After rising to fame with the rollicking but rootsy band
Alabama Shakes, lead singer and guitarist
Brittany Howard was eager to cut loose with some looser and leaner rock & roll, and that's just what she did with her side project,
Thunderbitch. Along with
Howard, the group features members of the Nashville-based rock bands
Fly Golden Eagle and
Clear Plastic Masks, though the band's official website identifies the lineup only as "Thunderbitch, Matt Man, B Bone, ThunderMitch, Char Man and A Man."
Thunderbitch began playing low-profile live shows in 2012 at small clubs and hot wings shops in Nashville, Tennessee, and received their first national press in December of that year, not for their music but for being robbed at gunpoint by two teenagers while relaxing on the porch of a friend's house in Nashville. (One of the victims stated that the kids only got a few bucks in cash and some cell phones for their troubles, and that the musicians were not too rattled to go bar hopping afterwards.) In 2013,
Howard posted two
Thunderbitch tracks online, but little was heard from the group from that point on, presumably due to
Alabama Shakes' busy schedule. However, just a little more than four months after
Alabama Shakes' second album,
Sound & Color, debuted at number one on the sales charts, the self-titled debut album from Thunderbitch appeared, streaming online and with a vinyl edition available from the
Alabama Shakes website. ~ Mark Deming