Surrounded by a unique array of electric and percussion instruments, gravelly voiced

singer/songwriter Tom Waits has been holed up in a Northern California studio five days

a week, 10 hours a day, for the past month and a half, recording his debut album for the

Southern California punk label Epitaph Records, according to a studio staffer.

And according to the studio employee, who did not want to be named, the music he is

making in this garage-like setting picks up where his last record, The Black Rider,

left off.

In a studio nearly overflowing with Waits' collection of keyboards, mellotrons, acoustic

and electric guitars and his collection of homemade percussion instruments, Waits is

plugging away at his latest musical ideas. "It's all this quirky, oddball stuff that can't be

described," the staffer said of the "organic" percussion instruments. "It's like stuff he made

at home that looks like art pieces with different kinds of metal stuck together with nails

sticking out of them."

The 60-square-foot room that Waits, 48, has grown most fond of, dubbed the "Waiting

Room" in his honor, was described as having a concrete floor, wooden walls and high

ceilings, owing to its previous life as a chicken hatchery.

"This has been Tom's favorite studio since [1992's Grammy-winning] Bone

Machine," the source said of the studio that has hosted everyone from the Doobie

Brothers to Arlo Guthrie and indie producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair).

Waits, who recently ended a 20-year association with Island Records after the release of

the 23-track retrospective Beautiful Maladies, has signed onto the Epitaph roster,

which includes such punk stalwarts as Rancid and Pennywise. Confirming a deal that's

been rumored for months, Epitaph announced Wednesday that the

whiskey-and-cigarette-voiced crooner had signed a one-album deal with the label.

"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 about the signing. "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."

The studio employee said Waits recently told him that one of the reasons he loves the

"Waiting Room" is because "it doesn't feel like he's in a studio when he's there, it feels

like he's in his garage. He said when he's in a real studio, he feels like he's walking in a

kitchen at night and doesn't want to wake anybody up."

The Epitaph album will be Waits' first studio-effort since 1994's The Black Rider.

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). Beginning Friday, San Francisco avant-funk-rockers

Primus also were scheduled to join Waits on the new album, returning the favor for

Waits' appearance on their 1991 album, Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Waits'

album 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 prepared

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 that Epitaph is expanding

beyond its original, hardcore repertoire.

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

Koehler said.