After a year of relentless touring, Outformation is excited to stop in Starkville while on its winter 2009 tour.
“It’s great to be in the South again and see familiar faces. It’s home to us,” said lead guitarist Sam Holt.
With a good background story and even better rhythm, this southern-fried band produces some funky beats that make it hard for anyone to sit still, regardless of where you fall on the Mason-Dixon.
Holt and bass player Grady Upchurch, both from Chattanooga, Tenn., regularly played music together as friends in the late ’80s with no idea of where they would be 20 years or more down the road.
Playing in various bands in and around Chattanooga eventually led the two friends to New Orleans drummer Lee Schwartz.
At this time, the three musicians had no knowledge of what was to come from their musical collaboration.
Holt worked as the guitar technician for friend Michael Houser of Atlanta-based band Widespread Panic.
After Houser’s death in 2002, a devastated Holt picked up his guitar again and began to generate hard-hitting licks.
“After Mike passed away, I realized that if he believes in me, there must be something there,” Holt said. “So I went after it. Life is too short.”
That year, Holt, Upchurch and Schwartz’s occasional jam sessions developed into an everyday occurrence and the three eventually became Outformation.
It wasn’t until a 2004 tour stop in the Rockies that Polytoxic’s keyboardist CR Gruver, percussionist Jeff “Birddog” Lane and eventually second guitarist Clarke Keown joined the band rounding out the smoky, energized sounds Outformation previously lacked.
Holt said this was the birth of Outformation.
Keown didn’t stay with the band as a core member, but Holt said he remains as a family member to the band.
The next year, the band released its debut album, Tennessee Before Daylight, nominated for Best Album by Honest Tune Magazine.
Since then, the band has invited many different musicians to join them on stages across the country and released Traveler’s Rest in 2007.
Among these musicians is harmonica player Mickey Raphael from Willie Nelson’s Family Band.
Most of the songs on Traveler’s Rest are rekindled songs from the band’s past. The album’s title song was a collaboration between the band and friend Widespread Panic’s JoJo Hermann.
Outformation has sweat on the stages of Bonnaroo, Hi Sierra, Magnoliafest, Wakarusa and other musical festivals, pleasing anyone within earshot of their hypnotic Southern story-telling music.
“I’ve been a fan of Sam’s for a while because when he came out he didn’t play a certain way to make Widespread [Panic] fans happy but played his own style, which really impressed me,” said senior Agronomy major Parker Hite.
These guys might get slammed for being another hippie jam band, but with influences ranging from Marshall Tucker Band to Frank Zappa, Outformation offers audiences music for grooving that goes way beyond just “jam.”
Although Gruver parted ways from the band in early 2009, guitar genius Benji Shanks of Atlanta’s Captain Soularcat joined the band for its winter 2009 tour through the South. After two albums, a DVD and playing roughly 150 shows a year, Outformation’s members have a long and promising road ahead of them.
With interchanging members adding and subtracting to the band’s sound, this Southern band will, like fine Southern whiskey, only get more interestingly tasteful with age.