Spooked - Don't Wanna Fright No More

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

When singer/songwriter & former frontwoman of the Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard, comes up against a hostile spirit in her home, she has to decide: who’s going to get to stay? Brittany... or the ghost? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Now I lay me down for sleep. In due time, I will rise to creep back to the stain. Scrub. Till I can scrub no more. This thing to spute. Stay. Okay, so, when I'm getting some higher education or whatever, I have this buddy, and my buddy esports are beautiful,

brand-new, wine-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee. back when that was the cool thing to ride. I don't have a brand new, beautiful, wine-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee, but I still know that you can't pull up at noon in the middle of Ann Arbor, Michigan and expect to find a parking spot

right next to class. I tell him, fool! We're going to have to drive a mile out and hike our asses back. But he's like, no, wait, wait, I got the karma. Huh? Negro, trust the karma. Don't fight you.

The car to trust it. Have you lost your... And right then, a car pulls out from a space directly in front of us. My buddy gives me that look

and slides a ride in all nice that you please and I'm thinking. This clown just got lucky. Lucky. A one-off. But he's my boy, right? So I spend lots and lots of time

in that car. Lots of time with him. Doors opening wide as we leave his fancy apartment. Restaurants pulling us to the front of the line. Women unbidden, pushing the numbers into his hand and him

always turning suddenly into empty parking spaces, which everyone knows is impossible in Ann Arbor. He's telling me it's because he's special, magical, a special magical black man. Brother,

the universe loves me. Magical black man. especially not ones steady running their mouth all the time, but here we are. And this thing, this thing, he depends upon it. Like you depend on your belt or your watch or an umbrella. He counts upon the smile of fate. And it's to the point where he can think of a person, say their name out loud. Two minutes later, Lisa wanders by.

Did you already, how did you? I already told you. You ain't trying to hear me though. And I know that life isn't fair. know this, but I think about his world, his beach house. He's never flown coach, and for a moment it makes me, it makes me angry. Still, he's my friend, my best friend. And I have love for him. I do. But nobody's special for real. He ain't Obi-Wan. And one day, we're driving that beautiful wine-colored car and he's looking for a parking space.

And he's looking. Nothing's turning up. And he's baffled. Confused. Waiting for the magic to kick in. I stay silent. Keeping my smile to myself, thrilled to discover. Maybe.

My name is from Washington. There are parking spaces everywhere. Spook starts. Now, our storyteller today is Brittany Howard. At the time of this story, Brittany's a singer, a songwriter. She was the lead singer of the group Alabama Shakes, but this is before the fame.

Before the Adelaation, the band is just getting off the ground, and she needs a place to practice, to create, to dig deep inside herself. The granny's old empty house seems perfect. But before we get into it, I want to hand it over to our spook producer, Chris Hambrick, who interviewed Brittany. Bill, our staff here at Spook found this story in the New Yorker about Brittany Howard.

We love Brittany Howard, lead singer of the Alabama Shakes, an amazing musician and songwriter. And there was one short paragraph about the house in which Brittany grew up. She said that it was haunted. She said while driving by the house, that bitch was haunted as hell. And then the story moved on. Of course, our interest was piqued. So I set out to learn a little bit more. We got Brittany on the phone to find out just what was going on in that house.

We painted all the floors different colors. So the kitchen was blue with white checkerboard on it. And then in my room had like this light green flooring. And the walls had all this sponging on it. I had the biggest bedroom I ever had in my life. Decorated the way I wanted to with plants. I was really excited to have my own space and excited for us to not live in an apartment anymore

but there's this deep corner of my room and it's just a corner, it's just a 90-degree angle just like all the other corners in the room but this corner in particular I always felt like somebody was watching me from that corner I always felt like there was a presence I really didn't talk about it because I just thought it was

was my imagination. Oh, I'm just getting scared because it's a new house. And I'm not used to having so much room. And so it's just a new place. And I'm just sacking myself out. The way that this side of the duplex is connected to her side of the duplex is through my bathroom. So essentially, my great-grandma and my bedroom shares a bathroom. So she would like come through sometimes. And in the beginning, that would scare me because she's super quiet. I would be in the living room watching TV, and then she would just pop up. And she would have, like, ice cream cone. It would be like midnight.

And I'm like, great-grandma, what are you doing? And she's like, I just thought you wanted some ice cream, baby. I'm like, I'm good. But then I noticed it would not always happen. That way I would hear something, or I would see, like, the curtain move a little bit in the living room. And I'd be like, oh, it's great grandma. But it wasn't. But then we had a cat, so I just kind of thought, oh, it must have been a cat.

