FAST-RISING SOUL-ROCK BAND ALABAMA SHAKES SET FOR FOLK FEST
Folk Fest headliner Alabama Shakes now one of hottest bands in rock
Fans of American soul-soaked, blues-rock act Alabama Shakes were gifted a nice spring surprise this past May.
It was the song Pocket Change, a track featured on the new True Blood soundtrack, and what had been billed as the band’s first fresh material since they shot to fame with their early 2012 fulllength release Boys and Girls.
In other words, it was something for everyone to get excited about!
Well, save maybe for the band, who, if guitarist Heath Fogg is anything to go by, were blissfully unaware of it.
“I didn’t realize that was a hot, new thing,” he says with a warm, laid-back and likable drawl. “If you bought the record on vinyl that came on a free seven-inch that came with the record. So, it’s kind of old. ...”
He laughs. “I kind of forgot about the whole True Blood thing.”
Still, the anticipation with which it was received and the ceremony it was given — Entertainment Weekly gave the song an EXCLUSIVE streaming online over other artists’ fare on the soundtrack including tracks from Iggy Pop, The Flaming Lips and My Morning Jacket — shows how much hunger there is for the southern cooking the quartet has found fame with.
And it continues a pretty great story that the band from Athens, Alabama have been writing for themselves since the release of Boys and Girls — one that seems natural, deserved and still gaining momentum.
Among the highlights you can include: A trio of Grammy nominations; high-profile tours and festival appearances alongside everyone from Neil Young to Alicia Keys; an appearance at the White House alongside Justin Timberlake, Mavis Staples, Ben Harper and heroes such as Steve Cropper and Booker T; and star-making appearances on television shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and, most notably, the Grammys, where Shakes’ powerhouse vocalist Brittany Howard stole the show during an all-star tribute to Levon Helm.
The latter two, especially, cemented their reputation as one of current rock’s most riveting live acts — one that makes their headlining spot the first night of the Calgary Folk Music Festival one of the most exciting gets organizers have had in years — and made them very much a big deal, even in a small-town way.
“It definitely sparked something, doing the Grammys and SNL,” says Fogg.
“I think we all noticed the change at home after that. ... I think people in our own hometown who had kind of maybe heard of us — we had never done any local news things or anything like that at home, we don’t want to, we don’t need to, we just want to blend in and be normal here — but doing the Grammys and SNL really changed things around here.
“It made it harder on Brittany, she can’t go anywhere without getting recognized. I can fly under the radar a little bit, but being from a small town you know so many people already ... and everywhere I go I run into somebody who’s kin to me and is so proud.
“But they didn’t know who we were until the Grammys.”
Perhaps it’s because of the fact that when the band members have time to themselves — an infrequent thing these days — they return to their hometown, one with a population just shy of 22,000, they still have a pretty good perspective on things, both personally and professionally.
Fogg admits that not much has changed for him as a result of the Shakes’ popularity, save for the fact that he can devote most of his energies into the band which is now a full-time gig.
As for the collective itself, the entire thing has been filled with positives, with the only real downside being that there’s been very little opportunity to work on satisfying that desire for actual new material (Pocket Change was done during the recording of that first record). In the past several months they have had a couple of sessions, where they hit the studio in an attempt to flesh out some ideas, but attempting to juggle the career demands on their time with that of creating and reconnecting has taken some getting used to.
“I think we’re figuring it out. We want to write and record as much as possible and focus on new material as much as possible. And it’s kind of harder I think than maybe we thought it would be,” he says.
“I think now we’re all cherishing our downtime and being home and doing family stuff, you know, things that don’t deal with the band, because we’ve only been doing band related things and playing these same songs for almost two years now.
“We’re just trying to figure it out.”
What they have figured out is how once in a lifetime their situation is, how special Boys and Girls and the reaction to it has been.
It’s why Fogg admits they’re not really feeling any pressure when it comes to following it up, whenever that may happen. Sure, they have a lot more songs in them, likely another great record, but all that’s come their way from that first full-length will probably never be duplicated.
“I really don’t know if it’s realistic to try to achieve the same things we achieved with this record,” he says. “Not worrying about that, not trying to set those kinds of goals for ourselves is probably best.”
And, in keeping with the excitement surrounding the True Blood release, Fogg isn’t even aware of all of Alabama Shakes accomplishments.
It is also, apparently, news to him that the band also has had the privilege of having a drink named after them. When appearing recently at the BottleRock festival in California, an area hotel concocted a cocktail in their honour and with their moniker.
After inquiring on the beverage’s recipe (1 ounce Bacardi coconut rum, 1 ounce Southern Comfort, 1 ounce pineapple juice, 1 ounce Pomm pomegranate juice: Put in cocktail shaker, “shake powerfully,” strain into ice filled glass and garnish with orange peel), the guitarist agrees that it sounds delightful and refreshing and something, that even in description, creates a thirst that needs slaking.
“Well, get one then,” he says amiably, “and I’ll get one, too.”