Confirming a deal that's been rumored for months, Epitaph Records announced

Wednesday that whiskey-and-cigarette-voiced crooner Tom Waits had signed a

one-album deal with the label.

Waits, who recently ended a 20-year association with Island Records, will join the

Epitaph roster, which includes such punk stalwarts as Rancid and Pennywise.

"Everybody loves an underdog, and if they don't, they're either no good or they've never

been one," Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz said in a prepared statement. "Part of Tom's

greatness lies in this fact. He's the patron saint of the heroic American loser, and I love

that about him."

Singer/songwriter Waits, 48, is currently at Prairie Sun Studio in Northern California,

recording an album for Epitaph. It will be his first studio-effort in five years. His band for

the still-untitled project will include several of the musicians who joined Waits on such

landmark '80s albums as Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones: Mark Ribot

(guitar), Larry Taylor (bass/guitar), Greg Cohen (bass) and Steven Hodges (drums). San

Francisco avant-funk-rockers Primus also are joining Waits on the new album, which is

due to be released in early 1999.

Although Waits' current deal calls for just one album, Epitaph publicist Kathy Koehler

said the possibility of more recordings is not out of the question. "It's possible," Koehler

said, "and we'll cross that bridge after the first record. Hopefully, it'll be a happy

marriage."

Koehler said the idea for the deal was a mutual one, reached by Waits and Gurewitz

after a casual meeting two years ago. The pair cemented the deal with a meal at Zoya's

Diner, a restaurant located at Rinehardt's Truck Stop in Petaluma, Calif.

"We shook on the deal over coffee at a truck stop," Waits said in the label's statement.

"[Epitaph is] a label run by and for artists and musicians where it feels much more like a

partnership than a plantation. I feel like I am part of a unique enterprise that runs like a

muscle car."

Waits is a critically acclaimed performer whose signature sound -- a mix of cocktail jazz,

urban blues, confessional folk, Tin Pan Alley pop and avant-garde cabaret -- is marked

by his unmistakable voice. Over time, his vocal style has transformed from the honeyed

rasp heard on early albums such as 1973's Closing Time to the gut-busting growl

that informs the experimental clamor of the artist's recent work, such as 1992's

Grammy-winning Bone Machine.

On the surface, it may seem odd for Epitaph to sign a deal with Waits, a

30-year music-business veteran who has pushed the boundaries of pop music with

harrowing, turbulent compositions such as "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and

HREF="http://www.addict.com/music/Waits,_Tom/16_Shells_From_A_Thirty-

Ought_Six.ram">"16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six" (RealAudio excerpt). But

Koehler said the misconception of Epitaph as a strictly "SoCal punk label" is

undeserved.

A distribution agreement last year with the Oxford, Miss.-based Fat Possum label --

which specializes in releasing the work of obscure country-blues artists, including R.L.

Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Robert Cage -- has shown Epitaph expanding beyond

its original, hard-core repertoire.

"What all these artists have in common is the same spirit, which transcends genre,"

Koehler said.