Fresh off an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last week and the surprise drop of their fifth studio album, Chain Yer Dragon, jam-band juggernaut Goose headlined the Park City Song Summit in Utah this past weekend.
Established in 2019 as a conduit to create and cultivate dialogue about the state of mental/physical health and wellness in the music industry, the PCSS has become a beacon of not only hope and compassion, but one of positive, tangible change.
“There’s a mindset, an energy, and a spirit that you can take away from here,” says Ben Anderson, PCSS founder. “That’s really hard to get in your average run-of-the-mill event. If somebody can leave here and apply that, and live even 10-percent happier? Then, that’s a success for us.”
“It really all boils down to communication,” Goose lead singer Rick Mitarotonda tells Rolling Stone when asked about honing in on the health of a rock band. “When things are getting weird, the vibe’s off, and people are going through stuff, the ability to communicate with each other, understand each other, it means everything.”
Along with Goose, the fifth installment of PCSS included appearances by Dawes, Greensky Bluegrass, Holly Bowling, Marcus King, Nicki Bluhm, Eric Krasno, Jennifer Hartswick, Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel, Anders Osborne, Adam MacDougall, Cimafunk, and LP Giobbi.
“As I get older, I have to think about how to navigate the [music] industry in a healthy way, physically and mentally,” says Krasno, the renowned guitarist who made his fourth trip to PCSS. “It’s great to have a place and a festival that nurtures that side of things. For many years, there wasn’t a lot of attention given to how to be a musician or to be in the business, but also maintain a healthy life.”
The weekend kicked off Thursday evening with a dinner at the Summit Supper Club hosted by celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern. Teaming up with Marcus King, Zimmern tailored the menu to dishes from King’s native South Carolina (think oysters, barbecue, crab cakes). The men have become friends in recent years, bonding through a love of music.
“What’s really fun and challenging, for us as food people, is to pay homage to a human being, their music, and the piece of land that they’re from,” Zimmern says. “And to translate that into food, and hope that you experience that at the same time.”
King serenaded the guests, who, following the meal, walked in unison with the Trombone Shorty Foundation Alumni Band up Main Street to the Marquis, where King hit the stage alongside Krasno and Betts. For Betts, the ethos of the PCSS is something he deeply aligns with: He’s been proudly sober for several years.
The Trombone Shorty Foundation Alumni Band march up Main Street. Photo: Mario Alcauter*
“I think it’s really important for people to know that they’re not alone,” Betts says. “So many people struggle with mental health in one form or another — anxiety, depression, addiction. Now, at least, they have the guidelines, they have the tools if they want them.”
Betts made a handful of appearances at PCSS, most notably Friday evening with his former bandmates Dawes. The indie-rockers rolled through a wide-swath of their catalog (“All Your Favorite Bands,” “Comes in Waves”), with Betts and Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith duetting on the Allman Brothers’ “Ramblin’ Man.” Betts roared up and down the fretboard of his goldtop Gibson Les Paul, the same guitar used by his late father, Dickey Betts.
PCSS also offers numerous “Summit Labs,” informative, live audience conversations about ongoing subjects within the musical realms. One of the most-anticipated of the weekend was the “American Rock n’ Roll Band in 2025,” featuring Krasno, Dawes’ Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, as well as Goose’s Mitarotonda and Peter Anspach.
“I feel like all of my heroes, the people I look up to, built their own world and found their own path,” Mitarotonda says.
“The American rock band has a lane in 2025, but that lane has only gotten smaller,” says Taylor Goldsmith, “at least in this universe of guitar solos, lyrics, upright pianos, that sort of thing.”
“I don’t have any idea how to start a band today. I’m grateful that we have what we have,” Griffin Goldsmith says. “I’m grateful that our fans are already with us, because I’m not sure that methodology of ‘one show at a time, pound the pavement, one fan at a time’ is even feasible unless you have a patron — it’s just too expensive.”
For the Goldsmith brothers, that perspective into their careers also permeates their personal lives. This past January, Griffin lost his home and Taylor had his studio destroyed in the apocalyptic Eaton Fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles.
“For a long time, we were like, ‘How do we make the show bigger? How do we get the streams up?’ or whatever the hell that means,” Taylor says. “But, then you have kids, and you just want to be able to bring them to a festival and have them see their dad onstage, and be proud in some way. And as long as they’re taken care of, that’s really all that matters.”
Dawes tore through a set on the City Park Stage with Adam MacDougall on keyboards. For MacDougall, the underlying theme of the PCSS strikes close to his heart. A friend of late guitarist Neal Casal (both were longtime bandmates in Chris Robinson Brotherhood and Circles Around the Sun), MacDougall knows first-hand what it means to lose a loved one in the midst of a mental health crisis.
“With Neal, there wasn’t a place to go, that understood the specifics of how that [musical] life can get you down,” MacDougall says.
Casal took his own life in August 2019. Just two months earlier, jam-grass great Jeff Austin also suffered the same fate. The two beloved musicians became a catalyst for new avenues of dialogue and actual change occurring in how mental health is dealt with in the music industry.
In the aftermath, much-needed organizations like Backline emerged, with the PCSS also continuing to grow and share its mission.
“I think it’s amazing that there’s a way that makes it okay for people to feel they can say they’re not doing well,” MacDougall says of the PCSS. “And having an actual place that’s basically saying, ‘We’re here, we understand that aspect of it’? It’s a huge difference.”