Interview: Wheatus Reflects on 25 Years of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’
On the eve of their 25th Anniversary Tour, Brendan B Brown of Wheatus reflects with Sheldon Ang on three decades of music, gratitude, and evolution. From humble beginnings in New York to international acclaim, the band’s journey has been marked by the enduring success of their hit “Teenage Dirtbag”- now approaching one billion streams on Spotify. Brendan reflects on the song’s unexpected resonance – particularly in Australia, where the underdog spirit embraced it as a kindred anthem, a revelation brought to light during the interview by Sheldon! The band’s story and the themes of insecurity and late blooming in their lyrics have struck a chord with Australian fans, who embrace the underdog narrative as part of their national identity. The interview explores Wheatus’s growth across six albums, their experimental approach to recording, and their plans to bring a full nine-member lineup for an energetic live show in Australia, promising both nostalgia and fresh takes on fan favorites.
The full interview is presented in the YouTube video below for those who prefer viewing over reading.
On the eve of the world tour.
Brendan: Hello
Sheldon: How are you going?
Brendan: I’m all right. How are you?
Sheldon: Good, it looks like a very busy background there with your instruments and all.
Brendan: It’s all fake (laughs). No, it’s actually real. We’re getting ready to leave for the tour. We’re leaving tomorrow for Dublin to start the UK leg of the 25th Anniversary Tour. So everything is everywhere at the moment.
Sheldon: You’re in New York?
Yes. New York City, the Bronx.
30 Years of Wheatus
Sheldon: Can you believe it has been thirty years since the formation of your band back in ’95? Where has a year gone by? I
Brendan: I don’t know. I honestly don’t. It’s all been very wonderful and sometimes almost impossible. But we’re here now, and we’re still able to do it. More and more. All I feel is gratitude for the fortunate position that we’re able to keep doing this for a living. It’s crazy.
Teenage Dirtbag turns 25
Sheldon: I don’t want this interview to be about Teenage Dirtbag, but can you believe it has been 25 years? What was it like to walk into a nightclub as Brendan B Brown in the early 2000s?
Brendan: (Chuckles) I have to confess to never being that into myself as a celebrity in any way. I kind of skipped it. There were some moments when we were on TV all the time, and in particular in the UK. Australia started it all. You guys were the first to embrace the first record. But I really wanted to just get back to the music and make the music better and perform better live. And I didn’t care much for hanging out, drinking, partying, and stuff. So I still don’t do any of that.
I never go out after shows and hang out, and I just don’t do it. I talk to people outside the venue and hang out and meet people, but I don’t go partying afterwards. It’s just not a thing I do, just like now in my scene.
Sheldon: I’m not sure whether you check it often, but Teenage Dirtbag has reached almost 1 billion streams on Spotify, and I’m sure this is surreal.
Brendan: Let me check…(as he’s flicking on his phone). Yeah. That’s nuts. I’m just going to check it now and see what it’s. That’s crazy that you’re mentioning… I haven’t checked it for a long time. This is weird – me checking my own music on Spotify.
Sheldon: All the million dollars of Royalties!
Brendan: Oh, yeah. You’re right. Dirtbag is… looks like it’s got about 35 million left to a billion. I wonder how many clocks in a day. I don’t pay attention, but it’s fantastic man.
I didn’t imagine that that would happen when I wrote the song. It didn’t feel like a single. It felt like it was maybe too long and like it had too many plot points…too complicated to be a single, you know? I thought, but it went that way eventually.
And like I said, Australia was the first place that really kind of got it and embraced it. And so that was the first place that we did any serious, headline touring on our own, which was a fascinating and fun learning experience.
Sheldon: And your vocals in Teenage Dirtbag – I thought it was some 13-year-old kid singing. Do you still sing like that, live?
Brendan: Oh yeah (chuckles), I can do it right now for you. If you’d like.
Sheldon: Please.
