In fact, band-mate Dickey Landrey, who lives in the same central Lafayette apartment block as Adcock, caught a 'gator a few days beforehand. Adcock is unsure what Landrey plans to do with the reptile. Suffice to say, it is dead. However, Adcock is able to disclose other details.
Landrey, for instance, is worth a story on his own merits, having hung out with Otis Redding, played with Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon and Talking Heads while also fashioning a reputation as a leading avant-guard painter and installation artist.
"Dickey started off down here playing rock 'n' roll. He made a living as a young man playing in swamp-pop bands, but he was always an artist on another level. He always had a big idea, could see the next thing coming, is one of those guys with a great universal outlook. He went to New York and was into cutting-edge art," Adcock says of his saxophone-playing friend.
"All these years later, he is back in Louisiana playing with Lil' Band O' Gold, which is going back to that rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues thing. But Dickey brings something that isn't just that; it isn't just play-by-the-rules, uniform white soul ... he's been there and back again," Adcock says.
"That's what makes it beautiful for me. There are these glimpses of the DNA that's in the band. Basically, we are a good rhythm and blues band that does this other thing. I got to tell you, man ... the band is made up of a lot of people who have a lot of influences, not only different from one another but also different within their own tastes."
Such is the band's pedigree, former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant asked Lil' Band O' Gold to be his backing group on the track It Keeps Rainin, from the album Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, with Plant joining the band on stage in New Orleans for a mini-set, including a bayou-groove version of the Led Zep classic Whole Lotta Love.
The headline act at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Lil' Band O' Gold made its Australian debut in March, playing the Byron Bay Blues Festival and the Apollo Bay Music Festival. This month the group tours New Zealand, a visit that includes a gig at Refuel, Dunedin, this Thursday, September 23.
Formed in Lafayette in the late 1990s by Adcock (guitar, vocals) and Steve Riley (accordion, vocals), Lil' Band O' Gold now comprises Warren Storm (drums, vocals), David Egan (piano, vocals), Dave Ranson (bass), Pat Breaux (saxophone), Landry (saxophone) and Richard Comeaux (pedal steel guitar).
Of that line-up, Comeaux is the only member who won't be touring. Lucky Oceans, a pedal-steel guitarist and a former member of celebrated American country-swing band Asleep at the Wheel, will replace Comeaux.
Take a listen to Lil' Band O' Gold's latest album, The Promised Land, the follow-up to the band's acclaimed self-titled 2000 debut, and a picture emerges of a group of seasoned musicians who have shed any egos in the pursuit of joyous interplay. At times, The Promised Land sounds like a bunch of old mates playing in a garage.
The album was recorded in a Lafayette recording studio often repainted over the years by the 73-year-old Storm, who has been described as the "Godfather of swamp-pop".
Storm first entered the United States charts in 1958 with The Prisoner Song, which sold 250,000 copies. Working at the legendary Jay Miller studios in Crowley, Louisiana, Storm was hired as the house drummer, playing on numerous blues hits, including releases by Lightning Slim and Slim Harpo, and has been inducted into both the Louisiana Hall of Fame and the Gulf Coast Hall of Fame.
But it's not music that has seen Louisiana promoted in headlines recently. Instead, read hurricanes, flooding, oil spills and economic hardship.
"It's a place of a lot of tough people who have had to deal with a lot of tough times," Adcock says.
There is both a tenderness and toughness to Lil' Band O' Gold's music, an honesty in approach that suggests the best indication of song quality comes by way of numbers on the dance floor.
"No matter how rough that plane ride was, how bad the meal the night before was, when you're up there playing, making the most of what you got and taking what comes to you ... if you can do what you do well, there will always be a place in the world for you," says Adcock, who first picked up a guitar at the age of 6.
"The first song I learned how to play was Rock and Roll Music, by Chuck Berry. I really haven't progressed much from that."
That's a fairly self-effacing comment from a man who has played with Bo Diddley, Buckwheat Zydeco, released two solo albums and contributed to the soundtrack of True Blood, the popular vampire television series set in rural Louisiana.
"I have played with a lot of people, but it really doesn't get any better than rock 'n' roll," Adcock says.
"When left to my own devices, I always go back to rock 'n' roll. I don't like to get too complicated about it; I like to keep it fairly remedial and just go for broke and try to make someone feel something. I don't try to impress them with all my worldly techniques."
Towards the end of the interview, the questioner is questioned: "Tell me a little bit about Dunedin," Adcock inquires.
He is told the venue is below ground where, on a busy night, the condensation of sweaty bodies sometimes forms on the low ceiling before dripping back on to the crowd.
He seems taken with that image.
• Catch them
Lil' Band O' Gold plays at Refuel, Dunedin, this Thursday, September 23.
