When they began in London in the mid-’90s, the acid house/country fusion project Alabama 3 didn’t gain much initial traction in their homeland. “We were totally out on a limb,” recalls frontman Rob “Larry Love” Spragg when talking to Post-Burnout.

 “I just remember seeing the potentiality because I was brought up in church, my father was a preacher man, I went to gospel, I didn’t fuckin’ smoke a joint until I was eighteen or have a drink until I was…you know that kind of shit?

“Well, I had come across an Akai S1100 sampler and I realised, ‘Man, I could loop an old fuckin’ Lead Belly riff to a techno beat.’ It took us about seven years to get a record deal – and this was the height of Britpop and that kind of baggy vibe and all that – and we were seen as a fuckin’ bunch of idiots, you know? A Welshman pretending he’s American, a Scotsman pretending he’s American, and doing it all in American accents, as well, which didn’t endear us to the British press.

“But I’m really pleased to see, like, Lil Nas X with that country crossover with Billy Ray Cyrus. Who would’ve thought of that? You know, Beyoncé with Cowboy Carter?  I like to think we were ahead of the curve, in that respect. I think it’s really interesting seeing young ‘ins these days; they don’t give a fuck where the fuckin’ sample comes from or whatever. It’s a lot wider library which they can utilise, as long as they’re aware of what the history is.”

One place that the band did see some love from was Ireland. “I’m in love with a Dublin girl,” Rob says of touring Ireland. “I fuckin’ love the Guinness. Our first gig outside of the UK was there. It’s my second home. Three of my managers are Irish! I have no choice, Aaron, you know what I mean? It’s compulsory; I keep returning to the scene of the fuckin’ crime!

“I spoke to a journo from Limerick. He said, ‘What’s your first memory of Ireland?’ The first gig we did [there] was in the Róisín Dubh in Galway. At the time, we were seen in the British press as being a novelty act – because we were mixing country and techno and stuff like that – and, when we got to Ireland, you fuckers got it straight away, like, and it was such a relief!

“Because, in London, they were [saying], ‘Why are they called Alabama 3? You can’t mix techno with country and blues!’,  you know what I mean? So, I’ve always had a great respect for the intelligence of Irish crowds. Probably the most scary crowd in the fuckin’ world, because if you’re shit, you’re fuckin’ fucked! The session is over!”

A couple of years later, the band would see some international love after their song, “Woke Up This Morning,” from their 1997 debut album, Exile on Coldharbour Lane, was chosen as the theme song for a new HBO crime drama, called The Sopranos.

 “It was quite weird because, when we first came out, we were ‘Alabama 3,’ but there’s a band in America called ‘Alabama,’ right?” remembers Rob of how they got featured. “So, we were forced to change our name to ‘A3,’ which is fuckin’ like ‘U2’ but just a big piece of paper! So, that was our very big initial hurdle because it’s very hard to market a band called ‘A3,’ you know what I mean?

“But, yeah, to watch The Sopranos, you’ve got to bear in mind, when we were approached by HBO, HBO was a small, little poxy shopping channel in fuckin’ New York, you know what I mean? And it was, like, $500 or whatever it was to use the track, and we said, ‘Yeah,’ and then it just fuckin’ snowballed. There are so many people who have come to the band via The Sopranos, but, still, people don’t know who we are, and I kind of quite like that. We were never credited at the end, in the [credits], so no one quite knows who we are, so it took a while for people to realise that, but we’ve been forever fuckin’ grateful.

“Dominic Chianese – who plays fuckin’ Uncle Junior, who we partied with in fuckin’ New Jersey between COVID – he turned up in London two years ago, and he’s ninety-four years old. He said, ‘I want to come down to the studio, man!’ And he’s a multi-instrumentalist and he can sing! We had a fuckin’ top time with him, man, you know what I mean? I went on a podcast with a load of them, so we’ve got a good family thing going on. I met [James] Gandolfini a couple of times. He’s a right fuckin’ hooligan!

“But it’s been a real blessing. I’ll tell ya what, COVID really helped because everyone was stuck indoors and The Sopranos boxset was the most-watched out of all the fuckin’ boxsets, you know what I mean?!”

Despite getting their song stuck in the heads of those binge-watching the show during the pandemic, that time was stagnant for Alabama 3, but now they want to make up for lost time. “I mean, that was the first thing to be shut down was gigs, wasn’t it, and music?” Rob says.

“Our job, ultimately, is to get people back in the room, and dancing, and talking to each other, you know what I mean? And having a pint, eye-to-eye, you know what I mean? And find connectivity again. I think… – I know it’s a cliché – …but live music and supporting smaller venues and all that shit is really imperative. The pricing system now with big gigs is fuckin’ ridiculous, some of the prices.”

Fittingly, 2025 marks the 25^th anniversary of their second album, La Peste, which is French for The Plague. “You know what, Aaron? It doesn’t feel that long ago at all,” Rob says of the album’s quarter-century jubilee. “Because we’ve been so out of the margins – as I said, at times, even a novelty – we’ve had to, unfortunately or fortunately, plough our own fuckin’ fields on our own, in the rain with a fuckin’ three-legged donkey!

“So, I don’t think we’ve particularly been interested in doing the ‘Greatest Hits’ and get the old singalong grannies, you know what I mean? We’ve got a lot of youngsters coming to the gigs and all that, who are still finding us fresh, which I think is a testament to us probably not selling many records. Not being very famous, but fuckin’ being true to our roots, which, at the time, was seen as a bit stupid.”

Starting tonight in Belfast, the band will be touring Ireland and the UK to celebrate the anniversary, where they will be performing both La Peste and Exile on Coldharbour Lane in full. “We don’t sort of play Exile and then La Peste one after the other; we sort of mix the two up,” Rob says of the tour’s sets.

“It’s like I said to someone else, ‘It’s like one kid’s gone off to university and the other’s gone off to prison, and they’ve come back together for a family reunion, and they’re getting on well!’

The tour will also serve as a tribute to the late members of the band. “It’s a shame, but, so far, four people from Alabama 3 have died over the years – God bless ‘em and long may they long drink with Jimi Hendrix and all that – but to have a new band playing the kind of stuff,” Rob says.

“We’ve still got all the electronica in there, but it’s giving it a new vitality. It may be biased, but we don’t sound dated, you know what I mean? In terms of all our genre splicing, which is quite de jure with the youngsters.”

Alabama 3’s tour begins tonight at the Limelight, Belfast, before coming to The Academy, Dublin tomorrow and Dolan’s, Limerick on Sunday. You can find all dates and purchase tickets through the band’s website.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.