Musical musings | Dirtbags down under: Wheatus rocks Australia 25 years on

“It’s been one of the coolest tours that we’ve done in our whole 25 years,” Brown tells me, the day after their Gold Coast show.

“I don’t know what’s going on and why people are so excited about these acoustic shows, but last night was one of the loudest crowds we’ve ever had, I couldn’t hear a word of Teenage Dirtbag, not a word.”

Australia holds a special place in Brown’s heart, as it was the first country to give his group a number one hit.

“You guys were first to make it number one on your pop chart, ahead of every other territory, including the US where we started, which blew us away,” Brown says.

“We weren’t ready for it either.

“Back in 2000, we were kind of winding down, to be honest, as we had toured the US and the crowds were dwindling.

“The night before we got the call for Australia, we were playing a club in Lawrence, Kansas, in front of two people who thought we were Smash Mouth!

“It was one of those moments where it was like, ‘okay, well, this might’ve run its course’, and then we got the call, saying you have to go to Australia because they really like the song there.

“Coming to Australia was the first time we ever flew overseas.”

Brown is enjoying performing the shows on this tour as an acoustic duo, as each night has a different set list.

“We’ve always done an all-request set whenever we headline, unless we’re on a festival or something like that,” he says.

“The request set thing developed in around 2009 as we started having fans wanting songs that they hadn’t heard live before.

“And we found out that the way to get them what they needed was to let it be an all-requests set list, so we just decided to learn the entire Wheatus catalogue in rehearsals so that we could be ready to play anything requested.

“And they will also have a chance to hear the whole entire story of how I wrote this song or that song.”

For more details on Wheatus’ upcoming Victorian shows and tickets, go to bigapachee.com.au/batours

Music news

Courtney Love is putting the finishing touches to a new solo album, which features guests including REM’s Michael Stipe.

Her last album was 2004’s America’s Sweetheart.

1970s punk-rockers The Sex Pistols will be hitting our shores in April for a national tour.

The group, featuring original members Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock, with Frank Carter taking over original vocalist John Lydon’s spot, were last here nearly 30 years ago, and will perform their classic Never Mind The Bollocks album in its entirety.

English folk rockers Mumford & Sons have announced a new album, titled Rushmere, which is set for release on March 28.

Robbie Williams, who currently holds the record as the solo artist with the most UK number one albums, can now add another achievement to his list.

The soundtrack to his film, Better Man, has just brought him his 15th number one album in the UK, which now sees him tie with the same record held by The Beatles.

The 53rd Golden Guitar Awards were held over the weekend in Tamworth, and country music star Troy Cassar-Daley took home five Golden Guitars, adding to his already record-breaking tally, which now stands at 45.

Superstar Keith Urban was inducted into the Australasian Country Music Roll of Renown and took home a Golden Guitar Award for Top Selling Australian Country Album of the Year for High.

From the diaries … 2007 and 2010 — Mastodon

With American metal band Mastodon putting the finishing touches to a new studio album, which is scheduled for release this year, I’m going to revisit the time I met and interviewed the band on two occasions.

It was while the band were on their first-ever Australian tour in April of 2007 — supporting thrash metal titans Slayer — that I got to meet and interview one of the band’s two guitarists, Bill Kelliher, at the group’s dressing room backstage at Vodafone Arena in Melbourne.

Bill’s replies to my questions were passionate and engaging and at one point he revealed to me that, having now finally added Australia to the countries the group had toured and visited, there was one place they were yet to tour: South America.

[They would finally achieve that in 2010].

I next met up with the group in January of 2010.

This time it was at Warner Music HQ in Carlton.

It was a hive of activity, with interviews with other band members in progress in separate rooms.

This time Bill was just as passionate with his replies as the first time three years earlier, and we spent a good 30 minutes chatting about the group, music and related topics.

Interestingly, one of the label personnel who was present was a self-confessed dedicated fan, so had brought along a huge poster of the group and asked Bill to sign it.

“It’s going to take pride of place in my pool room” he told Bill excitedly, sounding like a true fanboy.

“Though I haven’t got one [pool room] yet though.”

“Well, now there is your excuse to finally get one,” I interjected.

This week’s global music charts

Australia: ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart: #1 — APT. by Rosé and Bruno Mars

US: Billboard Hot 100 Songs: #1 — Lose Control by Teddy Swims

UK: Official Singles Top 100: #1 — Messy by Lola Young

Fun fact

A 2016 study concluded that listening to the music of Mozart, particularly his popular Symphony No 40 in G Minor, and Johann Strauss (his Blue Danube waltz) lowered both heart rate and blood pressure.

The study was conducted by Hans-Joachim Trappe and Gabriele Voit of Ruhr University, Bochum, in Germany, and published in the journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.

Joe Matera is a local singer-songwriter, recording artist, guitarist and music journalist providing readers with all the latest music news.