Walk over the lock and you will encounter no-end of characters who anywhere else would be sniffed at. From the old school punks to the street hustling locals and even the completely oblivious tourists, Camden comes with an acceptance for one another that should be cherished.

There is no better occasion to epitomise the diversity, culture and heritage of the local area than the annual Camden Rocks Festival. Having reached its milestone tenth anniversary, this year the festival has gone all out by doubling in size and making it a two day extravaganza, featuring over four hundred acts.

Camden town is the spiritual home of UK punk rock, as well as acting as a proving ground for any musician worth their weight. Taking over every bar and venue in the area, the festival does its utmost to present the true live music experience that Camden offers all year round in the space of a weekend-long marathon. showcasing the very best punk, rock and metal bands from the past and present as well as emerging artists from all genres, Camden Rocks Festival leaves no venue empty, giving us the full Camden experience.

Punktastic has been lucky enough this year to sponsor the stage at The Good Mixer, one of the bars most deeply rooted in the Camden music scene. The bar was one of the regular boozers previously frequented by Amy Winehouse as well as a go-to spot during the Brit Pop era (supposedly where the Blur and Oasis feud kicked off). With this in mind it is more than fitting for Lincoln rockers Albany to perform on the stage. Their heavily Oasis/Stereophonics influenced sound is an enjoyable getaway from the city chaos during peak time on a Saturday afternoon. Despite the sweltering heat (hottest day of the year and no air-con), the large crowd cram in to enjoy their simple but stylish melodies. Closing track ‘Kingpin’ is the only song that makes the dripping sweat worth it, bringing out the fire in both crowd and band thanks to a punchy riff and an infectious chorus.

Later in the day, the venue is no cooler but The Idol Dead make you forget about it thanks to the punk n roll band’s incredibly fun set. Full of huge choruses that have a slither of 80s glam metal cheese to them, their high energy and endless enthusiasm wins the crowd over to the point that it is bursting through the exit doors.

Carrying on with a similar good time vibe, Funeral Shakes bring in the biggest audience the small makeshift stage sees all day as everybody has seemingly put on their dancing shoes ready for 30 minutes of non-stop furious rock and roll singalongs combined with an element of punk swagger. Despite various calamities throughout the set (drums falling off the stage, going to the outside ‘storage’ to change a string…) it’s taken in jest as frontman Calvin Roffey’s endless charm and effortless humour makes it all forgivable. In matching outfits, the band rolls through some favourites including ‘Love Birds’ and ‘Gold Teeth’ that sound so huge they almost blow holes through the Good Mixer windows (it would have at least let some air in). Funeral Shakes prove that they have the tunes, the fan base and the personalities that could land them on much bigger stages at the festival in years to come. By the end you’re surprised there aren’t puddles of sweat on the floor.

Elsewhere at the festival, ska punk veterans [Spunge] woke an early crowd up at the Electric Ballroom with a full hour of nostalgic chaos. Almost at their twentieth anniversary, the band kicks off the day in style with an upbeat collection of summer anthems as well as some awkward dad dancing from front man Alex Copeland. Old school favourites – including ‘Jump on Demand’ and ‘Kicking Pigeons’ – send the Ballroom into a frenzy.

Over the road in the heart of Camden market, opposite a sea of confused BTS fans queuing at a limited pop-up shop, the bizarre rumblings of alt-rock band Asylums are heard. Their brash and psychedelic soundscapes take the audience on an expressive journey that leaves many captivated. With bordering on politically charged lyrics on tracks ‘Millennials’ and ‘Missing Person’, the cohesive unit delivers a stunning set that is heavy, experimental and has riffs bigger than the singer’s wild hair.

The middle of the market also sees upcoming UK pop punk band The Bottom Line fill up Gabetto; a Latin bar better equipped for much calmer experiences but the band wastes no time in transforming the swanky venue into a rock show. Over the last few years, the four piece have honed their craft and learnt how to put on a live performance to remember as proven by putting on one of the festival’s finest sets of the weekend. With classic pop punk covers in the Camden sun, jumping on the bar and pouring Fireball Whiskey in the mouths of some lucky fans like it’s water, as well as giving in to all the classic audience participation gimmicks, the band puts so much effort into their set and they get everything back from the crowd in return. Tracks ‘I Still Hate You’ and ‘Call Me Crazy’ erupt with a large singalongs to match the high energy on-stage. With a new album named ‘No Vacation’ out this month and a live show that packs a punch, The Bottom Line won’t be described as ‘upcoming’ for much longer.

Speaking of emerging new artists, over at The Dublin Castle, metal quintet Wars shock the venue to its core with their blisteringly huge sound. Despite having what must be the hardest band name to find on google, Wars deliver a set that demands to be remembered. With a Bullet For My Valentine flair, unquestionably proficient songwriting, in your face metal riffs, and two vocalists who can go from soaring clean to intense screaming in seconds, the band have all the markings for a very bright future.

