May All Your Favorite (Family) Bands Stay Together

Taylor Goldsmith always knows where his brother is: at his back, on the beat. For more than 15 years, the Dawes bandleader has not only trusted drummer Griffin Goldsmith to keep time, but to set their act in motion toward clever, cool-as-California rock.

A new record, Oh Brother, marks the first moment in band history in which the Goldsmith brothers exist as Dawes’ only core members. (By all accounts, previous departures have been amicable—especially for founding bassist Wylie Gelber, a sort of chosen brother who left for other passions just last year.) From its title down, Oh Brother reminds listeners how a loving, evolving sibling bond can anchor art and life.

The Goldsmiths not only express their relationship in constancy, but with creativity. To hear Dawes is to hear Griffin make space for Taylor’s once-in-a-generation lyrics and to hear Taylor calibrate his cadence to Griffin’s accent notes. Each brother cuts an unorthodox path through a song, deviating from the norm ever so, making it work together.

This relationship casts Dawes as an antidote to accepted musical wisdom. More often, we hear of sibling bands at the cusp of conflict, actively fraying their own family ties. Perhaps the most telling example is Oasis, a band that once recalled the first, ill-fated brother relationship in a song called “Guess God Thinks I’m Abel.” Liam and Noel Gallagher’s somewhat miraculous reunion tour, set for next year, offers hope, while underlining the fraught nature of siblinghood.

The Bible makes clear that bands aren’t the only ones who have it rough when it comes to sibling relationships. Broken bonds can hamstring generations, while genuine brother- and sisterhood speaks truth about God’s design for every family, whether blood, adopted, or spiritual. As with sibling bands, it’s easy to zero in on biblical relationships that break for a time or forever: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. But there’s something beautiful about siblings who live complementary lives while doing their greatest work together: Aaron and Moses, Peter and Andrew, James and John.

With this in mind and Oh Brother in the atmosphere, here are a few more of our favorite sibling bands, all of whom live out some facet of relative goodwill. For these groups, the rallying cry of Hebrews 13—“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters”—is as innate as music. To borrow (and bend) a line from an older, enduring Dawes song, may these and all your favorite family bands stay together.

The Avett Brothers

Few family musical groups explicitly lean into their relationship like these North Carolina natives. Scott and Seth Avett are forever working out the rites and roles of being eternally bound—and they keep counting stakes of a biblical size. Whether sifting the place of pride and humility (“I wanna have pride like my mother has / And not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad”) or sounding out the ever-present nature of good and evil (“There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light”), the Avett boys know they’ll only figure out this life in concert with one another.

Haim

What might it sound like if one generation of a family gave itself over to free, full-throated expression? The Haim sisters—Alana, Danielle and Este—tell us with the layer-cake harmonies and neon keyboards that perfect their openhearted guitar-bass-drums trio. On 21st-century pop gems like “The Wire,” “I Want You Back,” “Now I’m In It” and “The Steps,” Haim sounds unbidden, effervescent. Never weighed down by the sort of judgment that plagues both households and spiritual siblings, the sisters cast their sound into a clearing where love—for self and one another—exists absent of fear.

Hermanos Gutiérrez

Brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez make up the least-known band on this list, but once heard, their music is a secret that can’t be kept. Drawing on their Ecuadorian and Swiss heritage, the pair creates remarkably moody instrumental rock—each track sounds like another mile on a moonlit waltz through the desert. Bringing shared history and their sense of place to the music, Hermanos Gutiérrez displays how clans are very particular things, yet come together to evoke universal experience, relating to and growing a greater family of families.

The National

Though they’re often labeled “dad-rock,” two brotherly bonds propel The National: twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner as well as rhythm section Bryan (drums) and Scott Devendorf (bass). The unity which springs from—and seals—the strongest sibling connections radiates through the band, proving unity is more about harmony than uniformity. The Dessners play through the smallest spaces between two people or two notes; not doubling parts, but lacing their guitars and keyboards to create something practically symphonic. Growing their grooves, the Devendorfs make a truly active verb of listening. The National keeps proving the point of the psalmist, who tells us how pleasing—how downright good—unity can be.

Radiohead

Love is meant to be steadfast—and to be applied with specificity in every kind of season. Jonny and Colin Greenwood have molded Radiohead’s pioneering, oft-evolving sound from their shared place inside the band’s beating heart. Jonny’s daring guitar and synth work and Colin’s intuitive, melodic bass playing have mattered greatly to Radiohead in its anthemic and abstract seasons, its most soulful and soul-crushed moments, in the years it gave to guitars and those animated by other instruments and arrangements.

Switchfoot

Proverbs tells us brothers are ready-made for times of struggle; for nearly 30 years, San Diego’s Foreman brothers (singer-guitarist Jon and bassist Tim) have underscored that truth, creating anthems from the chords of adversity. Switchfoot dares their listeners—and, by extension, themselves—to move boldly through a turbulent world, consider the contents of a life well-lived, and explore new ways to be human. This pursuit of grit and glory has swept up longtime fans, making them feel like part of the family.

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At Think Christian, we encourage careful cultural discernment. We recognize and respect that many Christians choose not to engage with pop culture that contains particular content, such as abuse, sex, violence, alcohol or drug use, or that employs the use of coarse language. To that end, we suggest visiting Common Sense Media for detailed information regarding the content of the particular pieces of pop culture discussed in this article.