Strangers Almanac is the second studio album by American alternative country band Whiskeytown, released on July 29, 1997, on Outpost and Geffen Records.

[12] And while praising everyone involved in making Strangers, principal songwriter Ryan Adams once remarked in an interview that he preferred these earlier songs to the final album.

The road to making Strangers was a rocky one – in late 1996, bassist Steve Grothman and drummer Skillet Gilmore left the band on the same day, suddenly placing the future of Whiskeytown in doubt.

But in the end, the remaining band members soldiered on and, in February 1997, Adams, Cary, and guitarist Phil Wandscher traveled to Woodland Studios in Nashville to record their major label debut.

The band had previously covered Escovedo's True Believers song "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over", which is featured on Disc 2 of the album's 2008 reissue.

I coulda put more extremely well-written, musically perfect songs on the record but decided not to because I was proud of the fact that there was finally some experimenting going on in the band.

"[23] One particular show at the Iota Club in Arlington, Virginia, found guitarist Phil Wandscher sitting above the stage for the entire performance, playing his guitar and occasionally throwing beer bottles down at singer Ryan Adams.

[26][27] On September 10, the band recorded a live in-studio performance for the KCRW radio program "Brave New World", which was later released on the 2008 deluxe edition of Strangers.

Joining Adams and Cary were ex-Firehose guitarist Ed Crawford, bassist Jenni Snyder, multi-instrumentalist Mike Daly, and the band's original drummer Skillet Gilmore.

They also performed on a number of radio programs, including Mountain Stage, Acoustic Cafe, Modern Rock Live, and KMTT's Music Lounge.

[30] The Strangers tour continued in June as the band opened for John Fogerty, again with a new lineup of sidemen for Adams and Cary, including Brad Rice and Danny Kurtz from The Backsliders.

"[32] In September, having now been on the road since March of the previous year, the band played another scandalous show – this time at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.