Between local performances, a road tour in Florida and torching a piano during a photo session, Out of the Dawg House has found time to release a full-length album.
The 11-member male a cappella group on campus has had a busy semester, performing at the Super Bowl Village in early February and traveling alongside the Butler University Chorale on their Florida tour over spring break. Later this month, the group will travel to Michigan for a concert.
The album “Unsupervised” should be released later this month and builds upon material from the group’s last release, the six-track EP “Six to Midnight.”
It will be sold for $10 and will be available in the Butler University Bookstore and through iTunes.
Janine Frainier of the university bookstore said OOTDH has not been in contact about the new album but that typically about five copies of each OOTDH release are stocked at a time.
Sophomore arts administration major Tim Jans, who sings with OOTDH, said the album is two years in the making. He said the group was hoping to release the CD in December, but the recording process took longer than anticipated.
“Unsupervised” will be the fourth full-length CD released by the group, and the first since their 2009 Christmas album. That album was recorded in Butler’s recording studio space in the Fairbanks Building with producer Andy Riehle, senior vocal performance and recording industry studies major and OOTDH member.
Jans said the CD will focus on “old-ish” songs instead of contemporary music. He said these older songs were extremely popular on the Florida tour.
“All the old people down there were really liking the classics,” he said, laughing.
The album, sporting a picture of an upright piano engulfed in flames, will be made available starting at Out of the Dawg House’s spring concert on April 28 at 7 p.m. in the Reilly Room.
Jans said that preparing for a concert is different than preparing for a recording. A concert, he said, will feature the group’s entire repertoire of about 20 songs. Three or four of these songs, he said, are completely new to the group to keep the concerts from being “the same-old, same-old.”
Preparing for a concert, then, involves covering a lot of music quickly.
On the other hand, the group must concentrate on finessing one song and really going into detail with the music and harmonies rehearsing for a recording
Jans said that joining Out of the Dawg House was one the best decisions he made at Butler.
His favorite part of being in such an active group?
“The friendships I’ve made with many people of different backgrounds,” he said.
Friendships, said junior music major Myles Pinder, are forged inside and outside the rehearsal room.
“All the guys in the group are my friends,” he said. “Some are even my best friends. I spend time with most of them outside of rehearsals and performances, just hanging out.”
Unsupervised Track List
“Carry on My Wayward Son” (Kansas)
“Give a Little More” (Maroon 5)
“Effington” (Ben Folds)
“Crazy Love” (Van Morrison)
“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” (The Proclaimers)
“Party in the U.S.A.” (Miley Cyrus)
“The Longest Time” (Billy Joel) “Somebody that I Used to Know” (Gotye)
“Dreaming with a Broken Heart” (John Mayer)
“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie Valli)
“Lullaby” (Josh Groban) “Insomniac” (Billy Pilgrim)