My great-grandma passed away while we were living that house. We'd only stay with her for five months before she passed away. So now it was just me and my mom in this big old duplex. We'd be eating breakfast together, and my mom would just blurt out and say, great-grandma came and sat on the end of my bed last night. I would say, Mom, stop. Stop. I don't like it. I don't want to talk about it. But she was saying, no, it's your great grandma. She's sitting on the end of the bed.

And she does it all the time. I'm scared of ghosts. And I just thought maybe she was messing with me or trying to scare me. I was afraid. So I didn't want to hear about it. When I was 18 years old, my mom got remarried. So she moved out and I decided to stay. I was pretty excited to live alone. I was excited to be independent. So during this time, I'm going to work, I'm going to school,

and I'm practicing with my band, the Alabama shakes, but back then we were just the shakes. We started rehearsing there, and we start working on our repertoire, and we started storing our gear, and we had a home base, a stable place to make music, and to write songs. And it was really nice just to come home and have my own space. Be practicing with my band and not have anybody complain about the noise. One afternoon, I had just gotten off of work.

I was landscaping, so I'm tired. I'm ready to eat something. I go in the house, go in the kitchen, and I'm about to make my struggle meal grow. A can of corn and some toast. I'm in there heating up this can of corn. I turn on some music. I had a little boombox. You know, keeping myself company.

Feed Ozzy. My bedroom is joined to the kitchen. I hear my door like click, as if someone turned the knob. And I look over and the door swings open. The first sensation I had was a chill going up my spine and my skin getting all tingly like adrenaline. I was ready to fight or flight. But then once the door opened all the way,

there was nothing there, there was no sound. It was just the darkness of my big, creepy bedroom. I stood there for a while, just looking into that space, waiting to hear a footstep, waiting for what I should do next. I just said, oh, maybe it's time for some new doorknops, like a whole new gear, maybe it's all worn out, and that's why that happened. Okay. I remember cautiously walking.

up to the door, grabbing the door handle, pulling it back, closed in here and then thinking, I'm not sure, but it was nothing. And then I go sit on the couch and I eat my dinner from the television and put it out of my mind. Not too long after that, I was getting off of work. I go into the house. It was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining. It was a cool breeze.

I didn't want to sit inside the house. So I go on my back porch There's this big heavy Like hand-hewn door And it doesn't have a doorknob It just has a big Industrial slide-lop So I kind of pull the door

Behind me just like a little bit To make sure my cat doesn't get out And then I call my best friend And I'm talking to her on the phone What are you going to do this weekend What are you going to do tonight Just shooting it I hear my cat batting at the door

trying to open the door all the way so he can come outside. And I say, hold on, girl, Ozzy's trying to get out. So I turn around, sure enough, there he is with his little paw sticking through the door. I pulled the door all the way too. And then I get back to my conversation, sitting on the porch, chat, chat, chat. Next thing I know, I hear this sound again. And I think to myself, huh, I guess that's Ozzie trying to get out again. Hold on, girl, let me do something about this for good.

I push on the door, expecting to open it to see my cat. The door was locked. Suddenly, I freeze because I think, oh my God, someone just came in my house and locked me out. They're trying to rob me. I'm like, hey, stay on the line with me, girl. I think someone has come through my house. So I run around the side of the house and I go back into the front door because I had left the door unlocked. Only weapon I have in my entire house is a machete.

So I got this machete and I'm going through every room of my house. I'm looking in the showers. I'm looking in all the closets. I'm going through all of these rooms, turning lights on real quick, and then going to the next room and looking in those closets. I went through this entire house. It must have took me like 20 minutes. Finally, I get to the back door.

And I look. Not only was it pulled to the side, but it was also back in place into locked position. And meanwhile, my friends just talking to me on the phone, she's saying, are you okay? What happened? What's going on? I say, hey, the door locked itself. She was like, what are you talking about? I was like, I don't know, but the door has locked itself. I'm not sure what to say. I'm kind of scared. And she's like, what? How'd that happen? And I'm like, I don't know. I just stood there staring at the door, and I saw how it had been locked back. And I know that this slide lock, this heavy industrial slide lock on this door, could only have been moved by hands. That's the only way. Not by the house settling, not by the cat, not by wind.

