Dirty Heads’ 2017 sixth full-length offering, SWIM TEAM , finds the group at its most free. The Orange County, CA quintet—Jared “Dirty J” Watson , Dustin “Duddy B” Bushnell , Jon Olazabal , Matt Ochoa , and David Foral —traffic between alternative, hip-hop, reggae, and rock with the same spirit and spark that’s powered them since the beginning.
As a result, the hooks naturally became bigger, the experimentation got bolder, and the smoke blazed brighter…
“We’ve put in so much hard work over the years that we have the freedom to do whatever we want now,” affirms Jared. “Making the new record, I re-fell in love with everything about being in this band: writing music, playing shows, having fun, and where we’re at. We spent every day not only working on songs but laughing our asses off. What other people said didn’t matter. The rules of being a proper songwriter and all of that bullshit didn’t matter. If something felt good, we left it in there. It was so cool to get back to that feeling. Creating music was completely free. It was just fucking fun!”
For the better part of 15 years, Dirty Heads have quietly worked towards this point. In 2008, they emerged with the fan favorite full-length debut, Any Port In A Storm. The signature single “Lay Me Down” achieved an RIAA gold certification and clinched #1 on the Billboard Alternative Chart for 11 weeks—a record run for that year. 2014 saw Sound of Change debut at #8 on the Billboard Top 200, garner acclaim from the likes of Esquire, and vault “My Sweet Summer” to the top of Alternative Radio. Most recently, 2016’s self-titled Dirty Heads went Top 15 on the Top 200 and spawned the smash “That’s All I Need,” which racked up over 10.5 million Spotify streams and counting. Noisey summed up the album best as, “Killer.” Simultaneously, they remain one of the world’s most engaging and exhilarating live acts, selling out sheds coast to coast.
During early 2017, the group started writing songs with no expectations or plans and soon found themselves working on what would become SWIM TEAM. That boundless environment immediately fostered inspiration.
“We had some time off, and we were like, ‘We might as well get in the studio and see what happens’,” recalls Duddy. “In doing that, we were able to come up with some really good ideas. We didn’t have any pressure to put out new music. It’s a lot more ambient and simple. We went heavier on the hip-hop, which I love. After the first song, we agreed to just finish a record. We were all inspired.”
Dirty Heads have partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold will go to support organizations bringing equity, dignity, and access to communities who need it. http://www.plus1.org
via Dirty Heads
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