LOS ANGELES — Exactly one year after the devastating Eaton fire broke out, the Los Angeles folk-rock band Dawes will present an all-star benefit concert on Wednesday night for victims of the blaze that killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 structures in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Among those affected by the fire: the two brothers who've led Dawes for more than a decade and a half.

Drummer Griffin Goldsmith's Altadena home was destroyed last January, while singer-guitarist Taylor Goldsmith lost his nearby recording studio and its decades' worth of musical gear; the siblings' parents' house in Altadena burned down, as well.

"I remember talking to my therapist early on, and he was like, 'Well, if you ever wondered what you and your family would be like under the most extreme circumstances — now you know,'" Taylor, 40, recalled with a laugh the other day.

Yet Wednesday's show at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium "is not some pity party," Griffin, 35, said. "This is for the other people. And the reason it feels good to be doing it is because a lot of people are in much more need than we are."

With proceeds earmarked for the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, A Concert for Altadena will feature Dawes along with acts including Stephen Stills, Lord Huron, Aloe Blacc, Rufus Wainwright, Lucius, Jenny Lewis and Brandon Flowers of the Killers. Taylor's wife, the singer and actor Mandy Moore, is set to perform, while John C. Reilly will serve as host.

Rounding out the bill is Brad Paisley, the country star (and part-time Angeleno) who joined the Goldsmiths to open last year's Grammy Awards ceremony with a boisterous rendition of Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." that also featured Sheryl Crow, St. Vincent, Brittany Howard and John Legend.

The brothers hope to raise at least $500,000 from the show, which they organized with guitarist Eric Krasno, who will also perform, and Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, a fellow Altadena resident whose home was damaged by smoke in the fire.

"It's putting the spotlight on something that's kind of just begun in certain ways," Griffin said of the slow-moving recovery process. "The world moves on — that's just how things go. But these problems don't fix themselves."

Raised in Malibu, the Goldsmiths formed Dawes around 2009 and play strummy, country-inflected rock with echoes of Jackson Browne, the Eagles and Warren Zevon.

"To me, they're like the closest thing we have to that 'once upon a time in Los Angeles' type of sound," said Paisley, who met Taylor through his acquaintance with Moore.

"I reached out to Mandy at some point after they got married and said, 'Your husband is like my favorite songwriter going,'" he recalled. "She told him that, and then he reached out and we became friends."

In 2024, Paisley joined Dawes at Taylor's dimly lighted studio to cut a live version of "House Parties," from the band's latest album, "Oh Brother."

"Couple of months later, the place was gone," he said. "It's hard to believe."

Asked how the fire might have changed him, Taylor said, "I don't want to feel like it's changed me at all — I don't want to give it that kind of power." He added, "I'm not comfortable in the victim role, and I'm not saying that as some sort of humble-brag.

"People come up with their eyes wide and want to give me a hug, and I'm like, 'Don't be silly — I'm fine.' That's my reflex. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I resist it when someone says, 'Oh, I'm sure things are different now.' I don't want that to be the case."

"On one hand, it can be a defining aspect of our band and our lives," Griffin said of the fire and its destruction. "On the other hand, I think what can be defining is the way we move forward and how we can continue to lift up this community."

Taylor recently visited a construction site where Altadena Builds Back and Habitat for Humanity are rebuilding a house that burned down.

"They got me so excited that I was like, 'Can I come back and be a volunteer?'" he said. "They're already on their third or fourth home, and they're doing them fast."

Added Griffin: "That's an amazing success story, and so how do you make that scalable? It's a pretty insurmountable-seeming problem when you look at the macro of it. But focusing on the micro can be really important to feel like, OK, this is getting done."

What do the brothers make of local officials' handling of relief efforts?

"I don't want to get too cynical, but I couldn't really say that I feel like the city or county or state government have helped," Griffin said.

"The bureaucracy makes itself clear really quickly," Taylor said.

Looking back on the fire itself, Taylor said, "It's so easy now to be like, 'How dare there be a shortage of firefighters on the Eastside when that fire was on its way toward us?' But as a musician I'm in no position to say that I know what could have been done — that I know what they should be taking responsibility for."

"It seems like the politicians don't know either," Griffin said. "But the firefighters were obviously nothing but amazing. No one's blaming them. They were just doing what they could with the resources they had."

"We only have so much information, and you can approach that lack of information in good faith or bad faith," Taylor said. "I choose to believe that intentions are good. Maybe someone else would hear me say that and shake their head and insist that I'm not being skeptical enough. And maybe they'd be right. But that's how we're deciding to approach it."

Paisley, whose former home in Pacific Palisades was destroyed in the Palisades fire, said he's never seen anyone process loss as the Goldsmiths have.

"I didn't lose anything except the house we used to love," the country singer said of the place he and his wife, actor Kimberly Williams-Paisley, sold in 2013. "And I'm madder than they are."

Today, Griffin and his wife, Kit Goldsmith, are living in Eagle Rock with their 11-month-old son, who was born a month ahead of schedule just two weeks after the Eaton fire ravaged Altadena.

"In some ways, that was insanity — like, I can't believe this is happening right now," he said of the baby's early arrival, which he assumes was the result of stress. "But once he was here, it definitely gave us a new, brighter perspective that this is what matters most."

Do he and his family plan to return to Altadena?

"We still have our lot, but there's just so many pieces that need to fall into place before we have a clear picture of what the future is for us," he said.

Taylor, Moore and their three young children are back in their Altadena home after having left for about nine months to deal with smoke damage. And Taylor said he's in the plans and permitting stage of rebuilding his studio.

Asked how he expects the experiences of the past year to shape Dawes' next album, the singer said he wasn't sure yet.

"The times I've tried to sit down — 'What's the song here?' — it feels opportunistic," he said. "At least right now. Maybe someday that won't be the case.

"But I will say that it's contributing to the mood," he added. "Our last record, there's a certain levity — a certain number of songs that are even meant to be a little silly." He laughed. "That's not falling out of me right now."

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