DriveBy Truckers carry the torch for rock and roll
February 16th, 2008, 4:56 am Hobbies And Interests
Despite the fact that the Drive-By Truckers were touring in support of their ambitious double-album “Southern Rock Opera,” the band’s career hadn’t shifted into high gear when they last rocked Boise in 2002. The Athens, Ga.-based group - founded in 1996 by longtime musical partners Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley - performed as an opening act at Neurolux. More than six years later, the Drive-By Truckers are hailed as the greatest Southern-rock act of the 21st century. In what promises to be a Boise concert highlight of 2008, the Truckers will headline at The Big Easy on Tuesday night.Trouble is, the Drive-By Truckers are not a Southern-rock band.This amicable argument seems unusual coming from the son of Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section bassist David Hood, not to mention a native Southerner whose phone-interview lexicon includes words like “granddaddy.” But maybe that’s the point. Southern-rock music, as a genre, is a different creature than simply being a rock band raised in the South.”I don’t want to come off like I’m bad-mouthing Southern rock - I’m not,” Patterson Hood, 41, explains. The Truckers, he says, just don’t want to be pigeonholed. “If everybody was saying we were the torchbearers for the Americana movement,” he confesses, “I would be saying the exact same thing.”Despite a blue-collar demeanor and an ever-present Jack Daniel’s bottle on stage, the Truckers are a cerebral lot. “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark,” the band’s sprawling new CD, reminds us of that. It also reminds fans that the Truckers are constantly evolving. In what amounted to a bit of a Southern soap opera for fans, the band’s guitar-toting trio of singer-songwriters was shaved to two: Jason Isbell - who joined shortly after “Southern Rock Opera” was completed - exited last year, making Hood and Cooley the lone frontmen again. Bassist Shonna Tucker - Isbell’s ex-wife - stepped forward to write and sing songs for the first time. And pedal steel/guitar player John Neff was named a full-time member of the band, which is rounded out by drummer Brad Morgan.We caught up with Hood, who spoke from his home in Athens:We’ve been waiting for you to come through Idaho for about seven years or something! It’s been forever. And it’s funny, because we had such a great time the last time we played in Boise. We had such a great time. But it’s just weird how that all works, I guess.It’s funny you even remember the show.
Yeah, we were having a rough tour. And of course, I think we played San Francisco a couple days earlier, and it’s a long drive. And we’re going up to Boise on a Monday night, so we’d never been to that town before, and it was a long way to get there, and I’m afraid our expectations weren’t super high - it being a Monday night in a town we’d never been. And we got there, and the place packed out, and everybody was just great to us. It really was one of my favorite nights of that year.Expectations were different as a band, I would guess. Do you get spoiled over time?
Well, I don’t know if spoiled’s the right word. But generally, we are treated pretty good most places we go. In those days, it was still pretty hit or miss, because you just never knew. In a new town you might show up and there might not be anybody there. But that doesn’t happen too often anymore.Speaking of change: The last two years have been a time of change. Did it feel natural going through the process or was it difficult at times?It was, at times, extremely difficult. But change is just an inevitable thing that happens in this job, particularly, because it can be really stressful being on the road for long periods of time and away from your family. It doesn’t always bring out the best in everyone’s personalities and likability. It’s a wonder that any band stays together longer than, you know, a tour. (Laughs)How have you and Mike Cooley made it last for more than two decades together?That’s still a mystery. I think it just comes down to both of us kind of came to appreciate what the other brings to the table. And there’s an undeniable chemistry between us. And so even in times when we didn’t get along, or even particularly like each other - fortunately, it’s been a pretty good while now. Because we get along real good now, and we do genuinely like each other a lot. But at times, that wasn’t the case. And I think even in those times, we can appreciate the fact that the two of us together makes a pretty good combination. We’re very much opposites. But when two people who are that much opposite can, you know, can coexist, it makes for a pretty strong thing.Has it ever reached the point where you guys weren’t talking for an extended period of time?Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah. We had a falling out around year nine, year eight, somewhere like that, where we spent the better part of two years not talking much.What band were you in at that point?It was actually during that time I moved to Athens. I didn’t have a band. I was solo. And that was a lot of why. Trying to put together bands, I generally try to collaborate with someone who I was kind of like-minded with, and maybe needing that difference of opinion might have made me appreciate what the difference of opinion brings to the table, maybe.When Cooley writes a song, is there ever an urge to write something in response to it? I guess I’m getting at the competitive urge.No. It’s funny, because there’s a lot of that in our music, but it’s never been intentional. Everything other than maybe “Southern Rock Opera,” which was the only time we’ve ever intentionally wrote about anything. The rest of the records, it’s like he shows up with a bunch of songs, I show up with bunch of songs, and it always kind of amazes both of us that the songs that we both show up with have so much in common. Probably the best story in this band is that: The fact that that continues to happen. And so often, in a lot of them, we’ll tell a similar story in two songs that take a totally different point of view about that story. And I think that’s one of our band’s greatest strengths.But you just said you’re opposites. In what ways are you guys different?Um, most ways. I don’t know. There’s certainly common ground. We both play guitar, although we approach that pretty differently. We both play in bands. It happens to be the same band. We both started families at roughly the same time, although again, it’s been approached in a pretty different way. He’s got three kids in quick succession. And I’ve managed so far to keep it at one. In some ways, he’s more outgoing than me, but in some ways, he’s not, you know? And maybe on purely some surface ways, he might seem to be more outgoing, but in some ways he’s not. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s probably healthier if I don’t psychoanalyze it too much. (Chuckles)I’ve got a question for you: I don’t want you to get a big head, but I’m having my first child in about three months. I want to ask you about names. This has nothing to do with you, but one of the boy names my wife and I are considering -we don’t know what we’re going have - is Patterson. One concern with the name Patterson is: Did you ever get hit with Pat growing up?
