“We’re just stuck in our own world for life, you know? No parole.”
Interview conducted by Faber Barrington and Mary Wilson.
Write-up by Faber Barrington.
[edited for clarity and readability]
We sat down with two members of Alabama 3 the other week to find out more about the band best known for the gritty, trippy Sopranos theme, ‘Woke up in the morning’. They self describe as making “sweet pretty muthafuckin country acid house music” and we couldn’t agree more. Fusing blues and country, rock and roll, acid house and trip-hop, they’ve built a cult following far beyond their Sopranos hit, with their outlaw energy and biting social commentary.
In a dressing room backstage, Rob “Larry Love” and Zoe “Devlin Love” are sat next to each other and playfully bicker with the comfortability of two people who’ve been doing this for a while. He wears squared off black sunglasses, a fitted leather jacket with a side bag, dark wash jeans slightly cuffed and all-black Nike TN shoes. She wears large gold and brown sunglasses, a metallic gold fur-collared jacket, blue jeans and all-black Air Max with patent detail.
Interviewer: What’s the story behind the band’s name? We know you’re loosely based in Brixton, so why “Alabama”?
Rob: Um, because we didn’t very much like Britpop at the time. It was a bit jingoistic, all that Union Jack flag-waving. I’m from Wales, and the other fella that started the band, he’s from Scotland. We just…pretend we’re American. I always grew up on Gospel and blues music, I’m a son of a preacher man, and I always liked the idea of mixing blues and country with techno, so we came up with this idea of Alabama 3. And also a nod to the, you know, Birmingham 6, the Guthrie 4, Swansea 2, there’s the Memphis 3, a miscarriage of justice. We kind of made out we were kind of a miscarriage of justice as well. And then of course the press immediately went ‘well you’re a fucking novelty band” [laughter] “you’re not from Alabama, there’s not three of you” and we’re turning to Britpop and saying “well, fuck you”. One man even said “you’re a monumental waste of time”.
Zoe: That was an NME quote! Alabama 3, a monumental waste of time!
Interviewer: What year was that?
R: That was 1997.
Z: That was before me, that’s why!
Interviewer: What were some of your biggest musical influences when forming the band? Has this changed or do you feel like you’ve become your own influences?
Z: It’s kind of morphed I think. I mean I wasn’t there at the beginning, but the thing that was great was this cross of country music but with beats. And the importance of songs, which is what I sort of really gravitated towards because the songwritings…[she turns to Rob]…the songwriting’s very good, isn’t it Rob? [he nods]
Z: There’s the importance of songs in country music but also then the grooves that came from Brixton and everything that was local. It’s sort of naturally formed, but I think all of the individual players in the band bring their own influences just by playing without even thinking about it. It just gels and it’s become a sound that just happened.
R: I think our remit was so ridiculous as the time, the idea of mixing country and techno, at the time, was seen as fucking stupid.
R: I do think that the band, they’re all skilled enough now, we are our own reference points. Still with roots in blues and country and shit like that – we’ve got a root cause that gives us a space where we can do anything within those parameters.
Z: And also the sounds of Brixton. I mean I started off in dub and reggae when I was 14, so that sort of Jamaican sound was always part of what I did and sort of how I sang as well. And naturally I loved the blues anyway. So everything that happened to be in the band were things that were always close to my heart as well. Everyone in the band, we’re lucky really – it just works like a happy jigsaw puzzle of lunacy.
R: I wouldn’t say happy.
[they laugh to each other]
Z: Alright! That’s why I added lunacy on the end!
Interviewer: I was just thinking, with the country influence, I think we are seeing cowboy fashion becoming a big thing – I mean I’ve got sort of cowboy boots on, you’ve got your cowgirl hat on. Fashion wise – what inspires your look as a band and individually?
R: Zoe starts with her outfit and we work down.
[they laugh to each other]
Z: I mean – we’ve got a thing about trainers, like comfortability, during the day, and then a cowboy outfit sort of on top of it, and then mad, shiny, crazy acid house influences at the same time. I don’t think it’s a conscious thing really. I think our outfits are as mental as the sort of mix of our music really.
R: Well we do try and force [the other band members] a bit, because we’ve made them, in this tour, all wear the same shirts, to match the rest of the animals in the band. If you leave them to their own devices it looks like a fucking tramp outfit, you know what I mean? So we’ve made them all wear the same shirts on this tour, a nice cowboy shirt, with gold reins on.
