Exclusive Interview: Jared Watson From The Dirty Heads Talks ‘Sound Of Change’
Earlier this month, we chatted with Jared Watson from The Dirty Heads to discuss 'Sound Of Change' - the band's awesome new album!
The record's lead single 'My Sweet Summer' is particularly catchy and it spent eight weeks in the top 10 of alternative charts in America; matching previous records set by Coldplay and Lorde. Impressive right?They're definitely worth checking out; the band's latest record 'Sound Of Change' will be released here in the UK next month and it we're keeping our fingers crossed it does well in the charts; it certainly deserves to.
In our exclusive new interview, Jared discusses everything from: disliking a proposed music video to working with some of his biggest idols. Make sure you check out Jared’s answers to our questions below.
Are you enjoying your time in the UK?
"I am, I am, I’m going on like maybe three hours of sleeps and like 90 Peronis."
So your new album ‘Sound Of Change’ will released here next month; how would you describe the record for the people who haven’t heard your music before and how would you say it’s different to your previous albums?
"I’d say it’s an alternative rock album with reggae and hip hop, more so in the hip hop world, compared to our last two releases which were much more reggae influenced and much more acoustic influenced. I’d say our first two albums were a lot more laid back; like something you could put on at the beach or on holiday or when it’s sunny outside. This one’s just a little bit bigger, a little bit more dynamic, maybe more hype."
Do you think it’s important to evolve musically over time?
"I think it’s really important because as human beings, like for us, I mean we started writing music for ourselves in the first place. So for us to be happy, if we evolve as people then our music’s gonna evolve. Like I said,we did two mellow albums so we were like ‘Dude, we need to do an album with some bangers on it’ you know. Something more uptempo, you know, just for our own sanity and we don’t want to keep regurgitating the same album over and over and over again. I think that does work with some bands like Jack Johnson or something like that but after a while, there’s like bands that I fell in love with and they’ve put out four albums and they all sound the same so I’m like ‘Alright, whatever, I’m not gonna buy your next album’ because I’ve already heard it you know."
And people seem to be liking the new sound because it got to number 8 in the Billboard chart, congratulations on that. How did you feel when you heard the news?
"Thanks. Good. I felt good. I was pretty confident, I think I was more confident with this album that anything that we’ve done. When we got done with this album, I was like alright, this is gonna work. So I was confident that it was going to do well but anytime that people accept it and they like it, it feels good because it’s something that you’ve made you know."
What made you choose ‘My Sweet Summer’ as the first single?
"It was just like, for us, we’re not good at picking singles. I don’t know why, we just suck at it, so we just kind of gaged friends and other musicians. We just showed it to a lot of other people and every time that one, and maybe one or two other ones, came up then people were like ‘What the f*ck is this?’ and we were like ok, that’s the one, that’s the one. We tested it."
And you also filmed more than one video for the track; why was that?
*laughs* "We got with a music video director and I was like ‘Yo, we have an idea about this skeleton on a deserted island but we don’t want it to be cheesy, we don’t want it to be like a muppet puppet video.’ And he was like ‘No way, no way, it’ll be artsy and rad. Give me all this money and I’ll do it.’ Then we gave him all this money and it was exactly what we didn’t want. Like this muppet video that really wasn’t funny and if you’re going to do a muppet puppet thing, it’s got to be really really funny."
"So I was pissed, and I didn’t like it, and we had 48 hours until the deadline for our video. And I called up my friends at Red Camera and I called up a couple of my model friends and I was like ‘Yo, we’re shooting a video today, at my house f*cking house and at the beach. Get your motorcycle.’ Like we wrote this treatment in 15 minutes, called everybody, got everything down in like 2 hours and shot, directed and edited in colour treatment the whole video in like 48 hours. And I love it, it’s actually like a rad video."
That’s pretty crazy. Did you enjoy making the video then?
