They’re not from Alabama and there are more than three of them, but, the Very Rev Dr D Wayne Love tells Tim Hughes, there’s nothing obvious about Alabama 3

It’s a cold night out, but The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love is heating up — wildly extolling the virtues of his band, like the fire and brimstone Southern preacher he is. Or, at least, seems to be.

With his Aviator sunglasses, sharp suit and boots, D Wayne may look a good ole’ boy from the American Bible Belt, but, like his partner in crime Larry Love, in fact hails from the Deep South of London.

Forged in the capital’s rave scene, they have taken techno and run with it — cross-breeding it with rock & roll and country music, like a band of twisted stetson-clad mad scientists.

The result is a furious blend of beats, blues, rock, gospel, soul and revolutionary thought, all delivered with the missionary zeal of a firebrand cleric — albeit one with a serious Elvis fixation.

“We make sweet country acid house music all night long,” laughs D Wayne, who describes himself as a minister in the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine.

“We are the ‘Little Acid House on the Prairie’. I think Elvis would be as pleased as punch with what we’re doing. And he is pleased as punch, as we know he’s not dead — he’s moving around America in a huge Winnebago. And he’s talking to me... telling me I’m doing the right thing in promoting Presleyterianism.”

The band’s name is a nod to their Southern blues fantasies, but also references the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four — groups of people wrongly imprisoned for alleged involvement in IRA pub bombings in the 1970s. The cause of victims of miscarriages of justice remains close to the band’s hearts but, like all their obesessions, is delivered with a grin. There is no tub-thumping in Elvis’s church.

But where does it come from? “It’s like tap water,” says D Wayne — real name Jake Black, and originally from Glasgow.

“It’s just there. I put on the suit and Ray-Bans and I’m home. I just become The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love. I have this character who’s nothing like Jake. It’s saving a fortune on psychiatric consultations.”

The band are once again out on their now traditional winter tour, which on Sunday reaches the O2 Academy Oxford. And they still sound like nothing else. And that’s the point.

“When we started the group there was that whole thing about Cool Britannia and Britpop,” he says with disdain. “People were drinking Champagne with that ratbag Blair, and had Union Jacks on their guitars. But we found that jingoistic and decided to do the opposite. We were listening to the Grand Ole Opry and techno, so started messing about — taking country and Delta blues and mixing it with beats. You could call it pantomime, but we were having a bit of fun.”

They hit the big time when their brooding epic Woke Up This Morning was used as the theme tune for New Jersey mobster show The Sopranos. “That bought someone a swimming pool, but it wasn’t any of us,” he says.

It featured on their debut, the storming Exile on Coldharbour Lane. That has been followed by 11 more, including latest outing, the intriguingly named Women from W.O.M.B.L.E. Vol 2.

As it suggests, the album is a celebration of women, and has a heavy female presence, with the band’s sole sister Aurora Dawn bolstered by a line-up of sworn-in soul sisters. It starts with Black Betty, a revolutionary reworking of the Leadbelly classic.

“We always try our best to confound expectations,” says D Wayne. “Our current LP is always different from the one preceding it, so people don’t know what to expect. There’s no formula.

Oxford Mail:
Sitting pretty: Alabama 3 with the Very Rev second from left at the front

“One of the things I’m really pleased with, is when people say they don’t get it at first, but then, some way down the road, start enjoying it. You never know what you’re going to get.

“This one’s much more of a rock & roll record than the last, which was, more or less, pure techno. But there’s a bit of variety. And the production values have been bumped up.”

It is, he says, all very different to their roots in Brixton’s acid house scene, though it continues their oddball love of rhinestone and bass. “We started off with a turntable and a microphone, which we would pass to each other,” he recalls.

“We are going back to that house and techno thing with the band imposed on top. Normally it’s the reverse, starting with the band and putting techno on top — but we are starting with the beats.

“It sounds completely different live though, because there are so many of us, nine on stage and 14 in the immediate crew. We can’t all get into the studio. The live experience is pretty different to the studio one, and I hope people get that.”

Just don’t try and over-analyse any of it. I get a bit miffed when people take it seriously,” he says with a chuckle. “Get used to it! You’re going to be listening to something else in six months!

“You can’t second-guess people or do what they think you should.

“We are going to do what we were going to do anyway. And we just hope people like it.”

Rant over, he pauses, then adds with a grin: “It’s pure escapism and a lot of fun. I’d hate people to think we were sitting around po-faced and drinking San Pellegrino, full of ourselves and strutting around like peacocks.

“We like a laugh!”

Alabama 3
O2 Academy Oxford
Sunday
Tickets £18.50 from ticketweb.co.uk