Finishing the day off back at the Electric Ballroom (which has a queue almost all the way back to the market) sees forever loveable Americans, Wheatus. The veteran pop-punk band will never be able to get rid of the ‘one hit wonder’ badge they’ve been labelled with for almost twenty years, but the eclectic eight-piece leave you wanting more than just ‘Teenage Dirtbag’. Of course when they do play the iconic noughties banger, it goes down as what may just be one of the biggest singalongs Camden has ever seen, but the entertainment provided by the rest of the set shouldn’t be ignored. Led by Brendan B. Brown, the frontman’s looney tune mannerisms and cheery stage banter makes their set of bright and upbeat pop-punk songs even more endearing. Taking fan requests for songs, the reinvented unit (that is even complete with backing singers) offers a live experience full of the passion which embodies the community spirit of Camden Town perfectly, despite being from across the pond.

Headlining the night is punk rock troubadour Frank Turner. Treating his besotted fans to an increasingly rare solo acoustic set, the singer wastes no time in making it known what a deep connection that he has with Camden. As a young anarchist teenager, Camden was Turner’s sanctuary, inspiring him musically and stylistically, and to this day remains a source of inspiration as he treats the eager crowd to a new song ‘Jinny Bingham’s Ghost’ based on a tale that took place just around the corner at The World’s End pub. Covering his seven album deep back catalogue, the set is full of old favourites and greatest hits as well as forgotten gems, making it the ultimate sing along for the euphoric crowd who find themselves squeezed into the Ballroom.

Turner has a range in his songwriting that is unparalleled. In one moment he can take you on a journey of spirited rebellion and the next moment you’re immersed in tales of heartbreak. The singer knows how to create deep emotion with just an acoustic guitar and fascinating lyricism. Once everyone has lost their voices from screaming the words to classics like ‘Photosynthesis’ and ‘Long Live The Queen’, Turner excitedly unveils a very special (will probably never happen again) encore set with his temporary one-night-only new band featuring members of The Virginmarys and the festival organiser himself Chris McCormack. Together they rip through a set of punk rock karaoke to end the night and what was a somewhat laid back audience just moments ago, has now transformed into a whirlwind of mosh pits and headbanging on the dance-floor as the party vibe is cranked to its max. A quickfire rounds of Camden classics including ‘Pretty Vacant’ and ‘Teenage Kicks’ creates a mass sea of sweat and soaked shirts in the air. Not often does Frank Turner go back to his extreme roots, but there has never been such an occasion more fitting, finishing the Camden Rocks festivities in the triumphant style that it deserves. Here’s to the next ten years.

The lucky winners will each win 1 pair of tickets to access the festival on Saturday and Sunday and be part of the ultimate rock festival experience.

Taking place in the heart of London’s music scene on June 1st and June 2nd, Camden Rocks showcases the very best emerging talent alongside much loved established acts. The festival features 400 bands playing across 20 venues all within a stones throw of each other in Camden Town. This year edition already includes an impressive list of talent from rock, indie, alternative, folk and punk music and its myriad of hybrids – a diverse lineup headed up by the likes of Frank Turner, Deaf Havana, Ash, The Wonder Stuff, The Pigeon Detectives, Rat Boy, New Model Army, Wheatus, Carl Barat, Ginger Wildheart, Ruts DC, The Professionals, Angelic Upstarts, Milk Teeth, Pretty Vicious, Glamour Of The Kill, Raging Speedhorn, Random Hand, Discharge, Eliza and The Bear, The Virginmarys, Area 11, Sean McGowan, Luna Bay, Sonic Boom Six, The Last Internationale, Our Hollow Our Home, Spunge, Bang Bang Romeo, Lotus Eater, REWS, Annabel Allum, Big Boy Bloater and The Limits, Loathe, Strange Bones, Undead Raisins and many, many more.

Hi Brendan! How are you?

Good thank you! It’s a beautiful morning here in New York. We’re in the studio, at Wheatus HQ.

Are you recording something now then?

Yeah! Album seven is sort of in process. The first two songs are laid out and recorded. The rest – I think about 14 or 15 of them – are all written, but we’re working through. We keep getting these tours so we keep having to hit the pause button.

What’s it sounding like so far?

The first song we’ve worked on is the most complex. We always do that in case we need to revisit it at the end. There’s a lot of metal-style double kick drum on there. It’s certainly not a metal song, but I like to use metal textures. Metal was my first love, and I like to use those soundscapes. The tune itself is a sort of meandering 30s or 40s jazz arrangement that has a lot of really aggressive tones to it. And when I say jazz I mean more like a pop jazz, like a Judy Garland type thing. Very influenced by those chords lately for some reason. And it’s about – in America, we have this problem with baby boomer heroin addiction, where they’re being prescribed these awful opiates that are all over the place for every little thing, and they’re getting hooked on it, and it’s a real scourge over here. I don’t know if you guys are having the same problem, but life expectancy rates for retirees have gone down for the first time in history because of this, and it seems a bit like this is maybe what happened to Prince, although the jury’s still out on that, but this is a real issue here in the States. My parents have friends who’ve had to go to rehab in their retired age. It’s really awful, but that’s what I’m addressing in the song.