Interviewer: So is it you guys who call the shots when it comes to the outfits? Or do you work with, for example, costume designers?
R: It depends what’s going on with [Zoe’s] colour-coding!
Z: We naturally turn up at rehearsal with the same outfits. I go “oh I’ve got these sparkly boots, and this gold jacket” so thats whats fucking happening.
Interviewer: What has been your favourite era of dressing in fashion?
R: I think it’s the fucking roaring 20’s. Great Gatsby. Loads of cocaine. Women in taffeta dresses, flappers and all of that.
Z: I love the 50’s thing because I sang at Gaz’s Rockin Blues for a while so I was always into rock and roll. I mean, that club played 1950’s rock and roll, Jamaican ska from Trojan Records, then the blues, again another mix. But you’d go there and everyone would be dressed head to toe in 50’s – there’d be zoot suits over there, you know, he’s smoking a cigar, and he’s got the gangster bling, the fur. And the dresses, the circle dresses, I loved that! That’s why I stick with the red lipstick quite a lot, that’s something from when I used to do that vintage look a lot, when I was younger, that’s the thing that’s stayed.
Interviewer: With the blues as well, we’ve seen northern soul is having a little comeback for our generation, a lot of northern soul clubs and nights are starting up as well – it’s interesting to see how things come full circle.
R: There were so many clothes, I’ve seen that documentary on the Wigan casino, the clothes! I remember they used to put talc on the dance floor, didn’t they? To spin more? Amazing! The fucking flares! The tucked in shirts!
Interviewer: A lot of your music tackles political and social issues. How do you see the role of music in activism?
R: I think you’ve got to be really careful as a band to not come across patronising to your audience. There’s nothing worse than fucking righteous lefties or fascist fucking far right shouting telling people what to do. Alabama 3, I would say we’re quite political animals but we try not to ram it down people’s throats. I think you can’t help being affected by political issues, and a lot of the time it’s got us in trouble. A lot of times, some people get really confused, we’ve had some gigs where we’re singing a song and they go “ah I love this song” and you get talking to them and realise they’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
Z: What about when we did Glastonbury? There was someone with a Confederate flag, waving it about and it was like “what the hell!”. I think the whole point is, what I love about this band is why can’t you like country music and be open minded and speak about equality? Country did have a really bad link with a really bad racist sort of thing, and it’s like no – we can still like that music and [not share those values].
R: Well that’s why, with Beyonce’s album ‘Cowboy Carter‘, she said “I am reclaiming all this iconography”. And I think Lil Nas X as well, a gay black rapper with Billy Ray Cyrus. That broke down so many fucking barriers, and that is political in itself.
Interviewer: You said about Beyonce, but she was snubbed from the CMA’s [Country Music Awards, 2024], so again, is there a bridge?
Z: I think it’s still going to take a long time I think, for that to change. There’s those key figures and artists that are doing well, in the perimeters of country music. There’s a lot more black artists singing country now than there ever was, something you never saw.
R: You get those fucking trap rappers from Chicago, singing really murky shit about trapping drugs, but then you put a blues riff behind it. I do think kids now are no longer going “oh I’m punk-rock”. You get youngsters now, you know a 17 year old in a room with a computer and a sampler, and they’ll mix anything, they don’t give a fuck.
Z: I think that might have started with the playlist culture. Obviously when I was younger it was albums, and you had an album and a trend to follow with that band, and there was a whole scene based around what band you were into. And now you’ve got a playlist and on Spotify it does have a track that’s similar to something you were playing before and then you hear new music. It kind of all gets integrated and you can listen to so many different styles in one playlist and share them all, and that’s a culture that wasn’t there when I was younger.
Interviewer: It does seem in our generation like there’s a death of subcultures. Everyone can just go on Spotify and listen to all of these playlists. You don’t get the same discourse as well. Punks and teddy boys, you don’t get two going across each other anymore.
Z: But also, that’s then become quite a romantic thing to look back on in the past, and the fact that you can choose to be part of that when you want, that’s quite cool. Back then, you were known to be in that clique or not, and if you changed clique you were in trouble. You can dip in and out, you can go to Gaz’s in a circle dress and then you can go to Brixton and jump up and down to dub music, you know what I mean?
R: I do think as well there is a bit of a backlash at Gen Z, the first ones to be whacked over the fucking head by this fucking internet and stuff, but they are lucky. There’s been a resurgence of people buying vinyl, musicians and that, physical media.
