This is despite the presence of their unique blend of acid house and country music (with elements of gospel and blues thrown in for good measure) insidiously being felt throughout popular culture. ‘Woke Up This Morning’ (from their debut album ‘Exile On Cold Harbour Lane’) is the foot-tapping intro to ‘The Sopranos’, while ‘Too Sick To Pray’ (from ‘La Peste’) was used in the film ‘Gone In Sixty Seconds’.

It is through the promotion of this latter film, that many discovered the Alabama 3 (or A3 as they are known in the USA). The video for ‘Too Sick To Pray’, as played on MTV, stood out from the stereotypical rock and roll antics that typify much of the MTV generation. For despite their image as jaded Deep South evangelistic preachers, they seemed far more real than the other artfully groomed and manicured rock stars being screened, while their music pulled at the lyrical tendrils of the soul.

Currently on tour, the Alabama 3 are playing to sell out audiences across the United Kingdom, and have so far garnered justifiably rave views from the music press for their unique sound and image. Following their Rescue Rooms gig in Nottingham, Pennyblackmusic (PBM) enjoyed the chance to meet vocalist D Wayne Love (DWL) and keyboardist Spirit of Love (SoL). With the tour coming towards a conclusion, it seemed only fitting to open by asking how it had gone so far :

DWL : Mostly good, yeah. Mostly people like it. Mostly people think it’s a good night.

SoL : We’ve had gigs when all you can hear is “RARRR!”

PB : And when you don’t get anything…

DWL : Ermmm, some places are like that.

SoL : It can be very hard to tell though, can’t it ?

DWL : Cos some places, not here, when there is no proximity. Like here, we like it when it is close. Y’know, when we’ve often played places a bit bigger, there’s been a barrier.

SoL : You know when you have that gap between the stage and audience, I hate that.

PB : You lose some of the interaction, don’t you?

DWL : Yeah, that’s right. It really fucks with all your chemistry. We prefer playing places where ideally there isn’t a stage. Y’know, and people just watch you.

SoL : It also depends very much on the geography. I mean this is people in Middlesbrough having a good time (proceeds to scream down my ear).

PB : Hey… I’m from Middlesbrough.

SoL : You know then, you know what it is like.

DWL : It’s a backhanded compliment

SoL : But others show they are having a good time by (claps politely)

DWL : Aye, in Cambridge, you have seven hundred people line up. And everyone will just be nodding their heads. But they’re all really enjoying themselves. Then, when we’ve finished the song, we get a (claps slowly). But you’re up there, and you’re shitting yourself, thinking “they don’t like it”. But they do.

SoL : It’s all in their heads.

DWL : But they are having a good time. So you think to yourself, what do you do when you go to watch a rock band ? When I go, I just stand and rock my head. So, they’re enjoying themselves as much as I would.

PB : If everyone enjoys themselves, that’s the main thing.

DWL : Aye, they spend their money, they can do what they fucking well want, until I’ve finished.

The Alabama 3 formed in the 80′s after Rob Spragg (A.K.A. Larry Love) and Jake Black (A.K.A. The Very Revered D Wayne Love) met at a house party, that was suitably happy in the manner of those times, and found they enjoyed a mutual appreciation for the music of Hank Williams. Asking about their conception, D Wayne commented :

DWL : That’s kind of not true. Me and Larry met at the end of the 80′s. But the first Alabama 3 record was made here in Nottingham. It was at Acid House Party, DIY, and they did the first Alabama 3 record, which was a version of ‘I Shall Be Released’ by Bob Dylan. It was just made as an house version. It had this girl singing on it, a diva. It was made on an Atari 1040, and I’ve still got that track, and it still playable. So the first few tracks we did were for house times, just with divas – singer’s y’know – and it sort of developed from there. I mean someone suggested we should get a piano player, so we got a piano player and a conga player. Then we had someone for the turntables…

PBM : Back then, did you ever conceive you would enjoy the success you have now?

DWL : Aye, definitely

(Both DWL and SoL burst into laughter)

Although the Alabama 3 have had a series of albums that have garnered critical acclaim, they are probably most recognised for the excellence of theirs gigs. I was curious to ask if perceptions of them had changed since the start of their career.

DWL : The reactions first are the same as now. There are people that like us, and people that don’t. The only difference now is the business aspect of pop music itself has become centralised to people whose opinion counts.

