Those of you who were alive during the ‘90s, can you think back to it and remember how it felt? To see a band live without the hindrance of a cell phone obscuring your view, to wait for the internet to load, to get news from a main news source instead of everywhere at once? Times were different back then, and try as we might, we won’t be able to replicate certain trends and styles of the ‘90s—not even with music.
For Jon Sheasby—a U.K.-based writer, musician, and film studies graduate from the University of Wolverhampton—there was nothing like the MTV2 generation. From the movies to the music to the television shows, and the network that blended the three into one cultural phenomenon, MTV2 was highly influential. Yet, the MTV2 generation is not as widely discussed and explored as the original MTV generation. So, there was space for Sheasby to write such a book that encapsulates this period in time, and the result is Teenage Dirtbags: A Brief History of the MTV2 Generation.
Sheasby hails from Birmingham, England—a culturally diverse city that gave us Black Sabbath, UB40, and Duran Duran—so naturally, he knows a great deal about the MTV2 music scene and the network that brought it to life. His memories and overall knowledge of the topic can be felt throughout the book’s pages, which can transport readers from his generation back to that time. I recently had the chance to catch up with Sheasby, where we took a closer look at Teenage Dirtbags: A Brief History of the MTV2 Generation.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and time.
Hi there. It’s nice to meet you finally. I loved your book. I grew up during that time when MTV2 was really taking off, and it was good to reconnect with that and relive all the memories.
Yeah, I’m glad. It was, right? I’ve wanted to write about our generation for ages, but I didn’t really have an “in” until I did. The book I first pitched wasn’t quite the book that it ended up being. I pitched a book that was pretty similar, but the publishers weren’t really interested in it, and they got me to look at it from a different angle. So, that was my “in,” and once I found that, I was straight ahead.
I was gonna ask you, where did the inspiration for the book come from and why did you feel it was necessary to put something like that out into the world?
Well, I’m a huge fan of music documentaries and music books, and they often focus on the pop music—especially the MTV generation. You know, the generation previous to both of us, really… The MTV I grew up with was Jackass and The Osbournes and Punk’d, and my MTV was MTV2 and all the artists—the Eminems, the blink-182s, the Green Days, all those—so, I wanted to write a book about that period because I think it’s a time that hasn’t been concentrated on quite as much as the original MTV generation. And I just thought the ‘MTV2 generation’ sounded like a good phrase, so I just ran with that.
How much research did you have to do for your book, and how did you go about getting your information?
A lot of it was…I don’t have to go to the library and research a load of books like you would have had to in the past. Of course, I love all these bands and all the albums, so I knew quite a lot of them inside and out. But some of the minutiae details that go into the specifics of, for instance, the Manson chapter or the Woodstock chapter—obviously there’s lots of documentaries to watch on them. I’d seen them before, but I didn’t really take them in as much as I did for the book. So, it was really those two things and getting them accurate. Some of the subjects I’m touching upon, like Woodstock and Manson, I don’t really want to mess any of those details up—especially for the victims—so, I had to be very specific and make sure the sources were the right people to quote.
The end of the book is more of the climax where you get into the 50 essential artists. I can imagine a list like that can take quite a long time to make, so how long did you work on it and how did you stay sane in the process?
I think I had done a longer list originally, it was about 100, but that often had spin-off bands like +44 or Angels & Airwaves, and I really wanted to narrow it down to a particular person rather than spin-offs. There were huge American bands that didn’t really break through in the U.K., like Godsmack, so I really liked to stay true to what was big in the U.K. rather than what was big in the U.S. I’m sure that if you had to put together your list, it would be completely different to mine. So, this was just my personal list of bands that I loved and the bands that broke through in the U.K. and the artists that I still listen to today.
In chapter nine, you interview British author and music journalist Joel McIver. There’s a part where he mentions co-writing autobiographies for artists, so it made me wonder if there are any artists you would love to collaborate and do a book with if you had the chance?
I am a huge blink-182 fan, but even more specifically, a massive Angels & Airwaves fan. Obviously, Tom DeLonge is the leader of Angels & Airwaves, and that would be the band I’d most want to join if I could. I’m not saying I’m half as talented to join a band like that, but that’s the band I’d like to play in. So, I suppose if I had to pick one person, it would be Tom DeLonge. He’s such an interesting character as well, like his thoughts on aliens and his history with blink-182… He’s left the band twice and rejoined twice, and he’s done things like Angels & Airwaves and Box Car Racer, so I reckon he’d be an interesting character to sit down with for a few weeks and really pick his brain.
You mentioned that the book kind of turned out differently than how you originally went into it, so were there any chapters that you scrapped that you really wanted to include in the book? Were there any that made it into the book that weren’t originally going to be in there?
