Hooters Drummer David Uosikkinen Has Philly Covered

David Uosikkinen / Photograph by Dallyn Pavey

It was 2009, and Hooters drummer David Uosikkinen wasn’t living his best life, as they say. He was, as he puts it now, “a little bit of a mess.” Uosikkinen was going through a divorce from his first wife and was back living in the Philadelphia area after 25 years in California, during which time he’d fly back and forth to Philly and around the world for Hooters work. He needed something different, something new, some way to distract himself and use up all that anxious energy.

One day, he was walking through Rittenhouse Square with his then-girlfriend Dallyn Pavey — the two would marry eight years later — feeling all the energy of the neighborhood, all the people sitting outside, drinking, eating, having a good time. It was a different city than the one he’d left a quarter of a century prior, and it didn’t hurt that the energy of the Phillies winning the World Series was still hanging over the city.

All this local love made him start thinking about Philadelphia in a different way, and he went down a rabbit hole of songs recorded by Philadelphia musicians over the years, rediscovering tunes he hadn’t heard in decades and discovering others for the first time. He realized he wanted to remake them as a tribute to those songs and the songwriters — and so his In the Pocket project was born.

“I grew up with vinyl records, and I always loved reading liner notes,” Uosikkinen recently told us from his hotel room in Aschaffenburg, Germany, where the Hooters were on tour. “And when I came up with In the Pocket, I realized that each song needed to be accompanied by a video, in which we tell the story behind the song and why we chose it, our sort of modern version of liner notes.”

Uosikkinen, who now lives on the Main Line, and his wide network of musical friends from Philly and beyond have thus far recorded 23 songs. Most are by Philly or Philly-ish artists, like Todd Rundgren, the Trammps, and the O’Jays. Some are famous tunes recorded here, such as David Bowie’s “Young Americans.” In more than a few cases, dare I say it, Uosikkinen’s covers, which usually have a different twist on them, are better than the originals.

Not everybody was thrilled with the idea of Uosikkinen recording their music. I heard earlier this year that Uosikkinen was set to record “The Twist,” made famous by Chubby Checker, who still lives in the area. “Chubby is really a lovely guy,” says Uosikkinen. “But when I got him on the phone to talk about ‘The Twist,’ he said, ‘David, if you want to honor me, don’t record the track.’ I’m not sure why. But some of these older cats are ‘different.’” (Ironically, Chubby Checker did not originate “The Twist”; Detroit artist Hank Ballard did.)

On September 27th, Uosikkinen celebrates the 15th anniversary of In the Pocket at Ardmore Music Hall, bringing back musicians he’s worked with over those 15 years to perform the In the Pocket songs as well as other tunes that have inspired him — maybe some Kinks, maybe some Elvis Costello. As with the videos, Uosikkinen and others will take a few moments at the live show to provide context for the songs performed. And the show promises to have quite the entourage of participating musicians. “We’ve been known to have upwards of 25 musicians on one show,” says Uosikkinen. “And everybody there, whether you’re on stage or in the audience, just winds up feeling really good. That’s what this is about.”

Published as “Under the Covers” in the September 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.