Dirty Heads Keep Fans Entertained During COVID Quarantine

May 28, 2020 by Jenni Lynne

While the stay at home order has been in effect, Huntington Beach locals, The Dirty Heads have committed to keeping fans entertained by performing live streams, and IG Live chats over the last few weeks.

The band also participated in the Cali Roots: Can’t Stop The Music! virtual festival with a kick-ass hour-long set of songs off the “Any Port in a Storm” album. To keep things exciting for fans, the band also released an exclusive run of merchandise and did some awesome giveaways.

Back in August, the band released their 7th album, “Supermoon.” The incredible album, produced by the grammy-winning country producer Dave Cobb (A Star is Born soundtrack, Brandi Carlisle, Chris Stapleton, and more), was celebrated with a successful fall tour with 311 and The Interrupters.

The bands’ last performance was in February at the One Love Festival in Long Beach, which left fans excited for their spring tour.

In conjunction with live online performances, the band released the new merchandise that was set to sell at their festival appearances this spring. Available solely on their online store, 100% of the proceeds go to a network of food banks, Feeding America, who is helping feed families that have been affected by COVID-19.

In continuing their discography of albums, Dirty Heads are scheduled to play songs off the “Cabin by the Sea” album, acoustically on May 29th at 5 pm PST on @veeps.  This week, the band will generously donate a portion of the proceeds from the show to The Navajo Nation COVID-19 Fund.

Recently I caught up with Jerad about the new album, life under quarantine, and his passion for The Navajo Nation.

Here’s a peak into the chat:

Jenni: I caught your set back in February at One Love and my Lord Medusa! You guys were on fire that night!

Jared:  Yeah, that felt good! That felt really good. I think that was our best One Love we have played so far. 

Jenni: I have to agree! It was so fun! I can’t believe that it was pretty much one of our last festivals of the year.

Jared: Yeah, I mean last f*cking show really. I’m stoked that it was the last show we played, but at the same time, you know it’s a bummer. Nobody saw this coming. 

Jenni: I know that you guys had just put out the new album, “Super Moon,” back in August, and were kind of firing up for that tour. You had a good run with 311 in The Interrupters, and I was just wondering what your favorite song is on that album.

Jared: On “Super Moon,” my favorite song is probably…it changes cuz at the beginning it was “Horsefly.” Then it was “Lighthouse,” and now it’s probably “Tender Boy” or “Come Back Around.”

Jenni: It’s a great album. I really like listening to it. And, I really was hoping that we can see you guys do some of that live! 

Jared: Yeah, so we’ll be playing that album in its entirety at the end, obviously cuz we’re going in chronological order. So, that’ll be the last one. But we’re going to do the whole thing. So that will be cool.

Jenni: So “Cabin by the Sea” is coming up this week, right?

Jared: Yeah, that’ll be Friday. 

Jenni: You guys have also been busy lately on IG doing live chats, really keeping your fans interacting with you. I know that you guys interact outside when you’re usually on tour with your fans. What’s it been like interacting with your fans online versus in public at the venues?

Jared: You know here’s pros and cons. Like the face-to-face thing, there’s nothing better than that. But we’ve kind of learned over the years. 

We don’t want to like cattle our fans in, get a dollar and say hi, take a picture and move them on. You know, we tried that. The demand for meet-and-greets was pretty high. And so we just tried to pack everybody in. But we were like, man, we got to cut it down. We’re not able to give each person as much attention as we would want.

So we knocked down the meet and greets a little, and that helps. The good thing online is that you can spend a little bit of time chatting with one person at a time.

Jenni: I know your fans have been loving what you’ve been doing and very appreciative. What’s home life been like for you during the quarantine?

Jared: The good thing about it, you know I’m going with the positive side, and the silver lining is you know… we would be out on tour right now. We would be doing our big summer tour, and that’s like the highlight of the year. But we haven’t been home in the summertime or probably for this long in let’s say 15 + years. So it’s nice. It’s really nice to be forced to slow down and be forced to spend time with my family almost. Not that I don’t want to, but it’s just that you know summertime is our big time to go out and tour. So I’ve really been enjoying, you know, being a dad and being a husband and enjoying being home and just taking it easy. So it’s nice to take a break.

I think it’s cool. As a band, we’re learning a lot, and when we get back out, I think we’re going to be a better band. To look on the bright side of things, we are going back more and playing songs that we haven’t played in years with all these live streams. We’re falling back in love with them, and we’ll figure out ways to play them live with the full band. So when we finally do go back out on the road, I think our set is going to be even better than it already was and even more dynamic. And we’re going to play more songs. It’ll probably be longer, and you know, it’s just going to be cooler cuz we’re going to be playing more stuff than we normally do or things that we kind of look over.

Jenni: I like that a lot of your live streams, you’ve been taking donations and recognizing non-profits and people that are suffering during COVID. How did you guys come to know about the Navajo Nation, who you are supporting this week with donations from the live stream?

