INTERVIEW: The Outfit are ready to shake up the rock scene

New rock ‘n’ roll band The Outfit release their self-titled debut album Friday, Feb. 2, and the buzz is starting to build for the quartet and their rocking sound, which is reminiscent of the 1980s and 1990s. First single “Soldier Boy” has already hit the radio waves, and the band is seeing their stock rise on the Billboard rock chart.

The Outfit band members include brothers Mark and Matt Nawara, Mike Gorman and Andy Mitchell.

“The way it started out was me and my brother, Matt, had been playing together for many years throughout the Chicago club scene, and we just decided we wanted to put something together that was a little different, a straightforward rock band,” Mark said in a recent phone interview. “So we were listening to a lot of radio, today’s radio, and it just seemed like everything was pretty much following a standard grid and was kind of cookie cutter. So we wanted to put something together that was kind of a aggressive, in your face with a rocking sound, so we started putting together some songs, writing together and figured we’d go in the studio and cut a track and just see what the music sounded like.”

That initial studio session turned out to be a positive experience for the brothers. They then employed the help of Gorman, a fellow Chicago musician, to play bass guitar. The trio cut the instrumental on the first track, but they still needed a vocalist. That’s when Mark thought back to his days of living in Phoenix.

“So I had met this guy, Andy Mitchell, out in Phoenix, Arizona, when I lived out there about 10 years ago and remember his voice, and I thought his voice might be perfect for this project,” he said. “So gave him a call and sent it over to him. He put a vocal line down on it, sent it back, and we were like, wow, this is great. We decided to continue on and wrote the album then.”

Because Mitchell was in Arizona and the instrumentalists were in Chicago, the recording of the album, which comes from label Pavement Entertainment, took quite a long time. They would record their sessions in Chicago and then send them down to Arizona for the vocals. In the end, it was a year before The Outfit came into existence.

“We’re really excited,” Mark said. “We’ve been getting a really great reaction. The record was shipped. Our single, ‘Soldier Boy,’ was shipped out to rock radio. We’ve been working it for about 13 weeks now. We figured we’d give it a slow build to see what would happen, so we’ve been getting a really good response.”

New fans who are unsure of the band should not fret. This is not a one-off album from a grouping that will never tour or record again. The intention, Mark said, is that the four musicians will continue making music for listeners.

“We’re definitely a band,” he said. “We made that decision long ago, so, yeah, we’re definitely a band. We’re rolling along. … We’re definitely going for it, so to say. We’re pumped, and like I said, we’re working on some shows right now in radio markets. Markets that are starting to play us, we’re going to go in and start doing some shows in those markets.”

He added: “We want to come off with a really powerful punch, and we’re really excited to get it out live in front of the people. I think it’s great as a recording, but I think it’s even better [live]. It’s just real powerful and in your face, back to the roots rock ‘n’ roll, really cool stuff.”

The Outfit will play their first official live date April 14 at Rochaus in Dundee, Illinois. The band may also add some adrenaline to a Chicago music scene that Mark feels is overly dominated by cover bands. The city that has been so associated with music, in Mark’s mind, has taken a dip in recent years.

“It’s kind of dead right now sadly,” he said. “Right now it’s basically a lot of cover bands are kind of taking over, and it’s just a cover scene. Back in the day there was a lot of great talent, as you probably know, that has come out of Chicago — Smashing Pumpkins, bands like Material Issue. Cheap Trick was from Rockford. Urge Overkill. Now it just seems like a flat time, so I think there needs to be a little bit of a resurgence hopefully of a music scene. There used to be a real vibrant original scene, but I can’t say there is now, not today.”

But now The Outfit have arrived.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

The Outfit’s self-titled debut album is now available from Pavement Entertainment. Click here for more information.