Z: There is that need for something physical. Things to hold.
R: There’s a need for individual tribes again. I mean you don’t want it to be the days when it was like Rock Against Racism VS the National Front, you don’t want to see that level of fascism running around, but this generation is missing a bit of a punch up on the side.
Interviewer: Well, that actually leads into the other question we had, which was – do you think today’s music scene has lost some of that political edge?
R: I definitely think artists are much more nervous about speaking out, because the industry is just so top down, you’ve got the top tier of them making fucking millions.
Z: Although, you know, you’ve got bands like Kneecap.
Interviewer: Yes! We were just talking about Kneecap. We were saying how they’re one of the main political groups at the moment, Fontaines too.
Z: Yes but I think this is very very recent, I think Rob’s right, people were really scared until just before Kneecap I think. People wouldn’t even speak out against things – I mean, it’s still happening – things that were really really wrong. I think recently it’s becoming much more accepted to go “yeah this is what we think.” It’s something we’ve always done, and raised issues, you know, and it’s always been very prominent in the lyrics.
R: And that’s why we’re banned from fucking America.
Z: That’s why we have to be called “A3″…
Interviewer: What! Are you really?
Z: Nah, we’re not banned from America but…
R: …but we are on a list of, you know, overly political acts. When you’ve got a song called ‘Mao Tse Tung Said’…
Z: …Or a song called ‘North Korea’. That might do it.
Interviewer: What’s been the most memorable gig of your career?
Z: There’s been loads. My favourite was Glastonbury, all the Glastonbury’s are great that I’ve done with them, but there was one where Macy Gray was on after, and Candi Staton was on before us. And I was like [visible excitement]. I literally ran up to Candi Staton and jumped on her because I was so excited, like proper leapfrogged, she was like “[imitates American accent] woah get this crazy lady off me!”
R: Do you know about Mad Pride? After Gay Pride there was a group of activists who said we’re gonna copy the Gay Pride kind of thing and call it “Mad Pride”. imagine what the Board of Directors for Mad Pride looks like, two people with bipolar, one manic depressive, like all varieties of so-called ‘mental illness’.
Z: Like the band really.
R: All different specks of so-called madness. They organised this big benefit gig in Victoria Park, in fucking, North London. And we set up, we were just about ready to go, they got us on stage, and then the council came and pulled all the plugs and things because the Mad Pride committee had forgot to tell the council the hours of the gig!
Z: Oh! Is that when we sang acoustic and sat on the barrier?
R: Yeah, there was about 2000 proper fucking nutters drinking special brew, ketamine, mad, real mad. They said “right, fucking you lot…” but we just said “fuck the council” and we just took all these lunatics and sat on the fence outside the barrier and just did it acoustic.
Interviewer: I love that!!!
R: Yeah and there was another good one when we played in Brixton Prison.
Z: We did a whole tour of prisons.
R: The governor was an Alabama 3 fan. […] And we also had loads of friends in Brixton Prison. We were doing a gig but there was a meet and greet, the governor came to shake our hands, and we could see all the prisoners shifting drugs behind us! They said it was the best afternoon ever because we distracted the governor!
Z: Yeah because we distracted the guards and they got away with it – ahhh it was carnage!
Interviewer: Ahhhhh, we love that! We didn’t even know you could do gigs in prisons.
Z: [to Rob] It was your idea because of the Johnny Cash thing! Didn’t think it would actually happen.
Interviewer: How do you keep your performances fresh after so many years in the game?
Z: Every time I step onto the stage – you know, sometimes we’ve had to do a gig with 1 hours kip or something, or something really majors happened in your life, whatever – but it’s that thing of always appreciating the fact that you do get to do a job where you stand on that stage. I think the freshness comes from always giving that more than 100% every single time, and acting like it is your first opportunity to do it. And being appreciative, I think that keeps it fresh, because the moment you settle into complacency, that’s when it gets boring, and that’s when you don’t want to bring anything new to it, and that’s when you don’t try new ideas. Or, when your voice is nearly gone and you have to sing three harmonies below what you were singing the night before, that keeps it fresh! [laughs]
R: And also, I mean it’s a fact of rock and roll, we have lost 4 members of Alabama 3, they’ve died, so God bless them all, but that means you have to get new talent involved innit, which keeps it fucking rolling. So thank you God for taking the drummer, the singer, all that kind of shit. I didn’t have to kill them, the Lord took them from us, we’ve got a new band!
