Warren Britt - Going From Fan to Fan Favorite

Brooklyn emcee Warren Britt has two kinds of Warped Tour stories. There are the kind he’s accumulated as a fan who’s attended five Warped Tours, and the kind he’s accumulated as a performer. During this year’s Warped Tour that line blurred when Britt saw a very special face in the crowd during his performance in Camden, NJ.

“I’m a huge Man Overboard fan,” Britt explains, “and the very first day (I was on the tour) I was wearing my Defend Pop Punk shirt, and I’m getting into my first song and I see Zac (Eisenstein) from Man Overboard in the crowd. I’m like OH SHIT, that’s pretty cool. He had his iPhone, he was taking pictures. I gave him a pound during the performance and it was all love. That was definitely like the apex (for me).”

This, in a nutshell, is why Warren Britt does so well as a Warped Tour performer - he’s also a fan. “I connected with the crowd, mainly because I’m just like them.”

While many fans hope to, and oftentimes do, reach out and touch their favorite performers, Britt took it one step further back in 2008 when he and a group of friends snuck into Warped Tour’s artist-only barbecue. Britt remembers, “we were just like ‘let’s try to get into the barbecue.’ I walk up ahead, and I turn around and I see Max Bemis (of Say Anything) trying to get into the barbecue and I’m actually in. The security is giving him a hard time.” Everyone eventually made it in, and while Britt was an interloper at that barbecue, he certainly belongs there now.

Being surrounded by those artists on that night made sense to Britt as he’s always pictured himself as a Warped Tour artist. “I’ve always wanted to be at Warped Tour performing,” he explains, “even back then, I felt like I needed to be there.” This year, thanks to an invite from Felicia Cruz and the Bring It Back Tour (which has the Bring It Back stage at Warped Tour), he received that opportunity. Britt actually received an invite for last year’s tour, as well, but turned it down, saying “I felt like I wasn’t ready.” This year he was ready.

With ten minute sets at the Camden, NJ, and Uniondale, NY, dates, Britt was amped to give the fans something to remember. During his set in Uniondale, one of those moments happened with a fan in the front row.

Britt was performing a song titled “Me and My Friends,” which is about he and his friends sleeping outside Webster Hall in NYC in order to make sure they’d make it into a free Green Day concert. He decided to go from that song, to the Green Day classic “Basket Case.” For Britt, the reasoning behind this was simple. “I just wanted to have the experience of relating with the people and making sure they knew that I was there for a good time, and I came from where they were.” During the performance, something special happened. “I put the microphone in this girl’s face and she sang the chorus and we just had a moment.” Britt feels “that’s something they (Green Day) would do, and I’m pretty sure that’s something that everybody wants to do. They want to embrace the crowd, and they want to share that moment with the crowd. It’s very important to link. That person might never forget that moment.”

Currently working on four projects - Are You Mad, which is a collaboration with producer Chaz Van Queen that’s sponsored by The Mad Bloggers, an album with producer Willie Green, a project with DJ Jimmy Da Gent and AM Breakups titled We Are Not For Them, and a label compilation with Reservoir Music Group, which is the AM Breakups owned label Britt is on - Warren Britt may be on the stage, rather than in the crowd, a lot more in the near future. He won’t be giving up show hopping anytime soon, though. Long after his own set was over in Uniondale, Britt could be found in the large crowd enjoying Taking Back Sunday.


Interview originally ran on Arena.com.