Yeah, and I hated it. I still hate it. People still sometimes want to call me that, and I can’t stand it. I don’t care for the name. I’ve got some friends named that and it works for them, but … It’s pretty much constant, you know, particularly for the first 35 years or so. It helped that my wife really loves the name Patterson and she would always get kind of red-assed when people would call me Pat in front of her. So it was nice to have somebody take that role for me, because I always felt kind of cheesy. So I would generally let it be and let it sit, so therefore I would continually get called that. But I never really felt like I was a Pat. I always felt I was a Patterson. Patterson’s a family name. It was my granddaddy’s last name, and I was named after that. I prefer to be called that.All right, I should get back to the interview. What I was going to ask you about Cooley is, is he ever going to release that mythical solo album?No, I doubt it. He said the other day that only if we break up. The thing about Cooley - and that’s kind of another difference - he’s not a prolific guy. This record’s kind of been an exception, because he came in with a lot of songs this time. But generally, he’s a one or two song a year guy. He has plenty of outlet for that with what we do. And it’s not like he’s got this huge backlog of songs that aren’t getting used. I do write a lot. Granted a lot of them may not be keepers, and they never see the light of day, ’cause that’s just part of my method. I’ll write a lot of songs looking for that good one.You’re never self-conscious about being the “prolific” one?
Not self-conscious. It wouldn’t do any good to be, I don’t guess. That’s just what I am. There was a point in time where I thought, “Well maybe if I edited more carefully before I wrote, it would make me a better writer.” And so I tried that for a while, and it didn’t work for me. What works for me is to write it, and then worry about that on the back end. I edit pretty ruthlessly on the back end - contrary to some people’s popular belief! (Laughs)You can’t really blame them with 19 songs on “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.”Yeah. Well, I like ‘em all! You should see the ones that didn’t make it, I guess. I don’t know. It’s just what it is. The band obviously felt like it had something to say.Yeah, I mean nobody set out to make a record with so many songs. It wasn’t really in our best interest to set out to do something like that. It’s just what it was. And it’s what it became. We went in for 10 days in June, and we came out with 17 songs recorded. We didn’t really realize we had so many until the last day when (producer David Barbe) compiled all the roughs. It’s like, “Holy s–, there’s a lot of songs here. The next month, we’re all touring and not recording, so over the course of the next month and a half, we’ll listen to it and whittle it down to a manageable length and then finish the record from what’s left. And over the course of us going our separate ways and then touring in July, everybody sort of came to the same conclusion: That these songs all stuck together, that it was very much a piece of work. Some of the songs that seemed less fully-formed individually had a role in setting up the next song. It even kind of had already sequenced itself. A song like “You and Your Crystal Meth” kind of set a mood that “Goode’s Field Road” built on. And there were a lot of those kind of transitional things in there. …The whole record set a mood and kind of captured a moment in time. Moments in time are fleeting, and so it captured it, and this is what it is, and this is what it will be. Instead of coming back in August and whittling it down, we came back through like there was a missing piece. And that piece was “Righteous Path,” which, fortunately, I was able to write about two days before we reconvened. And we recorded it in one take, and there’s the record.You guys are always going to feel like you have tons of control over your records. You’ve never sort of had that urge to “Bring in Rick Rubin!” or something crazy?No, you know, we’ve got David Barbe. I love working with David. David’s very much a part of the band. If we ever did bring in somebody, it would probably be in addition to David. If we decided to do something that we wanted to do something really different, and it involved bringing somebody in, it would probably be in addition to David. David’s just kind of part of it.Why do you think Shonna came forward with songs for the first time for “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark”?
