Sometimes, major talent over here is criminally overlooked until other countries give it the respect it deserves. While all the heavily hyped indie hopefulls fall flat on their faces across the pond, our very own Alabama 3 had one of their songs chosen as the theme tune to 'The Sopranos'. This seems to have been most people's main angle on the band, but luckily for them, I have yet to see an episode. All I had was the music. When I caught up with them, things had been a little hectic.

"Been touring the states in November, the album came out in November. We're doing a UK tour, got a new single coming out.

How long were you touring the States for?

"Three and a half weeks. It was a promotional tour. Nineteen gigs in Twenty-One days. Knackered."

America has quite a reputation for testing a bands endurance. If they can handle an American tour, they can handle anything.

"It's quite gruelling, yeah. We were doing gigs where we'd get there, do the gig then travel eighteen hours in a confined space with ugly men."

Did you do any TV appearences when you were over there?

"We were on the Joe Reynolds show. 26 million viewers. It was quite weird. Just performance, don't like to talk too much, we'd rather just sing. No-one understands us, they think we'll talk in an American accent but they hear Welsh accents and a Scottish accent."

While many run-of-the-mill bands have little influences beyond The Beatles and whoever is flavour of the month with the indie media, Alabama 3 have some more diverse and original sources of creative inspiration. They recently did a month of Mondays in London, playing a different style before each gig.

"Alabama 3 have always prided ourselves on our colaborility. You'll see the band doing a straight rock and roll show, then you find us at 3 in the morning in a sound-system situation at a banging rave club. You'll then see us on a Sunday afternoon doing a pure acoustic country version of the same songs, so what we did were four Mondays. Each week, we supported ourselves. The first night was a country and western band. The second night, we had a gospel choir down and all the Alabama 3 songs went gospel style. Then we did a third night that was all in techno, we were kitted out with a techno sounds system and strobes. The fourth night we did a freak show. It's takes a lot of gigs to get all of Alabama 3's ideas in."

Which style went down best with the public?

"All of them was kind of good. Our crowd's kind of mad. You'll have an old couple out there because the like the country element, there'll be looking at ten ravers next to them, all on E. At the end of the night they've all got their arms round each other."

How did Alabama 3 come about?

"Been DJ'ing for years with loads of different sound systems. Just had a sound system going and I decided to get a band together. This was years before Moby started spinning blues, country and gospel over techno. I got a bit bored of doing that and decided to form a band around it and play the stuff live but with sequencers and stuff. As the band is now, we've just got Segs who was bass player from The Ruts, so there's eight of us at the moment."

Which sound systems were you involved with?

"We had the Alabama 3 sound system. I used to work with D.I.Y. quite a lot, the Castle Morton festival, you know."

All that traveller element have left England now, haven't they?

"A lot of 'em, Spirals and all that lot. Exodus are still about, we did an Exodus party about two years ago. A lot of the travellers have left the country because of the ****in' draconian ****in' state of the law."

On your record sleeves, you namecheck the Misscarriages Of Justice Organisation. Any particular reason?

"Alabama 3 know, shall we say certain members of the community who are currently residing in some of her majestys most salubrious hotels. A lot of old blues players, Leadbelly was a famous case. He was released from prison, a life sentance because his music was so good. The name Alabama 3 was a nod to the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 and other cases of miscarriage of justice. We actually worked with Paddy from the Birmingham 6. It was a rare privelidge and he might be along tonight. He's a friend of ours. We're not overtly political, it just seems like a band like us are political because there's no other ****ing bands that discuss politics or whatever. There's the Manics, and ADF are great but Coldplay and Frontloader are washing machine music."

How has this tour been going?

"We enjoyed the American tour but this is easier. They've all been sold out so far, so that's great but we've got a record label that don't know what the **** to do with us. We're not easily categorisable. Are we a dance band or are we a rock band. We hope they're going to get their arses into gear. There's been so many press and journalists going 'Why the **** aren't this band massive?'. We're all down the job centre every two weeks, if you know what I mean. Why do you think we're all called Larry Love and always in disguise? There's housing benefit, you can't let that one go. The funniest thing was when I had to go to America and I had a restart interview on the Tuesday and I was flying out to ****ing L.A. on the Wednesday. This cretin, this speccy, zitty git from the job centre was far too enthusiastic, insisted that I take this job in a bakery in Peckham. This is the state of how much money we've got, I'm going to America tommorow and I have to go to this ****ing interview at a bakers. I went down there and I lied and said I had asthma, so they let me off but ****ing hell!"

Your second album seems to ride through some emotional darklands.

"The first album is kinda the new testament of Alabama 3, you know with the benevolent God. The second album is very much the old testament with a God of wrath. There's layers too it, though. I don't want to write lyrics that are so maudlin that there's no hope of redemption. A lot of our songs definitely have some hope. There's a lot of anger on the record because between the first and second album, we had some tough times. The first album didn't sell that much, we're a perrenial cult band and we had some lean times. We've had some tragedies around us. I think it coloured the atmosphere a bit."

Your cover of The Eagles 'Hotel California' forced me to re-apraise the song.

"We could have done an obscure cover of Bill Monroe or something like that or a Robert Earl King cover but being big cheeky situationalist ****ers, why not take what some people call the alternative American national anthem. It's the most played song on the radio of all time, so we wanted to take that on board. We had a Brixton ragga ****-off beat but also I think the lyrics are dark. It's about the emptiness of the Los Angeles cocaine scene. We live in Brixton where there's enough cocaine culture about to address that. I ain't saying Alabama 3 are perfect and live a clean living life but we do like to keep an awareness of the ups and downs of narcotic and alcoholic pleasures. You can learn one hell of a lot about what mistakes not to make from Alabama 3."

Have you been back in the studio since the last album?

"We are, believe it or not, going to do a triple concept album. 3 CD's and ten songs on each one. We're very excited."

What's the concept?

"I ain't telling you, it's a secret."

I notice you got Arthur Baker to remix your last single.

"Arthur's become a good mate of ours. He's got a club in London called the Elbow Rooms. I've had a few sessions with Arthur, he's a very nice man."

So, with the concept album, are you going to explore all the roots of Alabama 3?

"The idea is to fragment it, so the album will start off quite organic and acoustic. Over thirteen tracks, it will develop seamlessly."

Do your label know about it yet?

"No, we're hoping to get off the label. I hope they don't read this! I'll make out it wasn't me or some bulls*** like that!"

What are you up to after this tour?

"When we get home, we're headlining a massive festival in Brockwell Park, the legalise cannabis campaign."

What has been the response in America?

"It's good. America is weird. Irony is inherent in our situation. Over in this country, the UK press, whose job it is to make people like Codplay and Frontloader and Moose, or whatever they're called, attain some credibility, they write that Alabama 3 are a novelty band because they mix country, blues and techno. We are serious about having a laugh but that's nothing to do with music. We're maudlin and depressed on stage but the press here seem to have missed the point. The Americans have missed the sense of humour and irony. They go straight for the fact about what we're doing as musicians is totally ****ing credible. They really understand what we're doing with genre. They respect our mix of technology with other genres. Over here, we're more known for our humour or 'They're a novelty band'."

Well, people like Radiohead and Joe Jackson weren't taken seriously over here until they'd cracked America.

"Well, it's that perenial British thing of let's build 'em up to knock 'em down. The great thing with us is that most of the press, well the NME in particular and The Face, have never knocked us up. They got really upset. The first three interviews we did with them, we decimated them. We got some ****ing idiot who's never heard of Robert Johnson or Anne Williams so we just talked in American accents about mixamotosis or rabbits from space."

Big thanks to Ian Cheek