Interview with Dave of Dirty Heads

Music Existence: Since the release of your 2008 debut, Any Port in a Storm, you guys have achieved amazing success, “Lay Me Down spent eleven weeks at #1 Billboard Alternative Chart and was RIAA certified gold, your latest album: Sound of Change debuted at #8 in the Billboard Top 200 and you guys are about to release on July 15th your new self titled record. Congrats! Songwriting and recording process on the new album?

Dave: In the past, our albums have mostly been produced by one producer and for this one we thought why not meet with various producers and creatives and throw things up against the wall and see what sticks. It was good to see different perspectives and styles of the producers all the process. I believe we worked with six to eight producers and made two songs with each. We first brought Rome and brought along a bunch of people on board and it was overall an awesome experience. Typically, every song is different in terms of how we write. Duddy will sometimes come up with a guitar lick, we’ll do writing sessions or a producer has a sample that we listen to and it sparkles our interest and then we go off that. We’ll get Matt goes on drums, John does percussion. On this album, we were definitely trying to find ourselves and growing as artists up until this point. We have finally became comfortable with who we are as a band and decided to self title the new record that represent who we are to this point.

Music Existence: The current single, “That’s All I Need”, has been receiving lots of love and positive feedback. I personally love Oxygen, it’s definitely my favorite. Do you have a favorite song on the album?

Dave: One of the hard things about us is that our music is not just a rock band, we cover a lot of genres and styles. I like Truth, its pretty cool. It blends everything that we are as a band and sound. It has that modern and reggae aspect to it with with a little rap and singing. I do like Oxygen a lot too. We actually just did a music video for it and it’s in post production right now. It’ll be out soon after things with our newest single, “That’s All I Need” dial down. I don’t think it’ll be the next single but we’ll see. We were working with a photographer in a studio when recording the album and when he listened to Oxygen he told us he wanted to produce and direct a music video for it.

Music Existence: That’s awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing it. How was that music video experience for Oxygen like?

Dave:This one I’m really excited about because it’s super artsy and abstract. Usually, because of the songs its written in a descriptive way and in our past music videos we always have had a huge idea for them and have gone into the making of them with a clear vision and they sort of write themselves too because the writing is very descriptive. Oxygen is the first time that we’ve let the director take an abstract approach to it. I don’t want to give too much anyway but I’m excited to have it come out.

Music Existence: Do you guys have a favorite stage when creating your art? Recording, writing, performing, etc?

Dave: We definitely love to get out on the road. Every album breathes new life into us. We record an album, go out on the road then to the studio where you’re excited to make new music which is awesome. But definitely on tour, you get an extra bonus going on the road and seeing people’s reaction to your music every night. And when you add new songs to the setlist that haven’t been released and all of a sudden the audience already knows the words, it’s pretty cool. Working on something, putting your heart and soul into it and then being able to play it live and see the reactions is the best pay off and moment. We also see a twelve year old with their parents singing along to the lyrics and seeing that demographic range is awesome. Our goal whether is evident to us is to make timeless music. I think it’s been one of our underlying driving forces for our lyrics that Duddy and Jared come up with. Those guys are lyrical geniuses and really put your heat and soul to the words.

Music Existence: What are you looking forward to the most on this upcoming tour in July and August?

Dave: We’re touring with Sublime with Rome and thats always fun and its all just a huge family vibe when we’re together. We’ve toured with those guys five years ago and do one offs stuff when we play festivals. We’re really good friends with them, they’re great guys, and so its super great to have them with us. I know we have added some more dates to the tour, it’ll be like a fall run. We’ll be announcing those dates soon including Canadian shows and a festival in D.C.

Music Existence: Any dream bands or artists you’d like to tour with?

Dave: Oh a ton! Red Hot Chili Peppers for sure. One great thing about our group is that since we are an alternative band we’ve toured with reggae artist but we can also tour with more alternative bands. No Doubt would be awesome to tour with!