Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Update: The new album from Dawn and Hawkes came out Friday. For a mini review of it and all other The Voice related releases from 2015, head here. Below, Chris Hawkes and Miranda Dawn talk about the new album.

Original post: This week, The Voice introduced us to the first duos to compete on the show since Season 6.

This Friday, Dawn and Hawkes — the couple who made the biggest blind audition splash of any duo ever to appear on the show — will release their first full-length album.

And Miranda Dawn and Chris Hawkes plan to turn it into a dual celebration.

Their new album is called “Yours and Mine.” And if you’ve watched the video for their song by that name, you’ll see Miranda and Chris getting married.

That marriage footage was real, Chris says. They were married in Big Sur, surrounded by family and their closest friends.

So Friday’s album release event at One World Theater in Austin, Texas, will also be a marriage celebration, complete with a wedding cake to share with their fans.

“The lyrics to that song spoke so honestly as vows to one another,” Chris says. “We wanted to film (the music video) in a beautiful place and were also planning to elope in a beautiful place — the idea for a wedding and music video just seemed to fall together.”

And so did the album title. Chris says he and Miranda began writing the songs for the new album right after releasing a 2012 EP called Golden Heart, which pre-dated their appearance on The Voice. They dubbed the collection of songs “Yours, Mine and Ours.”

“Then we wrote the song ‘Yours and Mine,’ and it seemed to sum up this album and our life together nicely,” he says. “It also represents the message in our music — sharing thoughts, ideas, and mutual encouragement and recognizing our human connection.”

For those who don’t recall the Dawn and Hawkes story, they met in 2010 when he crossed the floor of an Austin barroom to ask her to dance. He’d already released solo material. Miranda was working on songs that would become a 2012 album called “Reason to Believe.” She asked Chris to help her record “Forever Happily,” a track on that album. Eventually, they wound up singing together.

“We spent near a year hearing each other play with our respective bands,” recalls Dawn. “But it just became different when our voices mixed together. It was as if there was suddenly this third voice.

“I mean, I’d sung harmony with other people before, but this was definitely its own beast. We felt it and other people around us were saying ‘Whoa — that’s what you guys should be doing.'”

target="_blank">Their cover of the song soared to number one on the iTunes’ rock chart and to the Top 30 on the overall singles chart.

They wound up being eliminated in the second battle round, but Chris says the benefit of appearing on the show was simple.

“Even with a few years of playing together and crossing the country, we reached more listeners in 90 seconds (on The Voice),” he says. “We felt lucky to be connected with people all over the country who heard something in the music we shared on that stage.”

songs from the upcoming album are already available on iTunes, including the title track and “Silver Line.” And they become instant downloads for anyone pre-ordering the album.

Chris says most of the songs on the albums are co-writes, though a couple were written separately, like “Never Feel Alone” and “Almost Mine,” both products of a song-writing workshop in San Diego.

“Songwriting for us is different every time,” Chris says. “We write in the car driving to shows, at home late at night, sometimes even on stage we’ll change a lyric or guitar part that becomes the part we’ve been waiting for. Most of the time one of us has an idea and the other will come in and help through each step or maybe even offer a separate idea the blends just right. Two ideas that dance together. When that happens it’s the most captivating.”

Even after the album release, more is coming for Dawn and Hawkes’ fans. Chris says he and Miranda are working on new videos and will release a vinyl version of the album later this year.

The couple’s October schedule is jam packed with tour dates, and there will be more shows to come. You can keep track of those on their Facebook page.

And Chris says he’s confident there “are still many more songs to come in future albums.”

“We’ve been performing together for just over four years. It has been the most wonderful roller coaster of travel, creative inspiration, and self growth we’ve ever experienced,” he says. “The highs have well surpassed the lows and any time I feel doubtful — because there are a lot of times to feel that way in this career — I have my best friend there to remind me of how special this opportunity we have together is.

“It’s an opportunity to encourage more sharing and love in the world. Sounds easy, but most of us shy away from loving fully and unabashedly. It’s easier to find news of a hate crime than a love celebration. Maybe one can be the antidote for the other.”