I opened the door back up. I looked at a screen door. I looked at the back porch where I was sitting. I just thought, I'm okay. Nothing's happened. So I'm just going to get on with my day, I guess. I really liked my room a lot, my amazing bedroom. I felt like it really represented me at the time.

And so I had this really cool vintage bed frame. It was like from the 1940s. And me and my mom had painted it this really deep, beautiful greens go to the rest of the room. And the only thing about this bed was, you know, I was kind of too tall for it. So my feet would kind of hang off the end of the bed. It would go through these two bars. at the end of the bed frame and that's how I would sleep. One night, I was still awake but I was like almost asleep, you know, that real nice spot,

that sweet spot. And then I just feel my foot was being touched, which is the worst feeling because that's what everybody is afraid of when their feet hangs off the bed. You're scared somebody's going to get your foot. imagine like someone takes their finger and then goes from your heel to the top of your toe just like that what was that and i immediately get out of bed and i think it must be my cat my cat must have been trapped in the room tonight because i never let him sleep in my room and so i look under the bed you know there's nothing under there but like clothes and boots and stuff and i'm just sitting there and i think okay

Maybe I imagine someone touching my foot. Maybe it was a dream. But I had that sensation still in my body, like, just like if someone had poked you, you would know afterwards. And I was so afraid suddenly when it sank in that that was not possible. Nothing's in the room.

My cat's not in the room. Maybe I didn't imagine it. It's slowly flooding to me these strange experiences that I had been having in the house. since my mom moved away, such as cabinets creaking open, the door to my bedroom opening, curtains moving on their own, being watched. I'm thinking something else is in this house. I think this is a haunting.

I thought maybe it was the spirit of my great-grandma that was coming to say hello. Maybe that was it, if that. And that was just based on what my mom was saying about. something sitting on her bed at night. But what I didn't understand was like, why is my great grandma messing with me so much? So that really scared me. And so I went to sleep in the living room. That suck.

Like whose house is it? Like you've been forced out of your bedroom. Yeah, it sucks. I'd say the worst part about it was not only losing my domain, but also just losing sleep. you know what I mean? I think at the time being like, you know, enrolled in college and also working, also trying to work on my dreams. You know, I was in a survival state.

I was trying to do the bare minimum so I can make my dreams survive. You know what I'm saying? So if I had to sleep on a couch to do that, so be it. I'll sleep on the couch. Weeks later after that, I do my bedtime ritual. I turn on animal planet. a documentary about ant colonies. I lay down, I'm cozy,

I'm falling into that nice, squishy, gentle place between consciousness and sleep. I remember hearing the man's voice talking about ants, and here I am, my eyes closed, and I start hearing this growling, and I think to myself, it must be on the TV. And then it gets closer and louder,

And it took me a moment to realize this is not the television. This is right next to my ear. It was like, oh my God. The first thing out of my mouth was the expletive. And I look around, terrified. I'm looking around my room. I'm like, what was that? What was that?

What was that? What was that? It made me sit up. Immediately, I'm out of bed. I'm looking around. I look on the television. It's these ants. I thought.

It must have been animals on the TV, but it couldn't have been. So then I thought maybe it's raccoons fighting under the house, which is the most country thing I've ever said, but it was not raccoons fighting under the house. Everything was quiet. Everything was copacetic, except the chills that I had all over my body let me know that that was real. I go into the kitchen and I'm just standing there.

And I'm like, what do I do? My heart is beating so fast. I just call my dad and I'm so upset I have to do this I don't know what time it was like midnight and I'm like dad I have to come home home I'm just so scared

and I go stay with my dad next time I came home I had decided I'm not sleeping in that room anymore something's up with this room this is an apparition doing this or ghost or something I can't see that can see me

I never talk to my mother about it because she's not afraid of ghosts supernatural things like that, she is curious about it. I brought it up like one time with my mom, and she just said just a mouthful. She's like, sometimes I see orbs and stuff in the house and, like, tell me all this stuff, and I'm just like, that's not comforting. That is the opposite of what I'm trying to hear right now. As far as, like, who it was, I just assumed it was.

I just assumed it wasn't my great-grandma because whatever it was, like to scare me. And I don't think that's her bag. You know, my great-grandmother, it was really sweet. You know what I mean? I don't think she'd want to scare me. I don't think she would growl at me.

She would never... I don't think my great-grandmother would stick around terrorize me. It would make no sense. And then I thought, what if it was my great-grandpa? I was like, I'm a mixed woman. My father's black. My mother's white. I thought maybe my great-grandpa didn't approve of that.