SoL : We don’t get corporate hospitality.

DWL : No, we don’t get corporate hospitality. So they can F-off. The reaction to us is that we seem a bit mad, but this is the nature of things, the way they are going. Everything is like Time Warner and they count for 92% of everything now. We are outside the framework of that, so we really don’t get talked about. So what you have is a drop off of success, as opposed to any intensive scrutiny.

SoL : My favourite colour is red by the way.

DWL :… Just to trivialise what I was saying, then…

Given their unique musical blend, and refusal to lose their individualistic streak (which some would argue is the band’s strong point); the Alabama 3 seem happiest living on the fringe – despite a brief dalliance with Geffen (They are now on One Little Indian) – where they can be who they wish to be. Asking about their current perceptions of music, D Wayne commented:

DWL : Pop has become very conservative now. To give you an example (Pauses)

SoL : You know the main now difference now. You know you go to school and pay fees. Well, now you have the rock academy where they teach you how to be in a band, how to be a rock and roll musician, and they teach you about the business strategy.

DWL : What are you on about then?

SOL : Well they do that now.

DWL :Because everything is capitally minded, and is not about music now.

PB : About the money?

DWL : About the niche markets, that’s right, and demographics.

SoL : Music is no longer about the music.

DWL : That’s right.

SoL : Which is what you have in the structure of western capitalism. I only thought about that the other year.

DWL : Well yeah…

SoL : I am naïve? Am I the naïve romantic?

DWL : Richard Dawkins would love you…. We eventually stopped those people being with us and being facetious. We were speaking to our people, when we were doing the festivals for the last LP; and they said that they’d spent eight months doing market research, nailing our demographic, finding our niche market, and then writing for that niche market.

PBM :Yeah?

DWL : It’s a question of what people actually aspire to now in rock and roll. People do not make rock and roll to make decent work, people make rock and roll now to make money. They get double mortgages. To be like, say, a staff officer in the Met’ during the miners strike. They’d be running off from the metropolitan up to, say, Nottinghamshire, or Derbyshire, or Yorkshire, or whatever. They get all the travel time, all the overtime, and all the money. So pop music is no longer about pop music, but about gypping people, battering people with a marketing campaign over eighteen months. So you see for instance, if you look in HMV’s window, or Virgin’s window; that’s £15,000 a shot. It’s £3,000 a shelf. To put your records on their shelf, £3,000 a shelf… So you can imagine, a record company like ours, doesn’t have that kind of money. What are they going to do? How are people going to find our records ?

SoL : They (referring to large-scale music retailers) don’t even fucking care. They don’t even fucking listen to us.

DWL : So things become more and more marginalised, and become more and more subject to the market, but the market tells you what you are supposed to like. You’re supposed to like this. You’re not supposed to like that.

SoL : And they do it all in the name of individual freedom.

DWL : Time Warner might have nine million what it calls “Indie” labels. Indie. Indie is actually a generic term for pop music now. I look at the generic compilations of pop music, and it’s all groups. So they look at us, and what do you call a group like the Alabama 3? There isn’t a name for it. So you can’t find a shelf for it. When you’re a small independent record label, you’re marginalised in the shop anyway. So your music becomes more and more marginalised, and the only way out is playing live to people like yourselves, that appreciate seeing music live in its raw form. What we like to think is we play rock and roll in the way it should be played. Visceral, immediate, in your head.

The Alabama 3 have seemingly been very careful in their political commentary, focusing more on social injustice. This is most evident with their patriotic ennui evident in Woody Guthrie and Patrick Hill’s harrowing monologue in ‘The Thrills Have Gone’ ; (Their website has also added their support of the NHS). Most recently, Alabama 3 become affiliated with the Miscarriages Of Justice Organisation; with proceeds from the sale of ‘Lockdown’, their latest release, being donated to this organisation. I was keen to learn to learn how this association came about:

DWL : It started in Glasgow, and someone told us about it. The guy at the time was struggling. He used to be part of what was called the Broad Left in the 80′s, but it doesn’t exist any more. So, when we spoke to him, he was trying to highlight certain cases that had been brought up by the C.P.S. – Crown Prosecution Service – that had been obviously bogus. He was trying to publicise it; and so we managed to pay a couple of things. Brought a couple of people in, but we managed to keep highlighting it, to the extent that you yourself asked us about it. Basically it’s about highlighting actual miscarriages in this country. Mostly deficiencies in the C.P.S. and how bureaucratic deficiencies could be alleviated just by rerouting money and policy directives. That’s why we’re interested in that. We’re in interested in other things y’know. All the things you can make a difference with.