Interviewer: Sort of nature’s way of refreshing the band.
R: Yeah exactly, natural selection? Gods plan. [laughs]
Interviewer: We’re also going to ask about, of course, how “Woke Up This Morning” became an iconic theme song for The Sopranos. How did that opportunity come about? Did the success of the song change anything for the band either creatively or commercially?
R: It literally came about – I mean, I know David Chase, the writer, vaguely – where we had a record deal with Geffen at the time, and he was driving down that New Jersey fucking highway, whatever it was, and that record came on, and he was like [acts out being impressed]. I’ve never watched it myself, but there’s all big issues with his Mum innit, and all that, and the song goes “You woke up this morning / got yourself a gun / your mama always said you’d be the chosen one” and he thought “this is fucking perfect”.
R: He heard of Alabama 3, and he thought we were from Alabama, then he thought we were from San Francisco, then he thought we were 3 black kids from the Bronx, then he finds out it’s a Welshman and a Scotsman, Brits pretending to be American! At the time, HBO was a small fucking cable channel and it just kind of kicked off.
Z: Biggest TV show in the fucking world.
R: And they didn’t credit us at all, and for about 8 years I quite liked it. You can still google ‘Leonard Cohen – woke up this morning” – everyone believes Leonard Cohen wrote the theme. And we kept ourselves relatively quite quiet about it, because I liked it kind of building…but we couldn’t ignore the fucking success of the Sopranos, and it has been really good for us. I mean, fucking COVID was brilliant – it was the most watched boxset, the fucking Sopranos. So we get given a new lease of life every time, it remains top of the list in terms of young people’s favourite.
Z: So many people have reincarnated it in different ways,…you had Nas cover it, it was used on John Wick 4…
R: Jay-Z sampled it too.
R: It’s also good because it wasn’t written about gangsters, it was written about a woman, Sarah Thornton. Her fellow was a priest and he used to beat her up all the time and she had enough and she stabbed him. I changed it to her shooting him, but it was a song about female empowerment, like “I’ve had enough, I’m going to blow your fucking head off you abusing fucker”, d’ya know what I mean? It’s not about gangsters, and people always ask me if it’s a pain in the arse singing it every night but it’s not because I’m not particularly celebrating gangster culture. It has an ambivalence of a meaning, which means you don’t have to do all gangster shit all the time, which would be boring. And with sadly, with Jake passing, Zoe’s taken over doing the fucking rapping which gives as another angle again now, you know, because it’s a woman rapping in the male section. Another lease of life.
Z: Sort of takes it back to the original meaning.
R: Our manager at the time was a stupid fucking drug dealer, and thats why he was our manager – because he had money! We didn’t make much money out of the song…I think we got 500 quid for it.
Z: Monumentally ripped off!
R: I got a call in America, it went “[imitates thick Yorkshire accent] it’s Stuart here, I just had a call from the HBO, HFO or something. They’ll give us 500 quid for the song. Well what do you think? Oh yeah, might as well, let me pay off that coke bill you owe me.”
[laughter]
R: Nah we done alright with him. But that deal was daft.
Z: But nothing changes, you know, these companies. It’s a murky world isn’t it? There’s so many rip-offs that are still happening. This industry isn’t very protected at all – never has been and still isn’t.There’s not really any rights in music.
Interviewer: Would you say after it was successful that you felt pressured to keep to that sound? Did you ever feel like you had to stay with that vibe?
R: No, there’s no one else. We can’t really compare ourselves with anyone else really. We’re just stuck in our own world for life, you know? No parole.
Z: It’s a formula that just works really really well. It’s naturally something that will just continue I think, but slightly moving around here and there, with different vibes. But it still sounds like Alabama 3 every time.
R: A lot of the reason for me singing blues is you’ve got a long shelf life, like Chuck Berry who died in ’92. There’s country boys who sing, country girls who sing, I mean look at Dolly Parton. Imagine I had a massive hit as an emo band at 17 and I’d have to sing emo at age 60. Imagine that! I mean we can grow old quite disgracefully with country and blues, don’t have to dye our hair blue and be emo at 75.
Z: Lasting music, it’s lasting. It will always be something that people will be into, hopefully anyway.
Interviewer: Also you fuse two completely different things, it’s got so much scope for going between and in the middle of all of those things. You can pick up fans more easily, you’ve got the more dance music-y based techno, dub kind of parts and then country.
