Jason Scott & The High Heat @ Skinny Dennis

Caught halfway between amplified Americana and heartland roots-rock, Jason Scott & the High Heat create a sweeping, dynamic sound that reaches far beyond the traditions of their Oklahoma City home. Too loud for folk music and too textured for Red Dirt, this is the sound of a genuine band rooted in groove, grit, and its own singular spirit, led by a songwriter whose unique past, a Pentecostal upbringing, years logged as a preacher-in-training, and an eventual crisis of faith, has instilled both a storyteller’s delivery and an unique perspective about life, love, and listlessness in the modern world. Case in point, in 2018 Scott earned critical acclaim as a songwriter when the second track “She Good To Me” off his DIY EP Living Rooms (2017 landed on NPR World Cafe’s Heavy Rotation: 10 Songs Public Radio Can’t Stop Playing alongside songs by MGMT, Moby, and Jade Bird. It was only the beginning of a new life on a new kind of stage. A multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, and session musician, Scott spent a year balancing life on the road and life in the studio, where he produced albums for Americana artists like Carter Sampson, Ken Pomeroy, and Nellie Clay. Things began to expand as he assembled the High Heat, a band of multi-faceted musicians and roots-rock Renaissance men who, like their frontman, juggled multiple artistic pursuits. Together, Jason Scott & the High Heat have since become a self-contained creative collective whose talents include songwriting, music production, photography, video direction, and more. In 2022 the band made a pronounced impact with their debut album Castle Rock, a melting pot of sounds from the heartland sweep of Tom Petty to the story-driven Americana of Jason Isbell, the nostalgic hooks of ’90s country music to the sharp songwriting of James Taylor mixed with John Prine’s lyrical blend of cutting insight and laugh-out-loud humor. The album also spent two months in the Top 50 of the Americana chart reaching all the way to #36 and outlets across the globe started taking notice of this groove oriented, rock-infused band with crazy brilliant songs. NPR, The Boot, Holler, BBC Radio Scotland, Wide Open Country, Bluegrass Situation, Farce The Music, Ditty TV, Americana Music Show and Gimme Country all applauded the band’s first full length effort with emphasis on the bright future to come. During this time their live show was catching equal recognition branding them as “the band to see” pretty much anywhere they played. In short order they were on the road performing at some of the most renowned music festivals includong the Stagecoach festival, Born and Raised Fest, Mile 0 Fest, Norman Music Festival and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, and supported a variety of bands including Band of Heathens, Eli Young Band, Gin Blossoms, Josh Abbott, Vandoliers, The Damn Quails, MIPSO, Parker Millsap, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Kaitlin Butts. Jason Scott & the High Heat continue to pick up speed, most recently with their latest single “Me & The Bottle” off their forthcoming album American Grin slated for release on July 19th. The single has drawn massive attention hitting the Top 10 on the Texas Music Chart, and tripling the band’s social media numbers in just a few short weeks. To date it has amassed over 100,000 spins online. Scott puts the song’s popularity into perspective. “We recorded ‘Me & The Bottle’ (Hungover You) near the Rio Grande, at Sonic Ranch Studios on a Motown console, and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s old Esquire. This song is meant to be listened to with a little bit of chicken fried, cold beer on a Friday night, and a pair of jeans that fit JUST RIGHT… It’s a tongue and cheek narrative about a man stuck at the bottom of a bottle with his stubbornness, and antiquated views on masculinity.” Co-produced by Jason Scott and Taylor Johnson, American Grin is an audio maverick cloaked in the band’s trademark style of intelligent musings soused in fine grooves and palpable textures. Jason Scott & the High Heat are: Jason Scott (lead vocals, guitar), Gabriel Mor (guitars), Ryan Magnani (bass), Bobby Wade (drums), Garrison Brown (guitars, keys), Taylor Johnson (guitars, keys, aux)