Brendan Brown was a student at Northport High School. In the summer of 1984, a 17-year-old named Ricky Kasso lured a schoolmate into the woods and stabbed him to death, he claimed that he performed the murder in the name of Satan and was seen on national news arrested in an AC/DC shirt. Ricky Kasso was an embodiment of the “dirtbag” character in the song, “Teenage Dirtbag”, who listened to bands like AC/DC at the time. The decision by Brendan’s mother to send him to a Christian school had a profound effect on his upbringing.
Gary Lauwers stole 10 bags of drugs from Kasso after he passed out at a party. A documentary about the murders of Kasso and others was made in the year 2019. He was arrested a year before the murder for digging up a grave. He was admitted to a mental health hospital by his parents. After his arrest, Kasso hung himself in his jail cell, but he was never convicted of the murder. Many parents and police started digging into young people’s backpacks to make sure they didn’t have evil tapes in their possession.
Brendan wrote a song called “Teenage Dirtbag” about how he was taken away from his friends in public school and forced to attend a catholic school because of the satanic panic. Brendan gives an explanation.
“It came from the summer of 1984 on Long Island, when I was 10 years old. That summer, in the woods behind my house, there was a Satanic, drug-induced ritual teen homicide that went down; and the kid who did it was called Ricky Kasso, and he was arrested wearing an AC/DC T-shirt. That made all the papers, and the television, obviously; and here I was, 10 years old, walking around with a case full of AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Metallica – and all the parents and the teachers and the cops thought I was some kind of Satan worshipper.
So that’s the backdrop for that song… So when I sing: ‘I’m just a teenage dirtbag’, I’m effectively saying: ‘Yeah, fuck you if you don’t like it. Just because I like AC/DC doesn’t mean I’m a devil worshipper, and you’re an idiot.’ That’s where it comes from.”
He talks about the song in a second interview.
“The events of Teenage Dirtbag never happened to me. So its 100% fantasy. Its 100% daydream. The song has a happy ending because it’s not something I experienced myself. There’s no Teenage Dirtbag without this murder in the summer of 1984.”
Brendan formed a band after recording the song with his friend. The band was signed by Columbia Records but they wanted the band to change the lyrics about her boyfriend. A man brings a gun to school. The album was going to be released on the one-year anniversary of the shooting at the school, which happened in the year 2000. The irony is that Wal-mart was selling guns just a few aisles down from the electronics department, and they still do. They only sell to those 21 years or older and have stopped selling assault rifles in Alaska in 2015.
There was a record scratch over the word “gun” for radio play. The label wasn’t happy with the decision to put a record scratch over the lyrics. The band was dropped after the release of the sophomore album, which was poorly marketed by the label. “Suck Fony” was re-released after they were free from their contract with Columbia.
The band’s home country didn’t see the same success as Australia and the UK. It could be argued that the label’s reluctance to push back against companies like Wal-mart who refused to carry albums with questionable lyrics was the reason for that.
“Teenage Dirtbag” shined the light on the hypocrisy of censoring an album that talks about bringing a gun to school while school shootings are commonplace in America. Cassette tapes are not the problem. The new school year starts next week after the summer break, and there have been 27 school shootings in the US so far in 2022.
