Kid Bookie and Wheatus have re-recorded the classic ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ for a modern world and a modern mind.
‘Teenage Dirtbag’ is about as quintessential and iconic as it gets. A generational classic that feels just as transcendent, it is a song that everybody can relate to in some way, shape or form.
And a new version is here featuring one of the UK’s most forward-thinking minds.
That’s Kid Bookie who has worked alongside Wheatus’ Brendan B. Brown to create the modern take on the song. The result is incredibly special, infinitely vital and just as outrageously catchy.
Bookie had this to say:
“To even have the opportunity to not only work with Wheatus but to really understand each other and the thesis behind even wanting to create an interpolated version of Dirtbag is a ridiculous fucking anomaly when I think about the trajectory of not only where I have come from, but who I am. I’m a student of every artist I love that has come before me, so to work with one of the professors is always fucking awesome”.
Brendan had this to say about it from his side:
“I’ve always felt that my intentions for the song and its inception are not as important as the way people see themselves in it currently. Teenage Dirtbag lives on because people can make it real for their own lives, now. Bookie’s version does just that. He’s reinventing the song with his own life, his purpose, his fears, his dreams. That’s how he’s created something new, because he found a space for himself in the narrative and that’s the only renewable resource the song represents: other people, new experiences, new lives.”
“When we 1st came out in 2000 we were misfits all over again because “pop punk” was the only category we were put in…but it was wrong. Dirtbag is a laconic song. We’re from NYC. We worked on that hip hop swing for years before we released it…influenced more by LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Soul Coughing, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Paul Simon, AC️/DC, Metallica, Ani DiFranco, Talking Heads…We were never a SoCal punk band. So all these years later to be honored by an artist like Bookie, it’s vindicating on our identity… ironically, because he’s stamped it with his own. Love it.”
Here it is:
Bookie had just released his new EP ‘Mass Hysteria’ via Marshall Records.
Here’s ‘Game’ featuring Corey Taylor:
