Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band to return for explosive Oxford show

As the elegantly attired frontman of the The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, he has spent the past 15 years turning respectable audiences into a seething mass of swirling, twirling, jumping bodies high on class-A rock & roll, rhythm & blues and jazz.

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Oxford may be synonymous with indie and alt-rock, but ask hardcore local gig-goers about their wildest city shows, and the words ‘Rabbit Foot’ – and ‘Macbeth’ – will undoubtedly be close to the top. And while most of their mid-2010s peers have long since faded away, the Rabbits are not only still here and doing their thing, they have turned up the dial.

The swaggering speakeasy style, uplifting musicality and captivating performances are all still there, but the Rabbits have been weaponised with new musical talent, slick new tunes and a brooding energy which should get even the most staid post-pandemic crowd reeling, raving and jiving – as Rabbit Foot aficionados gathering in the city’s Jericho Tavern on Bonfire night will discover.

And at the centre of it is the eloquent, complicated and commanding presence of the sharp-suited Macbeth.

“It has been three years since our last hometown show,” he says while topping up an amusingly small wine glass with comically expensive Malbec.

“It hasn’t been a snub,” he insists. “I’ve been reluctant to perform at all until we had a new LP of material out. The last thing we need to do is become a tribute act to ourselves.”

Energetic, eloquent and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from Blue Note jazz to Def Jam hip-hop, Venetian architecture to South London brutalism, Stuart is a bundle of contradictions with a prodigious musical talent and a well-deserved reputation as the wild man of the city’s music scene.

It’s quite an achievement for a composer, multi-instrumentalist and poetic lyricist rooted not in rock, rap or metal but jazz, blues, roots and rhythm ‘n’ blues.

Stuart Macbeth of The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band. Picture by Andrew Walmsley

And inclined to get bored quickly, he doesn’t much like standing still.

“Naturally we have no intention to repeat the same formula, although the music is deeply rooted in the anguish and suffering of blues and jazz,” he says. “Recent material and fly-papered influences from Trinidad and Argentina. There’s heavy study of the London Music Hall entrenched there too.”

Saturday’s show brings with it some new faces.

“The most recent change is that we have brought in Richard on guitar and Hugh on bass who are keen to rehearse once a week,” he says, teasing the last cigarette out of a crumpled packet.

“Previously the Rabbits had one rehearsal in seven years, and that ended up in a fight. We’re running through chaotic doo-wop harmonies and preparing for Tiresias – the working title of the forthcoming LP. It’s a follow-up to 2011’s Year of the Rabbit.

"It’s Year of the Rabbit again in 2023, and the release was hinted on the cover of the LP 12 years ago.”

Stuart has explored some esoteric musical territory since we last saw him growling into a mic, but, rest assured, Saturday’s set list will hold many a familiar favourite.

“This is going to be, mostly, a greatest hits/misses show,” he says.

“What you will see however is slower, heavier jazz. I don’t see our practise including us jumping up and down like 14-year olds when we’ll soon be in our 50s.

I’ve always wanted to make a funeral record. Heavy New Orleans drenched but intensely British music. I think elements of that will filter through the Tiresias LP, although that is taking on a lot of influence from West Indian music, as I listen to so much of it. And then it will get heavy – perhaps a theatre show, instead of a session down the Dog and Duck.

“I have lots of ideas and the ability to fulfil them. We may be talking about accordion and fiddle instead of brass. If I can pull off the arrangements and fund it, perhaps even string quartet. The songs dictate their delivery. If you want to dance and would like to see the group at our most propulsive, however, Saturday’s show is the one for you!”

Always ones too do things differently, the Rabbits’ colourful career has seen them animate crowds everywhere from the fields of Glastonbury to smart West End restaurants, by way of Cowley Road.

Refusing to follow the herd, this is a band who famously once released a single on phonographic wax cylinder followed by their own cider.

Most recently, Stuart has found himself enthused by the cultural history of London, of which, of course, he is an expert. And the capital has also woven itself into his newer music.

Stuart Macbeth. Picture: Dawn Fletcher-Park

“Music Hall is a good example,” he says. “I realised that the only way to recreate the dream music hall bill of, say, 1888, is on foot. The writing of new song ‘Drop Your Petticoat’ was done on a 50-mile plus walk, visiting the tombs of all I would wish on the bill – from Dan Leno in Tooting and Harry Champion in East Finchley to Marie Lloyd in Hampstead Cemetery, and so on.

“It invests a lot of density in a 180-second pop-song about being the worst date in England. I still write about Oxford, of course – ‘A Shop to Let’ on the current Victoria: an Adventure LP being an example. There are a great many London references in the songs, however. Consider it an extension of how we continually battle with escape in our music.”

Stubbing out his cigarette, he arrives at the conclusion that despite the intervening years, the city and his band are essentially the same as they’ve always been.

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“My experience of moving to Cornwall and revisiting Oxford is that the people don’t change,” he says. “The same bar stools are occupied. Every annual wave of freshers s comparable to the sailors arriving in NYC at the beginning of On The Town. All that’s changed for us is the disappearance of so many pulsating venues.”

So can we expect the same sharp and suited fare we know and love?

“Yes, with variations on the sharpness of the suit,” he says. “I’ve recently been modifying suits with cuts and paint. We can’t afford tailored suits so we need to tailor them ourselves. I’m a sort of partially-sighted jazz Alexander McQueen.”

• The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band play the Jericho Tavern, Oxford on Saturday, November 5
• See wegottickeets.com