ShoalsFest: Get to know Alabama’s next must-hear band (2024)

“I hope people think to themselves, ‘I wish they had another hour to play.’”

That’s what Rob Aldridge wants going through the crowd’s heads after he and his band ring out the last notes of their ShoalsFest set Saturday.

Rob Aldridge & The Proponents are headlining the Single Lock Records Stage, spotlighting local and regional bands.

Across the way, after The Props' 7:45 p.m. set concludes, festival founder and Grammy winning Americana/rock musician Jason Isbell and his band the 400 Unit will close out the day at the main stage, when ShoalsFest debuts at McFarland Park, address 200 James M. Spain Drive.

The main stage lineup also boasts Sheryl Crow (6:30 p.m.), Mavis Staples (4:45 p.m.) and Amanda Shires (3 p.m.).

The Single Lock Records Stage, named for the Florence indie imprint, hosts The Prescriptions (5:45 p.m.), Caleb Elliott (4 p.m.) and The Kernal (2:15 p.m.)

ShoalsFest initial run of 5,000 tickets sold out quickly upon their release. The festival has since released additional limited quantities starting at around $60 via eventbrite.com.

If Isbell, a Green Hill native and former Shoals area resident is the best singer, songwriter and guitarist combo going, right now, from Alabama, Aldridge could be next.

Aldridge writes songs that feel personal yet universal. Songs like “I Won’t Be There,” “Don’t Waste Your Words,” “Too Much to Lose” - you’ve lived the bittersweet stuff in there, too. He’s also a strong natural singer whose voice and ability to win over a crowd has been honed from a thousand gigs. And like the 400 Unit is to Isbell, in The Proponents he’s got the perfect guitar machine to make his material move. Rob Malone’s an eloquent and potent lead guitarist. Stone Anderson’s a bass player who brings underground edge to his swing. ShoalsFest will be the public debut of new Props drummer Nick Recio, whose credits include Nashville band Great Peaco*ck and Charleston combo The Artisanals.

Some 18 months after Rob Aldridge & The Proponents released their self-titled debut, that album keeps getting better with time.

Landing the ShoalsFest slot before Isbell is exactly the kind of break The Props deserve more of.

Aldridge has opened for Isbell before, solo. There are additional connections between the two acts. Malone and Isbell are both former members of Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers and Isbell’s poignant song “Dress Blues” is about the late husband of Aldridge’s now-wife, Nicole. Aldridge penned a sequel of sorts to “Dress Blues” with his own stirring track, “My True Love’s True Love” from 2015.

On a recent afternoon, Aldridge checked in a pre-ShoalsFest phoner. Edited excerpts are below.

How do you go about putting together a setlist for a festival like ShoalsFest as opposed to a straight up regular Props gig?

Well we’ve got 45 minutes and 45 minutes that’s usually about when our three or four hours shows really start cooking. [Laughs] But we’ve put together set to get as much of ourselves into the 45 minutes as we can and try to choose songs and the order of those songs too, which might be the most appropriate, trying to anticipate the mood and the movement of the crowd. They’re going to be going back and forth between two stages. Early on while people are leaving Sheryl Crow maybe we’ll play stuff for the diehard Proponents fans who will probably already be there and then kind of save more of our meaty stuff for the middle. You’ve got to think of people are probably going to leave early to go get to Jason’s set too - I don’t really know how far apart the stages are. But just thinking about stuff like that and trying to get the most of who we are into that 45 minutes.

How do you think the core three Proponents - you, Malone and Stone - have evolved over these four or so years, the way you all fit together musically?

Obviously like any group of guys will do, if you play together enough, you'll gel and be able to anticipate things more and communicate with a look or something. Malone and I, I guess 13 years together, the acoustic shows have really shaped how we play together and it translated over to electric we've been doing pretty well. With Stone, he had never played bass before he decided he was going to be our bass player. [Laughs] And man that's just a testament to, Stone probably has more natural feel for music than, maybe than anyone I've ever met.

