Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard talks Grammys, Adele and meeting Prince
When Adele arrives at Monday's Grammy Awards, Brittany Howard will be first in line to meet her.
"It'd be nice just to say hello, no pun intended," laughs the Alabama Shakes frontwoman, who first ran into the British singer at the 2013 Grammys. "I was taking off one dress to put on another in my dressing room, and my grandma had went and got Adele because she was in the room next door. When Adele walked in, I was getting undressed, so it was just like, 'Ohhh, hey!' "
Back then, Alabama Shakes was a first-time nominee for best new artist, but lost to pop trio Fun. Not that they're sweating it three years later, as the Southern blues-rockers vie for four more Grammys next week, including album of the year (Sound & Color) and best rock song (Don't Wanna Fight).
A week before the show, Howard, 27, is taking some downtime at home in Athens, Ala., where she's looking after her new golden retriever puppy, Francine. She's careful not to jinx her chances by preparing an acceptance speech ("I think I'm going to wing it"), and says she's most excited to bring her other grandmother, "Mama Helen," to Los Angeles for the first time.
"It'll be cool to watch her get champagne delivered to her and be treated like a queen," Howard,says. "She's an old lady from Alabama and she's never seen that side of life."
Howard is the Shakes' lead singer and guitarist, and formed the band in 2009 with guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell and drummer Steve Johnson. Carried by Howard's towering, raspy vocals, and beloved for their fusion of old-school soul and rock, the group released its debut Boys & Girls in 2012, followed by sophomore effort Sound & Color last April. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and has sold 365,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen Music.
The difference between the albums is that with Boys, "we had all the time in the world," Howard says. "We had been a band for three years before we recorded that, so it was much more relaxed, because we had been out there playing that material and knew what worked." But making Sound, "it was coming strictly from a studio space and it was all new. We were going straight for it, like, 'OK, what do we like?' "
Drawing from R&B, garage-rock and psychedelic influences, Howard doesn't consider Sound experimental necessarily, but rather, more "evolved. I feel like the third record will be the same."
At the moment, Howard says she's tinkering away at some new songs, but "you've got to live a little to write material and that's what I'm doing now." Cooking, gardening and going out with friends is on her agenda until Alabama Shakes starts an international tour this spring (kicking off its North American leg in Nashville on April 21).
As for the highlight of the Shakes' whirlwind past year, Howard says it was meeting Prince, who invited them to his Paisley Park studio last summer and jammed to their Gimme All Your Love.
Going in, "the only expectations I had were from Chappelle's Show, but it wasn't like that," Howard says. "He played with us and shredded the most amazing solo. It was so sick. I mean, we're talking about Prince — this is what my dad loves and here it's happening.
"It's still crazy for me when I talk about it."