New York’s finest, Wheatus return for Galway city show

Best known for their 2000 hit Teenage Dirtbag, Wheatus play Monroe’s Live on Friday, September 13.  The Brooklyn based alternative rock band come to Ireland promoting their latest album, Valentine.

The record opens with Don’t Fall in Love, a song that deals with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues in American high schools. Wheatus’ founding member Brendan Brown discusses how the song came about.

“One day I was riding my bike in the woods,” he says. “It was a weekday, and I came blasting down this hill on my BMX. I wound up at this lakeside and up above me in a tree where what I was pretty certain were two high school girls having a date.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt!” he laughs. “But I immediately bugged out of there and it kind of occurred to me that, deep in the woods here, might be the only place they can go to be together. The story unfolded into a fictionalised account of what they might be going through, if they were considering coming out. In America, it’s tough enough to be a teenager in high school, but I imagine it’s quite a bit more hellish to be one and be gay.”

Valentine was recorded in the Wheatus studio in Long Island, which Brendan affectionately refers to as a ‘shack’. When it comes to recording, he prefers the DIY approach.

“It’s always been the way we’ve worked, since the first one,” he says. “We made that in my mother’s basement – and it hasn’t got much more complicated than that! They’re all homemade records.”

Since the making of Valentine, a new member has joined the Wheatus camp.

“Just as soon as we finished the record, our drummer Kevin had to leave and we added a new member, Will Tully,” Brendan says. “He’s really pretty fantastic. I found him through a friend here in Brooklyn – I ask around say ‘I need a drummer’ and everyone comes up with one!”

Wheatus’ best known song is Teenage Dirtbag. Anyone who listened to the radio in the early noughties will remember how ubiquitous it was. Some hits can become an albatross around a songwriter’s neck, but Brendan is frank about the effect Teenage Dirtbag had on Wheatus.

For more see this week’s Tribune