I had planned this piece to promote Wheatus’s upcoming UK and Ireland tour, set to take place in September and October this year, but maybe I’m almost too late. Every time I click on Wheatus’s Twitter feed, I see them saying they’ve sold out more dates.
Wheatus haven’t toured our shores for a number of years; their last time was back in 2019, and the Covid-19 pandemic put paid to any further touring until now. Wheatus frontman, Brendan B Brown says,
“We toured the UK, Ireland and Europe eighteen years in a row from 2001-2019, some years more than once. The pandemic has paused that tradition since 2020. This opportunity to return is more precious to us than all the other years combined and we’re gonna throw the kitchen sink at it.”
Since then, they’ve had a bit of a renaissance courtesy of TikTok, where last summer, their most famous song, ‘Teenage Dirtbag’, was used as the backing track for a trend of people comparing and contrasting their modern selves with pics from their teen years. When I say trend, I mean, like, a full on viral event. It wasn’t limited to TikTok either, it spread (like most TikTok trends) a few weeks later to Instagram, and and was the subject of many a story across the mainstream media “explaining” the trend, thus prolonging its viral state. Everyone got onto the trend – and Wheatus was right there compiling a list of as many people they could see doing it, which was a feat in itself, considering it had more than TWO BILLION views in under a month.
Brendan spoke to Observer about the song’s “flare up”, saying they were “the luckiest band on earth”:
“Our booking agent, Alex, he texted about it. He’s like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, dude. I have no idea.’,” Brown said.
The song has been shared and celebrated by the likes of Lil Nas X, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Chevy Chase, Jon Bon Jovi, Victoria Beckham, Alice Cooper, Millie Bobby Brown, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brooke Shields, Mark Ruffalo, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Heidi Klum, Mark Ronson, LL Cool J, Tony Hawk, Sammy Hagar, Nick Kroll, Lupita Nyong’o, Machine Gun Kelly, Anderson Paak, Jessica Alba, Mick Fleetwood, Sheryl Crow, Chris Pratt, Steve Aoki, Lindsay Lohan, and Jamie Lee Curtis – amongst countless others all pushing the hashtag #teenagedirtbag.
Of course, Wheatus are far more than a one-song band. To date, they’ve released five studio albums, two EPs and eight singles, the latter of which include the brilliant cover of Erasure’s ‘A Little Respect’, ‘Lemonade’, and ‘Wannabe Gangster’. They’re also more than just Brendan B Brown, with the band additionally comprising Matthew Milligan on bass, Brandon Ticer on keyboards, KC Marotta on drums, and Joey Slater and Gabrielle Sterbenz both on backing vocals. For all their fun and fierce independence, Wheatus are a serious musical group that operates like a well-oiled machine, and their live shos are a work of art.
In addition to their UK and Irish tour, Wheatus are also set to release a special expanded 20-track edition of their debut album, ‘Wheatus’, on 1 December this year. Speaking about the album, Brendan said,
“We found demos of ten more songs from throughout the band’s history that had such an album-one vibe that they never made it onto our more recent records. So now we’re giving them a proper chance to be heard. The new twenty-song expanded version of the album will feature the originally conceived tracklisting and sequence, plus the extra ten songs that have finally found a home on a record.”
Tickets for the following UK & Irish live shows went on-sale Thursday 6th April, and are available here – but if you want to go see Wheatus this year, you’d better hurry as they’re selling out fast!
- 15 September Manchester – Gorilla
- 16 September Mexborough – Imperial Music Venue
- 17 September Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
- 18 September York – The Crescent
- 19 September Nottingham – Rescue Rooms
- 21 September Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill
- 22 September Blackpool – The Waterloo Music Bar
- 23 September Newcastle – The Grove
- 26 September Tarbert – Tarbert Village Hall
- 27 September Glasgow – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
- 28 September Dunfermline – PJ Molloys
- 29 September Buckley – The Tivoli Venue
- 30 September Hull – The Welly
- 1 October Leicester – The Soundhouse
- 3 October Bridgwater – The Palace Theatre
- 4 October Cardiff – The Globe
- 6 October Liskeard – After Hours SW
- 7 October Perranporth – The Watering Hole
- 10 October Milton Keynes – The Craufurd Arms
- 11 October Gloucester – Guildhall
- 12 October Grimsby – Docks Academy
- 13 October Stoke-on-Trent – The Sugarmill
- 14 October Hertford – Corn Exchange
- 15 October Bristol – Thekla
- 17 October Margate – Olby’s Creative Hub
- 18 October Southend-on-Sea – Chinnery’s
- 19 October Worthing – The Factory Live
- 20 October London – The Garage
- 21 October Guildford – The Boileroom
- 22 October Swansea – The Bunkhouse
- 24 October Belfast – Limelight 2
- 29 October Dublin – Whelan’s
You can find out more about Wheatus and their music online on their official website, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. You can help support Wheatus and get access to exclusives via Patreon as well.
Read our interview with Brendan B Brown from 2016, and also check out our review of their 2016 show at London’s Brooklyn Bowl.
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