Only a few months ago Alabama Shakes were little known outside their immediate hometown.
Now, The Guardian has described them as “the hottest new band in the world”, tickets for their autumn show in Brighton sold out in hours, and their album shot into the higher reaches of the UK chart on the week of its release.
As co-founder bassist Zac Cockrell says, “Things are picking up pretty quick.”
It belies the fact that this overnight success comes from three years of hard slog, which began when vocalist Brittany Howard – whose amazing Janis Joplin meets Aretha Franklin vocals have helped raise the band’s vintage blues-rock sound to international attention – first approached Cockrell in the middle of a school psychology class.
“It’s funny, it was never like, ‘Wow, you’ve got a wonderful voice, we’ve got to work together,’” says Cockrell, who reveals that some of those early song ideas feature on the band’s UK top three debut album Boys And Girls.
“We were just having fun making songs.”
The band built up around Cockrell, Howard and former hardcore drummer Steve Johnson, with guitarist Heath Fogg joining them after he asked the band to play a support slot with his then current outfit.
They augmented their early live shows with covers that reflected the different influences within their sound – James Brown, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.
“We all had different backgrounds,” says Cockrell. “It was always more of an R ’n’ B, rock and roll thing, which mixed pretty easily.”
Although they are now the toast of their hometown of Athens, Alabama, it wasn’t always the case.
“We had a hard time getting gigs for a year at home,” admits Cockrell. “Now everybody is coming out of the woodwork wanting us to do things back home. We did three shows close to home recently and they were insane – I was meeting family I didn’t even know I had.”
When they did play live, they got a good reaction and started saving up for studio time.
“We recorded the albumover several different sessions,” says Cockrell. “In the first session we did five songs in two days, then we’d go home, work a bit and save up some more money. We took the time to arrange things at home so we could just knock it out in the studio.”
The moment when everything changed for the band can be pinpointed to July last year, when the song You Ain’t Alone was featured on Justin Gage’s Aquarium Drunkard blog.
Overnight all hell broke loose.
“It was exciting but definitely strange – we weren’t used to that kind of attention,” says Cockrell.
“We never expected it.”
The band had to take the difficult decision to go professional, sick of turning down gigs because of work commitments.
“It was scary for me,” says Cockrell. “I was really nervy about it. You always dream of doing it but when the opportunity comes, you do think, ‘Can this even work?’”
Their US label, ATO Records, paid for a week’s studio time for the band to mix the results of their self-produced sessions, which became Boys And Girls, released in theUKon Rough Trade last month.
“I think doing the album that way meant we didn’t get burnt out,” says Cockrell. “We recorded it pretty much live – we only overdubbed some keyboards.”
That’s not to say they don’t have ambitions for a second record already.
“We are anxious to start writing again but who knows when that time will be.
“To have a keyboard player now is a great thing. We always wanted keyboards but didn’t know many people who played them.
“Starting out we always wrote horn parts despite the fact we didn’t have any horn players, so that could be a possibility for the future.”
Komedia, Gardner Street, Brighton, Saturday, May 12, 10pm
Tickets for Alabama Shakes’ show at Concorde 2, in Madeira Drive, Brighton, on Wednesday, September 5, have already sold out.
Call 01273 673311 for returns.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here