Alabama Shakes Interview

Brittany Howard was living in a trailer park and working hard to make rent, the last time we spoke. Today she's the Prince-approved frontwoman of one of America's most critically adored bands – an outfit that has topped the Billboard charts and lately rocked out on Saturday Night Live. She is presumably tickled several shades of pink at this upswing in her life?
"If anything success has sent me even more into my shell," she proffers. "Being a public person – if I an say that about myself – puts you in contact with a lot of people. You're around folks constantly. When I go home I don't want to go out meeting anyone. I'd rather relax."
Halfway through an American tour, and with a trek to Europe to follow, it will be some time before she can pull down the blinds, shut the front-door and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Still, she doesn't mean to complain – or at least not too loudly. Consider the privileges the band's current trek around the amphitheaters and swanky auditoriums of North America have yielded – in particular, an opportunity to share the stage ad actually play along with Prince at his Paisley Park complex. You bet she's pinching herself.
"It was really exciting. A really, really cool experience," she grins. "He's actually a lovely man. We hung out a little bit afterwards."
We're all wondering – what is he like?
"He's a little bashful, I suppose. That's his own business."
This is the point at which we would usually advise you to check out online footage of Alabama Shakes jamming with the Purple One. Alas, no such recordings exist as Prince has declared his compound a camera-free zone. You're going to have to use your imagination.
"He doesn't allow cameras," confirms Howard. "Of course, we have the memories. They're something we will forever treasure."
Around the time of their meet-up with Prince, the band's second LP Sound & Color was debuting at number one in America. Once, an indie band rocketing to the top of the Billboard 200 countdown in such a fashion might have been heralded as earth-shatteringly important. However, in an age when only die-hards really purchase albums, the achievement has lost some of its cachet – not that this mattered much to Howard. She was chuffed anyway.
"It's a cool thing. Now, it wasn't the focus of the group – we didn't write Sound & Color beause we wanted to have a number one album. But my parents are pretty proud."
With their 2012 debut Boys & Girls, Alabama Shakes staked their claim as America's most important new blues act. Howard's raw, anguished voice was unlike anything you'd heard before, while the band's unfettered sound suggested Mavis Staples fronting The White Stripes. For its successor they ripped up this blueprint and set out to expand the horizons of their fans, and maybe their own too.
To describe Sound & Color as diverse would be a howling understatement. Alabama Shakes tackle everything from punk-pop to early '90s shoegaze (on a song called 'Shoe Gaze', in case you had failed to get the hint). You wonder what the thousands who flocked to their cause in 2012 will make of the stark change in direction.
"Our tastes are diverse and there have always been things we wanted to try," explains Howard. "Had we more time during our first record, we would've made an album a lot like Sound & Color. Of course, we didn't have any time – and never imagined anyone would listen anyway. Going into the second one, we had no expectations. It didn't matter whether or not it was successful. We were keen to try new things."
You expect Alabama Shakes' name to constitute a pithy injoke of some kind. Actually no, it's pretty much a 'what it says on the tin' moniker. Their music shakes and rattles and they are indeed from Alabama, specifically the sleepy, rural settlement of Athens (not to be confused with REM's Georgian hometown).
Those who have visited say Athens, Alabama is one of those places that seems half in love with their own caricature. There truly is a church on every corner, a Stars and Stripes waving on every lawn. People are God-fearing in an almost literal sense and the streets did not exactly come alive with joy when the US Supreme Court legalised gay marriage recently. It's old fashioned, capital 'c' Conservative – a dusty corner of humanity that can feel like the end of the world on a broiling summer afternoon.
"It's called the Bible Belt for a reason," Howard once told me. "Athens is a very conservative town. There is a good and a bad side to that. The bad side is that anything different is not accepted, if you know what I mean. On the other hand, there are a lot of morals here. There are good people."
Athens is in one sense blessed, lacking the racial faultlines that divide many small Southern towns. Growing up, Howard was never made to feel second class because she was African-American. Nobody batted an eye when she formed a band with a bunch of white boys from the other side of the tracks.
"Race isn't something I think about," she told me in that same chat. "It's more about money and class. Race never comes into the picture to be honest. Sure, there are people everywhere who have hang-ups about certain things. Nobody every bothers us for racial reasons."
That said, Howard's upbringing was not easy. Aged seven, she lost her older sister to a brain tumour. Her sibling had left her a guitar – it was the first time she had picked up the instrument.
"I'd watched her play," she told me. "It was cool. I thought. Hey, I can do that too... That's how it began."
Alabama Shakes started out performing in small bars and clubs across the state. Strict licensing laws and a lack of venues had stymied the rock scene and because Howard and company were one of the few local acts to tour in a dedicated fashion, they were soon local stars. From there, they were invited to play at the 2011 CMJ Music Marathon in New York, a noted showcase for up and comers. This brought media attention and a record deal. Suddenly they were off to the races.
"It was exhausting," says Howard of their "overnight" rise. "But when I look back I'm not sure how we could have done it differently. We have always strived to work our hardest. We learned early on to say 'no' to a lot. We turn down more things than we agree too, even stuff that could bring in a lot of money. We were chased down by a lot of majors in the early days. But we turned them down. In this day and age, majors aren't a necessity. We've always done things our own way."