AN UNCONVENTIONAL OUTLOOK ON WRITING, PLAYING, AND LISTENING

OUTERLOOP - BANDCAMP / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / SPOTIFY

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While a venue can set the tone for one’s overall experience, the band playing easily has the power to throw the atmospheres vibe into whatever direction they chose for the night to go. Sometimes that means scaring your crowd away with guttural screams when strangers came to hear lo-fi chip tunes, and other times means you make everyone stop their conversation, put down their drinks, and walk ever so closer to the stage to hear the sirens beckoning call to head banging arms.

This is what D.C.-based band Outerloop achieves every time they turn on, tune up, and rock out. Their sound is one that is almost strictly unconventional, to be comparable closest to the distant desert tones and licks of Queens of The Stone Age, but with the math-y and dissonate oddness of Primus, all under the veil of truly honest and concise song writing. Adding on with the soothing and respectfully sultry vocals of their bi-lingual lead singer Taisha Estrada, Outerloop has a unique presence amongst the ocean of infinite rock bands. And while Ms. Estrada’s vocals are a topic on their own, one does not pass up the opportunity to sit down and explore the mind and play style of guitarist Don Potter.

While rocking a sweet off-white SG and dressed liked the Phantom of the Opry, Mr. Potter’s play style is definitely a key driving factor to Outerloop’s off-kilter style. Aggressive blues driver distortion interjecting with swift licks and clever riffs, all while sprinkling just out of range dissonate scales and pinch harmonics, Mr. Potter has clearly found a way of putting the square block into the circle space through his writing and subsequent performance. So of course, the first and foremost question lies in how he discovered this method of writing? How does he present such an avant-garde and abstract sound in a way that is easily discernible and digestible for the average listener? According to him, it comes from his early childhood education into music.

‘My first experience in playing music, I took a piano lesson under a method called the Suzuki-Method; The purpose of it was to teach young kids, very young kids, how to play instruments, and to focus on rather reading the notes on the page, focus on using your ears, playing by ear, listening, and feeling things out, and then learning the songs with the teacher, but also performing the songs for the other students.’ 

He continues to explain how moving took away this unique approach to learning music and put him into a more contemporary approach of ‘just learning the notes on the page.’

‘I think not only foundation of the Suzuki, but that juxtaposition of that where it just sucks all the fun out it. Once you start going down that road with just playing what’s on the page, playing it the right way… So, I think that’s where it started.’

Hearing such early theory as to how musicians learn to look at music from the very beginning really puts it into a perspective of how songs evolve during the initial creative process. Mr. Potter’s experience seems to have been a truly unique one compared to how many western musicians have been introduced to the concept, and it shines through in the final product of his playing. But how exactly did he come to discovering his sound? As with a vast majority of people, he knows well of the sound of radio top 40s; Having grown up on The Rolling Stones and Elvis Costello, it appears that his awakening happened in his formative college years. 

‘In college I started working at Boarders Books, and there was this old dude named Andy and he was a musician, and we would hang out and he would make mixed CDs for me; With stuff like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, and krautrock; Stuff like Can and things like that. So, I’ve always appreciated the sort of amateur angle these punk musicians come into it with, but at the same time I’ve always had this foundation in studying music. So, bringing those things together with The Beatles aspect, but also part of the naive brilliance that post-punk bands like Gang of Four…I like bringing those things together. So, the idea of using theory and writing songs ‘the right way’, I want to stay away from that, and bring in the more A-melodic or more A-tonal things into it, but also keep that juxtaposition in-between being interesting and something people have never heard before. But not be so obtuse that people can’t approach it.’

Mr. Potter continues to express his guitar playing as an abstract like structure itself, stating, ‘Well this is the chord I was taught, what happens if I move just this pinky up one? Ok, now what about the other way?’ He explains his writing process as akin to ‘feeling around in the dark until you find the light switch.’

It is apparent that this ideology to music puts Mr. Potter at an intersection not many find themselves at. Caught between general knowledge and exposure to new concepts and sounds, being brave and willing enough to see where one’s comfort zone lies, and then be willing to cross it in search of something previously un-imagined, Mr. Potter’s guitar playing reflects greatly on Outerloop’s overall sound and delivery live and recorded.

For song reference to this unique look on music, listen to “Unclean”, “Just Behave”, “El Control”, and “Closest Shelter”. The best way to experience these songs (if you can’t hear them live) is to put on some cook shades, get on your motorcycle, and take a nice long ride with the music blasting and the wind blowing through your hair. If you don’t have a motorcycle, a car with the windows rolled down will work too.

Author: Gregory W. Johnson, Jr.