I caught up with Brendan B Brown, frontman of the iconic Wheatus, for a zoom chat about all things Wheatus, ahead of their appearance at Download Festival later this month.
Hey Brendan, thank you so much for meeting with me, I know how hectic your schedule is, you have been exceptionally busy over the last few months, you must be shattered?
Brendan: Yeah we just flew in from Iowa this morning, didn’t sleep a wink on the plane, it’s rare that I do. But I went straight to bed and set the alarm for this interview!
Well Good Morning! Lets dive straight into it to hopefully help wake you up, and start with what you’re best known for! When teenage dirtbag first became such a huge hit 24 years ago, did you ever expect to still be in such high demand when you released it?
B: No, I didn’t know it would be such a sticking point for people. Someone a few years ago said ‘yeah, you guys are a one hit wonder, but it’s more like nobody has gotten over your first song yet’.
You have also had people from One Direction to Kid Bookie doing covers of Teenage dirtbag, how does it feel knowing so many other artists want to cover your record?
B: It feels wonderful but I really just find it interesting to see people put their spins on it. They take it in their own direction, and I take it as a measure of how they see themselves in the song. ‘Cos you can cover a song, and just cover it for the sake of the tune, but when there is a very personalised delivery like Phoebe Bridgers did, or SZA did or Ruston Kelly, that sort of thing is a little different as it is so much more from the heart. I am always so surprised by that, and the different people who have it in their heart as if it is their own story.
Do you have a favourite cover version that you have heard so far?
B: Oh man! That is so tough! I really, really like SZA’s version. Rod Wave the American HipHop artist from Chicago recently did an interpolation which was really cool! Jax the TikTok popstar did a really cool interpolation from Noel’s perspective. Then there’s the more straightforward covers, like Weezer do a cover. I met with Rivers (Weezer frontman), and he was all cagey about something, and I said “what’s the matter, man?” and he said “well, we do Teenage dirtbag sometimes”, “yeh I know! that’s supercool!” and he said “well…we don’t always tell people it’s not us”.
But I think that is funny, it’s pretty cute. I told him that if we ever tour together they have to give me my name is Jonas for us to play as if it is ours.
That would definitely be a tour I would love to see – we need to make that happen! You’ve done a few covers over the years, ‘A Little Respect’ by Erasure and AC/DC’s ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation’ for example, and performed a few as part of your sets. Any favourites to perform?
B: I really like singing ‘Growing On Me’ by The Darkness. I actually fully copy his accent when I sing it and do it in an English accent ‘cos he has such an iconic delivery with that vocal! So I do fully fake it, but I just really enjoy pretending to be him for a second.
If you look on YouTube there are a whole series of us doing from the pandemic just doing covers. We did a challenge to learn a song and play it in a day. We did Wilson Phillips – ‘Hold On’, ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’ by Belinda Carlisle, Cheap Trick ‘Surrender’, a Fleetwood Mac song, a Scissor Sisters song. All the music that we really loved, they are rough cuts, that we learnt in a day.
Are there any other bands tracks you’d love cover that you just haven’t got around to yet?
B: There are so many! Back in the 90s in New York We used to cover Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield. I would love to record a proper version of that. There are so many, we could have a separate interview about that.
You have 2 intimate UK shows coming up, and then of course Download Festival. Do you prepare differently for the two different types of show?
B: Very much so. We don’t do a setlist at all when we do a headliner. We take requests. We walk on with nothing, having learnt 40 /50 songs of our own repertoire. Whatever the crowd calls out that is what we start with and go from there. It is crowd interactive; they pick the setlist. Download will be totally different. So when we have a time slot at a festival we have to pick the set to make sure we fulfil the time but when we perform as a headliner, we do what the crowd wants. It is usually about 100 kids at the front who really know the back catalogue, but my favourite is the shy one in the back, who waits until two thirds of the way through the set when there is a quiet moment and they ask for a B-side from our 4th record that we barely know how to play. That is always more of a challenge and a lot more fun.
That keeps it fresh for you guys at least!
B: Yeah, touring the same set list every night, we did that early on, it was torture. We just thought we can’t be good at this, we can’t be that band that walks on stage and says “here is our setlist, we don’t care what kind of day you had or what mood you’re in, this is what you’re getting!” We wanna incorporate the crowd in the mood and the feeling of the night.
Whilst we’ve got no doubt you’ll kill it, is Download the sort of festival you thought you’d be playing?
B: Absolutely not. We just haven’t been that sort of band. We come over and do a lot of shows for a lot of people, back in September and October and November of 2023 we did 47 shows, mostly consecutive, we had a couple of days off here and there. That was a lot, most bands don’t play that amount of shows. And right from the start we have opted to play at the Scunthorpe’s and the Loughborough’s and the Froome’s – places that are off the beaten path, for the sake of making it a more accessible show. A lot of bands come to the UK and play 7 major cities, but we wanna play more shows and get better at what we do. Being on the road for a while enjoying the camaraderie and not doing any hit and runs, so that has been our vibe so we haven’t been invited to any of the bigger festivals. But this is cool, its another level of something happening and it is a brand-new chapter.
The only problem is that we are on at the same time as Mr Bungle. Which is one of my favourite bands from way back in the day who I always wanted to see live, and never had the chance! Oh man! What are we gonna do, we have to play!
