TIM HUGHES looks forward to a southern-fried performance by masters of acid country Alabama 3 They are best-known for the grungy-blues theme tune Woke Up This Morning, from cult gangster show The Sopranos.

But who exactly are Alabama 3?

"We're the Alabama 3," explains frontman Jake Black. "But we're not from Alabama, and there's not three of us."

Their lazy country drawls, gospel lyrics and bluesy chords do hail from the Deep South, however – though not of America, but London. To be precise, Brixton.

The band dates back to a fortuitous meeting between Jake (aka The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love) and Rob Spragg (aka Larry Love) at a rave in Peckham.

The pair believed the world was ready for a fusion of country music and acid house, and so the band began its evolution – developing into the present Stetson and mirror-shade clad beast, which boasts up to nine members.

“We make sweet country acid house music all night long,” says Jake. “We're the fellas that did that Sopranos theme tune. That tune bought someone a swimming pool, but it sure wasn't any of us!”

Tomorrow the band return to Oxford for a gig at the Carling Academy. And if previous performances are anything to go by, it looks like being a raucous night – both on and off stage.

But listen to the lyrics with even half an ear, and you'll soon discover that there is depth to this band.

For as well as being very funny, they’re also political animals, who never shy away from laying into their targets with humour, intelligence, and big bad beats.

“Alabama 3 is a pop band; a punk rock, blues and country techno situationist crypto-Marxist-Leninist electro band,” Jake goes on. “We never went on X Factor or Pop Idol or Stooge Quest. We did it the old-fashioned way. Back in 1996 we threw a big old party, invited all our friends, and made it up as we went along. And Geffen records bought it – for a million dollars.

“We never needed a self-appointed quango of jaded vampires to tell us how to sing the blues. We got mojo. and we have the power to raise the dead.”

He adds: “We spent half of our advance on various contraband items and with the rest we made an over-produced, brilliant situationist masterpiece called Exile on Coldharbour Lane.

“Ever since then we've been preaching all over the world.

“We've got into a whole bunch of trouble and met a whole bunch of nice people. We make friends wherever we go.”

Which is not to say their incendiary live show and provocative lyrics haven't earned them a few enemies.

“They've tried to stop us many, many times,” says Jake. “They say we’re degenerates and corrupters of morals. They say we’re too political, too contrived and too ugly.

“We've been in and we've been out; in and out of the charts, in and out of fashion, in and out of rehab. We've been skint and we've been minted. But, you know what? It makes no difference to us. Because we're never gonna stop.”

Alabama 3 play the Oxford Carling Academy tomorrow. Tickets are £15.

Doors open at 6.30pm. Tickets are available from the venue box office on 0844 477 2000 and www.tctmusic.co.uk