Dirty Heads kicked off their summer tour on May 18th in San Diego where they shocked die-hard fans with a live performance of the song “Visions.” Vocalist Jared Watson tells The Pier they will continue performing the song as well as releasing their version as an upcoming single!
On November 3rd, 2017, Maroon 5 put out their album titled Red Pill Blues. On the record was a song titled “Visions” with the Dirty Heads’ Jared Watson & Dustin Bushnell credited as co-writers with mc/producer, Blueprint. The song was originally intended for Dirty Heads record, Swim Team, that came out October 13th.
Like they did with other producers for Swim Team, Jared and Dustin sat down with Blueprint to write a song that would end up being called “Visions.” Maroon 5’s Adam Levine heard the song and requested it for his album. It wasn’t until just after Dirty Heads submitted Swim Team with “Visions” on the original tracklist that a deal was reached with Maroon 5. As a result, Dirty Heads made a last minute adjustment that removed their version of “Visions” and replaced it on the album with “Diamonds & Pearls.”
[Related: Dirty Heads Co-Write Maroon 5’s New Song “Visions” with Blueprint]
When we first reported on this last November, the Dirty Heads had no intention of releasing their version of the single, or performing it live since they had sold it to Maroon 5. When we saw that the group had performed the song for the first time at a show in Santa Barbara we were anxious to get an update from the band on the first night of their 2018 Summer tour, where they played the song live for a second time.
Jared Watson gives The Pier a run down: “That was such a crazy situation. That was probably my favorite song on the album for Swim Team. Kind of a sister song to ‘Oxygen’ that we wrote with the same producers in Blueprint. Ryan, one of the two guys in Blueprint, was sitting in a car with Adam Levine & their producer when Adam heard it. They were like ‘Yo, this song is amazing, it would go perfect for our album, we want this song!’ And that was an honor for us! That’s a gigantic band and Adam is a super talented guy. So when they asked for the song we were like ‘Why The Fuck Not!?’ And hopefully fans will know we wrote it. We could write a whole album with Blueprint, we click so well. So we let Maroon 5 have it.”
6 months after Maroon 5 released their album, where “Visions” was included on the Deluxe Edition of Red Pill Blues, Dirty Heads contacted Maroon 5 with a request to perform and release their own version of the song.
Jared goes on to share that: “We got little whispers from the label and other places with: ‘Hey we want to release Visions!’ We were cool with it! Reggae and country guys do that shit all the time! I mean Chris Stapleton put out a whole album of his version of songs he wrote for other artists. So we checked with Maroon 5 and they were like ‘Of course, it’s all love, we just want people to hear the song!’ So we get to put out our version of ‘Visions’ as a full blown single and now we’re playing it live which is the best of both worlds.”
There’s no release date for the studio single as of this writing, but if you want to hear the song live they will be playing it every night on their 2018 summer tour with Iration, The Movement & Pacific Dub. Jared also mentioned that the artwork for the single is amazing as the group once again tapped artist Victor Mosquera who designed the cover-art for Swim Team.
We’ll have more info as it’s made available to us, but in the meantime go hear the song live at an upcoming show. Below, you’ll find tour dates and additional links.
Watch: Jared Watson of Dirty Heads on “Visions”
Related Links:
Exclusive Dirty Heads Blog
Dirty Heads Website
Maroon 5 Website
Blueprint Website
Article By: Mike Patti
Photo By: In The Barrel Photo
Watch — Fan Video: Dirty Heads – “Visions” (Live in Santa Barbara, CA 5/11/18)
Listen: Maroon 5 – “Visions”
