Down 'n' Outz, coverers of Mott The Hoople and associated acts, will release their second studio album — The Further Adventures Of — on April 21 through Bludgeon Riffola, via Mailboat Records.
Following on from 2010 debut My ReGeneration (given away in Classic Rock at the time), The Further Adventures Of… delves deeper into the Mott back-catalogue — reigniting catchy but more overlooked numbers like Marionette, One Of The Boys and single Rock N’ Roll Queen.
“It’s definitely more obscure,” Down ‘n’ Outz founder, Mott lover and Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott tells us. “The game plan was to go where we couldn’t go with the first album. I just wanted these songs to get a fresh coat of paint and be heard.”
Discussing the track selection process this time around, Elliott says: “I thought, ‘what’s my desert island playlist of Mott stuff?’ I didn’t want to do Roll Away The Stone, All The Young Dudes… the obvious ones. I wanted to go deeper and make it a proper record.”
The Down ‘n’ Outz line-up was initially conceived — by Elliott, with members of The Quireboys — as a one-off live project to open for Mott The Hoople at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. They performed a “cherry-picked, post-Mott” set, including tracks from spin-off act British Lions and Ian Hunter’s solo records. A delighted reception ensued.
“We did the gig, went to the foyer bar and got nailed to the wall by tearful and enthusiastic Mott and British Lions fans,” Elliott remembers. “Somebody said, ‘you HAVE to go and record those songs!’ So we did.”