I think she just felt like it was her time to do it. We’d always encouraged her involvement on whatever level she wanted to be. But I think prior to this record, I think she felt like she had her hands full doing her other roles in the band. And when she joined the band, we were in the middle of a tour and in the middle of making a record. And so there wasn’t really a lot of time for her to even think about increasing her role beyond, it was more of a matter of, “We’ve got a show in three days, learn 90 songs. See you in Birmingham.” And she did. And she showed up in Birmingham knowing the 90 songs, and we reconvened our tour, and then a month later went back in the studio and ended up pretty much redoing the majority of the record. And that was making “The Dirty South.” And when we were doing “Blessing and a Curse, there was a good bit of talk about her maybe doing a song on that record. But in the end, I just don’t think she felt ready to.But when she showed up this time, the first day of recording she showed up with “Purgatory Line” and “I’m Sorry Huston” already demoed. She’d four-tracked them in her living room the week before. She’d actually just written them the week before. They were brand new, and she felt real good about them, and played them for us, and we all loved ‘em, and so we recorded them. And then right around that same time, she wrote “Home Field Advantage” actually in the studio.So you think her contributions will be steady now?
I hope so! That’s totally up to her, but I would hope so. I mean, hell, it wouldn’t bother me if we showed up one day and she came in with 10 songs and wanted to cut an album. Good, great. That could be cool. Do an album of Shonna songs - that could happen. It’s no reason for it not to if she ends up with those songs and wants to.Some of the more anthemic Truckers songs - the hard-rocking ones - are natural crowd pleasers. When you came up with the riff and the lyrics to a tune like “That Man I Shot,” were you immediately like, “Bingo, I rock. That’s going to be one of those songs.”Uh, I knew it was a good one. I felt pretty strongly about it from day one. And when I played it for everyone in the band, I mean everybody did. Everyone in the band was there the night that inspired that song. No one in the band was asking me what inspired it, that’s for sure. When I played the song, everyone was like, “Oh, you wrote a song about that. OK.”What inspired it?Well, it was a true life encounter. We had an encounter one night with guys who had been over in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they were Green Berets, and they were badasses that had been through all this s–t and come home, and one of them upon coming home had decided that he wanted to go back. And it was pretty intense. It was a little bit “Deer Hunter”-esque at times. His buddies weren’t exactly happy that he was going back. It was very much he came home, and maybe got divorced or something. I don’t know. I don’t want to get too deep into his personal life. But (he) came home, it wasn’t happening for him, and he decided he was going back. And they were all Trucker fans, and they brought him to a show as like a send-off, as a going-away present, they took him to see us. And sent word to us wanting to know if they could meet us as a send-off for their buddy. And we ended up spending several hours together. Long enough to pretty much drink a bottle of whisky together. And it was a pretty intense night. Had a pretty heated discussion at times, even. And writing that song, I wanted to be as true as I could to that guy and to that character that the same was about, and not really put words in his mouth that he wouldn’t say, or things he wouldn’t feel. But at the same time, also, I’m the guy writing it, and I want to be true to me, too. And so it was kind of a delicate balance that I feel like was pulled off. I’m pretty proud of that song.It’s a powerful tune. It’s kind of simple, and yet it’s kind of complicated. It jumped right out at me. I’ve listened to that song a lot.Some of the pretty big hard-core fans of our band, I think, were at least initially a little put off by the fact that this record doesn’t have many of those anthemic, big kind of songs. There’s not a lot of “Ronnie and Neil” moments on this record. All I can really say in response to that is I would feel really trapped and kind of sh–ty if I felt like I was required for every song I write to be one of those. Those songs have their place, and I’m real proud of them. I’m really glad that our band has a pretty good arsenal of those to tap into on any given night. We very well at some point in time may make an album that’s just, the whole thing is big and loud and anthemic. But I wouldn’t really want to have to do it all the time. It would be a bore. It would become like a formula. This record’s very personal, and it kind of is what it is. Rather than trying to make it into something else to please somebody else, we just had to kind of be true to what was there and follow it where it led us. And hoped some people would like it. Some may not, but that part of the equation isn’t really allowed to figure in too much anymore.”That Man I Shot” is another sort of narrative. Narratives and storytelling are a huge aspect of Truckers songs -Sure, sure.- but not necessarily so in the wide realm of rock music. What attracts to you to that besides the excitement of the South’s history: the corrupt politicians, the moonshiners, the poverty?I don’t know. I do love a good story. I love a good story. My dual lifelong love of my life have been movies and records. And I’ve always kind of looked at our records as sort of movies without the movie a little bit. They all kind of do have a narrative arc about them. Even to some extent “Blessing and a Curse,” which was sort of our attempt to make a record that didn’t do those things. Because we did, intentionally, on that record, want to stretch ourselves and push ourselves a little bit. That’s really the only record we’ve ever done where we had such an agenda. We had kind of this agenda to make a different kind of record just to prove to ourselves that we could, whether it worked or not. And there’s, I’m sure, a good bit of debate as to whether in the end it did work or not.