Very interesting! It’s great that you’ve got some new material coming.

Yeah, that’s what we keep going for, the reinvention in the studio bit where you get to find a new sound and a new song. The discovery process never gets old.

I know you have to work around tours, but do you have any idea when you might be finished recording?

Well, what I’d like to do after the Busted tour is take a year to record and finish it up sometime around maybe the summer of 2017 and release it then and hit the road at that point. We take a long time to make a record, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re no longer on the major label system. We had to get out of that really quick. In order to make records in that short period of time they would’ve sucked, and I think the thing is we’re more of a tinkering band than a churn them out kind of band. It took me a long time to get ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ right and I think that’s the way to go. Why make something that isn’t as good as it could be? It takes a while.

How are you feeling about the tour? Both the Busted support slot and your headline dates?

It’s fantastic. We did the 15th anniversary tour for our first album back in October 2015 and we really didn’t think we’d be out on the road this quickly, but I’d been talking to James [Bourne, Busted] about doing a tour together since the last time we did it in 2007, so this conversation is nearly a decade old at this point, and we’re finally getting a chance to do it. The stars aligned, so we’re going. It’s really exciting. I don’t know what it’s gonna be like to play the big rooms and then the small rooms, but I would prefer to bring a bit of what we do in the small room to the big room, and not the other way around.

I guess you’ll get the best of both worlds this way.

Yeah. Since our first record we’ve become this pubs and clubs band. We play all these nooks and crannies. We do 35 or 40 shows when we go over there, so it’s every single day, and we do all the little spots. We do the Loughboroughs and the St Albans and the Scunthorpes and all these tiny places. Holyhead’s one of our favourites, and it’s become family, these people who come to these places to see us. We’ll never go over there and just do the big spots. That’s not what we do.

I think a lot of those places get forgotten about, so I bet the people in those places are psyched on you playing there.

Yeah, well, they are, and over time they’ve become our family and friends, and as a band you have to decide what you want to do. Do you want to play every night in every city you could possibly play in or do you just wanna hit the big spots? And we definitely wanna play every night, you know.

You formed in 1995, which is wild. Do you still love being on the road?

Absolutely. Growing up I idolised AC/DC and Rush and Willie Nelson and Prince and people who were always on the road. Fugazi would play anywhere: a boys club, a gymnasium, a garage. I always felt like that’s the whole point of it: get out, play anywhere, play everything, do it all. So that’s where we ended up. I mean, Willie Nelson is still playing. At 83, he’s still killing these places. On the road again is where we’re headed, always.

It’s awesome that you can still enjoy it after all this time.

Well, when I was 10 years old I decided I wanted to do that. Those young ideas can be pretty tenacious and stubborn.

So you’ve living your 10 year old dream.

Yeah, so to speak. I mean, it’s a little more complicated and risky financially than I thought it would be, but that has more to do with what happened to the music industry than anything else.

I can imagine it’s difficult, but at least you’re doing what you love. I saw you’re playing at the Brooklyn Bowl in London.

Yeah, it’s a little weird. I live very close to the Brooklyn Bowl in New York, and I’ve seen Fishbone there and a couple of other good shows, but never actually played there myself. i was invited on stage once but the fact that we’re going to London to play a place called the Brooklyn Bowl is a little weird. We’re gonna try not to make any Brooklyn jokes, but I’m afraid that someone’s gonna wind up rolling their eyes at some point.

Do you play a lot of early stuff on tour? Or is it a mixture?

We haven’t done setlists for over 10 years now. We have been letting the crowd call it out. It really works well. We learn somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45 songs. The ratio is we learn about as many songs as we have gigs, which is usually around the 35-40 spot and we practise them really hard in rehearsal and soundcheck and if they get called out they get called out. I’d say the majority of what we’ll do this time, especially in the clubs, is some of the newer stuff, but that’s because that’s the type of crowd and that’s what they want. But the first album has worked its way in there pretty heavily, but those songs are short so they go quick, but for the arena dates, we’ve been messing around with two sets. One of them is a couple songs from the first record with a lot of newer stuff, and the other is a different version of that, but everyone’s gonna get their ‘A Little Respect’ and everyone’s gonna get their ‘Teenage Dirtbag’. Occasionally we don’t play ‘A Little Respect’ in the clubs – that happens every once in a while – but that’s just because the crowd is up for something else.

That’s great, because then every show you play is different.

Every show we play is the one that the crowd wants, and that’s different for us, but we work hard on putting aside what we want from the show, and let the crowd have it their way.

