Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith is first to admit there is a lyrical shorthand when it comes to creating Americana-style indie-rock.

“With our first two records, we made a good deal of references to mountains, pine and sunsets,” he says.

“It’s a very common set of images, especially in the genre of music Dawes plays. I wanted to make sure with this record we portrayed the world I see and live in accurately.

“You hear songs with people singing about ‘the lawman isn’t going to catch up with me’ or ‘jumping a train to see this girl’. I have never called anyone a lawman, and trains, letters and payphones are not part of my life.

“Airplanes, trailers and my ex-girlfriend might not sound as poetic to discuss, but I feel there is just as much richness embroidered in aspects of our real lives as the romantic ones that are already accepted as romantic.”

Hence the reason why recent single From A Window Seat on Dawes’ third album, Stories Don’t End, is told wholly from the perspective of a commercial airline seat flying home – taking in the stewardesses’ safety instructions, as well as imagining the stories behind his fellow travellers’ expressions.

Everyday experiences

Or there is Just My Luck, about an ex-girlfriend making an unexpected appearance at a party.

“I wanted to talk about things that might at first seem more unlyrical,” says Goldsmith.

“But there is something to be said for this kind of experience. It might not be something you see in a cool black and white movie but it’s something that’s real and has a specific emotion attached to it.”

He sees this new focus as following in a tradition of great American songwriters such as Loudon Wainwright III, Warren Zevon and the legend that is Bob Dylan, who the band supported on his US tour earlier this year.

“When you look at a song Dylan wrote in the 1960s where he mentions Sophia Loren [I Shall Be Free], you look at her today as a classic movie star,” says Goldsmith.

“But back then she was the equivalent of someone like Jennifer Lawrence. He was talking about people from a specific period, and doing it unabashedly.”

The change in lyrical focus is married to a series of changes the band underwent while recording their third album – which is the first on their own label, their first written outside LA and the first without long-time producer Jonathan Wilson.

“This record has done better than either of our first two,” admits Goldsmith, who started the folk rock-inspired band with his brother drummer Griffin and bassist Wylie Gelber in 2009 following the disintegration of the more post-punk band Simon Dawes.

“With our second album we were still getting a sense of ourselves and our instruments – there were a whole lot of direct and traditional approaches to songwriting.

“I feel like we now have this more developed relationship with our instruments. We spent more time on this record, as we wanted it to feel real and have integrity.

“We didn’t want it to sound lifeless – we wanted it to be energetic so a lot of these songs are all of us playing together.

“It was definitely a scary process to consider working with someone else as we were so close to Jonathan.

“When we met [current producer] Jacquire King, he had an awesome résumé [including Tom Waits, Kings Of Leon and Norah Jones], and we felt comfortable with him. He was able to get cool, rich sounds, and make the songs sound great.”

The album itself is unified by the song Just Beneath The Surface, which both opens and closes the record.

“I felt the last verse and chorus of the song gave it a sense of conclusion,” admits Goldsmith.

“I didn’t like how long the original song was – I felt it would work a little shorter, but it was tapping into the mood and ideas of a lot of the rest of the songs.

“It is supposed to give a conclusive feeling to the whole album, with all the things explored in it. Having two versions of the same song bookending the album gives it a little more power.”

And there looks to be more to come.

“Often I don’t write much after we’ve made an album,” says Goldsmith. “But I’ve got some stuff I’m really excited about. I’m looking forward to that next thing.”