Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith talks new album, romance with Mandy Moore

For 10 years, the band Dawes has ridden a wave of support from those who love a classic sound. However, their new album has a slightly different tone thanks in part to frontman Taylor Goldsmith's engagement to actress Mandy Moore. CBS News' Anthony Mason sat down with Goldsmith to talk about the band's sixth studio album and how love has helped changed his tune.

Lead singer Taylor Goldsmith started out with modest expectations for his now-beloved band Dawes. Being a "rock star" never even crossed his mind.

"I was pretty realistic about what it meant at that time, like in 2009, to be a folk rock band with slow songs with lots of words and acoustic guitars and harmonies. I wasn't delusional about how far we could take things," Goldsmith said. 

Dawes, which includes Goldsmith's brother, Griffin, on drums, bassist Wylie Gelber and keyboardist Lee Pardini, has built a devoted audience without a massive breakout album or a huge radio hit. As Goldsmith put it, their success has been "little by little, fan by fan."
 
Some of the songs on their sixth album, "Passwords," are love songs. Goldsmith is engaged to singer and actress Mandy Moore, star of the hit TV series, "This Is Us." It's a romance that's thoroughly modern.  
 
"We met on Instagram. She posted a picture of a song we were releasing. Like 'Oh, I'm excited for this record for the summer.' And I was like, 'Whoa. This beautiful woman, Mandy Moore is posting about our band. So if you ever want to come to a show, here's my email.' And, honestly, like, was there a part of me that was like, 'Maybe she'll want to flirt with me someday.' Of course, there's that funny voice. But it's like I wasn't actually expecting it," Goldsmith said. 

 They will be married this summer, but first they had another mountain to climb, Mount Kilimanjaro, which they ascended this past spring.

"I was impressed with myself I could handle it as well as I could. I just kind of marched up there and didn't complain," Goldsmith said.
 
"We were driving on the bus looking at the mountain for the first time, she got emotional. She like cried. ... It was a spiritual moment more or less. And I was sitting there looking at her, like, I'm not having that," he said. "So as we got there, I had to sort of what that meant to me and where that respect was coming from, where that fear of nature was coming from."

Still, they made it to the top. As far as any musical mountains Goldsmith has left to climb, there are a few.
 
"The dream is to be able to say 'I'm in that band, Dawes, and here are the 20 albums that we've made. Who knows if we'll ever get that far but ... six is great."  

In August, the band will head its own headline tour and later this year perform with British rock band the Electric Light Orchestra.