Zee Avi is amid the abounding artists, including Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Bandage and the Black Eyed Peas, who'll comedy San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival this weekend, Aug. 28-30. Still, no amount how air-conditioned that is, the Malaysian singer-songwriter's atom on Friday's agenda is yet addition stop on a massive summertime bout to advance her self-titled admission album, which was appear on Brushfire Records in May. "Yes, it's a little tour," she jokes with Spinner. "I get to see added of the United States. I'm no best a alley puppy, I'm a alley dog."

For Avi's aboriginal American bout -- her aboriginal big bout anywhere, absolutely -- she co-opted characterization acquaintance Matt Costa's bassist Harris Pitman and bagman Gabe Palmer, who are allowance construe the 23-year-old's airy, animated pop songs to the stage. "We're agitation it beat and absolute minimal. Very jailbait rock," Avi says with archetypal cogent irony. "Matt additionally recommended Gabe. I assurance a bagman recommended by addition musician. With my style, my bandmates accept to accept their own characters. I cannot ask for a more good traveling troupe."

Though the newcomer's appearance is yet to be defined, she says Billie Holiday and 1920s articulate applesauce are affecting but she mainly credits Tom Waits as ambience a agnate tone. "Anyone who understands what Tom Waits does will accept what I do, because I agglutinate applesauce with avant-garde situations and best of them are not blessed situations. I accept abounding all-embracing influences that I activity into what I do."

Those influences additionally includes archetypal bedrock acts, such as aboriginal bandage she anytime saw in concert, Deep Purple. "It was their alliance bout in 1998. My dad brought me," she says. "My parents grew in that generation. Yeah, it was absolutely candid to see my dad headbang."