{"id":2445694,"date":"2019-06-25T05:05:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T11:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=851672"},"modified":"2019-06-25T05:05:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T11:05:07","slug":"why-brittany-howard-put-alabama-shakes-on-hold-and-made-a-wild-solo-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/why-brittany-howard-put-alabama-shakes-on-hold-and-made-a-wild-solo-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Brittany Howard Put Alabama Shakes on Hold and Made a Wild Solo Album"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last year, Brittany Howard<\/a> called a meeting with her bandmates and told them some news they probably didn\u2019t want to hear. Alabama Shakes<\/a> \u2014 who met in high school, broke through with 2012\u2019s \u201cHold On\u201d and went on to win four Grammys \u2014 would not be recording a follow-up to 2015\u2019s Sound & Color<\/em> anytime soon. Instead, Howard would be making a solo album. \u201cIt was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to do this record by myself,\u2019\u2009\u201d she says. \u201cI knew that I needed to be in control of everything: the music, the arrangements, all that stuff. And when am I going to do it if not now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard\u2019s solo debut, Jaime,<\/em> is her most ambitious recording ever, full of synthed-out psychedelic funk, druggy soul ballads, hip-hop loops, and lyrics grappling with her past, including sexuality, family tragedy, religious guilt and more (the album is out September 20th, and she released the new single \u201cHistory Repeats<\/a>\u201d today.) It\u2019s a powerful record: Howard recalls a recent listening party where \u201cone lady cried. I\u2019m used to hearing it, so I\u2019m always surprised when people hear it and their general reaction is like, \u2018Oh, boy.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of the band meeting, Howard had already proved she was creatively restless by starting two side projects, Bermuda Triangle and Thunderbitch. Writing for Alabama Shakes was more difficult. \u201cIt\u2019s just a labor to get the songs out,\u201d she says. For her, writer\u2019s block is tangled up with some of her oldest memories. \u201cWhen I grew up, we didn\u2019t have much money,\u201d she adds. \u201cWe lived in a trailer park. There\u2019s always this part of me that\u2019s like, \u2018I do not want to go back to the trailer park.\u2019 I still have that belief system, so whenever something is not coming easily, I start having those poor thoughts: \u2018Oh, this is it.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, thinking back to the trailer park actually helped her write. She moved into a house in Topanga Canyon, California. Working on her own, she felt more comfortable writing about her own experience growing up the daughter of a black father and a white mother in Alabama. On the haunting \u201cGoat Head,\u201d Howard lays into all of it: \u201cMama is white and Daddy is black\/When I first got made, guess I made these folks mad,\u201d she sings, before asking a question she\u2019s been asking since she was 13: \u201cWho slashed my dad\u2019s tires and put a goat head in the back?\u201d \u201cIt felt really vulnerable,\u201d Howard says. \u201cBut if you\u2019re gonna be honest, you can\u2019t be just a little bit honest.\u201d She thinks turning 30 last fall helped push her to that place. \u201cI had more to say,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was me giving myself permission to tell the stories that I don\u2019t ever talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those belongs to her older sister Jaime<\/em>, the album\u2019s namesake. \u201cShe taught me how to write a song, taught me how to draw, taught me about art,\u201d Howard says of her sister, who died at 13 from a form of eye cancer. \u201cI\u2019ve always been connected to her spirit. This [album] was kind of my way of doing something together.\u201d Howard thought about her sister\u2019s tape collection, where Elvis stood next to the Supremes. Howard also listened to Brazilian artist Jorge Ben, who makes music \u201cwhere there\u2019s literally, like, 18 different things happening in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

For \u201cHe Loves Me,\u201d where Howard proclaims that God still loves her even though she drinks and smokes too much weed, she broke up her verses with portions of a sermon by a Houston preacher, Pastor Terry K. Anderson, whom she found on YouTube. She\u2019s similarly honest on \u201cGeorgia,\u201d a sweet, soulful ballad \u201cabout being a little gay black girl and having a crush on an older black girl.\u201d In the album\u2019s press release, Howard discusses her struggles with questions of identity growing up:  \u201cIn a small town, like where I come from, different is bad \u2014 I never wanted to be different. My greatest wish was to be like everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the album, Howard sounds relieved at the chance to speak her truth. \u201cIf people like the record, that\u2019s amazing,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m just proud that I made the record.\u201d She plans to tour with the people who helped her make it, including keyboardist Paul Horton (who has toured with the Shakes) and Shakes bassist Zac Cockrell, \u201cbecause to me he\u2019s, like, the best bass player.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the band that made her famous, even Howard isn\u2019t sure what its future is. \u201cWe\u2019re a family,\u201d she says. \u201cThose are my bro-bros for life. But right now they\u2019re just letting me do my thing. If I did the same songs and the same everything, I\u2019d be so miserable. I\u2019d be so bored. I wouldn\u2019t care about heaps of cash, swimming in a cash swimming pool. It does not matter to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brittany Howard\u2019s tour dates:<\/p>\n

8\/17 \u2013 Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
8\/18 \u2013 Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
8\/19 \u2013 Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
8\/23 \u2013 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
8\/24 \u2013 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
9\/18 \u2013 Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
9\/19 \u2013 St. Paul, MN | Palace Theatre
9\/20 \u2013 Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
9\/22 \u2013 Toronto, ON @ Rebel
9\/24 \u2013 New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
9\/25 \u2013 Boston, MA @ House of Blues
9\/27 \u2013 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
10\/5 \u2013 Austin, TX @ ACL Festival
10\/8 \u2013 Los Angeles, CA @ Theatre at Ace Hotel
10\/9 \u2013 Los Angeles, CA @ Theatre at Ace Hotel
10\/12 \u2013 Austin, TX @ ACL Festival
10\/13 \u2013 Atlanta, GA @ AfroPunk Festival<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, Brittany Howard called a meeting with her bandmates and told them some news they probably didn\u2019t want to hear. Alabama Shakes \u2014 who met in high school, broke through with 2012\u2019s \u201cHold On\u201d and went on to win four Grammys \u2014 would not be recording a follow-up to 2015\u2019s Sound & Color anytime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 12:39:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}