Brendan: (Brendan grabs his acoustic guitar from the back). Okay, so lately, I’ve been doing the higher harmonies. So the original one is (as he plays the strings), I’ve got two tickets to Iron Maiden, right, but I when we do shows, sometimes I can’t hear myself over the crowd because they sing. It’s so loud. So I’ve been taking the higher harmony, which is I’ve got two tickets to Iron Maiden, maybe, (Brendan sings in higher falsetto). You know, so it’s a little bit cooler to sing it higher these days. It’s easier, and when I did it with Ed Sheeran, I did it higher at the show that he invited me to. What a nice guy.
But yeah, that’s the new way for me to do it, I think. Matthew, our bass player, thinks I should go classic all the time, but I’m like, no, man, I want to go higher. But it wasn’t any sound effects or anything like that. No tricks. It’s just the falsetto that I’ve had since I was a kid singing along with Prince and, you know, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper
Yes, well, Bon (Jovi), Rob, Brian, and Rush sing along with Geddy Lee. So, yeah it’s just one of those things that I still could do. I’m lucky to be able to do it.
Revelation after 25 years…
Sheldon: What is it about this song that resonates with the world, especially Australia? It became number one here. We love the underdogs. Do you think that’s the reason why we love this song so much – the underdog character in the song?
Brendan: Maybe. Maybe that…hang on, I never thought of that. That’s an interesting idea. Do you really feel a national identity as underdogs in Australia? Is that a feeling that you guys have?
Sheldon: Yeah. We’re a sucker for the poor countries, the weaker teams. I’m not saying that you were an underdog, obviously. I mean, we also love greatness.
Brendan: My Favorite Saturday morning cartoon was Underdog. Hey, there’s Gabrielle. Say hi, Gab (as Gabrielle appeared in the background, and she waves).Okay, I was my favorite cartoon was a cartoon called underdog. Have you ever seen it?
Sheldon: nah…
Brendan: Look it up on YouTube. It is basically about this sort of bumbling underdog character. And he’s a dog, and he’s, not very good at stuff. But he’s a superhero.
And maybe that is it. Maybe that’s how we connected Australia and it could be said I wasn’t any kind of prize in high school. I went to a boy’s school. I didn’t have girlfriends and all that stuff.
I think it might be on to something – I’ve never heard described that way. It’s interesting. In 25 years, no one’s ever brought that up about Australia, that you guys are underdogs. And that’s why you see it as your tune. I’m happy to have that be the case if it is. I always thought Australia was a wonderful place where everyone kind of had this shit together and was really relaxed, you know, chilled out…smart people who get it, work hard. I noticed that you guys know what you’re doing when it comes to shows; you put good shows together…the crews that we’ve had down there, I’ve always been great.
Sheldon: I mean, Australia is pretty much a Democrat. A liberal. Politics aside…
So Teenage Dirtbag is in the soundtrack of the movie Loser. Did the movie producer commission Wheatus to create a song, or did you create the song first, and they wanted it?
Brendan: Yeah, the song came first. I wrote the track sometime around ’95, which is five years before Loser ever came out. We got lucky again with Amy Heckerling, the director of the film Loser. She liked the song enough. She wanted to put it in her movie, which was really cool. I thought that was amazing because she did Fast Times at Ridgemont High and some other really amazing, amazing films. So I kind of wanted to jump on that opportunity just because we felt like, oh, wow, that’s incredible. She’s amazing. I knew of her, and again, another stroke of luck having these two enormous hauls (Mena Suvari and Jason Biggs), Hollywood stars who didn’t know who were. I mean, we were nobodies and they had just come off two blockbuster Hollywood hits – Mina had been in American Beauty, and they had both been in American Pie, and then they were in a movie together. It was just kind of Hollywood powerhouse stuff. It was really incredible to have them want to be involved in our song was crazy.
We batted way out of our league on that one, but, yeah, it was the song that came first. And I’m certain that she didn’t seek inspiration from the songs, except for when she put it in the film. And for me, it was really important. We had a helicopter fly in shot of my hometown in New York City.
