Alabama 3 interview: ‘We do music that has legs’
Unconventional South London collective Alabama 3 has enjoyed a long and successful career combining country music and techno to stunning effect. The band is soon to kick off its Step 13: The Divine Intervention Tour in Cambridge.
Born at an all-night squat party during the ’90s, Alabama 3 is led by charismatic frontman and co-founder Larry Love (aka Rob Spragg), who started singing the lyrics to a Hank Williams song over an acid house beat.
The other co-founder, the late Jake Black, a diehard jazz fan, apparently rejoined with some bebop scat stylings. On that night, the mutant embryo of the group was conceived. Still widely loved for its 1997’s tune Woke Up This Morning, used in the opening credits to The Sopranos, Alabama 3 has continued to explore its uniquely British twist on Americana.
Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from Brixton, Larry, who originally hails from Wales, says: “We had an album come out last year [Step 13] – everything’s been sort of staggered because of Covid. I’m working on a new album at the moment and waiting for the tour – it’s the first tour in about three years.”
Has Larry missed touring? “Yeah, I have,” he says. “I quite enjoyed lockdown in the sense of being able to write but then at the end of the day you need to get the greasepaint on and tread the boards...”
The single Whacked, released last year, was written just before lockdown. “It was good timing really,” says Larry, 57, “and I wrote that with a friend who died – it wasn’t Jake – so it’s like an homage.”
Jake Black, aka The Very Reverend D Wayne Love, sadly passed away in May 2019. His songwriting partner Larry recalled that Jake, who grew up in Glasgow, had been hospitalised with pneumonia three times and had missed gigs through illness.
The surviving members subsequently took Jake on tour with them in the form of a life-size mannequin, dressed up like Abraham Lincoln on a big marble plinth, finding humour amid the darkness. “I miss him every day,” says Larry. “It’s horrible he’s not there but I think in rock ‘n’ roll there are chances to have a second life so hopefully we’ll rise out the ashes.”
Alabama 3, which is also currently working with the Rio Ferdinand Foundation – a charity that works with inner city children – certainly has its own unique sound. “The reason we decided to do a stupid combination of country and western and techno is because we thought if we could master that 30 years ago we’d still be standing now,” explains Larry, who also made a solo album during lockdown.
“Because if you could do both styles you’ve got a lot of music in between, and as it is we’re still standing – and I’m proud about that. It wasn’t like an indie sort of band which dated; we did music that has legs.”
In the US, Alabama is referred to as ‘A3’ to avoid confusion with American country band Alabama. “They thought we were taking the mickey out them, I was like, ‘No, it’s an homage!’” notes Larry, who reveals that Alabama 3 actually received a letter from Alabama’s lawyers.
“We got proper clamped on,” he says. “They own the word Alabama. They didn’t want to be associated with us because we were setting ourselves up as sort of naughty outlaw country...”
Larry has always been a fan of country music. “I grew up in South Wales and my mother played piano in the Mormon chapel,” he recalls. “In Wales you’d have like, ‘Now, here’s Mick Evans singing Merle Haggard songs’, kind of a Welsh miner in a Stetson singing proper country. You used to have it quite a lot in Glasgow as well in working men’s clubs.
“I’m from the same village Tom Jones is from so it’s always been in the blood. So when techno came along, I thought why not mix techno with country?”
Alabama 3 will be performing at the Junction’s J1 on Thursday, March 17. Visit junction.co.uk. For more on Alabama 3, go to alabama3.co.uk.
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