“Outsider Songs” is a collection of cover songs run through the Jack O’ The Clock cheese grater and lovingly re-assembled over the course of 2014 and early 2015.

These are all songs I or another member of the band have known and loved for years, decades in many cases, and have never tired of hearing. We put them together intuitively, favoring memory and emotional impressions over fidelity to the original, which resulted in a range of interpretations, from fairly orthodox to practically re-composed.

The project was already well underway before I realized that the songs’ subjects are all, in one way or another, outsiders attempting to make sense of and function in a world that doesn’t exactly meet their needs. I love this, and it’s probably no coincidence that a lot of the characters in my own songs could be called outsiders as well.

The songs themselves, though by prominent artists, are mostly outsiders too, arguably under-sung gems hiding away in the corner of an album somewhere. And while we’re at it, this has never been a particularly “inside” band either, for better or worse: we feel more like DIY mendicants banging away on the gate of a walled city. We can’t help but feel most at home with the weirdos.

DW

Damon Waitkus – voice, guitars, hammer dulcimer, piano, etc.
Emily Packard – violins
Kate McLoughlin – bassoon, voice, tin whistle
Jason Hoopes – basses, voice
Jordan Glenn – drums, percussion, vibraphone, marimba

Produced and recorded by Damon Waitkus, 2014-2015, in Oakland and Alameda, California

Mastered by Damon Waitkus, with help from Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Mastering Lab

Special Thanks to Myles Boisen