Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. ‘War Zone’

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. of Detroit

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. have set a release for their sophomore LP, ‘The Speed of Things’, which will drop next month. Before the release, the Detroit Duo have just released a brand new track entitled ‘War Zone’. The song closes out the upcoming album and Josh Epstein had this to say about the inspiration behind the track

‘War Zone was’ the last song written for ‘The Speed Of Things’ and is about a character who wakes up (or is dreaming of being?) in a warring region. It is unclear whether this “war” is a literal image, or more of a metaphor for the disconnectedness that the narrator is suffering from. ‘The Speed Of Things’ focuses on a current phenomenon that author Douglas Rushkoff has coined ‘Present Shock.’

Listen to ‘War Zone’ via Soundcloud below.

Posted in Multimedia | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ Video

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. are out with their brand new music video for ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’. The video for the Gil Scott-Heron cover, which is the new single from their debut full-length ‘It’s A Corporate World’, was shot earlier this year in their hometown of Detroit and is directed by Andrew Smart.

Members Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein said about the video:

Today we are debuting a video for a song we did not write, but instantly drew a very high level of inspiration from since we formed as a band roughly two years ago. So much so that we felt compelled to record our own version, and put it on our first ever full-length album last year.

‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ began for us as an homage to one of the great artists of our time, Gil Scott Heron. We were so affected by its continued relevance as a piece of work some 30+ years later that just simply attempting to reinterpret it as a creative exercise seemed like a good enough idea on its own. While the song was originally penned as a reaction to a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor halfway between Detroit, MI and Toledo, OH, so much of the imagery contained in Gil’s words seemed to ring true with the news of today.

But the spirit of the song that always rang out to us was that it didn’t seem to be about simply pointing out what had gone wrong. The message seemingly was one of progress. About setting things right. Coming together as people and moving forward. As Gil would say many years later in concert, the song is about realizing that “somebody’s always got to be on the job… because there’s always a job out there to do”.

So we wanted this video to be about people DOING things in and around the city of Detroit. People who are on the job. People who have moved past “what happened?” and are spending more time saying “lets MAKE things happen”. These are the people who we feel represent the city of Detroit.

Sadly, roughly nine months after we recorded and began performing our version of the song, Gil Scott Heron passed away at the age of 62. To be clear, we do not consider ourselves a mouthpiece for him nor are we anywhere near as strong of a social voice as he was. But we do hope that our version of his song continues to inspire people to get out there and work towards a better future.

Since that time, the song has taken on a new meaning to us as we have been performing it in various cities and countries for the past year. Every time we performed the song, we were overwhelmed by the connection that we felt to our town even as we were many miles away from the place we still call ‘home’. And it was overwhelming to see the positive message of the song reflected back in the enthusiasm of the audiences we performed it for.

As Detroiters, we are born and bred with a civic pride that we are continually told is somewhat uncommon. We wanted the city, and the people in the city, to be the video for this simple reason. It is an exciting time to be from Detroit-as we believe it’s a city that is in the midst of reinventing itself in a huge way.

Watch it via Vimeo below.

Posted in Multimedia | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Tour Dates

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. will kick off the new year on the West Coast, touring with Fitz and the Tantrums and making their national TV debut on Conan January 30th. They’ll also be headlining Echoplex in LA on January 31st. The band will finish up this year with a few headlining dates this week, including a New York City stop on Thursday (WIRED in-store) and Boston on Friday.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Tour Dates
12/13 Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA
12/15 WIRED Pop-Up Store, New York, NY
12/16 Brighton Music Hall, Boston, MA
12/17 Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY – DJ Set – Brooklyn Vegan Holiday Party
1/15 Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO *
1/17 Knitting Factory, Boise, ID *
1/19 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC *
1/20 Showbox at the Market, Seattle, WA *
1/21 Showbox at the Market, Seattle, WA *
1/24 Roseland Theater, Portland, OR *
1/26 Regency Ballroom, San Francisco, CA *
1/28 Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Stateline, NV *
1/31 Echoplex, Los Angeles, CA (Headlining)
* w/Fitz and the Tantrums

Posted in Concert | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Are Still Learning What Their Sound Is

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Joshua Epstein of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. spoke with austinist about collaborating with Daniel Zott on the project, what their live shows are like, why they’re named after the NASCAR driver, the story behind the ‘It’s a Corporate World’ album title and how he describes their sound. “I think that our sound is probably just pop music in the general sense of the word,” Epstein said. “I think that for both of us, where our tastes align is kind of the focus and appreciation of melody. Daniel and I both have pretty specific ideas of what we like things to sound like at this point and if you combine them it just kind of ends up sounding like what our album sounds like. So I guess maybe that is our sound, but we’re still learning what that is.”

Posted in Transcript | Tagged | Leave a comment