Product Code Database
Alabama Shakes are an American rock band formed in Athens, Alabama, in 2009. The band currently consists of lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, and bassist Zac Cockrell.
The band began its career touring and performing at bars and clubs around the Southeastern United States 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 . 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 four.
On December 18, 2024, the band reunited for a surprise performance at the Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. On January 27, 2025, the band posted on Instagram that they are working on new music, and in February 2025, Alabama Shakes announced a reunion tour scheduled July to September, 2025.
The group made its live debut in May 2009 under the name "The Shakes." Fogg, at this point a guitarist in the Athens-based Tuco's Pistol, invited the group to open for his band at Brick Deli & Tavern in Decatur. 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. The show went over well, and Fogg soon joined the group. 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. For much of their early years, the Shakes performed shows on weekends at "sports bars and country dives." They also began recording their debut album at Tokic's Bomb Shelter—the home of producer Andrija Tokic—in Nashville, funding the recordings themselves. 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.
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. By the next morning, the group was awash in offers from record labels and management companies. 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. Alabama Shakes released a four-song EP, Alabama Shakes, in September 2011, which gained media attention (including NPR) and earned an invitation to play at the CMJ Music Marathon industry showcase in New York. 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". They began to open for the Drive-By Truckers.
The New York Times credited their "rapid ascent" to "Howard's singular stage presence." 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. After the Grammy's performance, Boys & Girls returned to the top 10, peaking at number six a year after its release. Boys & Girls was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 in the United States on March 13, 2013. It has since sold over 744,000 copies in the US.
The group's second studio album, Sound & Color, was released on April 21, 2015. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in the US, making it the band's first number one album. The record's lead single, "Don't Wanna Fight", was a number two hit on the Adult Alternative Songs chart. The album eventually earned three , including Best Alternative Music Album.
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 won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for their rendition of "Killer Diller Blue" in the film The American Epic Sessions, which was directed by Bernard MacMahon. They recorded the song live on the restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s.
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." He was released on bail. The charge was later dismissed in December 2021.
In February 2024, Howard released her second solo album, What Now, to widespread critical acclaim. The album placed highly on several end-of-year critics lists and was supported by extensive touring, including performances at Coachella, Glastonbury Festival and Bonnaroo Festival.
On February 7, 2025, the band announced their first tour in eight years, and confirmed that new music will be released as a three-piece, with Johnson no longer a member of the band following his legal troubles. Howard stated: "Last year, Heath, Zac, and I started chatting about how much fun it would be to make music together and tour again as Alabama Shakes. This band and these songs have been such a source of joy for all of us. It is crazy that it has been 10 years since we released Sound & Color and eight years since we played a show. But, we didn’t want this to entirely be a look back. We wanted it to be as much about the future as the past. So we have a bunch of new music that will be released soon. We just can’t wait to experience that ‘feeling’ when we start playing those first few notes of ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’ or ‘Gimme All Your Love.’"
Their second record, Sound & Color (2015), is steeped in several different genres, and touches on everything from shoegaze to bands such as MC5.
|
|
