Teenage Dirtbag

Wheatus was formed by Newport, New York musician Brendan B. Brown in 1995 with his brother, Pete Brown. The group is best known for this song, which Brendan Brown explained is about, "a skinny guy with a mullet who probably didn't have a lot of friends."

Brendan B. Brown explained the story behind the song in a 2012 interview with Tone Deaf: "It came from the summer of 1984 on Long Island, when I was 10 years old. That summer in the woods behind my house, there was a Satanic, drug-induced ritual teen homicide that went down; and the kid who did it was called Ricky Kasso, and he was arrested wearing an AC/DC T-shirt," he begun. "That made all the papers, and the television, obviously; and here I was, 10 years old, walking around with a case full of AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Metallica – and all the parents and the teachers and the cops thought I was some kind of Satan worshipper. So that's the backdrop for that song." Brown added that the sing-a-long chorus, remains an act of defiance: "so when I sing: 'I'm just a teenage dirtbag', I'm effectively saying: 'Yeah, f--k you if you don't like it. Just because I like AC/DC doesn't mean I'm a devil worshipper, and you're an idiot. That's where it comes from."

The sentence, "He brings a gun to school" was removed from the radio version due to the Columbine High School massacre. It was replaced with the line, "He brings his mates to fights."