Jared: That was actually mine. I think everybody is going to pick a charity. First, we did a merchandise item at the beginning where we donated proceeds [to Feeding America]. Then we did the Second live stream, and we had to charge ten bucks for it because it costs money to make. People don’t understand, some people were pretty upset. They were upset that we were charging. But they don’t realize that it costs money to do the live stream the way they were doing it, with the camera crew and sound crew and all these things. So we wanted to see if we could actually make it work and keep doing them this high-quality, not just you know sitting on our iPhone.

So, we did the second one, and it worked it was great. Now we know that we can do it. We know we can keep up with it. We know that we can pay our crew, we can pay for the film crew. We can keep the cameras in there. And now we know we can give money away, you know, this was never something for a profit. It was always something for our fans. We wanted to do it right, and that costs money. We didn’t think $10 was that much. Now we’re going to be able to get into more charities.

The Navajo Nation one… it’s crazy to me that the first people of this nation, the Native Americans, are still so overlooked. I know that there are a lot of things that are really f*cked up in this country. But they are still so overlooked, so swept under the rug when it comes to media and just in general. I think I’ve just always had a place in my heart for them. We grew up in the southwest, and because you know traveling there on tour. You can go over my parent’s house, there are tons of books, and tons of artwork. There’s just something that I think strikes a chord in every person’s heart when it comes to stories or movies or something that Hollywood puts out. But you know, people only want to see the romantic side of It. I don’t think people pay enough attention. So once I saw that the Navajo Nation was getting hit the hardest from COVID and it was just like a tiny little blurb in the media I was like, oh, well, that’s f*cking crazy that’s not front-page news. So that’s the least that we can do to help. 

Jenni: Yes, agreed most definitely. I also want to thank you for the song dark days. It’s really helped me through a lot of tough times. With this being the last week of mental health awareness month and with so many people being affected due to COVID-19, I was wondering if there was anything you could share with fans as to what you have been doing to maintain your mental health and sobriety while being at home. 

Jared: You know, that’s so funny. I just had a conversation with my wife this morning about it. So, I’ve been very up and down with my mental health. Being an addict and being a recovering addict and the damage that does on your mental health. I don’t have any underlying diseases, but I have done a lot of damage to my brain. That has resulted in me having some pretty bad depression and pretty bad anxiety now. And it’s been pretty rough. I think a lot of people see on social media, and I don’t post a lot of stuff that is a drag or a bummer. That’s not what I want to do, and I understand that I might not be real, I just don’t feel comfortable with it. But, it has been rough. It’s very easy to fall out of like my routine that keeps me happy when you’re just home, and you don’t have a lot to do, and you can’t go outside, and you can only go outside for a little bit. You can only go outside to certain areas, and you can’t see your friends.

You know, if you stay really busy and stay around people that you love and doing stuff, it’s a lot easier to stay active and to keep your brain healthy. And the one thing I always go back to it, and it’s the only thing that I can really attest to that works every single time, and I just started again yesterday. I definitely fell off a couple weeks ago, and I always sit around in this cycle of “Why do I feel bad? Why am I so depressed? Why is this happening?  

Excercise. 100% exercise.

If I exercise daily, even for 25 minutes. I’m a 100% different person. And then I forget to and two weeks have gone by, and I’m sitting in my room under my covers. I don’t want to get out; it’s nice outside, and everything in my life is good, but I’m just absolutely depressed, and everything sucks. I don’t want to talk to anybody, and I want to sleep all day. Why is that? Well, I forgot. I didn’t work out today. So as soon as I workout, boom! I’m back. Within 1 workout. So it’s like I’ve gotten to this point to where I have to work out every day. It’s just something that anybody with mental health out there has used this method and has worked. You don’t have to be ashamed, you don’t have to be bummed. You just have to know that hey, ok, instead of taking a pill or you know doing something reckless. I have to work out every day. It’s just part of my life. There’s no excuses. There’s no choice. I’m just going to get up, and I’m going to do it cuz you know that you’re going to feel better, feel happy, be the person that you want to be. And for me, that’s 100% exercise.

Jenni: Thank you for that. And what do you guys see the rest of 2020 looking like right now?

Jared: Dude, we don’t know. You know, that’s the beauty of these streams that it can take us another two months if we do every album. And, as of now, it looks like we’re just going to postpone everything till next year. 

If you are fiending for a Dirty Heads show, be sure to head over to Veeps and create an account. You won’t want to miss the next show!

The Dirty Heads have kept their fans in mind and are doing a giveaway! The band is giving away 5 live stream tickets to their show this Friday!

All You Have To Do is be the first 5 fans to Post on OC Music News Facebook Page

Post a photo of You and the band

Post a Photo of You with a Band Member

A Photo of You Wearing DH Merch

State which was Jared’s favorite song of the new album?

State which Indian Nation Jared supports?

A MEMBER OF OC MUSIC NEWS WILL REACH OUT TO THE 5 WINNERS

Get your tickets in advance for $10 or $15 day of at

Get tickets at

You can pick up exclusive “Cabin by the Sea” limited merchandise! Online sales begin on May 29th at noon PST and will be available for 72 Hours only.

THE DIRTY HEADS