That’s where they put the song, passing the Twin Towers a year before they were knocked down. So it was really cool that she did that.
Six albums – not just about Teenage Dirtbag.
Sheldon: There’s more to Wheatus than Teenage Dirtbag, right? I mean, you guys have produced six albums. Those songs are so great. And, do you feel like your albums have evolved over those years? Obviously, as you grow older, there’s a less sort of teenage theme.
Brendan: Yeah, I understand. I totally get it. The second record was a lot more mature subject matter, a little bit harder hitting, sharper corners. Stuff that I was going through with relationships and breakups and just not being able to have a steady life partner and all that stuff. And the third record was kind of like a big nod to the 70s. I wanted to make a big old 70s rock record with those big tones.
And then we got some pretty dark 80s progressive stuff on the fourth and fifth, and then the Valentine LP kind of stands on its own as almost a lo-fi vintage record that I wanted to kind of almost sound like it wasn’t recorded in the 60s. So I kind of bounced around in the evolution of the recording techniques, because I want to create a whole picture of whatever it is. There are 10 or 11 songs I want them to all form, a jigsaw puzzle that makes sense. I worked for a long time to make that happen and come up with something that’s hopefully never been heard on a rock record before. So for that reason, like, for instance, album six, I used, I didn’t use any drums that were made after the 1920s. Yeah, you know, all 100% vintage drums, but they’re still having these big rock songs played on them. So it was like this mix of new and old tonality that I found really interesting. This kind of stuff that I do, I’d like to I like to experiment and make a record sound unique.
Sheldon: I was listening to your music again last night. I feel like there’s a Smashing Pumpkins twist to it.
Brenan: Yeah. Like I like Billy Corgan’s guitar tone in particular. There was a band called Walt Mink that I liked. That was one of my Favorites. I used to follow them around, in the States when they were touring, and I was like 19 or 20.
And if you check their guitar tones, you’ll find a lot of that sound that Corgan sound, where it came from, and all that stuff. Some of those tones are some of my favorites. But, I feel like I don’t sing very much like him, so, so that might be a difference. And we have a lot. So that’s the other thing. Yeah. Pumpkins are great. I love the popular one.
Sheldon:. One of my favourite tracks is Lemonade. It’s hilarious. Is that based on a real story you compare?
Brendan: That is a true story. That’s a verbatim conversation that I had during a breakup. Yeah. Lemonade doesn’t sound like anything. I don’t think lemonade stands on its own. It’s weird, weird, and fun to play live. Feels like it’s the 80s, but it’s also much more sort of ripping. That song has done its own work. If you look I think it’s doing well and streaming and it’s, and it’s our only non-album, one song that does that kind of work. And the interesting thing about that is that it didn’t have a video until it was eight years old, so I didn’t have any promotion when it first came out. It’s still done just fine. So we love playing lemonade. It’s in every set.
Insecurities in lyrics
Sheldon: Leroy is a great track. And then you got Who’s David 2.0. Which is made for live performance – speaking of which. And these songs have a common theme. Now, despite me implying earlier that you were some hot shit back in 2000…these songs have a similar theme – insecurities, romantically sidelined. Do you feel like it reflects your character as a youngster, therefore, you were manifesting such lyrics?
Brenda: I think you’re on to something a little bit. I was a very late bloomer when it came to relationships. And my friend James Bourne, who wrote Who’s David 2.0 – he and I have a similar experience in that regard. We talk about it sometimes that we’re, feel like sort of bumbling idiots when it comes to that sort of stuff, like fools, and have come to expect that it’s going to be like, you know, oh, oops.
I screwed that one up kind of thing. And there’s a humility there that, you imagine when you’re when you’re young person, you imagined love to be something and you’re wrong, right? You’re you’re kind of wrong about what it is. And you grow up and find out that you’re an idiot. And that’s kind of what the music is, best at saying, because it’s a difficult thing. You can even hear me having difficulty describing this phenomenon, but it’s much better in a song?