So last year was the 15th anniversary of your debut self-titled album. Does it feel like it’s been 15 years?

That’s an interesting question. I don’t know how to answer that. In some ways, it does. When I look at all our catalogues of what we have to learn before we go on tour and what we know getting onstage having worked on 40 or so tunes, and of course the fact that ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ happened before music on the internet, it makes it a snapshot, so it makes it easier to say that was then, and it’s frozen in polaroid. But then, Prince having died recently, I’ve always been a huge fan and it’s got me revisiting everything. There is no timeline for Prince, but he was always amazing. If you listen to every song in every period, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s my favourite too’, so I feel like I’d rather approach it that way, and obviously it’s a high bar he set, but I’d much rather approach it from that standpoint of it being a timeless experience that goes on infinitely and in all directions, which plays into the whole ‘on the road again’ vibe.

Is there anything else you want to cover while we’re here?

Well, the touring we’re doing in the clubs, we’re having The Ventura Project and Gabrielle Sterbenz open for us. They’ve been with us before. That’s because they’re members of Wheatus who have their own other bands, so it’s a whole big family thing we do. I’m also working on a couple of things that are interesting. I have an EP I wrote and am in the process of recording with Josh Devine and Sandy Beales from the One Direction band. I believe Josh and Sandy may join us onstage at a couple of the Busted dates to play one of the songs we put out together last year, ‘Only You’. And that’s gonna be fun, a bit of a guest appearance, but aside from that – god, there’s so much going on. I’m mixing some records for friends, this group called Hand Job Academy, an all girl rap group from Brooklyn. I worked on a Janet Devlin track. She came to Wheatus HQ in New York and we recorded something that we wrote together so I’m pretty excited about that. So there’s a couple of things brewing! It’s an exciting time.

LAIS MW

“With touring you always think and dream, ‘well, if we could just do that, have the big rock arenas and the club shows for friends and wrap it all up with a cherry on top in London …’ Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing this time,” says frontman brendan b brown. “I can’t believe it!”

Tickets to the headline shows go on sale this Friday. The Busted ones went on sale ages ago, and most are sold out.

MAY
05 LEICESTER Soundhouse
06 WAKEFIELD Warehouse23
07 CANNOCK The Station
08 EDINBURGH La Belle Angele
09 DONCASTER Diamond Live
10 GUILDFORD Boiler Room
11 LONDON Wembley The SSE Arena*
12 OXFORD O2 Academy 2
13 GLASGOW The SSE Hydro*
14 GLASGOW The SSE Hydro (Sold Out)*
15 NEWCASTLE Metro Radio Arena*
16 NEWCASTLE Think Tank
17 SHEFFIELD Arena*
18 NOTTINGHAM Motorpoint Arena*
19 PRESTON The Ferret
20 BIRMINGHAM Genting Arena*
21 MANCHESTER Arena (Sold Out)*
22 LIVERPOOL Echo Arena*
24 CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena (Sold Out)*
25 BOURNEMOUTH BIC*
26 HITCHIN Club 85
27 LONDON The O2*
28 LONDON The O2 (Sold Out)*
29 PERRANPORTH Tunes In The Dunes

JUNE
01 BRISTOL Thekla
02 CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena*
03 MANCHESTER Arena*
04 BIRMINGHAM Barclaycard Arena*
05 LONDON Brooklyn Bowl
06 LIVERPOOL O2 Academy 2
07 SWANSEA The Scene

*w/ Busted

Paul:Hey Brendan, how are things with you right now?
Brendan:Very intense. I’m finishing the recording of Pop, Songs & Death Vol. 2, The Jupiter EP & getting ready for Both our USA & UK Tours. As an independent artist, you have to do everything yourself so I’m up at 6AM every morning and such. I’m OK otherwise, thanks for asking.

Paul: The Wheatus story is a real rollercoaster ride…when you first started the band did you ever think for one minute you’d be around for 15 years or so, that you’d have a number 1 single or that you’d play to thousands in crowds all across the world?
Brendan: No. Honestly, I had always thought to myself that if I were to be successful in music, that I’d prefer it be low key and that the kind of career that Fugazi & Ani Difranco had would be more than enough. I am not very good at label relations so I was thinking small at 1st and was totally shocked by what happened.

Paul: When you first started out in the mid-90s, which bands influenced you as a songwriter? Did you set out to sound like any other bands in the early days?
Brendan: When I started writing & demoing the 1st record I was listening to a lot of Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson, The Tragically Hip & The Indigo Girls and a lot of post hardcore, Fugazi, Quicksand, Helmet, Jawbreaker etc… I had always been a huge Rush & AC/DC fan, since childhood so I’m certain they were all part of it on some level. But the reason I decided to try writing, singing, playing & recording my own songs was a band called Walt Mink. Walt Mink certainly had the greatest influence on me in terms of what wheatus became on our 1st record and our other records as well.