What's inspiring you as a songwriter these days?

I've been carrying around David Byrne's "How Music Works" book a lot, which it's really more like a textbook and you can go back and reference it on so many levels. But it's kind of causing me to go back and reexamine how David Byrne really combines a lot of elements to make songs move like he does. I think maybe I'm more into, the music side of it, making it move more and just making it more fun. All his songs are just fun to listen to.

What gets you excited about a new song you're working on? What makes you think this is something that has the chance to be really good and I'm going to take it all the way?

I like something that gets your attention right out of the gate as far as just a song structure goes and I don't know how to describe how to describe what sticks out to me as far as a song structure goes, but I associate sounds with shapes and colors, is where my head goes. I gravitate more towards a round sound, nothing too far in one direction. And then lyrically just please don't give me any recycled content or clichés. I hate that. [Laughs] And I've heard a lot of really good sounding songs start and then they'll something stupid or lacking a lot of thought and it's just shame sometime. It's like, "This band sounds great but these lyrics are terrible," or vice versa. If you've got really good lyrics though, as long as you're being honest and putting thought it, you can get away with a lot musically. There's a lot of great songwriters, legends, who aren't that great of musicians.

What's the one track off The Props record you think best sums up you and the band? The first track you'd play someone?

I keep going back to "Decay," just because it's got the guitar work that me and Malone have honed over the years on full display and it's rocking and then it's sort of got a childish melody, sarcasm to it, but I feel like I wrote some pretty good lyrics for that song as well. I don't know. It's just got a little bit of everything we've got in that one.

There were plans at one point to have vinyl copies of The Props album pressed. What happened? And any chance you'd revisit getting the album on vinyl at some point?

I'd definitely love to get vinyl printed up. I had some money allotted for it and then when I was going through CD Baby to get everything printed, a mistake was made in sending the files to get put onto the disc. Somehow rather the mastered files, they pressed a thousand copies of the rough mix, so I had to eat that money get a thousand more (mastered CDs pressed). We couldn’t afford to get new packaging just the discs and used packing from old discs, swap out rough mix for mastered. Sometimes people ask why our CDs don't have wrapping on them, and I say, "Well they did …"[Laugh] So yeah, I didn't have any money for vinyl after that and it's just part of the woes of doing everything yourself.

So you're headlining the Single Lock Records Stage and you're the only band on that stage not signed to Single Lock? Something you'd like to tell us?

Well there's nothing really to report. I think I was contacted by Jason's management to play before they knew it was going to be called the Single Lock Stage. But it's an honor to headline that stage considering the company we're in. Any of those guys could headline it, you know?

What would it mean for your band to have support from a legit label like that?

Well not having any label support sort of feels like owning a badass, powerful, beautiful vehicle in neutral with the keys locked inside of it and you've got to push it through town just to show it off. If only I could find one locksmith, you know? [Laughs]

Wanted to ask you some questions regarding the four main stage ShoalsFest artists. Jason Isbell’s last three albums are the ones that have drawn the most acclaim. But from his other post-Truckers solo LPs, what’s an earlier album or song of his you think more people should tune into?

Well actually it's kind of funny. Before he put out his first solo record ("Sirens of the Ditch") a friend of mine at FAME burned me a collection of the demos he'd been doing in there, so a lot of the songs ended up being on his first and second record. There's one though that he wrote that hasn't been released and I've tried to tell him I wish he'd put it on a record before and he's never really commented on it. [Laughs] But it's just a great song, it's super country, kind of Hank Williams-y sad sort of structure to it and the main line, I guess it might be called "Love in Vain," but the line is "forgot the word to the first verse of 'Love in Vain,'" and it’s just a killer song. That's actually how I kind of met Jason because I had those demos and I loved that song and started covering it at shows and he came out to one of my shows, maybe 2007, Brinley Brothers in Florence, so I was playing acoustic. I saw him come in so I started playing that song. I knew it would get his attention because no one was supposed to hear that song, I hope it didn't piss him off but I was glad to get the introduction to him off of that.

