In The Pipeline: Dirty Heads clean up at Wahoo's

The musical roots and heritage of Huntington Beach were no doubt fortified when the Golden Bear started booking rock and roll acts in the 1960s.

The Jan and Dean classic "Surf City" certainly fed the legacy, as did the old punk club Safari Sam's and a spate of thunderous local bands from the Offspring to Avenged Sevenfold and now the Dirty Heads.

Founded in 1996 by Jared Watson and Dustin Bushnell, the Heads are a modern reggae band that caught its first true wave of success with 2008's anthemic smash single "Lay Me Down" (which has been certified gold and spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, a record for an independent release and more than any single that year by anyone, including the Black Keys, Kings of Leon and 30 Seconds to Mars).

The band tours incessantly, bringing its funky island-meets-street vibe to thousands of fans all over the world, but this is home and so this is where they recently decided to throw a special party.

To celebrate the release of their sophomore album, "Cabin by the Sea," last Saturday, the band decided to launch the collection at the new Wahoo's Fish Taco at 7891 Warner Ave. A stage was erected in the parking lot so the band could perform a rare acoustic set, and hundreds of fans filled in the space once doors opened just after 5 p.m.

I've interviewed the two band leaders numerous times, and I'm always struck by their sense of dedication and work ethic — they care about their music deeply, and so I was excited to hear the new album recently. I'd watched them in the studio last year as certain song fragments had begun to take shape, and I think the final results are stunning.

The band has managed to build upon its sound without sacrificing what helped it make its mark in the first place. The songwriting has evolved, and clearly, the years of playing on the road have helped refine and define the Dirty Heads' sound into something truly unique.