Paul: Who came up with the name Wheatus and is there any meaning behind it?
Brendan: Wheatus is a nonsense word. It’s a nickname my father gave us when we were kids. My mother told me it’s a devolution of the word “little”… and that my father would come home from work and say to us kids “little, little, little….” which morphed into “wheatle, wheatle, wheatle…” and then finally, “wheatus, wheatus, wheatus…” At any rate, by the time I was 15 he’d call me wheatus to piss me off….so there you have it.

Paul: You’re originally from the New York area…do you still live in NYC? Are you still active in the scene there? Are there any bands you’d recommend we check out?
Brendan: I do live in Brooklyn but I spend most of my time at our studio on Long Island, which is an odd geographical distinction to make considering that Brooklyn is actually on Long Island. We’ve never been a scene band. But we do know and are friendly with other musicians in NYC, in particular The Nercord Artists like MC Frontalot, Schaffer The Dark Lord…etc.. I strongly recommend you look into The Nerdcore movement. One of my earliest shows in NYC was at CBGB’s when I was 19….8 years after that we opened for Joey Ramone there at CB’s shortly before his death so I guess we could accurately be considered a NYC band but none of us grew up in NYC….we all live in Brooklyn.

Paul: So going back in time a bit, you blew up huge with ‘Teenage Dirtbag’. Did you know as soon as you’d written it that it would be a hit? What or who inspired you to write the song?
Brendan: I knew when I wrote it that it would get out there and do something, or at least I hoped it would BUT… I knew that there were and are, plenty of fantastic songs that never get a chance & that writing a hit and having one are 2 vastly different things…so I kept my day job for 2 years after it was written.

Paul: How did you hook up with Columbia Records? Looking back, would you say working with a major label was the worst thing you could have done?
Brendan: At the time it most certainly was the right thing to do. When a label approaches you, they are sort of like a serial killer… they tell you everything you need to hear, banking on your ignorance, and we were shockingly ignorant….& once they get you in the house, out come the leather restraints & surgical knives. Our label experience was like this: we had this great AnR guy approach us. He guaranteed that we could produce our own records and I took that to mean that our art would be respected and that the way we were presented would all follow from the art & I was hella wrong. But there was also a timing issue… We signed a major label deal 2 years before the shit hit the fan. By shit hit the fan I mean, labels coming to terms with the fact that, back in the 80’s, when they had 1st converted songs into digital files that went on CD’s, that they were now in the software business and not the music business. It took them 17 years to realize what that meant because they’re ignorant old men who know nothing about computers, but when it all came home to roost they called it Napster. I still remember them being disappointed at our 1st week sales in The USA…” …yeah we’re really disappointed that you failed to break 20,000 units your 1st week… you only sold 19,800″ and when I asked them what the Napster numbers were they said: “what’s Napster?” That was in August, 2000… we call that time The Salad Days.

Paul: How did you hook up with Bruce Dickinson? What was it like working at Abbey Road?
Brendan: That was all really impossible to comprehend at the time….we wound up in The Beatles Room, George Martin‘s very own suite. THEEE SGT. PEPPER ROOM!…. and I was producing a record there with Bruce Dickinson singing on it that I wrote….The fact that I had been a printer repairman a year & 1/2 prior to that is the context. It really just made all the bullshit that came after that sort of worth it. Bruce was this Titan in the studio… Not many people know this but we had no manager when Teenage Dirtbag hit. Word got around about that & Iron Maiden’s manager called us up to see if we needed help and we developed a relationship. Bruce rode his bike down to Abbey Road that day, came in all sweaty & awesome and we got to work….I kind of sang to him what I thought the track needed, gave him a few references from the Iron Maiden catalog… he smiled, nodded, went down stairs and stood in front of the mic, we hit record and when he threw his head back, out came the voice of The Trooper….I mean he shreds like a fucking DRAGON BEAST….and pitch perfect. It was beyond description…. I wouldn’t say I was star struck, more like star blasted…I mean if Angus Young had walked in I’d have died right then knowing full well, it wasn’t gonna get any better….but then I’d have missed out on the super nerdy chat I had with Bruce a few months later about the physics of super sonic flight….he is a pilot, Bruce…gotta love him.

Paul: Why did you decide to change your sound a little by adding the female backing vocals and keyboardist?
Brendan: It was something I had always wanted but could never afford….good vintage keys & backing vox…Stevie Wonder & Yes had really inspired me with the sounds on the records they made, ELO & ELP as well….The idea with the keys was to get the lead guitar roll filled with more than just lead guitar & the girls was all about me loving The Andrews Sisters…..also I get really bored making a record if it’s something I’ve heard us do before.