R: Yes, we’ve still got crowds. We’ve got these old country people looking at these ravers, all looking at each other, entwined.
Interviewer: Have you ever had a fan do something crazy?
Z: [she laughs] I don’t know where to start. Oh! We played Belfast and I went into the dressing room, and there was this little paper bag on the table with flowers. I went “awww nice little present” and it said ‘To Zoe, love will tear us apart’ – because I did a version of that – and I opened up the bag and there’s little roses, yellow ones…and a book on David Blunkett. And we cannot work out any relation…it doesn’t make sense – what the hell have I got to do with David Blunkett! And it makes you think wow. No correlation whatsoever. I’m looking at it thinking I’m not even sure I want to say thank you!
Interviewer: Did you know who it was?!
Z: No, I don’t know if I want to find out…
R: It’s a bit mad culty.
Interviewer: What’s the most unusual or unexpected place you’ve found inspiration for your music?
R: Wetherspoons on a Tuesday afternoon.
[we laugh]
R: What are you laughing for? If you wanna be a blues singer right, you’ve got to get real depressing, go to Wolverhampton Wetherspoons!
Z: We’ve gone from prison tour to Wetherspoons tour. That’s our progression.
Interviewer: That’s a good niche to land on!
R: Well you know like Zoe said, you know, she’s lived in London, particularly Brixton – you can’t help being inspired by, kind of, multi-culture and all this crossover shit. Bit of drill on the fucking corner, bit of reggae, some jazz, then someone fucking with steel pans.
Z: It’s literally all around you. London’s got a lot to do with it to be honest.
Interviewer: Looking back at your career, what are you most proud of?
R: Um, surviving.
Q: [laughing] Valid.
R: Like, a few of [the band] have died, so you know, still being alive…
[they think]
Z: And oh, the Simpsons! Fucking Sopranos on the Simpsons!
R: 3 times! When Bart’s turning into a gangster, Fat Tony picks him up in a suit and all.
Z: Actually if we did get taken by the Lord above, knowing that, I’d be quite happy to go.
Interviewer: You hinted to your new project/album coming? We were just wondering if there’s anything you can tell us about that? Or is it a bit hush-hush at the moment.
Z: Oh go on…give them something Rob.
R: Well, we pretended we were members of the first Presbytarian Church of Elvis the Divine.
Z: We still are, what are you talking about! Come on, I believed in you! Fuck!
R: So we started…well…we worship Elvis’s divinity and all of that, and Reverend D Wayne Love was his minister. It was weird because when we first started saying it, we got a letter off these real people who believed Elvis was [divine], from America: “cease and desist now, using the Lord’s name in vain, Elvis is our God, not yours, you’re just taking the piss”. We said fuck off, they’re just idiots. But we’ve carried on believing that…
Z: I still did until 2 minutes ago!
R: Well there you go…but with D Wayne Love passing, well, if you’re a cult you believe in a second coming, that He’s going to rise again. Well…[he pauses knowingly] God bless fucking AI. My dead pal is going to be rising from the dead very soon.
Z: And then we can’t say any more now, got to leave it there…
R: We’re looking forwards to a, kind of a, shall we say cult-like grave-robbing exercise. We’re having a documentary made in tandem with it so we’ve got quite a few things going on in that manner. With these things, you’ve got to bring everything together at once to create waves.
Z: I think there’s quite a stronger country thing going on with these tracks, generally.
R: Until the acid hits the…[imitates acid house sound].
Z: This is us trying to talk and also be vague!
Interviewer: I think this is a good one to end things on – if you could give advice to a young artist trying to blend genres like you have, what would it be?
Z: Don’t try and blend them. Just do what comes naturally. And if it does sound like a mix of two things, so fucking what? Like, do whatever it is. As long as you’re believing in what you do, then the combination can work. If you half-believe in it, it’ll sound shit. Simple.
R: Zoe, she does so many different styles – you have to use technology and not let technology use you. Technology’s fucking brilliant but it can take over your fucking whole being as a musician, but use it as a tool. And fucking good luck…because the industry is a fucker. Work in Wetherspoons on a Tuesday if you have to.
Z: You! You want to go to Wetherpsoons or something?!
R: I think there’s a career for young people in Wetherspoons.
Z: Everywhere we go! [she sings] Everywhere you go, always take Wetherspoons with youuu.
Interviewer: We might have to take some inspiration. Do a photoshoot. Sleeve girls take Spoons.
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