Alabama Shakes is an American rock band formed in Athens, Alabama, in 2009. The band consists of lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell, and drummer Steve Johnson.
The band began its career touring and performing at bars and clubs around the Southeast for two years while honing its sound and writing music. They recorded their debut album, Boys & Girls, with producer Andrija Tokic in Nashville while still unsigned. Online acclaim led ATO Records to sign the band, which released Boys & Girls in 2012 to critical success. The album's hit single "Hold On" was nominated for three Grammy Awards. After a long touring cycle, the band recorded its second record, Sound & Color, which was released in 2015, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and won them three Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Song for "Don't Wanna Fight." In 2018, the band won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for their rendition of "Killer Diller Blue" in the film The American Epic Sessions, bringing their Grammy total to 4.
History
Early years (2004–2009)
Brittany Howard grew up interested in music, filling notebooks with lyrics and teaching herself to play drums, bass, and guitar.[1]
Howard played in multiple bands at East Limestone High School that helped to formulate and craft her taste in music. Her most serious band in her early years was Kerosene Swim Team, a rock band that consisted of Owen Whitehurst and Jonathan Passero. They went on to have a single titled "Coffins and Cadillacs" featured on a compilation track from now defunct indie label Volital Records. They would practice daily after school in Passero's garage, Whitehurst's garage, and Howard's house. They mainly played house parties, and their songs consisted of a mix of covers and originals penned by Howard. Both Whitehurst and Passero continued playing backup for Howard, with Whitehurst playing with Howard and Shakes' bassist Zac Cockrell in what would eventually become The Shakes. Whitehurst played drums and piano, with Howard and Cockrell playing their current respective instruments.[2]
Formation (2009–2011)
Howard met Heath Fogg in junior high when he played guitar at house parties.[1] She met classmate and bassist Zac Cockrell in a psychology class some time later, and they soon began to spend time listening to their favorite music together and writing their own.[3] After graduation, Howard hosted twice-weekly jam sessions at her great-grandparents' former home. Drummer Steve Johnson, who had heard Howard singing at a party years prior, began attending the jam sessions at the suggestion of Cockrell.[4] They began making music together and recording homemade demos[4] having little else to do in the small town.[1]
The group made its live debut in May 2009 under the name "The Shakes."[4] Fogg, at this point a guitarist in the Tuscaloosa-based Tuco's Pistol, invited the group to open for his band at Brick Deli & Tavern in Decatur.[3] The band was nervous to perform for an audience, as they felt "vulnerable." Their set included covers of Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Otis Redding, and AC/DC.[4] The show went over well, and Fogg soon joined the group.[1] During this time the band members held other day jobs: Howard as a fry cook and then a postal worker, Johnson at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant, Cockrell at an animal clinic, and Fogg painting houses.[5] For much of their early years, the Shakes performed shows on weekends at "sports bars and country dives."[6] They also began recording their debut album at Tokic's Bomb Shelter—the home of producer Andrija Tokic—in Nashville, funding the recordings themselves.[1] The band chose Tokic's over other studios because they recorded mostly live to tape, and they believed it would spur a livelier performance. The band would complete arrangements in their hometown and drive an hour and a half north to Nashville to record in intervals over the course of 2011.[7]
Their breakthrough came when Justin Gage, a Los Angeles music blogger and SiriusXM host, found a photo of Howard performing online. After contacting the band in July 2011, he posted an MP3 of their song "You Ain't Alone" on his music blog, Aquarium Drunkard.[1][8] By the next morning, the group was awash in offers from record labels and management companies.[1] Gage also contacted Patterson Hood, vocalist of the band Drive-By Truckers, who attended a show not long after. He arranged to set the band up with his managers, Christine Stauder and Kevin Morris.[9] Alabama Shakes released a four-song EP, Alabama Shakes, in September 2011, which gained media attention (including NPR)[10] and earned an invitation to play at the CMJ Music Marathon industry showcase in New York.[11] The band began negotiating a record deal with ATO Records and added "Alabama" to their name after Joseph Hicks, of Halo Stereo, noticed how many groups shared the name "The Shakes".[1][12] They began to open for the Drive-By Truckers.[13]
Boys & Girls and mainstream success (2012–2014)
The band performing three months prior to the release of Boys & Girls (2012).
The band's first full-length album, Boys & Girls, was released in April 2012.[14] It debuted at number 16 on the national charts as a digital-only release,[14] but climbed to number eight as physical releases were distributed.[4] The album received near-universal acclaim.[1] After a European tour, they opened for Jack White over a summer tour and performed at several major music festivals, including Sasquatch, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.[4] The album's lead single, "Hold On" was a radio hit (peaking at number one on Billboard'sAdult Alternative Songs chart)[15] and was dubbed the best song of the year by Rolling Stone.[16]
The New York Times credited their "rapid ascent" to "Howard's singular stage presence."[1] The group received three nominations for the 2013 Grammy Awards: Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance for "Hold On," and Best Recording Package for their debut album, Boys & Girls.[17][18] After the Grammy's performance, Boys & Girls returned to the top 10, peaking at number six a year after its release.[15]Boys & Girls was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 in the United States on March 13, 2013.[19] It has since sold over 744,000 copies in the US.[15]
Sound & Color (2015–2018)
The band began recording their second album in late 2013. They spent over a year in the studio, with no clear end-goal, as they had not written any new songs due to their exhaustive touring schedule.[5]
The group's second studio album, Sound & Color, was released on April 21, 2015.[20][21][22] It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in the US, making it the band's first number one album.[15] The record's lead single, "Don't Wanna Fight", was a number two hit on the Adult Alternative Songs chart.[15] The album eventually earned three Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Music Album.[23][24]
The band played for the VMworld 2015 Party at ATT park in San Francisco on September 2, 2015, and Barclays British Summer Time in Hyde Park, London on July 8, 2016.
In 2018, the band went on hiatus due to Howard's focus on her solo project Jaime, which led to a solo tour in 2019.[27] In June 2020, guitarist Heath Fogg released his debut solo project under the name Sun on Shade.[28]
In March 2020, drummer Steve Johnson pleaded guilty to domestic violence, harassment and stalking in relation to his ex-wife, following their divorce after three and a half years of marriage. He received a one-year suspended prison sentence and 24 months' probation. On March 24, 2021, Johnson was arrested on suspicion of child abuse and was subsequently indicted by a grand jury on charges of "wilful torture, wilful abuse, and cruelly beating or otherwise wilfully maltreating a child under the age of 18."[29] He was released on bail.[30] The charge was dismissed in December 2021.[31]
Musical style
Early critical reviews of their debut, Boys & Girls (2012), noted that the band borrowed from mid-20th century rhythm and blues.[32][33] Alongside Howard's voice, the songs were compared to artists such as Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, and Aretha Franklin.[6] Howard herself took inspiration from Bon Scott of AC/DC in her vocal style, praising his "soulful" way of singing.[4] As the acclaim mounted, "reviewers speculated" that their sound was in homage to the music produced in Muscle Shoals, Alabama nearly five decades prior. Cockrell and Fogg were aware of the Shoals legacy,[16] but Howard was more influenced by bands such as Led Zeppelin and artists like David Bowie. The success of debut single "Hold On" led some to believe the group "[was] trying to pass themselves off as revivalists, something they never aspired to be."[1]
Their second record, Sound & Color (2015), is steeped in several different genres, and touches on everything from shoegaze to bands such as MC5.[32]
