Wayward Q&A: Interview with Alice (the band)

INTERVIEW BY DANNY R. PHILLIPS

St. Joseph, Missouri has never been considered a musical hotbed, and the odds are stacked against it becoming the next Seattle, Omaha or Athens. However, the birthplace of jazz great Coleman Hawkins and the Pony Express has been getting some press of late thanks to a one-guy-two-girls rock band named Alice.

For the better part of five years, the trio of guitarist, bassist and vocalist Rachel Hoffman, drummer Bobby Floyd and bassist, guitarist and vocalist Erika Pontius Foulk has been building a strong local following with its hypnotic melodies, well-crafted songs and more than passing comparisons to 1990s alt-rock female-fronted groups like the Breeders and Veruca Salt.

We sat down with the threesome in the kitchen of Floyd’s downtown St. Joseph home to discuss Alice’s upcoming album, their Saturday CD-release show at the Brick, their recent in studio performance on KRBZ and the music scene up in St. Joe.

Phillips: Is the name Alice a nod to Alice in Wonderland or do you just like The Brady Bunch?

Foulk: When we started the band, Bobby wasn’t in the band yet and Rachel and I definitely wanted a feminine feel to it, but we had just recently watched Alice Through The Looking Glass and we were reminded of the creepiness and scariness of things you watch as a kid. The name felt creepy, dreamy and familiar, and that’s how we wanted our music to sound like.

Bobby, how do you feel when people hear about Alice and assume it’s an all girl band?

Floyd: Well, it’s like you want to joke about it and make as much fun of it as you can. But it is a female-fronted band so that’s what people are going to say and what they’ll assume.

Foulk: It definitely has a feminine vibe to it but I think Bobby’s OK with it. He’s secure enough in his manhood to deal with everything that comes along with it.

Floyd: I also like playing in the band because the girls are pretty. [Laughs.] It brings women into the shows, which is fine.