The Dirty Heads are back in Huntington Beach for a bit after touring with Sublime, but that doesn't mean their massive tour is over; tomorrow, they're performing at the U.S. Open of Surfing with Rome of Sublime, this weekend, they'll be in San Bernardino, and next week they're hit the road again, where they're performing all over the country until October.
Obviously, singer Jared Watson doesn't think that's a bad thing. In a phone interview last June, he talked about having a No. 1 record and what's changed since then. The biggest thing? “We're on a tour bus now, that's nice,” he said, laughing. “We got rid of our van. I can sleep in my own bunk and watch TV and play X-Box and bring normal stuff. It's rad, it's a whole other level. We've been a band for seven years and been touring for four. The pay off is that our shows are growing, those are the best things about it.”
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The Dirty Heads' style of laid-back, pop-rock-reggae has had pundits calling the Huntington Beach natives the “torchbearers of SoCal rock. “Me and Duddy (Dustin Bushnel) have been writing music since we were 16–we're 27 now–and it's always been that style of music, even before we heard all these bands that are supposed to sound like us, like Sublime. For two dudes that can't sing very well, it's an honor, ” Watson says, laughing.
The perks of their growing popularity–touring with bands that they love, such as 311, getting on Loveline (“that's one of the best things I've done. I listen to that show all the time and think it's so funny”) and selling out headlining shows–are all products of the band's hard work. Still, Watson says he never thought it was going to happen.
Now, there are bigger goals: Watson wants to collaborate with singers he loves (“I want to do a song with Ben Harper really bad, that would be insane.”) Brandon Boyd of Incubus, and collaborate with Temper Trap and the Beastie Boys. (“That would make me shit my pants.”)
There's also the new album, which the band is hoping to finish recording when they get back from their massive tour. “We come back home to keep our sanity and see our friends; you can't play the same songs over and over or else you'll lose your mind,” Watson says. The new album, he says, will be a lot less eclectic than their debut, Any Port in a Storm. “We wrote the first album when we were younger and finding our sound.” On it, there are hip-hop influenced tracks, ballads–“all these styles of music that the Dirty Heads have come from that we just put on the album,” Watson explained. While that it helps people understand where the band came from, the next album, Watson says, will focus on the Dirty Heads sound–and will have more songs like “Believe” and “Lay Me Down” on it.
And maybe, even a collaboration with a Beastie Boy or two.
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