Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard: “Our life is surreal”

Alabama Shakes‘ frontwoman Brittany Howard has spoken about how her life has changed since her band have become more well known.

The “Hold On” singer says her life has taken a “surreal” turn since her band began to get noticed, and she explains that she finds it a bit strange having celebrity fans.

Howard told The Scotsman: I’d like to be able to tell you that life for the Shakes is no different from what it was a little while back, that the only change is people know the words to our songs now and so can sing along. But I’m not going to pretend it’s not a whole lot more surreal.Howard goes on to talk about her various celebrity fans and even reveals an odd encounter with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, who left their gig early to go home to his bed.

She added: “We still do [Zeppelin’s] ‘How Many More Times’, but we were like: ‘We can’t play his own song to him – that’s so cheesy!’ But he went home to bed before the end so we managed to fit it in.”

Her connection with the Led Zeppelin singer even went as far to being invited to stay in his house in Austin during this year’s SXSW festival – but it turned out to be an unexpectedly, frightening experience.

Howard explained: “It’s a lovely place but we’re pretty sure it’s haunted. I wouldn’t just say that, but sinks would turn on by themselves and there would be a knock at the door but no one was there.”