Findlay Napier's Outsider Project

Aim

"Outsider" is a multi-media extravaganza of new album from Findlay Napier exploring outsiders in love and outsiders in life.

Who am I?

I am a singer songwriter based on the Isle of Arran. I tour and record as a solo artist. You might have seen me supporting Eddi Reader. I'm one of the singers and guitar slingers in The Magpie Arc with Martin Simpson, Nancy Kerr Tom A Wright and Alex Hunter and occasionally I don a long white coat and become a Story Song Scientist with Megan Henwood. 

I run online songwriting workshops called Bird on a Wire with Boo Hewerdine and sometimes I do them face to face with Glasgow Songwriting Festival, Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre, Vox Liminis, Feis Rois and many more.

What is "Outsider" all about?

A few months ago I had an overwhelming number of unrecorded songs and no idea how to shape them into an album. Jen Anderson (of The Bothy Society) recommended I take each song, listen to the demo, read the lyric and group them into similar themes. Using this method I found 20 songs with one strong theme "Outsider" and that theme could be divided into two clear camps: "Outsider in Love" and "Outsider in Life". I've got a great cast of characters for you for this project including an envious actor past his prime, a cigar smoking dictator, a burnt out commis chef, a vengeful single mum, a hapless ink-fingered high school cartoonist, a bench warming footballer and someone who's always in second place. From the first time you got picked last at gym to the last time the CIA tried to assassinate you with an exploding cigar, everyone can relate to the outsider, the over looked and the under dog.

Why am I crowdfunding?

I am running this crowdfunding campaign with help from my record company The Bothy Society.

The main reason we are crowdfunding is due to the unique way we will release this album. We're focusing on releasing "Outsider" as a 150 page coffee table book packed with pictures, stories, lyrics and everything you need to know about the project. Scan pictures in the book with your phone or tablet using an app developed by The Bothy Society and with augmented reality you will have access to content that we will continually update even after the album's release.

The album itself will be released in three parts "Outsider in Love"digital EP, "Outsider in Life" digital EP and finally as "Outsider" a 12 track CD and digital download. 

My "VIP: Very Interesting Persons" and "Glasgow"albums were both crowdfunded. I think it's a great way to raise money for a recording project as you can chose to treat the crowd funder simply as a way to pre-order the album or you can become part of the whole creative process through updates, behind the scenes footage and exclusive content.

How I’ll spend the money raised

I will use the money I raise to fund the pre-production, recording, mixing and mastering of the album. Recording is an expensive and time consuming endeavour.  A reasonable rule of thumb is to record three songs a day at £350/day studio hire not including session musicians. Mixing costs the same. Mastering ranges from £50-£100/track. There'll be twelve tracks on this album plus a minimum of four bonus songs for the coffee table book and EPs. I'll let you do the maths and that doesn't cover the cost of design work that goes into creating the coffee table book. I'd like to pay everyone I work with fairly. Who knows, if we make the crowdfunding goal, we might have enough in the budget for some really fancy biscuits!

Photos by Elly Lucas

This project successfully funded on 21st April 2023