In the ’90s, Sheryl Crow kind of reminded me of a female version of ’80s Tom Petty. This talented songwriter who had a knack for mixing pop with guitar music and keeping guitars on the charts. What's something you appreciate about Sheryl Crow?

Some of my earliest memories of listening to music are Sheryl Crow songs. She's just a got a really timeless way about doing what she does and she's like a household name obviously but she's different. You can tell she's not just a singer too, you can tell by the way the songs are crafted, she's a musician.

Staple Singers “I’ll Take You There” is one of, if not the, ultimate Muscle Shoals made song. Mavis Staples’ vocals on that song are so badass and infectious. As a singer, what do you find most compelling about Mavis as a singer?

I just want to meet her. I don't care how anything else goes, I just want to meet Mavis. She gets associated with soul music and R&B a lot for obvious reasons, but I think her voice transcends genre and race. She's like the embodiment of that good feeling that any songwriter or performer want to convey when they play any song. I just think she's above all the categories. She's just her own thing and it's beautiful and there's no one like her and there probably won't ever will be again.

Amanda Shires has been an acclaimed singer/songwriter for years and with her new supergroup Highwomen, her name and music are now reaching a larger audience. If you were putting together a supergroup to be in, who would be in it? You can’t pick anyone from your band

Honestly, something that's maybe kind of plausible than a dram is I'd just love to be in (Florence band) The Pollies. Maybe split frontman duties with Jay (Burgess, Pollies singer/guitarist) or just write with them. Those guys are super versatile and awesome bandmates to have and they've just got a lot of eel, and that's what I gravitate to more than anything is just How does it feel. And they're just a great group of guys too. Just hanging out with all of them, we're dear friends. I think that would be a supergroup for me if I got to do that.

Speaking of The Pollies what's the status of your solo EP with them playing on it?

It just needs to be mastered pretty much. And I really want Jay to be in charge of all that, so we've kind of had to work around their schedule a little bit. They're gone with Dylan (LeBlanc) for a long time but yeah it will probably just be a digital release initially, and then hopefully … The length of it all is kind of weird for vinyl so I think what we're going to have to do is print it on 10-inch vinyl. But I'm ready for it to get out there. And it's not like we've got to set up a big tour behind it or anything The Pollies are their own thing, it's just a side project, so we might just put it up on the digital outlets and see how it does there.

I know you’re a big Ronnie Van Zant and Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. What are some of your current go-to Ronnie vocal performances and lyrics?

The one that has stuck out to me lately I listen to is "Saturday Night Special." The music in that is badass and his way of nonchalantly saying things that are shocking to people who aren't from where he comes from, like getting shot that's just a regular thing. But also, just how that song is about being against guns and that's pretty relevant today, the words in that song. Pretty timeless tune. Oh yeah, I love "I Need You" too. That is "Strat Tone 101" for any guitar players out there who want to know what a Strat is supposed to sound like.

Some of the most memorable music festival performances you’ve seen?

I’ve been lucky. I’ve seen a lot of great stuff at festivals over the years, but when I look back on it there’s one show that always leaps to mind before any other, when I saw Paul Simon at Hangout Fest. Listening to Paul Simon on the beach is heavenly anyway. But the way he handled it was really interesting. He had his band sort of in a linear formation on the stage, straight across almost, and they started out at a low volume and the whole show just gradually climbed and climbed as far as tempo and volume and excitement and stuff. It wasn’t like a roller coaster ride, like some shows will take you on a journey, this thing just gradually climbed and climbed and climbed. I think they might’ve even closed with “Call Me Al” and the big horns. I’d never seen a band do that so methodically and precisely other than just being in love with their songs too, it was just really interesting.