Sheldon: One of my Favorite friends, Valentine, and he’s got these vocal gymnastics and that beautiful harmony. I do hope that you play that live as well in Australia.
Brendan: Certainly will. Yeah. I love playing that song. Hey, you don’t have to twist my arm to play that one. That’s my favourite live track. That’s hands down my favorite. I had that song for a long time and didn’t really understand how to build the rhythm track because it didn’t feel like it had one. And then I was working with Matthew, our bass player. I think he made it as if he played something off time. And I thought, well, wait a minute, hold on. That was pretty interesting. And then we developed the idea of putting a Himiloya in the rhythm section for the bass. So, so if the beat is going like this (hands rhythmically clapping) it does be his like this 1-2-3-4-1-2. But the match is going.
Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce right. So it almost doesn’t make sense. It’s all polyrhythm right? So it’s very difficult for Matthew to play. He has a lot of concentration to do on that song, but it’s my favourite track to perform. Yeah.
Wheatus is coming to Australia
Sheldon: Speaking of like performance, you’ll be coming to Australia in January and February. And Wheatus is coming to Perth as well, mate. You came last year I believe. So it must have been a really good experience for you to come to Perth as well.
Brendan: Yeah, we love Perth. Well, initially when we first came over we didn’t get to the West coast, but we have been doing it, in the later years and places like Scarborough…Fremantle… I love those spots.
The Indian Ocean is a beautiful thing to behold. And we just feel lucky to be able to go somewhere so remote, so beautiful to be able to play music. But those acoustic shows that we played last year had such rock energy that there was this kind of like, well, maybe we should bring the whole band here.
Should we do this? Like, let’s try the whole band, do a whole band tour, because we had done the Pandemonium Festival as a full rock band. And, you know, we thought that, well, it’s only festivals that we can come down for as a full rock band. It won’t be a tour. And then we did the acoustic tour with that, and we were like…I think we can probably feel the crowds felt like rock energy, you know, like they wanted a big show.
Sheldon: And speaking of being a whole band on Wikipedia, you have nine members in the band. Is that correct? Or six plus three (back up vocalist).
Brenda. Yep, that’s the tour we’re about to start. Tomorrow we leave for Dublin, and we’re taking nine members.
Sheldon: Hope to meet you backstage.
Brendan: Please swing through. We’d love to meet up and have a chat. That’d be fun. Yeah.
TOUR DATES
Thurs, Jan 15: Crowbar, Brisbane
Fri, Jan 16: UC Hub, Canberra
Sat, Jan 17: King St Bandroom, Newcastle
Mon, Jan 19: Blazes Showroom, Tamworth
Tues, Jan 20: Manning Bar, Sydney
Thurs, Jan 22: 170 Russell, Melbourne
Fri, Jan 23: Wrest Point, Hobart
Sat, Jan 24: Freo Social, Fremantle
Sun, Jan 25: The Carine, Duncraig
Tues, Jan 27: Tuning Fork, Auckland
Wed, Jan 28: San Fran, Wellington
PRE SALE: Wed, Sept 3: 9am AEST/NZ to Thurs, Sept 4 8am AEST/NZ
ON SALE: Thurs, Sept 4: 9am AU Local / NZ
Tickets available via
www.teamwrktouring.com
About the interview: Sheldon Ang, photographer, writer and the founder of Perth-based Sheldon Ang Media (est. May 2022) has been accredited to over 200 of the hottest acts including Taylor Swift (ERAS Tour in Sydney), Coldplay (Perth), KISS, Metallica, Iron Maiden, RHCP and P!NK with reviews shared by the likes of Belinda Carlisle, UB40, Delta Goodrem, and Roxette. He has interviewed rockers Suzi Quatro (pictured below), the late Ace Frehley (KISS), John Steel (The Animals), Frank Ferrer (Guns N Roses), Phil X (Bon Jovi), Andrew Farris (INXS) plus over 100 artists. He’s also a contributor on Triple M Radio as a music journalist.
