The Dirtbag behind ‘Teenage Dirtbag’
Just as Brendan B Brown had picked up his first guitar, his town in Long Island was shaken by a subversive teenage murder. To witness the horror at a time when he was constructing his musical voice resulted in the most iconic party anthem of the 2000s.
In the summer of 1984, a 17-year-old from Brown’s block had lured his friend Gary Lauwers into a forest near Newport to stab him in the name of Satan. The murderer, Ricky Casso, was wearing an AC/DC T-shirt on the day of his arrest, and suddenly, his pictures in the newspaper spelt out associations of rock music with devil worship.
One particular article struck Brown’s memory, and that was Rolling Stone’s coverage of Casso’s face next to the word ‘dirtbag’. It was “the first time I’d heard the term dirt bag used”, Brown told Vice in 2021. The story, like a lot of contemporary coverage, explored the idea of music taking the blame for the actions of its fans: “Ricky was a dirt bag, he would have been called a dirt bag before the murder, that was what people who listened to AC/DC and Iron Maiden and all that stuff, that’s what they were.”
“That was my favourite band at the time,” instantly relating to the label, Brown explained that his youthful tape case was filled with anything AC/DC. The horrifying episode had changed “what it meant to be a dirtbag or a metal head. Suddenly, parents and teachers and cops, priests, everybody wanted to know what was in your tape case. I loved heavy music, and heavy music was supposed to have caused this murder.”
Brown’s frustrations at societal prejudice of hard rock fans developed into a riff that occupied his mind throughout his college years, eventually morphing into his own version of rock’s E chord-heavy classics. “When I got to the chorus of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’, I’m screaming at a priest, or I’m screaming at a teacher” – for as long as the town’s parents would blame their children for the music they chose, you’d find Brendan singing even louder.
American rock band Wheatus was built around the song, causing a raucous around New York and later attracting a deal at Columbia Records. People were paying attention to the lyrics, and although the enticing melody and excitable guitar riffs would make you want to crash your nearest house party, the high-school rage element was there, and the timing for it was very wrong.
The most problematic lyric was “her boyfriend’s a dick, he brings a gun to school” since the record was delivered the same day as the first anniversary of a school shooting. Kevin Patrick, their exec at Columbia, recalled that even “Walmart wouldn’t carry the record, meanwhile down the aisle they’re selling guns.” The controversy didn’t extend across the pond, where the song became a smash success, sending the band to tour Australia and the UK.
“If you can’t feel a song like ‘dirtbag’ you’re just a freaking idiot, you shouldn’t be in the room,” Patrick told Vice, despite dropping Wheatus from Columbia. Brendan’s adamance to change the tricky lyric alienated labels: ”They wanted me to sing something else, and to that I said go f*ck yourself.”
