The Crow Takes Flight!
WORDS – Louise and Paul Froude
PHOTOS – Nick Ashton
Every so often, from the opening riff, a band will stop you in your tracks and make you sit up and take notice, and this was the case when Louise and Paul Froude encountered Alabama Crow’s opening set at The Love Rocks Classic Rock & Blues Festival in June.
The new ERB contributors sat down with the band to chat about the tour, their hotly anticipated first album, and to find out what makes them tick.
Hailing from Kirriemuir (where Bon Scott spent the first six years of his childhood), and Dundee in the wilds of Scotland, Alabama Crow are, in the words of Billy Jack, singer and rhythm guitarist, “Just a group of guys who want to have fun and play music that really means something to us.”
They formed in 2024 after the passing of Billy’s mum, when he felt compelled to put what he was feeling down onto paper. With these words subsequently turning into future Alabama Crow tracks. His mum, a music teacher, passed her love of music onto him and his house as a child would be filled with the sound of Chopin, Schubert and other great composers. Like many of us though, Billy says he is happy to listen to anything with a decent beat.
Billy, and the rest of the guys, drummer Craig Duncan, Paul Randall, lead guitarist, and bassist Danny Elder had already been discussing possibilities, but about a month or so after Billy’s mum’s passed things just seemed to click. Billy states: “I honestly believe my mum sent them as angels. It just clicked, the way everything kind of connected. I mean, I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about these guys honestly.” Billy and Craig had previously played in a band together as well as Billy and Paul, but this time it feels different, it feels right, like it’s meant to be.
Writing songs mainly for his mum, Billy also feels that they resonate with the guys as well… “It’s like even though I’m singing to my mum, these guys feel the emotions and they have their own connection with the music as well, which I think makes us show onstage that we want to be there together.”
Currently working on their first album, we asked about their writing process, and Billy explained, “Everybody has an input. I’ll start off with the bass track, then I’ll add the lyrics on top but as soon as it goes into the studio, what I have in the front room to what makes it out of the studio is a completely different end product, and those guys make their mark on the song and make it. I’ve written a lot of stuff in the past, but what these other three guys do is make it Alabama Crow.”
It’s clear that being able to play their original music is an integral part of their set up, but we wondered if this had always been the case. For Billy it’s a definite yes, “In a previous band I toured around Europe for about four years doing original music. So original music has always been massively inside me. Covers, yes, it pays the wage, but for me it’s original music. I don’t care if I get 1p, but if I’ve got a 1,000 people sitting out there looking back at me enjoying the music, that’s worth more than its weight in gold.” Danny nodding, couldn’t agree more.
Having previously played in other bands Paul declared “I used to play in a covers band, which I preferred to a tribute band, as you can put your own spin on it, play it your own way, but I couldn’t go back [to covers] after playing original music to this extent.”
With their first mini tour outside Scotland as Alabama Crow just completed, how much fun did they have? “It was amazing, just incredible!” exclaimed Craig. “I think I’m still recovering.” Love Rocks Festival was the furthest south they ventured and Billy stated how they met such lovely people there and throughout the rest of the tour, which also included The Bunkhouse in Swansea, The Gifford Arms, Wolverhampton and Wildfire Fest, Wanlockhead.
Travelling for us, is all about the sing a long, and we once drove from East Sussex to Wales listening to nothing but Elvis. So, we mused, having four potentially different music tastes in the car on the way down South, what did they listen to? “Usually it’s a radio station, but Danny sits in the back with his headphones on and ignores everybody.” “That’s because we’re all speaking nonsense!” declares Craig. Danny doesn’t deny this, and Craig chips in. “We’ll occasionally talk about guitarists, or bands, or songs and then if the consensus is right, we just chuck the songs on, but we usually just have the radio on. Just let them decide for us.”
“You get to hear new things”, says Billy, “Especially for me. I mean these other guys, they’ve got a vast wealth of knowledge, especially Danny and Paul, with their knowledge of vinyl. Craig’s punk, nineties punk, and things like that. That’s where I kind of understand him because we love our Blink 182. But with Paul and Danny, those guys will go back to the sixties, and they can tell you what day it was released, what guy did it, what album it was on. So, when we put music on in the car for me it’s like a learning curve. I hear the music from these guys and then I hear them speak about it and then I sneakily go off home and check them out.” If only Paul and Danny lived locally as we could definitely do with them on our quiz team!
Like most bands starting out, Alabama Crow work by day and make music by night. What makes most bands work and stay together is if the band are great friends as well as bandmates and it’s very clear to see in this case just how much love and respect the guys have for each other. Craig told us, “That’s one thing we didn’t do when we were on tour. There wasn’t a single fallout. It was amazing.”