"I did. It was my first time directing it; I really, really enjoyed it. That’s what I like about this job. Before, I couldn’t keep a job, it’s not that I was getting fired but I’d just get bored really easily. With this, there’s so many different outlets that I can do creatively. I can direct a music video, then I can go and design merchandise, then I can go and write music. You know, there’s so many different parts that I can do that you don’t get bored. It’s really fun."
‘Sound of Change’ also features collaborations. How was it working with: Ward 21, Tech N9ne and B-Real?
"I love doing collabs. Even though I think we are an alternate band, we kind of have that hip hop mentality where we love doing collaborations. We think it just makes a song better. I don’t think enough rock or alternative… everybody outside of hip hop, I don’t get why they don’t collaborate more because it’s just rad. It’s fun to get other people and we get to fanboy. Like, I got to do a song with B-Real. I listened to Cypress Hill growing up skating my whole life. I’m a huge fan of Tech N9ne, I got to do a song with him. It’s more for us, as the 16 year old kids that started the band. It’s like damn, we get to do a song with Ward, or B-Real, or Tech 9Nine. Like it’s more just us sitting around like who ‘Do we want to work with?’ because we like them. You know, because we’re fans."
And did you get to meet them in the studio then?
"Yeah, sometimes we’ve got to send it. Like Ward 21 was in, I think he may have been in Europe of Jamaica, so we didn’t get to meet him but we’ve known B-Real from shows. And we got to meet Tech N9ne and then Tech actually flew out and surprised our fans at a show. He actually came out and did the verses at a show that we’re doing a live DVD of at Red Rocks in Colorado."
That’s cool. You did play in the UK for the Warped tour and you’re coming back in November; how would you say the atmosphere at gigs here is different to anywhere else in the world?
"Well, for us, we came over and didn’t know what to expect. We were like ‘Obviously no-one knows us over there’ but that’s why we’re coming back. Because when we got to London’s Warped tour, there was a bunch of kids at our acoustic thing. We played a pretty small room but the room was packed to capacity where nobody could come in and half the crowd knew all of the lyrics. We were like ‘Oh sh*t, we have fans in the UK. We’ve got to come back.’ and the crowd was bonkers. The crowd was f*cking nuts and then we hung out."
You’ve also been doing charity work for WhyHunger; can you tell us about your involvement with them?
"Yeah, we have a very positive message in our music. We’re a very positive band. That’s what we kind of preach if you will, I mean we don’t preach to anybody, but we have an underlying message of love and positivity. Like ‘Sound of Change’, if you want to accept change and become a better person, we’re asking people to go out and do that. So if we’re going to sing about these positive things and come across that way, we should physically do something about it. We should walk the walk. So we got with Hard Rock and WhyHunger and are doing a lot of stuff with them this year. It’s a good cause that we think is cool because not only are you feeding children, it’s out of their hands, they can’t get jobs. They’re little kids you know and they need water, they need food. Not only are you feeding them but they’re building gardens, teaching them how to do sustainable food. It’s kind of like that one old fishing saying like ‘Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Give a man a fish and bowl, he eats for a lifetime.’ It’s going to be a long lasting thing when you help somebody rather than just dropping some change in a cup.”
What does the future hold for The Dirty Heads then?
"Today? Well I’m just stoked to be in the UK doing press. It’s rad because we don’t have any shows or anything so we can just kind of go hang out and sightsee and go shopping and stuff like that. That’s the rest of the day. So I get home, I’m getting married right when I get home. The Mrs was like ‘What? You’re going to the UK? You know we’re getting married.’ And I was like yeah, I’ll be back in like five days. I get home, have two weeks off, we get married. We have a week in Thailand, a week in Vietnam, for my honeymoon. Yeah, three days after that, we do US, Canada and back to Europe for our full blown tour."
That’s great and if you could leave one last message for your fans; what would it be?
"We just want to see you at the show, yeah."
'Sound Of Change' will be released here on the 13th October and it's available for pre-order now. You can find out exactly where and when The Dirty Heads will be heading on tour here on our sister website SuprTickets.
