brendan b brown Talks Wheatus 25th Anniversary UK/Ireland Tour And More

 Frontman of Wheatus brendan b brown sat down with JLTT to talk about the 25th anniversary of the band’s classic debut album and their UK/Irish tour to celebrate it: 

Firstly, congratulations on the 25th anniversary of your self-titled debut album. What are your memories of the songwriting and recording sessions for the album?

Thank you!…Most of my memories are of the train. We were working our day jobs still and recording at night in my mother’s house so I’d jump on the train at Penn Station and head out to her house to work all night, catch a few hours of sleep, take the train back into Times Square for work and repeat. It was pretty intense but we delivered it on time. I also remember my mother and grandmother making us chicken cutlets! The songwriting had taken place over the previous four years and was a largely solitary process. Lots of pensive, existential memories from that period, more calm than the recording sessions, to be sure.

You will be celebrating the anniversary with an 18-date UK & Irish headline tour in November/December 2025. Are there any venues/cities which hold any personal significance for you and the band?

We very much love Dublin, Leeds, Southampton, Glasgow and Cardiff…These affections are tied mostly to the venues and the comradery we’ve experienced over the years playing smaller places, like Brudenell Social Club etc. We’re trying bigger venues for the first time in a long time and working to keep the small club family feelings, albeit, with a bit more of the arena rock trappings. This show has to fit both, as both are on the menu for this run!

The tour will conclude with you as special guests to Bowling For Soup at OVO Wembley Arena in London on 13th December 2025. Have you toured with Bowling For Soup before?

Yes we have – BFS are the greatest band to support for a few reasons; firstly, they could entertain thousands of people with no instruments if they needed to. Jaret just has that star entertainment superpower, which is so rare…and so watching them becomes a masterclass in stagecraft. Secondly, through all these years they never got so big that they forgot who they are. They really know how to treat the people they work with. They’re a small humble band who happen to play arena shows where your face melts off and you have so much fun you forget your f****** name.

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

This will be our second time in the holiest of holies, Wembley. It will never be something you take for granted because of the immensity of the opportunity…I mean, it is the dream, literally, figuratively, ACTUALLY. So you just wind up working to absolutely nail it, in every way, I’d like to walk off having held nothing back.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

My Brian Neville Custom W Dirtbag guitar is very precious to me. It’s the only guitar I’ve ever played that feels more like a lightsabre, than an instrument. All of my guitar tones, the bass tones & keyboards are NAM captures from the actual analog chains I used to get the recordings, so we’re as close as we can get on the tonal front. My fave mic is the one Dolly Parton uses live, an Earthworks SR314… If Dolly does it, you do it too.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Northport Long Island… much better than it was!

How do you look after your voice?

No alcohol, never smoke, no shouting, get sleep, lotsa water, long focused warm-ups and if you get sick, take time to get well.

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It’s a primal story about finding your own way, without the nonsense dogma or convention to slow you down and confuse you.

Do you have an re-release or reissue plans to coincide with the anniversary and tour?

Our 2020 twenty song re-record of our first album is now available on vinyl. It was cut straight off the Native DSD Pyramix system and we’re super proud of it. We’re also gonna show up ready to play the whole thing…albeit in an all request set.

Are Wheatus working on any new music at the moment?

Yes, album 7 has been written for many years but we’ve not had the opportunity to come off tour long enough to record it! 2026 will be the year we complete it.

What makes brendan b. brown happy and what makes you unhappy?

I love when I see people doing their own thing, on their own terms, especially if it’s in arena they’re not typically expected to participate in. I’m inspired by those people. Privilege & the received way of doing things tend to be rather uninspiring for me.

Feature Image Photo Credit:  Gabrielle White

Full list of Wheatus 25 UK & Irish tour dates is as follows:

22 November Dublin Academy

23 November Belfast Limelight

25 November Newcastle Boiler Shop

26 November Glasgow SWG3

28 November Manchester O2 Ritz

29 November Birmingham O2 Institute

30 November Leicester O2 Academy 2

1 December Sheffield Leadmill

2 December Leeds Brudenell Social Club

3 December Leeds Brudenell Social Club

5 December Oxford O2 Academy

6 December Brighton Chalk

7 December Southampton 1865

9 December Norwich Epic Studios

10 December Nottingham Rescue Rooms

11 December Bristol Electric

12 December Cardiff Tramshed

13 December London OVO Arena Wembley (w/Bowling For Soup)

Tickets on-sale now via the band’s official website here: https://www.wheatus.com/shows