So I thought he was messing with me based on my color. I was just trying to figure out who this was at this point because it was somebody who was not of the earth. But then when it came to the growling is a growling ghost. What does this mean for me? My worst-case scenario was like, what if it's demons? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like in the hierarchy of, you know, ghosts or whatever, it seems like demons is pretty bad. I said, you want my room? You can have my room.

I chained the door shut. I would only go in my bedroom to get into my closet to get ready for work. Would not sleep in it. I would not spend any time in it. I had basically moved my sleeping quarters to the little living room because I couldn't explain it and I didn't. feel safe. We had rehearsals in my house Tuesdays and Thursdays. So on one of these nights, me and my bass player sitting in our rehearsal room, which was my mother's room previously, but I turned it

into our little jam space, had PA, the amps, drum set, piano, everything sitting in there. I was seated playing guitar, and he seated next to me playing bass. We were just running through this section of the song over and over again. We're trying to perform it perfectly, so we were playing it. Every note was perfect, and then all of a sudden, he stops. And I'm like, why did you stop? What was wrong?

I look over at him, and he had this look on his face. His eyes were kind of big, and his mouth was kind of like open a little bit. And he's staring at a doorway where you could kind of see where two rooms I'm starting to get scared because I've never seen this look on his face before. He says to me, something just whispered in my ear right next to my head. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, I don't know. I'm going to go.

I was like, you're going to go. You're going to tell me that and go? He's like, yeah, I don't want to be here anymore. Pretty sure your house is haunted. He didn't know what it was saying Because You know To be honest

Dude that wasn't even a topic Of the conversation I wasn't even like What did it say? I wasn't even like that He was just like Something just got all up in my ear He could like feel it breathing

And everything I could tell he was really scared Because he's a big guy Got up and left And I'm like I'm gonna go too I'm not about to stay here If you tell me something like that The only thing I know to do was to leave.

I packed an overnight bag. Follow my pops. Hey, pop, come to sleep on that couch. I felt validated like, okay, I'm not crazy. But then on the other hand, I was like, my house is haunted. What am I going to do? This is scary. This is ramping up.

I had to go back because, you know, my life is there. That's the rehearsal space. That's where I live. It's not as easy as picking everything up. I just knew that being pushed out of the house meant I lose my independence. And I knew that if I lost that now, then maybe my dreams will never come to fruition because where else am I going to work on my dreams than in this house that is all mine where I can make as much noise as I want, be as creative as I want to.

There's some economic issues that go into staying into a haunted house that no one talks about. I'm here to tell you, uh, hello, if you don't have money saved up to make a move, you are still in this haunted house. Ghost don't pay rent. Now it's been like three years. I've been losing sleep, tired and exhausted, like all the time. And I'm still carrying out with my life. I'm still going to work. I'm still trying to study for school. I'm still having been in practice twice a week. I'm still trying to have a social life. I was so paranoid in my home that I wouldn't go to bed till I don't know until the sun came up so five I would get a few hours of sleeping and then I would wake up get ready for work I'm on the couch trying to go to sleep it must have been after 11 and it was fall and I hear footsteps crunching on the leaves outside so immediately I think oh my god someone's here to rob me so I grabbed this flashlight that I have I'm shining out the living room window just like that but nobody's out there.

My adrenaline's running again, and I'm so tired. But I'm just like, oh, I don't know. I guess they aren't coming to rob me. I'm not sure. So I just think, okay, maybe somebody just passing through the yard, trying to take a shortcut, whatever. Which would have been super weird, by the way, but maybe. So I lay back down, sleep for a few hours, wake up, go to work.

I thought it was a literal human being. So then I started sleeping with a gun underneath the couch. So it's floor, gun, couch, pillow, me. A few nights later, same thing happened, footsteps. So immediately I think, oh, not me. Oh, I'm ready this time. So I have a gun. I get the flashlight, shine out the window.

It's like an alley. There's no way I wouldn't be able to see someone there. But every time I get this flashlight, I would look, and then the footsteps would stop, and nobody was there. And I'm like, I'm going crazy. Like, what is this? Go to sleep, wake up to work. A few days later, it happens again.

This time I think, I'm calling the cops. I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired. I'm so sick of being scared. I dial the police officers. I tell them what's going on. I only live maybe four or five minutes from the police station. So they're there in a jiffy.