Paul: You decided not to lip-synch on Top of the Pops when most bands, at that time, did it anyway. What made you buck the trend and say no? Is it true that Sony used this as an excuse to not promote your second album? Is this the point where things started to go wrong?
Brendan: Things going wrong had a lot more to do with them not getting us AT ALL. I was actually asked once, by one of the head honchos there in NYC, to re-sing ” A Little Respect ” for a USA single version & to make it sound more like Creed…. So Teenage Dirtbag, a song in which I literally can be mistaken for a girl, had sold a million records and they still thought the best bet was for me to change everything & make a record sounding more dude-ish. There isn’t much you can do to fix a misunderstanding like that. But the Lip Syncing Debacle was down to this: The day of our Smash Hits UK TV performance SONY surprised us with a lip sync demand at the last minute…For that lip sync, someone at the label had decided to make, what THEY thought was an appropriate ” TV remix ” of Teenage Dirtbag without so much as notifying us. Now, according to this SONY person the song was MUCH improved with about 15-17 bars of the original composition MISSING…mind you we had never heard this version and were being asked, with about an hour left until show time, to effectively commit this hatchet job to memory and then give an accurate lip sync to the TV audience. There had been this kind of bullshit happening here and there but this was the last straw. So we told them we would do it and then, well, we destroyed the stage instead…which the shows producer LOVED & found very entertaining. The day after that we informed SONY that we would no longer lip sync under any circumstances and asked that they please stop making dreadful remixes of a song that the public seemed to prefer as is. So you see, it wasn’t from any desire to buck the trend but rather form a desire to avoid looking like a cuntish assfuck on National TV when you botch the arrangement & lyrics to SONY’s favorite, here-to-for-unheard version, of a song you wrote and have just spent the last 2 years performing live every night on stage. They did indeed bring up our unwillingness to lip sync when they told us they were refusing to release our 2nd record in The USA.

Paul: Was ‘Suck Fony’ simply a reaction to the label’s poor handling of you?
Brendan: We were once taunted by a Finnish metalhead with the words “SUCK PHONY”. He was dressed like Axl Rose circa ’86 and had been responsible for pelting me in the chest with a rock the size of a baseball during our set. I stopped the song & challenged him to a fight on stage and when he approached security grabbed him and his last words to me were “SUCK PHONY!”. Back stage that night we decided to put out a live record called Suck Phony as the irony was just too delicious. In 2004, when we regained the rights to Hand Over Your Loved Ones, our 2nd LP, we decided to rename it in honor of one pissed of Nordic man….and yet again, with a small change in the spelling, the irony was too delicious.

Paul: What’s the relevance behind the name ‘Montauk Mantis’?
Brendan: Oh man… I can’t tell you that one…too painful. Sorry.

Paul: You’ve entered into the world of pay-what-you-want for releasing music. Who had the idea to do this and has it worked?
Brendan: I originally suggested this structure to SONY in 2002 for our 2nd record during a meeting with our AnR guy, Kevin Patrick and some marketing people. I told them we would split publishing, touring and merch with SONY if they let us put 1 million and ONLY 1 million copies on the shelves. After the 1st million were made the album would be out of print forever to save on carbon emissions….the idea was that with downloading, no one would be denied access to the music and that the live show would become the special thing to spend your hard earned money on…. they laughed me out of the room. About 4 years later, a “360 deal” was about the only kind of record deal you could get and it still is. Anyway, as soon as we had the ability, we did it ourselves. But our system is unique because of the multi-format & DSD_DISC download options. DSD_DISC is a downloadable Playstation3 music format that exceeds the quality of MP3, AIFF, FLAC, blue ray & DVD Audio. Some people even say it’s better than vinyl but I think that’s a personal preference thing…at any rate the DSD_DISC downloads on wheatus.com make us the 1st band to ever put out a record for the Sony PS3….and the irony just keeps getting tastier.

Paul: How important do you think it has been for Wheatus and for bands in general to embrace new technology to distribute your music and to stay in touch with fans?
Brendan: I don’t see how an artist could survive without embracing new technology…and I wouldn’t be a fan of a band that doesn’t respond to it’s fans so I couldn’t ask that of any wheatus fans….I personally respond to all my wheatus.com mail and our twitter feed, twitter.com/wheatus ….Matthew our bass player takes care of Facebook.

Paul: Is it true you worked on the score for the film ‘April Showers’? Is this something you would like to do more of in the future?
Brendan: Yes it is true, which is special because SONY forced us to censor the word “gun” in Teenage Dirtbag because of the Columbine Massacre. …Scoring a film is weird for me…I have to really feel for the movie…You’re not writing a song in your bedroom for yourself, but rather trying to decorate someone else‘s existing piece of art so there’s much more pressure to get it right ’cause you don’t want to let them down…If someone will have me I’d love to continue doing it, in fact, we’ll be scoring some for a UK based indie Zombie Flick pretty soon… you can read more about that at http://www.theindywoodproject.com/

Paul: If you could go back in time and change anything from the Wheatus experience, what would it be and why?
Brendan: I would have made sure more people at SONY knew what we were about before we signed…we made the mistake of thinking our AnR guy spoke for the whole company and that was not the case. I also would have asked for a 1 album deal but the way it worked out, that’s pretty much what we got anyway, so not much would change….I think everything worked out pretty damn well.