Being lucky enough to catch their set at Love Rocks Festival, it‘s easy to see why they love playing live. With their humour also coming across on stage, the crowd was entertained not just by the memorable set. “We take the music very seriously”, states Craig, “but we don’t take ourselves very seriously at all.”
We were keen to hear who they would like to open a festival for them and in true Alabama Crow style, Billy declared, “Well, we actually have our own festival called Crow Fest in Dundee.” Perhaps not the answer we were expecting, but then again, not entirely surprising either. “It’s for people who we’ve met through the past year and a half. People I’ve met over the past 8 years, and it’s friends. Everybody comes and everybody loves it. And it’s just our way of giving back to people who have come and seen us over a year and a half …’Come up to Dundee. Come and see the eight, nine bands.’ This year we have Voodoo Sioux headlining, which is massive. Plus The Soul Revival and Waco the Reach are playing amongst others, and what we’ve done over the past year and a half has entitled us to even think about next year. To maybe go even bigger, with the festival, because we’re meeting more people. I’m inviting more people which doesn’t really help!”
“We’re getting bigger. But it’s not the festival, the festival does obviously attract people. But what attracts people is we’re asking them to come. I did it last year for my 40th. I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just do it for a wee party.’ And last year, all four of us turned around and said, yeah, that went, well, let’s do this again next year. So, we’ve all put a lot of effort into this over the next three, four months we’re going to be posting and pushing it. So, it’s Crow Fest up in Dundee at Club 83 on 15th November.”
Since the tour, the guys have been back in the studio working on their debut album, which is, as yet, untitled, and it’s clear to see how much fun they’re having working on it. Craig tells us, “It’s about being creators. The four of us will just come into the studio together. Billy will give us the riff and then Danny will put down something that sounds similar that adds to it and then I’ll put down a beat that I think sounds… that would fit the feel of the song. Then I’ll throw in as many fills and crazy things as I can and start eliminating the ones that don’t work. Paul then is just magical. The four of us, we’ve got our own influences and our own styles, but we all know what each other kind of does, or what they’re going to do before they do it. We just… I don’t’ know, it’s like a sixth sense that we have for each other.”
“We’ve got so much experience between the four of us as well that we’re able to just like tap into something that we have in our head, or something that we’ve heard when I was a bairn, or whatever, and just go right, this is how the drums is for this song, these are the fills. Everybody just works around each other. It’s great.”
Graham Watt, the band’s sound engineer, is an old friend of Billy’s and recorded with Craig back when they were in college together. The band credit Graham for changing their whole recording process and keeping them focused together, with Danny stating, “He’s very productive in his routines, which is why we probably manage to get so much done.”
They currently have three singles available, Oblivion, Mother’s Vigilante and Inside Fire. With all three tracks set to haunting riffs that compliment Billy’s vocals and which stay with you long after the track has finished. You can almost picture Mother’s Vigilante as the soundtrack to a TV series, it’s so memorable. The next single set to be released, is the self-titled Alabama Crow. A more lively little number, and one that’s great for a jump about. We asked how imminent the album was. “The album,” states Billy, “is almost good to go, probably about 99% there and we’re in discussions about when to set the release date.” The guys are obviously keen to keep things moving along and mention that they already have plenty of tracks in the bag for the second album too.
So, what’s next for Alabama Crow? The 15th August will see them playing Savfest, a charity gig in Coalville. Billy told us, ‘It’s for charity, the one thing that, especially for myself, I do a lot of work with Mayor’s Fest and I asked the guys if they wouldn’t mind doing some stuff with me. Plus, every gig we’ve done from charity has brought gigs which has also made the band, and we all have something close to our heart. It just gives us happiness to actually see people. The least we can do is go and give them a little bit of enjoyment for 40 minutes on that stage, you can see the smiles, and that to us is worth more than gold.”
Following this there are gigs planned for Dundee, Sheffield, Glasgow and a trip to Leo’s in Gravesend on 18th October supporting Jayler.
On asking if there was anything further they’d like to add, Paul simply said, “Just a thank you to everyone who’s supported us so far.”
We think it’s clearly plain to see that it’s love, friendship and having a blast while making music is exactly what makes Alabama Crow tick! And, as Billy would say, “Follow the Crow and then you’ll know!”
Alabama Crow are:
Billy Jack – Vocals & Rhythm Guitar
Paul Randall – Lead Guitar
Danny Elder – Bass Guitar
Craig Duncan – Drums
