Y’know, life seems pretty great in Wheatus-land right now. Not only have the New York-based band found themselves adopted by thousands of One Direction fans worldwide thanks to the aforementioned boyband covering their ever-green outsider anthem ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ every night on tour, they’ve just released their sixth record Valentine via wheatus.com and are currently gearing up to visit Ireland for the first time in eight years. When we caught up with Wheatus mainman Brendan B. Brown recently, the singer, songwriter and producer tells us that life is indeed sweet.

“Did you hear a compilation album called Teenage Dirtbags with our song on it is number one in the UK iTunes chart right now?” he grins. “I’m so proud of that. It’s so cool. Everything’s going great, man. I’m really excited about visiting Ireland again. I’m actually an Irish citizen. My Grandmother was born in Roscommon so I went and got my passport a few years back.”
On tour in support of Valentine, the record is a collection of “post apocalyptic love songs” and Brendan tells us that the subject matter of some of the songs focus on LGBT issues and carry a strong message of sexuality equality.
“In rock ‘n’ roll music we should definitely make the effort to support them,” he begins. “It’s an important topic. I have been fortunate enough to have come into contact with a group of LGBT teens through the One Direction thing and to say that they’ve had troubles in an understatement. They have a hard time and I began mulling over what it must be like to be a teen in Arkansas for example, where these Christian Taliban-esque lunatics are trying to cure people of gayness and all this other draconian caveman nonsense, so I wrote some songs about it.”
Self-released (“We’ll never do the whole record label thing again, that’s a waste of time,” considers the singer), Valentine has been well received by fans and critics alike. Is the singer tempted to dump their calling card ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ and go strictly with the new stuff?
“No way, man. We’re still really excited about playing that song. One of the things we never lost touch with was the idea that when you’re a musician who has nothing-all you want is somebody to recognise something you do and appreciate it. That basic drive is still something we have and that song has always been the foot in the door for us. It all happened out of a basement for us and gave us so many great opportunities.”
One particular “great opportunity” was being able to work with Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson during the recording of their ‘00 released self-titled debut record. The frontman, pilot, fencer, author and now professional beer brewer contributed vocals to their single ‘Wannabe Gangster’ and Brendan tells us that hanging out with the metal icon was a dream come true.
“Oh man, Bruce is super cool and the consummate artist,” he recalls. “When we first met him he rode his bike down to Abbey Road from Chiswick and he showed up all sweaty with a helmet in his hand and says ‘What do you want me to do?’ Then after we told him, he goes right down there to the booth and nails it. He didn’t even think about it-it was beyond surreal. I felt like I was 14 and it was a dream. Then we had Christmas dinner at his place and he was a real gentleman. When I was talking to him I thought-this is amazing. Can you be my Dad? It was easily one of the coolest things we’ve ever done.”