From Teenage Dirtbag to McBusted
With a worldwide top ten hit in 2000/2001, Wheatus went from nowhere to superstars with their fun-filled Teenage Dirtbag.
Singing about lonely male teenage struggles, Brendan B. Brown (singer/guitarist) managed to connect with the world.
Growing up playing Iron Maiden and AC/DC, we can hear in the extremely dynamic production that Brendan picked up a thing or two about recording powerful guitar riffs.
What’s so surprising is that he did it using an acoustic guitar going through amps in the basement of his mum’s house!
Teenage Dirtbag was the first single from the debut album. Unfortunately, they never managed to follow their worldwide smash hit with another one, they did however record many more albums.
Brendan also ended up working with McBusted, a hybrid band formed of U.K. bands McFly and Busted.
Music history is full of bands that have one early huge hit and then can’t live up to the hype.
I met the guys from Wheatus in 2004 when they were still touring, playing Teenage Dirtbag every night. They had one piece of advice that they hammered home to everyone they met: Never sign a major record deal!
Perhaps this advice was down to that at the time, they had to play their hit three times in the same gig!
In the playlist above, there’s a video with Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) asking the question: How do you follow up Teenage Dirtbag, the perfect song? He’s got a point, or maybe what he’s really saying is: My band, The Darkness only had one hit too… Well, no matter what they say, it’s better than none!
Wheatus Tunes | Related Pages
Teenage Dirtbag
You can learn how to play Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| E B5 | E Aadd9 |
Her name is Noelle, I have a dream about her…
Wheatus on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was an article about Wheatus tunes, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not by practising scales or studying theory in isolation.