Issue 157

Alabama 3 Interview

08th October 2007

Sin City struggled to contain the mighty sound of the Celts pretending to be Alabama hicks, donning their classic white suits, aviators and cowboy hats. Alabama 3 performed with a sense of chaos while maintaining the tight pulsing power of their music. The climax of this intensely personal gig had the lead singer reminiscing on being a teenager, hanging out at the quadrant bus station, eliciting a powerful sense of his pride in Swansea.

Waterfront snatched a few minutes with lead singer Larry Love and stunning diva Devlin on the tour bus. Larry launched into a description of the night. 'With Alabama 3 you get what it says on the tin, so every gig is crazy in a different way. You rise up, convert the perverts and pervert the converts, know what I mean? So everyone goes crazy."

Alabama 3 have been around for 10 years and have released 6 albums, but still critics and labels struggle to categorise their music. Larry sets it straight, 'Sweet, pretty, motherf**king, acid house, music.'

They may lack the credit they deserve but they have built up an untouchable reputation for sterling live shows. '[We] always do gigs in areas where there's a desperate substrata population that don't have any jobs." Devlin chips in, 'Make sure everyone suffers and there's always desperation?!' 'Don't play Hampstead, Camden, Oxford or Cambridge," Larry responds. 'We have a certain reputation for, shall we say, hedonism, narcotic or alcoholism, but we have never felt patronising to our audiences. We are very lucky and privileged to be out on the road doing gigs. We have a gratitude which hopefully extends to the stage. With respect we've never missed any gigs, whatever's going on."

Listening to their back catalogue, there is a theme of justice and capital punishment which forms the core of a number of songs. Devlin explained her own take on the concepts. 'There's no such barriers in terms of religion, race, culture or nothing. Boundaries, beats, religion, and culture all mix in one, and sometimes that's more daring than sticking to a tribe." Their new album M.O.R. also sees the band focusing their attention in on home issues.

"This album is definitely aimed at trying to relate to the public,' says Devlin, 'as opposed to the other ones, which were standing up for who you are individually.'

The theme tune to hit TV show The Sopranos is constantly held up as Alabama 3's big hit, but Larry explains he has 'no problems with it at all, we've not whored it. Bob Dylan says "to live outside the law you must be honest," we have a severe, 100% diamond gold, blinged up AKA-47 integrity. Basically, we've sold no fucking records."

I wondered what reactions they usually get from Welsh crowds. According to Larry, "the Welsh crowd do respond differently. I'm from Merthyr, we came out of Brit-pop, which was very much the dying embers of British imperialism.

They got Union Jacks and they're shaking hands with Tony Blair and shit - God bless them. But the Welsh, man and the Scots did not wanna play that game! Going "I'm very proud to be British - Rule Britannia." We were in resistance to that whole thing. No offense to the English, but dancing round the maypole is not the same as Christie fucking Moore!'

So what's the future for the band who have powered on past critics, played the blues with Stephen King and aspire to work with Steve Earl, Lucinda Williams and rap artist Scroobius Pip (probably not all at once)? 'Change radically our direction!', Larry quips, 'I've realized that country and western techno is a stupid idea, it just attracts a gangster element! No, basically, we ain't going nowhere, we ain't deviating nothing 'cause we are the only fucking band in the world doing country and western acid house techno cocaine communist music all night long."

Katy Bergson