I could see their lights. I could see them with their spotlights, checking the field next to me in my yard. just walking around my house. They come to the door and they're like, ma'am, we didn't see anybody. Are you sure you heard what you heard? And I'm like, yeah, I am. I lay back down the couch.

I was so tired. I remember just like crying because I was just so exhausted from not sleeping well for months. And now there's this other situation with these footsteps outside my home. is the ghost now haunted me from outside the house? Is this something else I have to worry about? I can't worry about any more stuff. I wanted to have my life back again. This is not worth it.

My mental health was so much more important than having my independence. I decided enough is enough. So periodically, my dad would call or text to check on me because he knew that I was scared in that house and he just like, so how are you doing? And I was just like, honestly, you know,

can I move back in with you? Because I can't do this anymore. You know, I had to call the cops last night, this whole thing. I can't live like this. And he's like, of course you can come live with me. Just like, come on. So, you know, he drives the truck over there.

Gotta go grab some boxes from the recycling center, build some boxes. I pack up was worth packing up, put everything I owned in these boxes, throw it in a storage unit, take with me what I could fit into my childhood bedroom, and move out in a day and start over again. The conversation was with my band. I was just like, this is impractical. We had to move our rehearsal space.

I just basically told them we can't do it here anymore. I got to leave. Let's find somewhere else. They understood, and they're just like, yeah, sure, we'll find some place. And that place happened to be my guitar player's father's garage. And we made it work. Everything changed very suddenly, but it worked out.

I have thought about the spirit so many times. One thing I tried to follow up with was talking to a psychic who had proved to be accurate about things in my personal life and other friends and stuff. I remember asking her about it and saying, yeah, I used to live in his house, you know. and I felt like there was another spirit in it. It didn't give her too much, but she's just like, oh yeah, you should check out the history of Native Americans in your town.

She's like, because what I'm seeing is like, this is native land. It has nothing to do with the house. It just has more to do with the attachment to the actual land itself and that the spirit does not want to leave this land or you having you think it's yours. And I was like,

I don't know. I guess it's good enough for me. I don't know. So the ghost won. If you say so, if he wants that old jankety house, yeah, he won. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he won it. It's still there.

What do you feel like you lost? What do I feel like I lost? I didn't lose anything. I'll tell you what I gained. Peace of mind. Okay. About five Grammys. Okay.

I'm good. I didn't lose anything. All I did was gain from that point. So, like, really, maybe I should be thinking that goes. And big love, Brittany Howard. We are so glad you got the last laugh against a bad spirit. The original score for that story was by Leon Moimoto. It was produced by Chris Hamburg.

Yes, yes, yes. The secret is out. you need even more spooked in your life. The full 22 episode season is available right now at luminarypodcast.com. Luminarypodcast.com. Be afraid. And you've heard, motherfucker, but if you have a personal story that spook you, where you, you, you touch the force to be there when you had a relationship with the mystery, email us, your story. Spooke at snapjudgment.org.

There is nothing better than the spook story from a spooked listener. But don't tell me you saw a ghost. Everybody saw a ghost. If you have a real story, though, let us know. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. Now the best way to ward off evil spirits is by wearing spook gear. Head on over to the snapjudgment.org slash shop to get some spooky merchandise.

That's snapjudgment.org slash shop. And if you like your storytelling and the bright light of day, subscribe to the amazing Snap Judgment podcast. Why? Because the mic just changed your life. Brooke was brought to you by the amazing team that the Alabama Shakes always welcomes with open arms. Everyone, except for Mark Ristich. There's Anna Sussman, our chief spooksters Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, Annie Nguyen, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Renzo Giorio, Tailed Decas, Marissa, Marissa, Marisade, Maris. Leah Yates, Zoy Ferdinnell, Greta Weber, Jacob Winnick, Doug Stewart, Seneca, Tiffin Delisa, Ann Ford, Fernando Hernandez, and Flo Wiley. The spook theme songs by Pat Marcy Lee Miller. My name is from Washington. Follow me on the Twitter and Instagram for a whole different type of story.

And yes, I'm here to simply tell you that what you already know. If you want to practice a realm's old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere that you are absolutely certain is teeming with unearthly spirits, if you want to do that, I can't stop you. I've learned this. I cannot make you turn screaming in the other direction. I can't. What I will do is ask a simple favor for the love of all that is sacred and holy. In this spooky house that you're in? Never.

Never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, never. ever.