Alabama Shakes: 'We can’t wait to explore Leeds'
“Everyone says Leeds is a city with a vibrant scene,” Alabama Shakes singer-guitarist Brittany Howard muses. The Athens-born star – Athens, America, rather than Athens, Greece – hasn’t spent too much time in West Yorkshire, but she admits she is relishing the opportunity.
“My friend Corinne Bailey Rae is from there,” she notes. “There’s great venues like the Hyde Park Book Club and the Brudenell Social Club. We can’t wait to explore.”
Of course, small rooms won’t do for the blues-soul three-piece – Howard, Heath Fogg and Zac Cockrell – as they alight for a Sounds of the City headline show at Millennium Square. It marks their first show in Europe for a decade, the start of a brief continental jaunt that comes on the back of a lengthy hiatus where their frontwoman pursued a solo career.
Howard is no stranger to a show under the sky – “Being outside can be very inspiring,” she notes, before adding that “it depends on the weather” – but it has been some time since the band made memories on this side of the Atlantic Ocean? “Those early days in London were so amazing. Our first shows here at The Boston Arms might be my favourite three-night run of all time. I remember the fans and us stayed at the venue and had a dance party until the sun came up.”
The band will hope to keep the party going with the arrival of their long-awaited third record, due imminently. Howard talks about the album taking inspiration from “what is going on around us in the world today” and “being in love” – but for many of their fans, it will be the way their songs hit when they take the stage that sells them, given the group’s fearsome live reputation.
Howard is aware. “We’ve a new song called Time that we’re playing a lot. I’m having so much fun performing that live. We take it pretty out there which is super fun.” She is happy to be back on the road, too. “I miss hanging out with my friends! We’ve such a great crew of people on this tour.”
Not that road life is necessarily the be-all and end-all for her. She remains, by her own admission, something of “a homebody”, keen to keep her roots close to the ground when not cutting music. “I love just hanging out on the farm, working on the land, playing with my animals,” she adds. Anything else for fun? There is one pastime. “Of course, occasionally fishing.”
With a show at Alexandra Palace to follow, before a string of festival shows take them through the rest of July, Alabama Shakes are primed to make the most of this long-awaited comeback. Howard has no shortage of inspiration to draw upon when it comes to recent gigs that have left her thrilled to the core – she cites both Erykah Badu and David Byrne in Nashville as some of her recent favourites – and she hopes to carry that across.
What does she wish she could tell herself and her bandmates 10 years ago? “Live in the moment.”
Alabama Shakes play at Millennium Square, Leeds on July 1. https://www.alabamashakes.com/