dirty brunette Is Starting From Scratch on Purpose

Sometimes the most exciting thing an established artist can do is forget, at least temporarily, everything they are supposed to be.

That is part of what makes dirty brunette so immediately interesting.

The new project is a collaboration between artist Aaron Taos and longtime producer Adam Korbesmeyer, who has worked with artists including Remi Wolf, easy life, Sabrina Claudio and Tkay Maidza. Aaron is the voice and face of dirty brunette, while Adam has been building the music around it, producing, mixing and mastering the project as the two shape its world together.

We had the chance to sit down with dirty brunette over Zoom and hear how the project came to life, why starting from zero felt necessary, and what happens when two people with years of experience decide to stop overthinking the process.

It was such a genuinely fun conversation and an honor to get an early look inside a project that still feels like it is being figured out in real time.

That might be exactly why it feels so good.

A Clean Slate

For Aaron, making music is hardly new. He has spent more than a decade releasing under his own name, moving between different sounds and building a career that has given him plenty of reasons to know exactly how all of this is supposed to work.

dirty brunette gave him somewhere those expectations did not have to follow.

“I think because I’ve done it for so long, at some point it can feel a little tedious,” he told us. “There’s baggage, you know, and expectations, whether that’s from your fans or even more so from yourself.”

The appeal of a new project was simple: “the fun and excitement of starting something from scratch, and it can really go anywhere.”

The idea started taking shape after Aaron and Adam reconnected creatively. The two have worked together for years, with Adam producing some of Aaron’s earlier music and continuing to collaborate with him along the way.

One day, Adam played him a handful of instrumentals pulling from the kind of indie rock they both naturally gravitate toward. Aaron immediately connected with them.

He took one of those instrumentals on a drive from Los Angeles to Pismo Beach and started writing what would become “sidekick.”

“I knew it was good,” he said.

The track came together quickly. They finished it in June and released it the following month.

No years long rollout. No endlessly revisiting it. No trying to decide what every choice meant before making it.

That looseness has become one of the most interesting parts of dirty brunette.

Aaron described the process as taking everything he and Adam have learned over years of making music and putting some of that knowledge in another room. It is still there when they need it, but it does not get to interrupt every instinct.

When it comes to production, even the limitations are intentional.

“We’re not gonna make it too bright,” Aaron said. “We’re gonna use like four sounds instead of like a million.”

That simplicity is working.

A Little Strokes, a Little Chaos

The references surrounding dirty brunette are easy to spot.

The Strokes. Arctic Monkeys. Bloc Party. The Drums. The Cure.

But the point is not to recreate one specific era.

For Aaron, it is more about finding the feeling that came with discovering that music in the first place.

He remembers hearing Arctic Monkeys and having something click.

“This is raw. This is upbeat. This is rock,” he remembered thinking. “What is this energy? I need to do this.”

Years later, seeing Fontaines D.C. open for Arctic Monkeys brought some of that feeling back.

dirty brunette is a way of chasing it again.

“I think it’s a revisit to my youth,” he told us, “and trying to create with that initial excitement and just the novelty that you do when you first are starting making music.”

The visual world follows the same instinct.

Crazy hair. Suits. Grainy imagery. Something polished sitting next to something a little undone.

Aaron did not arrive with an elaborate explanation for all of it either. He leaned into the hair he once wished would behave onstage, found one of his dad’s old suits and realized the contrast simply looked cool.

That might be the best way to understand dirty brunette.

Follow the thing that feels good. Keep what works. Do not explain it to death.

When we asked him to describe the project in three words, the answer was immediate:

“Dirty. Chaotic. Aloof.”

It fits.

“sidekick” Was Only the Introduction

Even the release of “sidekick” started as an experiment.

At first, dirty brunette was kept separate from Aaron’s existing artist identity. The idea was partly fun and partly strategic. He wanted to see who would discover the song on its own, without an established audience pointing people toward it.

“It was fun to have it be a secret,” he said.

The secret did not last very long.

“sidekick” started moving quickly enough that there was eventually little reason to keep the connection hidden. By the time we spoke, dirty brunette was already fielding interest from labels.

But the response does not seem to have changed the most important part of the project.

The goal is still to keep moving.

“I do eventually want the right partner,” Aaron told us. “I don’t want to slow down.”

Luckily, there is plenty more music coming.

Aaron and Adam already have multiple songs in progress, and dirty brunette’s second single, “tokyo,” arrives September 21.

That next release feels less like a follow up and more like another clue about what this project can become.

Because the most exciting part of dirty brunette right now is not simply the nostalgia around the sound.

It is the freedom underneath it.

Aaron Taos and Adam Korbesmeyer ‍ ‍already know how records get made. They have years of experience between them. dirty brunette gives them a place where none of that experience has to become a rule.

A new name. A handful of sounds. A little chaos. A gut feeling.

For now, that is more than enough.

“sidekick” by dirty brunette & “tokyo” is out now.

Photography: Amelia Inghram