Hold on to your cowboy hats – the Alabama 3 are coming to town, to save our souls with blues, beats and bass. TIM HUGHES chats to frontman Larry Love

LARRY Love is growling. The frontman of the self-styled ‘sweet acid house country music’ band has a formidably deep voice at the best of times – but today it has been reduced to a seismic rumble.

It’s the kind of vocal rumble that shakes buildings, strips paint and sends those of a more delicate disposition fleeing for their safety and fearing for their sanity.

“You can blame the whole rock & roll, drink and drugs thing,” he grumbles.

“I’ve got a terrible cold. It’s man-flu and I can’t shake it.”

But with a packed programme of gigs ahead of him – starting with Oxford – he certainly isn’t going to let it get the better of him.

“I can’t wait,” he says, before erupting into coughs. “We are celebrating our 20th anniversary – so it’s going to be a party.”

Alabama 3 are an enigma. With their cowboy hats and boots, their aviator shades, soulful lyrics, gospel anthems and lowdown and dirty blues riffs, they epitomise Deep Southern rock & roll.

But don’t let the look, nor the name, fool you.

This dynamic bunch of hard-living reprobates hail not from the Mississippi delta but south of the Thames – to be precise, Brixton.

And there aren’t three of them either, That’s not to say the whole thing’s an act; they are deadly serious. Their hedonistic message, delivered with the punch and hyperbole of a Louisiana preacher with a rattlesnake in the pulpit, is variously a call to arms or a damning indictment. It’s funny, dark and is laden with grooves so deep they can stop – and start – your heart.

And Larry – real name Rob Spragg – is the man with the microphone who has been sent to save us.

First grabbing our attention when their epic Woke Up This Morning was used as the theme tune for The Sopranos, the constantly mutating collective continue to pack out clubs with devoted fans, without really bothering the mainstream.

“It’s been more like 20 years of recrimination than celebrity,” he says, “but we were in for the long haul. And we are still banging the drum and smashing up cop cars.

“We are a bit of a country and western techno band with a singer from Wales,” he laughs. “It’s not a good idea on one level, but you have to fight your case.

“Who would’ve thought there would be longevity doing country and blues songs at our age? But we are very big on crossing genres – and our honesty has kept us out of the charts.”

He describes the band as a “Christian revival meeting of misfits who all hold hands together and raise the roof with post-apocalyptic blues.”

He is joined at the front of this theatrical troupe of characters by D Wayne – real name Jake Black – a Scottish firebrand gospel preacher with a love of deep bass lines and Elvis Presley, who describes himself as a minister in the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine.

The band’s Oxford shows have become a near-annual fixture and are loud, sweaty and lively.

“We do have some extremely loyal fans,” says Larry. “And we want people to come down and forget their troubles. We deal with the devil and play to the gallery!”

Joking aside, he is quietly satisfied that the band are still going strong two decades in, and are still developing their sound, blending dance, country and soul.

“We are still rolling along. We’re toxic athletes, and the party hasn’t stopped yet, not by a long shot,” he says.

And what has been the best moment?

“Awareness of our back catalogue – and that we are still making a living out of this.

“We have written 238 songs, which is quite a surprise. I can’t even remember half of them.”

So does he plan to give some of his lost gems an airing, or just carry on serving up the familiar big-hitters?

“We’ll do a few, but we have to accommodate people’s comfort zones,” he says. “We are their comfort blanket.”

And, as the band crack open the fizz to celebrate 20 years of infamy, does he see them slowing things down a bit as they get older and wiser?

“We are not putting our raving days behind us!” he growls. “In fact we doing even more – as we’ve got more to get depressed about!”

“So we can’t wait to tour the country, waking up in a stretch-caravan with unspecified members of the human race. Come down and join us.”

  • Alabama 3 play the O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford, on Friday, November 25. Tickets from ticketweb.co.uk.
  • It's then on with the rest of a national tour, culminating in a gig down at the Engine Rooms, Southampton, on December 30.