We had the pleasure of chatting to the amazing Jason Scott & the High Heat ahead of their set at The Long Road the other weekend, not long before their amazing new album dropped! Check it all out below!

You guys are right slap-bang in the middle of the tour now in the UK. How’s it been so far?

So far so good, man! It’s great to be back. Away from home for a little bit!

Is it your first time in the UK or have we done a couple of visits before?

Yeah, that’s our first time. It’s pretty crazy!

How are you finding it compared to back home?

Much nicer!

Apart from the rain, obviously, yeah.

Yeah, I don’t mind it! It’s cool. Maybe after a couple of weeks it’ll go?

Yeah, true. At least apparently we’re not going to get any rain after Monday now, so it’s isolated to just this weekend!

Yeah, yeah. We’ll enjoy it. At least it hasn’t deterred anybody?

No, true. It’s been pretty busy still!

Are there any comparisons you can make from the scene out here compared to back home?

The roads don’t compare at all. You guys drive on little tiny roads!

Very true. It’s rather thin, yeah!

But there’s an appreciation for the countryside and you know, it’s pristine, just some of the way… it’s just older here too, you know what I mean?

Very true, yeah. Someone was telling me, I think it was last year, that the house here is like six, seven hundred years old, or something like that!

Yeah, we don’t have that back home.

No, exactly. But I feel like the rest of the setting has been picked out quite well. They look at least vaguely like something you’d have back home, I imagine?

We passed that church. Yeah, I mean, maybe up in the Northeast of America there’s some old, a church on every corner!

We’ve heard a fair bit of the album so far through singles. I assume we’re getting a lot of that tonight?

Yeah, absolutely. Not all of it, but we’ll play as many as we know!

Can we expect anything else from the set? I assume some old favorites?

Yeah, we’ve got some surprises. A choice cover tune in there that you may know!

In terms of the album, what can we expect from the rest of it? Is there some different stuff compared to the singles in there?

Yeah, I think there is actually! There’s some there’s some kind of more group-sing-along kind of vibes on it that I’m really excited about, and also a couple of real just slow kind of intimate songs that didn’t feel like they had enough room to be a single, but are some of my favorites.

What went into the decision to do another album? I know the algorithm and all this nowadays is singles or EPs. Like, I feel like it’s quite a big undertaking these days to do a full release!

I don’t know why we would do it any other way. You know, maybe there might be some EPs in the future or something, but to me a body of work is space and time and era. The sound is what it is because we’ve been out on the road playing, and and you know it’s just an expansion on that. I don’t know, I like making records! And now with Leo’s help, previously it’d take three years because I’d have to go work for a month to pay off to go record, so we’re moving through that process quicker. But yeah, I love to do it!

You guys have got quite a busy rest of the year planned after you get home, right?

We do. We do get to go home…I don’t think we get to go home. Yeah, it’s like three or four days off and then back on the road, so yeah!

That’s intense. But I imagine it’s good fun!

There’s no AC in the van, guys…

What! Still? I feel like this is a prank. You can’t hurt me.

Yeah, you’re stuck now!

Hey, but this is getting us used to being over here with no AC!

Yeah, true. The last three months have been pretty killer with the heat over here and no AC, so the rain is at least a little bit nicer than that.

It’s between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius at home. We haven’t decided what the degree is yet!

You guys are pretty kind of well-versed on the whole social media kind of aspect of it all. Have you got any advice you could give artists just starting up in that regard? I feel like it’s quite a daunting thing to jump into!

Yeah, I don’t know. Just put shit out. See what sticks. I thought you were going to stop that sentence after you said “we were pretty-“

Oh, you are! Yeah, that was it. It’s just a nice compliment!

Nice.

I don’t know. What do you think? Like, try to find something that you don’t hate doing, because you have to do something, so find a niche that that works, but you also enjoy doing it because it’s got to be done.

Yeah, it’s like 80/20.

Be born with rich parents, which we weren’t.

That would be nice, pump it all into marketing!

Do you guys have a dream tour lineup you’d want to be a part of? I imagine you’ve probably supported some awesome bands, but if there’s anyone else..?

Yeah, of course! They’re not really country bands. I would love to play with Medium Build. I think that would be sick. I mean Tyler Childers would be awesome as well!

Yeah, pretty much just support, right? Stones?
Ronnie Wood, love to play with Ronnie.

I feel like any of them you’d probably fit in really well with.

Yeah, well our music has a little bit of that—we’ve kind of straddled the fence with country and rock and roll. I’m probably leaning more on the rock and roll side of things nowadays, but, I don’t know, it it gets us—we opened for Morgan Wallen the other day. I think we could fit not world and we could open for Ruby Wolf, or Phoebe Bridgers, and Ben Bill would be so sick!

Then if you could have written one song from history, do any immediately spring to mind?

Anything Dolly wrote.

That’s fair. Very good choice!

ABCs. That shit slaps. Get the alphabet LMNOP’s going!

See, I get “Happy Birthday” quite a lot as well, you know, get some royalties going in.

I like it!