Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled for the band that is Wheatus. They’re on the Loser
soundtrack with their single “Teenage Dirtbag,” their video’s actually being played on MTV, and
they’re coming to Hoboken to play Maxwell’s on July 29 at 10 p.m.
Recently signed to Columbia, this trio didn’t allow a corporate hand on their recordings. The band was
bold and ambitious enough to ask their record label if they could self-produce their debut album.
Columbia executives had enough faith in them to give them the cash to make their album with complete
artistic freedom.
“The experience was monumental in terms of how to make a record. We were in the studio all the time,
and all the money was spent on gear,” said lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Brendan B. Brown last
week. Brown said that this album was his first heartfelt creative effort, because he wrote the songs for
himself and not for a label.
“There comes a point when you say, ‘I’d rather be poor and stupid and make all these mistakes than be
right for somebody else’s goal,” said Brown.
Brown is particularly proud of his method of songwriting for this album.
“Every song was an idea before it was a song; a title came first and the story followed,” said Brown.
“That’s my favorite way to do stuff, because the title is an emotional blueprint for the song.”
Although Brown’s quirky high-pitched voice is more of an acquired taste, like Gordon Gano of the
Violent Femmes, his songwriting is strong, with solid bridges and choruses and comedic lyrics like, “She
doesn’t give a damn about me, ’cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby,” which carry the listener through
track after track.
So how did the clever single “Teenage Dirtbag” come about?
“I wanted to write a song called ‘Teenage Dirtbag,’ so I contemplated what that meant to me – a skinny
guy with a mullet who probably didn’t have a lot of friends,” said Brown.
The other songs on the band’s self-titled album are also based on amusing and absurd concepts, like
“Hump’em ‘n’ Dump’em.”
“I wrote that when the senate was considering impeaching the president,” said Brown. “It’s about the
cheapness aspect of it – this big, fat, dumb cheesy sex going on in the White House.”
After writing the songs for the album, Brown recruited his younger brother, Peter Brown, to play drums
and multi-instrumentalist and engineer Phil A. Jimenez to pretty much play everything else from
keyboard to percussion to harmonica.
Once the band was assembled, the recording of the album took place in the Browns Long Island home.
“We were all still working day jobs and recording at one in the morning in the basement of my mother’s
house,” said Brown. “We set up the control room on the dining table, then ran a hundred-foot snake
downstairs to record.”
So check out the raw and under-produced band Wheatus at Maxwell’s on Saturday night and pick up
their new self-titled debut album at major record stores on August 15. Look for full Q&A session in the
Current with the members of Wheatus in the next few weeks.
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