Wheatus’ mega hit Teenage Dirtbag is well into its teens itself and the band are on an upswing with a club tour funded by a One Direction cover and arena shows alongside Busted.

Frontman Brendan B Brown explained that the shows with Busted – which include two dates at The O2 at the end of May – have been a decade in the making, since Wheatus toured with Busted member James Bourne’s other band, Son of Dork.

Brendan told us: “We have been discussing doing that again for a decade.

“That conversation has been ongoing and finally the stars aligned this year. With Busted being back together, he wanted us to come out and the Busted guys agreed. So it’s on.”

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Mixed in between the arena performances are a long list of smaller shows, and it’s a policy which has brought the band a passionate following.

Brendan said: “We had this policy from 2003 til now where we’ll play anywhere.”

As well as shows at Guildford’s Boileroom on May 10 and Greenwich’s Brooklyn Bowl on June 5, the policy extends to shows in Doncaster, Wakefield and Cannock among others.

Brendan said: “We like to go there and find the little nook where everyone gathers for music and be a part of their culture there. We like to go find the local and play the local.

He added: “I want to get used to fish and chips and English breakfasts. I want to submerge myself. I want to live there for a little while and be a part of it.”

While it may be more gratifying for the band, the tours are hardly lucrative. At the end of the last one they had to sell their equipment to make ends meet.

Brendan said: “That has sort of always been the routine. It is expensive to do a good show – a show where people are glad they paid for the ticket.

“There are no shortcuts. You have got to build the kind of touring rig that delivers that show and when you get home and you realise how expensive it was, you’ve got to sell it. Then you build it again the next year.

“It’s like a racecar – those guys have to rebuild the car every time they go on the track.”

This time out, the club tour is funded largely off the back of a One Direction cover of Teenage Dirtbag, for which Brendan is very grateful.

He said: “When that kind of thing happens, it’s a very generous thing for a big artist to do for a little artist.

“They helped us out big time. They did a good job on the song and they introduced it to a whole bunch of people. It has been great.

“The cool thing is, those kids - those One Direction fans – I think people have a lot to say about them but they don’t understand that they are quite a bit more interested in music than you would assume.

Indeed, Teenage Dirtbag is a song that continues to capture the imagination – a fact which Brendan puts down to it capturing in a snapshot the pre-internet age in which it was recorded and wider feelings of alienation.

He said: “My dad always tells me is the reason that song always endures is because everybody has to go through that – that moment of being alone or alienated or whatever.

“I think that is somewhat true. I think for some kids it gets a lot worse than for others. I don’t want to be the guy who says ‘oh sure, everybody goes through that’. That’s not true. Some kids have it real bad and deserve special attention.

And while Wheatus haven’t managed to match the song’s success, Brendan considers himself lucky.

He said: “I’m quite proud of it. I quite enjoy playing it. The whole band does. It does a lot of work for us, that song.”

Wheatus play Guildford Boileroom on May 10 and Brooklyn Bowl at The O2, Greenwich, on June 5. They are supporting Busted at The O2 on May 27 and 28. Go to theboileroom.net, brooklynbowl.com/London or axs.com respectively for tickets.

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