Paul: A few user submitted questions – Does it irritate you that you’re probably best known in the UK by most people for an Erasure cover song?
Brendan: No, Teenage Dirtbag sold a hell of a lot more copies than the Erasure cover did…what are you on about? ;- )

Paul: Do you hold down regular jobs when you’re not on the road or do you live the rockstar dream?
Brendan: There is no such thing as a rockstar dream …this is a myth that old record executives perpetuate so they can steal from young artists who don’t know any better….maybe some hippie lived something like that in the 1970’s but those days have been over for a long time. Keeping this band going is hard work, harder than any of my day jobs but more rewarding when it all comes together. When I’m done answering these questions I have to arrange for 2 tonnes of gear to be flown from NYC to The UK…for that I will have to create what’s known as a carnet. Look that up, it sucks…The I have to mix and master The Jupiter EP an 2 million other things or it all comes apart. We don;t have a manger so I do it all myself….Matthew does all our website work when he’s not working full time at Permanent Records in Brooklyn. Gerard our keys player is the house sound engineer for an awesome NYC venue called Arlene’s Grocery…Kevin our drummer works for 4 or 5 other bands in order to pay the bills, as do the girls….come over here and intern with me for a week & you’ll forget all about this rockstar dream thingy you asked me about.

Paul: In it for the art or in it for the charts?
Brendan: HA!…well, we’ve successfully avoided the charts for the last 9 years so …there’s nothing left but the art.

Paul: What’s the best thing bout touring in foreign places where you have never been before? What’s your favourite country to tour and why?
Brendan: It’s currently a draw between Scotland & Wales…there are some places in The USA that are pretty dope but I’ll keep it UK for now. In the UK my favorite thing is Plain Chocolate McVities…. but if you’re in a place you’ve never been the best thing that can happen is a day off to wander and then get drunk.

Paul: What’s the best touring story you can re-tell?
Brendan: Apparently, and I have no memory of this myself, there was once a shocking degree of drunken nudity in Bath UK…Again, I’m not sure what exactly transpired but I know it began with about 4000 Uni students in togas and ended with The Who blasting out the tourbus… & nudity…and a bass player who had fallen and could not get up….and a merch girl going on & on about Paul Weller. Then there was also The Sunrise Swansea incident where someone ran out the venue and down the road buck ass naked…can’t remember if it was one of us. In the next interview I’ll see if I can remember which pop star puked in our bus toilet.

Paul: Favourite member of the Wu Tang Clan?
Brendan: Ol’ Dirty….hands down….raw as fuck…. miss him!

Paul: What did you think to the movie Loser and did you ever get to meet Jason Biggs?
Brendan: I did meet Jason and he was a cool dude from right around where I’m from so we got along. I met Mena too and still chat with here once in a while on twitter….I am very proud of that film because it features Teenage Dirtbag played during a helicopter fly-in montage of The Twin Towers of The World Trade Center filmed the year before they fell….Growing up in the shadow of NYC they were my favorite buildings and I had been in them several times to visit my best friends dad who worked up there on the 74th floor…thankfully he was retired by the time of the attack. Also, Dan Aykroyd is in that movie. He’s one of my hero’s for his role in The Blues Brothers, which might have the best soundtrack of all time, so having one of my songs playing in the background while he’s on the screen is a personal triumph for me.

Paul: Have you ever bought two tickets to see Iron Maiden?
Brendan: I have bought WAAAAY more than 2 tickets to Iron Maiden baby…but a little while ago my friend Monsen bought ME 2 tickets to Iron Maiden and we watched them tear the guts out of Madison Square Garden together…noice.

Paul: Are you sick of talking about/playing/hearing ‘Teenage Dirtbag’?
Brendan: NOOOOOOOOOO I love that song….it’s still a challenge to get it right on stage and it has never bothered me…re recording the Rockband version on the other hand was a dreadful pain in the ass! That’ll be out sometime this summer along with our new record Pop, Songs & Death Vol. 2…The Jupiter EP.

Thanks for the chat everyone…see you in June!
In the meantime, download our records free or donate at wheatus.com & hit me on twitter.com/wheatus too…

Get tickets for the upcoming UK tour at http://www.artistticket.com/link/?s=wheatus

As we sit down for our chat, he’s most preoccupied with the fact that about ten or so kids have managed to bypass security and get in the backstage area. “I don’t know how that happens man. The real problem is that you’ve got a real limited number of supplies. When you’re on tour day to day, you don’t have time to buy new toothpaste, or a new toothbrush. Forget about whether someone takes your driving license or your passport. Sometimes you’ve got to push people away from the things you have. I don’t think it’s being an asshole, you’re just doing what anyone else would do if someone invaded your home. 99.9% of these kids are cool, and just want to meet the bands, but things can get stolen, so you’ve got to be wary”.

