people.” I was also fortunate to be able to participate in Joe Lambert’s incredible Santa Barbara Teen Star competition for two seasons and made it to the final round both times. The best part was being mentored by industry icon Tariqh Akoni and judged by none other than American Idol’s Randy Jackson! Pretty cool for a kid from a small town.

In high school, I was fortunate to have the amazing Agatha Carubia take me on as a voice student to help me manage my cracking voice, and she changed the trajectory of my life. Although all of these experiences helped me build my self-confidence, it was Agatha’s introducing me to Erland Wanberg that helped me learn how to express myself emotionally through songwriting. I have to say the work we did together throughout COVID helped to keep me sane for the most part. This album, however, is particularly important to me as it explores not only my own journey from the little kid smashing a drum at Kindermusik but also the important role my father had in sharing his love of music with me.

As I wrote the songs for this EP and worked through what I wanted other creative components to be, I knew I wanted to create music videos for most of the songs including “Life Sucks,” “Say the Words,” “Growing Pains,” and “Oblivious,” but as I started to work on the video for “Maybe” I realized I wanted to do something more autobiographical. The project morphed into a nine-minute short film called “Maybe. The Film.” In it I pay tribute to my dad and how he has supported me, even gifting me his entire vinyl collection with a turntable for my 15th birthday. I now realize that it may have just been an excuse to come into my room and share the memories the songs brought back for him. I loved our “listening” sessions and how they created a way of communicating with each other when sometimes our differences seemed so vast. I still look forward to fitting in a few whenever I’m home.

The short film was released on YouTube on March 1st and I’m excited to share that it has been accepted as a semi-finalist at the Los Angeles IndieX Film Festival. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

That’s my update for now, but I’m busy writing new songs and am looking forward to releasing more new music later this summer, so if you want to stay up to date on what I’m up to please follow me at @dawsonfuss. I hope to see some of you on Coast Village Road when I’m in town soon.  

With love,

Dawson