I remember seeing Wheatus in the summer of 2000 opening up for SR-71 (ya’ll remember them?) at Mississippi Nights in St.Louis, MO. The movie “Loser” was in theaters and the song “Teenage Dirtbag” had been a staple on MTV2 and Much Music all summer long. I remember at that show they had a ton of the crowd come on stage and sing “Teenage Dirtbag” with them, but I was too nervous to jump up there (a stage fright I would obviously get over in a few short years, ha). Fast forward to 2006 and my old band, One Lone Car, did some shows opening for Wheatus and I remember thinking how great they sounded and I wish more people loved this band. I have to say it’s been extremely exciting to see all the years of hard work paying off for Wheatus these past couple of years. Packed shows, people posting videos of themselves during their “dirtbag years”, and tons of artists covering their songs and showing what a true influence this band has had on a lot of us. I touched on this with lead singer Brendan Brown when he called into my radio show back in 2020, and to see them doing even better now is really rad to see. They’ve been re-releasing their older stuff newly recorded as of late and it’s wild how it sounds exactly the same as the OG recordings (something almost all bands fail to do when they attempt to do it). I remember “Leroy” was always a standout track back in the day and this newly recorded version sounds just as good if not better than the OG version. I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d say 2023 is the year of Wheatus. Now go do yourself a favor and turn this one up NOW.
-Andy
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