Pneumonia, prescription drugs and paranoia aside, you’ve got to wonder what Wheatus have been up to since the massive success of hit single ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ way back in 2001. “I’ve been so overwhelmed by the fact that we haven’t been here in a while, yet there’s kids here who are like thirteen, fourteen years old; they all know our songs. When our first record came out you realise these kids were eight or nine years old. What else do you need if you’re in a band? It’s definitely cool. You never know how your life is going to turn out. When I wrote those songs I was working a low-paid job, I always thought that music was something I could do as a hobby. Then all of a sudden it happened, and very quickly it un-happened.”

For those not aware, Wheatus were dropped by Sony BMG prior to the release of their second album, as they didn’t see it as having as much potential as the self titled. “For Sony we just didn’t fit into their business model. They planned for us to be one-hit wonders. They don’t build careers anymore, they release songs to make money, and as soon as they’ve made the money, they’re reluctant to take another chance on you”.

In a way, Wheatus are something of an unconventional band. With an acoustic guitar, electronic drums and female backing singers, they’re not a group to fit into a particular musical niche. “I think they were just a little confused by us, they didn’t know what to make of our sound. They don’t calculate for the fact that the majority of people don’t evaluate a band by what genre it is, they’re just concerned about whether it’s a good enough song to part with my money”.

In terms of a personal journey, the last five years have been a real breakneck ride for the Wheatus frontman. Aside from record label fuck-ups and the like, you’d expect such a series of events to take its toll on a man’s character. “I’ve re-iterated to myself to be a musician at all costs. The personnel for the band has changed quite a bit, and it’s been a struggle to avoid financial ruin. The line-up now is the best we’ve ever had. You have to all be on the same page and support each other on stage, and these are totally the right people to do this with.”

Don’t be mistaken for thinking Brendan B. Brown is a depressed man, or unappreciative of people enjoying his music. He’s been through a hectic half-decade of people letting him down inside the music industry and out, but right now it seems there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for Wheatus. With the Good To Go Tour on the horizon, 2007 may well be the year this band make their return, so make sure you’re ready for it.

Andy R

As we sit down for our chat, he’s most preoccupied with the fact that about ten or so kids have managed to bypass security and get in the backstage area. “I don’t know how that happens man. The real problem is that you’ve got a real limited number of supplies. When you’re on tour day to day, you don’t have time to buy new toothpaste, or a new toothbrush. Forget about whether someone takes your driving license or your passport. Sometimes you’ve got to push people away from the things you have. I don’t think it’s being an asshole, you’re just doing what anyone else would do if someone invaded your home. 99.9% of these kids are cool, and just want to meet the bands, but things can get stolen, so you’ve got to be wary”.

Pneumonia, prescription drugs and paranoia aside, you’ve got to wonder what Wheatus have been up to since the massive success of hit single ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ way back in 2001. “I’ve been so overwhelmed by the fact that we haven’t been here in a while, yet there’s kids here who are like thirteen, fourteen years old; they all know our songs. When our first record came out you realise these kids were eight or nine years old. What else do you need if you’re in a band? It’s definitely cool. You never know how your life is going to turn out. When I wrote those songs I was working a low-paid job, I always thought that music was something I could do as a hobby. Then all of a sudden it happened, and very quickly it un-happened.”

For those not aware, Wheatus were dropped by Sony BMG prior to the release of their second album, as they didn’t see it as having as much potential as the self titled. “For Sony we just didn’t fit into their business model. They planned for us to be one-hit wonders. They don’t build careers anymore, they release songs to make money, and as soon as they’ve made the money, they’re reluctant to take another chance on you”.

In a way, Wheatus are something of an unconventional band. With an acoustic guitar, electronic drums and female backing singers, they’re not a group to fit into a particular musical niche. “I think they were just a little confused by us, they didn’t know what to make of our sound. They don’t calculate for the fact that the majority of people don’t evaluate a band by what genre it is, they’re just concerned about whether it’s a good enough song to part with my money”.

In terms of a personal journey, the last five years have been a real breakneck ride for the Wheatus frontman. Aside from record label fuck-ups and the like, you’d expect such a series of events to take its toll on a man’s character. “I’ve re-iterated to myself to be a musician at all costs. The personnel for the band has changed quite a bit, and it’s been a struggle to avoid financial ruin. The line-up now is the best we’ve ever had. You have to all be on the same page and support each other on stage, and these are totally the right people to do this with.”

Don’t be mistaken for thinking Brendan B. Brown is a depressed man, or unappreciative of people enjoying his music. He’s been through a hectic half-decade of people letting him down inside the music industry and out, but right now it seems there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for Wheatus. With the Good To Go Tour on the horizon, 2007 may well be the year this band make their return, so make sure you’re ready for it.

Andy R