The book, originally, was just going to be the list of the 50 essential artists. I probably would have done eight paragraphs for each artist rather than the two paragraphs for each that appear in the final book, but my publishers said I didn’t have enough of a narrative to warrant a full book at first. And they were right. So, the book really became about the year 1999, and that was my way in. All of those chapters, once I figured out the timeline and everything that had happened within that year, it was full-steam ahead from there. So, the nucleus of the book completely changed.
I don’t know if it would’ve included the same interviews because obviously, once I’d written about American Pie in the blink-182 chapter, I wanted to speak to an actor, and that’s when I approached Lauren [Mayhew] because I thought she was the perfect person—being an actor and a singer and someone who had also worked for WWE—and so, I was really fortunate to come across Lauren. With the people I got to interview, I was really fortunate because they were brilliant and they gave me loads of time and loads of stories. I mean, Brendan [B. Brown of Wheatus] gave me brilliant stories from Wheatus, a huge band for me growing up. So, to get him to agree to the book—especially when the book is named after their song—it was just a perfect way for me to end it there.
Yeah, it was. I liked all the people you ended up interviewing. They all had nice perspectives, and those interviews really tied everything together.
Thank you, I really didn’t want to interview the same kind of artist because they might have the same stories… So the director, P.R. Brown, was the first person I approached. I knew I wanted to interview a director, being as my background’s in film studies, and he gave me great stories as well. But, I’m really happy I got to interview a director, an actress, of course Brendan, and Joel being a writer—he’s someone I’ve looked up to for years and someone whose books I’ve read and admired, so getting to know him better was brilliant as well.
What do you want readers to take with them after reading the book?
I suppose you can always look back on your childhood with rose-tinted glasses, but when you look a bit deeper, there’s more sinister things going on and things that you don’t realize when you’re a child that you can only really appreciate happening in the adult world. By the same token, that doesn’t mean that you have to disconnect with that music. You know, you can still listen to bands and artists that maybe have done some unsavory things, and just own up to the fact that they’ve done these things. But, that doesn’t take away from the music or what they’ve created.
There’s obviously artists that have done horrible things—Lostprophets is a U.K. band from Wales, and their lead singer went to prison for child rape. He was actually murdered a couple of months ago after about ten years in prison. And of course, when a story like that comes out, there’s a complete separation. I got rid of all my Lostprophets CDs, I haven’t listened to a single song since… When that story came out, it was absolutely crazy because they were a huge band and you just don’t expect those things to happen, so obviously, there’s offenses and things you absolutely cannot separate.
Do you have a follow-up book planned for this, or do you have any other books that you’re thinking of writing?
I am working on a second book right now. I can’t talk about what it is just because I don’t want someone to steal the subject. I’m a really slow writer, so someone could easily write that book by the time I’ve finished with it. But, the one I’d love to do down the line is write a book on the American Pie franchise. I’ve got it a little bit in this book, with the first film breaking at the same time blink-182 did and the synergy between pop-punk and the teen sex comedies of the time really helping each other. Obviously, it’s 30 years old in 2029, so if I could get a book out by the 30th anniversary, I’d love to do that one. That would hopefully be the one after this next one.
When you say you’re a slow writer, well, how long did it take you to write Teenage Dirtbags?
It took about a year. You know, if you’re Stephen King, you can crank them out every two or three months, and they’re 600-page books, but I’m just not built that way. I’m one of those people who’ll write and re-write and re-write and hate everything that I write, but luckily, my editor didn’t really want me to change much. There were things taken out and a few things put in, but the majority of what I wrote is still in the book, so I’m really happy about that. But yeah, I’ll never be a fast writer. I won’t be cranking out books year after year.
I think that’s about everything that I had. Do you have any final thoughts or comments?
I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you giving me this platform to talk about my book, and I hope people read it. I hope it catches on. Yeah, that’s all I really want from it, really, to continue doing this, and I hope people like it.
Yeah, I think so. I think, especially our generation, they’ll be able to go back to that time and it kind of puts a lot of things into perspective because I think MTV nowadays, they don’t focus on music videos and there’s not much of a culture around it like there used to be.
I don’t know about in the U.S., but all the MTV stations closed here on December 31. So, there’s no more MTV music stations in Europe anymore. Most of the music channels that were big over here are gone as well because it’s all just YouTube and Spotify and what not now. I remember watching music channels, MTV2, for endless hours back when I was a teen because that’s where you would see music and your favorite bands. This was pre-YouTube, and it’s a shame it’s gone away really. I suppose people go to YouTube to watch, but there’s not that 24-hour rotation where you can put on a channel and just listen to music and be involved like you used to be.
I don’t know how kids today find new bands, I really don’t. When we were kids, you’d find that music channel and you’d see a new video by someone you’ve never heard before and you’ve got a new favorite band before you know it. I loved that aspect of growing up, and I was glad I got to enjoy that.
Teenage Dirtbags: A Brief History of the MTV2 Generation by Jon Sheasby is available now via Tucker DS Press. You can find a copy here, as well as on Amazon.
Keep up with Jon Sheasby here.
