Formation and successes (1996–1998) Outpost Recordings was launched on January 26, 1996, by producer
Scott Litt, former
Virgin Records A&R head Mark Williams and artist manager Andy Gershon. According to Gershon, "The reason we chose the name Outpost is our plan is to be on the frontier of what's happening in the future." Prior to its official launch, Outpost signed a five-year, multi-million dollar joint-venture deal with
Geffen Records, who agreed to handle the label's marketing, promotion and distribution worldwide. Shortly after its launch, Outpost signed
Veruca Salt over from Geffen. On February 23, 1996, Outpost signed its first new act, Canadian singer/songwriter
Hayden. His debut album
Everything I Long For, originally released in 1995, was reissued through Outpost/Geffen in May 1996 as the label's first release. The album sold moderately well in
Japan and
Canada (the latter where it was instead distributed by Hayden's own label,
Hardwood Records) but found little success in the United States, where it had only sold 23,000 copies by April 1998. Veruca Salt's second album
Eight Arms to Hold You, released on February 11, 1997, served as the label's first original release. In January 1997, Outpost signed a deal with the independent electronic breakbeat label City of Angels to distribute its releases outside of North America, where the genre was more popular. 1997 saw Outpost experience its greatest commercial successes with
Days of the New's
self-titled debut album and The Crystal Method's
Vegas,'''' which were certified
Platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1998 and 2007, respectively. The lead single from Days of the New's album, "
Touch, Peel and Stand", stayed at number 1 on
Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart for sixteen weeks and was named the "Greatest of All Time Mainstream Rock Song" by
Billboard in 2021.
Distributor change and closure (1999–2000) Outpost never became a financially profitable operation. The label asked Zach Horowitz, UMG's
COO, to be paired with
MCA Records, but relations between the two labels quickly turned sour when Outpost discovered that UMG were planning to do a deal with MCA that would reduce the label's A&R budget and keep Days of the New at
Interscope Records, which Williams found "unacceptable".
Nina Gordon's
Tonight and the Rest of My Life, which had been due for release through Outpost/Interscope, was instead issued through
Warner Bros. Records in June 2000.
Whiskeytown's
Pneumonia, which was in the process of being mixed and mastered when Outpost folded, was released through
Lost Highway in May 2001. == Former artists ==