SoL : 99% of the cases that have been handled have born out. As he’s got top flight lawyers working for him.

DWL : Gareth Pierce works for him, and Gareth Pierce was the one that worked on the behalf of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. Hence why Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six is a founding member of the Miscarriages Of Justice Organisation, and Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four is working for that. A lot of people that have been subject to miscarriages of justice that are now working inside to highlight it. But this is what happens in this country. Once there was an active left, but now people focus on single issues. The left has fragmented that way. So when people approach us, we have to be cagey, as what we make at the end of the day is pop music. But we’ve managed to I think to underpin some things, and highlight some of their work. So that’s quite good.

SoL : A lot of groups stay clear of them, as they are picky of being associated with governmental politics. As they’ve got to focus on a certain group of people, crack down on a certain kind of crime. But when things start looking bad for the government, they weigh it up,

DWL : Which is simply just resources being shifted and moved about. They repackage it, and ship it out. And pop music is pretty much like that. Everything else is like that as well – the C.P.S. is a logo. It’s all image conscious. But when someone has been in jail for seventeen years due to really bad policies, you have to highlight that.

The Spirit of Love succinctly concluded this – and the interview – with his own perception:

SoL : What you need are people like danger mouse…

If there is one thing Pennyblackmusic learnt from meeting the Alabama 3, is that they are no strangers to mischief and mayhem, yet equally courteous and intelligent and are able to give insight into the music industry and government politics, while happily making fun of each other. Which quite possibly, summarises entirely what the Alabama 3 is about.

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Alabama 3 – Interview:
Contact music spoke to Jake Black