On that, whilst it’s a shame to miss your favourite, will you get time over Download weekend to see some other acts? Who are you most excited to see? Other than the fact you were clashed with the one band you wanted to see!
B: We have plans to see as many bands as we possibly can. I really wanna check out Queens of the Stone Age, but I also want to see Busted, but they are on at the same time, so that is a problem for me but I will deal with it! I know Joey our backing vocalist is really into Avenged Sevenfold. Sum 41 are really fun, so I definitely want to see them. I want to check out the Tom Morello set, that will be super cool. Corey Taylor, Enter Shikari… freakin’ Babymetal! No one can stop me from seeing Babymetal! That’s definitely something. The Bowling for Soup Set, something might happen there, we may get roped into something. Jaret has just said we have to be on call for their set.
Can we expect an appearance during Busted’s set, seeing as you joined them on record for a version of ‘Who’s David’?
B: It’s not impossible. I have been talking to James (Bourne) since 2005, we have been friends since then. He is one of my longest, closest friends in the music industry, and I think I will have to be on call for that just in case. If not just watching their set as they are so fun live.
That’s awesome. Moving away from Download, if you could book a show for you to open, what other bands would you want on the bill?
B: Oh wow. I will have different moods on different days where I would say a whole different batch. But probably Dashboard Confessional, Weezer, Jimmy Eat world and Bowling for Soup would be my first go to’s. The Illuminate Hotties are a great band I want to play with! There are so many bands, I could give you a whole festival line up, it would take me a day and have way too many bands on it.
There is no way to answer the desert Island question, it is too difficult. I dream at least once a week about opening for AC/DC, they are on tour now and I am going to see them and it’s really exciting. If you have never seen AC/DC live you gotta do it, it is such a phenomenon, just the power and sound of them live. It is so iconic.
We played a festival a few years back, with Soundgarden and Black Sabbath and we got to watch those bands, and it was like Godzilla. Just incredible.
We just got off a festival in Australia, Pandemonium, with Blondie and Alice Cooper. It was such a fun festival to play. It was all the corners of music, Britpop, 70s disco, metal. The Alice Ccooper band invited me on stage to sing! We keep finding ourselves in these places, like Alice Cooper waving his sword telling me to get on stage we are like “is this really happening?”
So with Pandemonium Festival, were you aware of the Event planning issues in the background
B: From where we were sitting it seemed like the powers that be didn’t want that to happen. It seemed to be getting torpedoed from all places. There was an attempt to shut it down, because of it being on during a holiday, and there was a rumour that it was cancelled but it absolutely was not. The fact that it happened at all was a miracle, it seemed like it was under assault. We couldn’t figure out what the issue was and we never fully did. It was real from the start and it did actually happen!
It was peculiar and we were so enthusiastic to play and made several accommodations to make sure it would happen, as much as we could from our side. It was a festival of legends and little bands, where we fall into the category of the little bands, but it is such a cool way to do it! Blondie’s bass player is Glen Matlock from Sex Pistols, when are you ever going to get to see him? That is beyond iconic, like holy cow!
I think a lot of people must have been frustrated about the false information that came out about the festival, even the false cancellation announcement. It felt like a conspiracy, I have no evidence to support that but that is how it felt to me. It was the best booked, best crew, cleanest, and most organised festival that I have ever been to. Without a doubt, without exception.
Well it’s great it went ahead. Back to you guys, what do you as a band do on tour over here on your days off?
B: Day off in the UK for me is always about an English Breakfast. Sleep in, then go find a good all-day Breakfast. Then your villages, high streets and towns are so fun to walk around and find adventures.
There’s a guy called Dave in Holyhead and he has a little greasy spoon close by where the ferry is, and I have his cell phone number because he isn’t always open. We often find ourselves there, waiting for a ferry and there’s no breakfast in town or it’s an odd hour and I just give him a text and he will open up for us to eat.
The food here, the breakfast here is incredibly consistent and wonderful and I love it.
A couple of quick ones to finish us off. What’s your favourite on tour snack and do you have different favourites depending on the country you are in?
Yeah, you have Pret A Manger there, and the chocolate croissants they make are incredible; second to none! So I have those, good fish and chips with the mushy peas, I love that. But as far as snacks, you have better yogurt and cheese, not as good as Ireland, but way better than America, so we try and find interesting yogurt. We do a little series on Youtube called Snacks On Film where we go to new places and try new flavours of snacks. You have strange flavoured crisps…you’ll admit you’re a little eccentric with those
Pickled onion Monster munch is a must…
B: Yeah we did a Snacks On Film on that one. No one understands the concept of prawn crisps and where that came from. So any time we come across one that is really strange we have to document the experience.
Finally, the future. Can we expect another album soon?
Album 7th is mostly written. We have three singles out now, we have Tipsy which was a song inspired by Liam Payne (One Direction) and a conversation I had with him, and another called Lullaby which is a psychedelic jazz rock kinda thing and another called Michelle which is our first dip into proper metal but with a pin whistle in it so it’s not proper metal. We just need to get off the road for long enough to record it, so we are still working on that!
Thank you so much Brendan for taking time out of your morning to speak with me! We can’t wait to see you at Download!