Dirty Heads have a “Super Bowl” at Red Rocks this week

Dirty Heads is playing the Super Bowl in Denver this week, at least that’s what it feels like every time the SoCal reggae-rockers roll through Red Rocks.

“To this day, Red Rocks is our yearly Super Bowl,” says frontman Jared “Dirty J” Watson. “It was our holy land when you’re a small band in a van traveling around the country. Red Rocks is it. That’s the pinnacle.

“It’s crazy to say we’re comfortable at Red Rocks now. Before it was like, ‘Oh, my god, we’re playing Red Rocks,’” he continues, adding that every Morrison concert is amped up even more. “We know that we’re going to make it special, a little bit of extra sauce. We always have some special guests or the way that we produce the show. But getting a piece of the Rock never gets old.”

So expect more than a halftime’s worth of material on Thur., June 25. Honestav, RDGLDGRN and Satsang are also on the bill. And there’s no time for a Super Bowl hangover, because Dirty Heads will take Dillon Amphitheater on Fri., June 25, again, with RDGLDGRN and Satsang.

Watson, vocalist-guitarist Dustin “Duddy B” Bushnell, percussionist Jon Olazabal, drummer Matt Ochoa and bassist David Foral are bringing brand new album, “7 Seas” (June 12 via Better Noise Music), with them. The first full-length in four years, the record captures a more hip-hop Dirty Heads, while also offering surprisingly vulnerable moments, courtesy of Watson’s painfully personal approach to writing.

“The album took four years to make because life was getting really difficult for myself, personally,” he says, adding he wasn’t the only one in his inner circle going through it during that time. “It was just one thing after another. I eventually had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the album. My body, my nervous system just couldn’t take it anymore and just shut down. There was a ton of work I needed to do. It wasn’t a struggle, but there were a lot of ups and downs on this album.”

Such tracks as “Better” and “Future Self” address those ills with an optimistic outlook; something Watson didn’t necessarily expect initially.

“I was talking to my manager, and he said, ‘I know things are hard and you’re suffering, but guess what? You’re probably going to get a lot of material out of this,’” he recalls. “As much as I wanted to slap him for saying that, he was right. A lot of material came. I’m super proud of everyone and the album.”

“Sound Boy Kill” and “BADMAN,” featuring IRAH, are the hyped-up tracks he initially expected would drive “7 Seas,” but now they provide an upbeat balance.

“I thought it was going to be carefree. We wanted a couple more hip-hop songs, more bangers and up-tempo songs for the live shows,” Watson shares. “I thought it was going to be that. But every time you think an album is going to be one thing, it ends up being something else, so it ended up being a lot deeper, a lot more personal and therapeutic than I figured it would be.”

However it came to be, it’s already resonating within the Dirty Heads hemisphere.  

“All you want is for people to hear them. I think some people might be scared of personal songs, but for me, I know that music helps me, and our music has helped people in the past,” he adds. “When I’ve gone through something, and it sucks, and I’ve gotten to the other side, and I can tell a story or write a song about it, I know there’s somebody else out there that can relate.”

And more than two decades in, it’s something that he and the band don’t take for granted.

“We’re blessed, if this is a job, this cool of a job,” Watson concludes. “Playing shows in the summertime and having a cool fanbase and this big community they built. It’s pretty rad when you zoom out.”