Dig It! Magazine

The Outsiders have achieved many successes and a cult following during their chart topping days. They were once bigger than The Rolling Stones. Yes. Fans were waiting for them outside to cut a piece of their hair and they had to have security everywhere they went and the band only lasted a good 18 months. Who are The Outsiders and why don’t people talk about them?

The Outsiders were a Dutch band formed in 1966 with Wally Tax on vocals, Ronnie Splinter on rythm guitar, Appie Rammers on bass and Leendert ‘Buzz’ Busch on drums with Tom Krabbendam who joined the lineup on rythm guitar.

The Outsiders kicked off with a strong start, their first EP released in 1966 featuring Keep On Trying and That’s Your Problem. There was once an incident where the police were involved at one of their concerts.

The Dutch music scene was thriving in the sixties with bands such as Shocking Blue and Q’65. Heavily inspired by Buddy Holly, their sound just stuck out to the audience with this garage punk sound and stayed fresh and exciting with witty lyrics, great riffs and an insane amount of harmonica solos, but somehow even if you listen to them today, they bring a unique energy that not many bands can replicate.

Being together for only 18 months, The Outsiders produced hits such as I Felt Like I Wanted To Cry, I Love Her Still, I Always Will, Monkey On Your Back and Daddy Died On Saturday and to tell you the truth, I would’ve lost my mind back then.

One of the most revolutionary albums of all time in my opinion, C.Q with a unique cover art made by Anton van der Gulik released in September 1968 which is the third and final album from The Outsiders. This being their last album after Wally Tax decided to go for a different musical direction and he formed Tax Free in 1969 which showed a more jazzy, slower type of musical side of Wally.

Tax Free went on to record an album in New York where John Cale from The Velvet Underground helped with the album production. Tax Free broke up in 1971.

The Outsiders’ last performance together held place in Amsterdam in 1997 during a reunion gig featuring all the top hits like my personal favorite Sun’s Going Down and Touch. There are some recordings available online where you can clearly see they had fun playing and being able to see Wally, the joy of him being up on stage performing is absolutely great to see and it’s worth a watch, or several.

Wally Tax, The Entertainer and icon of Nederpop, was born in 1948 on Valentines Day! He mentions in an interview that he grew up in a very musical house, both of his parents constantly listening to music. He collected many vinyls including records by Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

I like to consider Wally as a big influence on music, even though people may not recognize him due to the fact he disappeared for a while because of personal problems and financial struggles.

Wally released his first solo album Love In in 1967 and the album has an unusual twist: birds chirping starting and ending the songs which ties the whole album together and gives a very pleasant feeling to the listener. It also shows his personality in a different light, letting us in on his personal life, experiences and absolutely SPOILING us with beautiful love songs!

In 1989 Springtime In Amsterdam was released filled with melancholy and the beauty of it, it is a beautiful and honest record, always gets me emotional. Following Springtime In Amsterdam, his last record, The Entertainer released in 2002. Wally’s music career is definitely an all time classic and just gets better as time passes.

I chose to write about Wally and The Outsiders firstly on this upcoming series because they are truly under appreciated. I had a chance to talk to some diehard Wally fans and their dedication is so strong, after Wally’s death in 2005, fans held several memorial events and used the money to give him a proper resting place with a very touching artwork on top of the grave.

Want to share your experience? You had a chance to meet any of the people mentioned in the article? TELL ME MORE! email me at: submit.dig.it.magazine@gmail.com if you’d like to be featured in the upcoming article(s)! p.s: I sadly do NOT own any of the pictures seen in the article!