Contact music spoke to Jake Black (aka The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love) of Alabama 3. So How did Alabama 3 Start? I met Larry at a acid house party in Peckham and I decided we were going to be the first band to put Hank Williams on drum beats and acid cracks which we have done quite successfully. Larry went to university with A mountain of love (a member of the band) and the spirit (the piano and keyboard player) used to live with me, we just started to use people we knew and added and added until now. So how many members do you have in total now? Well there is 8 of us on stage but you know there is a lot of people who are dead important off the stage people making our sound great…well when they are doing their job, all the management so really we have about 16-17 people involved. When we go on the road there is usually about 14 for us. We are having to get the only 16 birth bus in the UK but the beds are only like 5′ 2″. So I don’t think we will be getting to many good nights sleep, but it will all be ok as it’s like going away on holiday for us playing tours that is the part we all enjoy the most. We just really happen to like playing live, we didn’t make any records for years we just used to go out and do gig after gig after gig. It took us, about 3 years before we started to play in London. You have a tour over the UK planned for people who haven’t been to watch you yet what can they expect from your live show?It’s a proper medicine show, it’s like a pantomime, it’s the full lot! If you were to have some one to come on stage and join you who would it be? It would have to be Elvis although we would have to put some smelly stuff on him he is bound to be a little smelly by now don’t you think. It would have to be someone big none of these pop singers or any of the other non sense! Not including Alabama 3 how do you take today’s music scene in general? I listen to a lot of house music, there isn’t many guitar groups I like, I like Coldplay though I think the lead singer is a really good writer good at ballads, I like ballads but other than that there isn’t much, I got a great remix the other week a remix of Paul Oakenfold’s Starry Eyed Surprise by Josh Wink. When I go and buy records I usually buy things like that, Josh Wink is a mad genius. I was watching the television the other day and The Datsuns were on I just thought wow that’s Deep Purple and they have shrunk, but then I noticed it wasn’t Deep Purple it was a group of teenagers. I don’t really have much to say about other peoples music at least they are having a go so anybody who tries…I take my hat off to them, but when it comes to personal preference I don’t listen to many Guitar bands, I listen to a lot of Hip Hop and Jazz. I just bought an old classic mix of Kenny Dope Gonzalez with all his classics that is a brilliant mix. Power in the Blood is Alabama’s new album what are your favorite tracks? I don’t know my favorite, it keeps changing but at the moment it is bullet proof, I think that is really good. How did you come up with the title? It’s an old very popular prosperterian hymn. Also it is an indication of all this relative hysteria that is going on at present, there’s a lot of religious forever. Your website is fantastic did you have anything to do with the design? Because we have been so busy with the album we haven’t really had chance to get on it and spend much time on it, but we are going to take more time over it when he have a little more time. What we did, we wanted to set something up that was kind of like a computer games as well so people could have 5 minutes of amusement on it as well, we are going to set up individual sites for each member and then tie them into people we knows site. ____________________________ Interviews: Alabama 3 www.alabama3.co.uk Sometimes, major talent over here is criminally overlooked until other countries give it the respect it deserves. While all the heavily hyped indie hopefulls fall flat on their faces across the pond, our very own Alabama 3 had one of their songs chosen as the theme tune to ‘The Sopranos’. This seems to have been most people’s main angle on the band, but luckily for them, I have yet to see an episode. All I had was the music. When I caught up with them, things had been a little hectic. “Been touring the states in November, the album came out in November. We’re doing a UK tour, got a new single coming out. How long were you touring the States for? “Three and a half weeks. It was a promotional tour. Nineteen gigs in Twenty-One days. Knackered.” America has quite a reputation for testing a bands endurance. If they can handle an American tour, they can handle anything. “It’s quite gruelling, yeah. We were doing gigs where we’d get there, do the gig then travel eighteen hours in a confined space with ugly men.” Did you do any TV appearences when you were over there? “We were on the Joe Reynolds show. 26 million viewers. It was quite weird. Just performance, don’t like to talk too much, we’d rather just sing. No-one understands us, they think we’ll talk in an American accent but they hear Welsh accents and a Scottish accent.” While many run-of-the-mill bands have little influences beyond The Beatles and whoever is flavour of the month with the indie media, Alabama 3 have some more diverse and original sources of creative inspiration. They recently did a month of Mondays in London, playing a different style before each gig. “Alabama 3 have always prided ourselves on our colaborility. You’ll see the band doing a straight rock and roll show, then you find us at 3 in the morning in a sound-system situation at a banging rave club. You’ll then see us on a Sunday afternoon doing a pure acoustic country version of the same songs, so what we did were four Mondays. Each week, we supported ourselves. The first night was a country and western band. The second night, we had a gospel choir down and all the Alabama 3 songs went gospel style. Then we did a third night that was all in techno, we were kitted out with a techno sounds system and strobes. The fourth night we did a freak show. It’s takes a lot of gigs to get all of Alabama 3′s ideas in.” Which style went down best with the public? “All of them was kind of good. Our crowd’s kind of mad. You’ll have an old couple out there because the like the country element, there’ll be looking at ten ravers next to them, all on E. At the end of the night they’ve all got their arms round each other.” How did Alabama 3 come about? “Been DJ’ing for years with loads of different sound systems. Just had a sound system going and I decided to get a band together. This