The Untold Truth Of Wheatus

According to Wheatus's biography, Brendan B. Brown of Long Island, New York, enlisted his brother, Peter, and some friends to round out his band's lineup. By the end of the 1990s, Brown had written so many songs that Wheatus recorded some demos in the Browns' mother's house. After interest from three labels (according to The

According to Wheatus's biography, Brendan B. Brown of Long Island, New York, enlisted his brother, Peter, and some friends to round out his band's lineup. By the end of the 1990s, Brown had written so many songs that Wheatus recorded some demos in the Browns' mother's house. After interest from three labels (according to The Guardian), Wheatus signed with Sony subsidiary Columbia Records and received a $50,000 recording budget."There weren't a lot of real drums on those demos, so we finished the record properly at my mom's place," Brendan B. Brown told Alternative Press.

That self-produced album is the one that reached the public in 2000. However, according to Rolling Stone, Wheatus recorded the masters on ADAT, a format often used in the '90s but was on the path to obsolescence by 2000. After Wheatus's self-titled debut was released, Columbia asked Brown for the masters with an eye toward remixing the songs. "I told my A&R guy, 'This is my last set of masters — are you guys putting them on backup?'" Brown says. "We never found out where they went." And so, when it came time to remaster the album for a 20th-anniversary re-release in 2020, Wheatus had no working copy of the record from which to work, leaving them little choice but to churn out a note-for-note, perfect re-creation of the 20-year-old LP. That one was also recorded at home, this time at Brown's home studio.

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