Wheat (band)

Wheat
Wheat (left-right: Scott Levesque, Luke Hebert, Brendan Harney), January 26, 2014 (photo credit: Paul Chiera)
Background information
Origin	Taunton, Massachusetts
Genres	indie rock, indie pop, lo-fi
Years active	1996-present
Labels	Sugar Free, Aware, Empyrean, The Rebel Group, Shorebird
Website	wheatmusic.com
Members	Brendan Harney Luke Hebert Scott Levesque
Past members	Ricky Brennan Jr. Kenny Madaras

Wheat is an American indie-rock band formed by Scott Levesque (vocals, guitar), Brendan Harney (drums, vocals), Ricky Brennan Jr. (guitar, vocals), and Kenny Madaras (bass) in Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1996.

Wheat's debut album, Medeiros, released in 1997 on Sugar Free Records, was recorded by Dave Auchenbach and mixed by Red Red Meat's Brian Deck. Madaras left the group—and was never permanently replaced on bass—prior to the release of their second Sugar Free album, 1999's Hope and Adams, which was produced by Dave Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios in Cassadaga, New York, and included the song "Don't I Hold You." Don't I Hold You also reached number 50 of the UK's legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel Festive Fifty chart of 1999.

The group left Sugar Free and signed with London-based Nude Records in 2000, but the label folded soon after. Wheat continued writing, however, and in 2002, after two years of record-business limbo, they signed with Aware Records, which had a distribution deal with Columbia. Two of the songs recorded for the unfinished Nude incarnation of Wheat's third album, Per Second, Per Second, Per Second ... Every Second, survived as so-called "naked" versions on the 2003 sampler EP Too Much Time, while others were rerecorded for the Aware-sanctioned edition of Per Second, also released in '03. The track "Some Days" was included in the film Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! and on its soundtrack album, "I Met a Girl" appeared in A Cinderella Story, and the 2003 version of "Don't I Hold You" was featured in Elizabethtown.

After promoting Per Second in '03 and '04 by touring with Liz Phair, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Blake Babies and performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Last Call with Carson Daly, only to see the album sell an underwhelming 30,000 copies, Wheat decided to take a break. Brennan departed near the end of 2004 to form Duresse, which self-released the seven-song EP Elate in early '06.