was years before Moby started spinning blues, country and gospel over techno. I got a bit bored of doing that and decided to form a band around it and play the stuff live but with sequencers and stuff. As the band is now, we’ve just got Segs who was bass player from The Ruts, so there’s eight of us at the moment.” Which sound systems were you involved with? “We had the Alabama 3 sound system. I used to work with D.I.Y. quite a lot, the Castle Morton festival, you know.” All that traveller element have left England now, haven’t they? “A lot of ‘em, Spirals and all that lot. Exodus are still about, we did an Exodus party about two years ago. A lot of the travellers have left the country because of the ****in’ draconian ****in’ state of the law.” On your record sleeves, you namecheck the Misscarriages Of Justice Organisation. Any particular reason? “Alabama 3 know, shall we say certain members of the community who are currently residing in some of her majestys most salubrious hotels. A lot of old blues players, Leadbelly was a famous case. He was released from prison, a life sentance because his music was so good. The name Alabama 3 was a nod to the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 and other cases of miscarriage of justice. We actually worked with Paddy from the Birmingham 6. It was a rare privelidge and he might be along tonight. He’s a friend of ours. We’re not overtly political, it just seems like a band like us are political because there’s no other ****ing bands that discuss politics or whatever. There’s the Manics, and ADF are great but Coldplay and Frontloader are washing machine music.” How has this tour been going? “We enjoyed the American tour but this is easier. They’ve all been sold out so far, so that’s great but we’ve got a record label that don’t know what the **** to do with us. We’re not easily categorisable. Are we a dance band or are we a rock band. We hope they’re going to get their arses into gear. There’s been so many press and journalists going ‘Why the **** aren’t this band massive?’. We’re all down the job centre every two weeks, if you know what I mean. Why do you think we’re all called Larry Love and always in disguise? There’s housing benefit, you can’t let that one go. The funniest thing was when I had to go to America and I had a restart interview on the Tuesday and I was flying out to ****ing L.A. on the Wednesday. This cretin, this speccy, zitty git from the job centre was far too enthusiastic, insisted that I take this job in a bakery in Peckham. This is the state of how much money we’ve got, I’m going to America tommorow and I have to go to this ****ing interview at a bakers. I went down there and I lied and said I had asthma, so they let me off but ****ing hell!” Your second album seems to ride through some emotional darklands. “The first album is kinda the new testament of Alabama 3, you know with the benevolent God. The second album is very much the old testament with a God of wrath. There’s layers too it, though. I don’t want to write lyrics that are so maudlin that there’s no hope of redemption. A lot of our songs definitely have some hope. There’s a lot of anger on the record because between the first and second album, we had some tough times. The first album didn’t sell that much, we’re a perrenial cult band and we had some lean times. We’ve had some tragedies around us. I think it coloured the atmosphere a bit.” Your cover of The Eagles ‘Hotel California’ forced me to re-apraise the song. “We could have done an obscure cover of Bill Monroe or something like that or a Robert Earl King cover but being big cheeky situationalist ****ers, why not take what some people call the alternative American national anthem. It’s the most played song on the radio of all time, so we wanted to take that on board. We had a Brixton ragga ****-off beat but also I think the lyrics are dark. It’s about the emptiness of the Los Angeles cocaine scene. We live in Brixton where there’s enough cocaine culture about to address that. I ain’t saying Alabama 3 are perfect and live a clean living life but we do like to keep an awareness of the ups and downs of narcotic and alcoholic pleasures. You can learn one hell of a lot about what mistakes not to make from Alabama 3.” Have you been back in the studio since the last album? “We are, believe it or not, going to do a triple concept album. 3 CD’s and ten songs on each one. We’re very excited.” What’s the concept? “I ain’t telling you, it’s a secret.” I notice you got Arthur Baker to remix your last single. “Arthur’s become a good mate of ours. He’s got a club in London called the Elbow Rooms. I’ve had a few sessions with Arthur, he’s a very nice man.” So, with the concept album, are you going to explore all the roots of Alabama 3? “The idea is to fragment it, so the album will start off quite organic and acoustic. Over thirteen tracks, it will develop seamlessly.” Do your label know about it yet? “No, we’re hoping to get off the label. I hope they don’t read this! I’ll make out it wasn’t me or some bulls*** like that!” What are you up to after this tour? “When we get home, we’re headlining a massive festival in Brockwell Park, the legalise cannabis campaign.” What has been the response in America? “It’s good. America is weird. Irony is inherent in our situation. Over in this country, the UK press, whose job it is to make people like Codplay and Frontloader and Moose, or whatever they’re called, attain some credibility, they write that Alabama 3 are a novelty band because they mix country, blues and techno. We are serious about having a laugh but that’s nothing to do with music. We’re maudlin and depressed on stage but the press here seem to have missed the point. The Americans have missed the sense of humour and irony. They go straight for the fact about what we’re doing as musicians is totally ****ing credible. They really understand what we’re doing with genre. They respect our mix of technology with other genres. Over here, we’re more known for our humour or ‘They’re a novelty band’.” Well, people like Radiohead and Joe Jackson weren’t taken seriously over here until they’d cracked America. “Well, it’s that perenial British thing of let’s build ‘em up to knock ‘em down. The great thing with us is that most of the press, well the NME in particular and The Face, have never knocked us up. They got really upset. The first three interviews we did with them, we decimated them. We got some ****ing idiot who’s never heard of Robert Johnson or Anne Williams so we just talked in American accents about mixamotosis or rabbits from space.” Big thanks to Ian Cheek