Are you talking about maybe the Brit-rock influences? It was less of a “Southern rock” record.Certainly that. Yeah, I mean that was fine, because we were all so tired of hearing the whole Southern rock bulls–t. None of us have ever considered ourself to be that. And we made a record about that (”Southern Rock Opera.) And we tried to make that record true to the subject matter that the record was about. Which meant kind of, I mean, particularly the just more arena rock really than Southern rock. But definitely the ’70s arena rock aspect was a huge, huge part of “Southern Rock Opera.” And there’s no denying that. But that was one record we made, and we continued writing songs. But none of really liked being labeled or pigeonholed that. Because it brings with it a certain baggage that isn’t really us. We’re certainly a rock and roll band, and we are undeniably Southern as s–t, but our influences and the things that led us to that place had as much in common with X and the Clash, and the Replacements, as it did Lynyrd Skynyrd and certainly more so than any of the other Southern rock bands. Because I’m really not a huge fan of that genre. That was one of the themes of the record, that kind of gets overlooked a little bit.Hearing you say that is probably going to shock some people.
Yeah! And I don’t think it’s shocking. If you listen to, God forbid, all eight of our records, they go in a lot of different directions.What rock bands from the South - I won’t call them Southern rock bands - get your juices flowing?
Athens, Ga.’s, full of them. There’s a huge music scene here. That was part of why I moved here. There’s John Chambers and GOAT, which is actually a band I produced an upcoming record on, and -I just saw a young group called The Whigs.The Whigs are great. We’re touring with them in March. They’re going out with us. They’re fantastic. They were on”Letterman” the other day. They’re going to do our March tour with us. They’re fantastic.That guy’s almost punk rock in his vocal delivery.
Yeah, yeah. I can definitely hear a Husker Du and a little bit of a Pixies influence on that. That’s real cool. I love it.
A question I wanted to ask you but now doesn’t apply: You guys aren’t carrying a torch for Southern rock, so asking you who’s helping the Truckers carry the Southern rock torch doesn’t make sense.No. I mean the only torch I want to carry is rock and roll. Rock and roll should include all these different sub-genres that everyone’s gotten so hung up on, whether it’s punk rock or alternative, God forbid, or Southern rock or Americana. The one thing all those different genres have in common is they’re all related to rock ‘n’ roll. Without stretching too much, if you look a the whole time line of rock ‘n’ roll history, you can start including a lot of country acts. Particularly ones that brought with them a little bit of a rebelliousness and a restlessness. Like Hank Williams and Lord, Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard may be as country as it gets, but a lot of that stuff, in retrospect, holds up as rock ‘n’ roll, too. It just does. And in a lot of ways, Ronnie Van Zant’s songwriting has more in common with Merle Haggard than probably the majority of the other bands that Lynyrd Skynyrd gets lumped in with.Yeah. 38 Special?
Yeah! Ronnie Van Zant’s writing has more in common with Merle Haggard’s than either of the Caldwell brothers or the Allman brothers. Nothing wrong with that.I think culturally, the world’s getting that a little. When I see one of you guys interviewed on Country Music Television. Or as much as I’m not a fan of Kid Rock, you see this guy sort of trying to blend music. I don’t like his music, but I guess I appreciate that maybe it helps some people understand that music doesn’t have to be chopped up with boundaries.Yeah. I’ve always rebelled against any of the sub-genres, because they’re limiting, and it’s kind of being put in a musical ghetto. I might wake up tomorrow and want to write a song that’s very R%26B-based. Or country-influenced. On this record, there’s a lot of both of those elements in there. So, to me, the only genre that I could label us that doesn’t in some way limit us from being able to explore the directions I want to explore, is rock and roll. And so, therefore, I definitely consider ourselves as a band trying to carry that torch forward. Hell, I’m a huge Sonic Youth fan. I listen to a lot of different stuff from all parts of the world.By the terms you describe “Southern Rock Opera” - which in a lot of ways put the Truckers on the map - it also ghetto-ized the band.It did, I guess. I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds as far as that record. I’m extremely proud of that record. We made that record under huge adversity, and just the fact that we were able to complete the record was pretty monumental considering where we were and what we were doing. We made that record on basically about $6,000 and recorded it in a uniform shop in downtown Birmingham during a heat wave. I mean, at a time when everyone was getting divorced in the band, and we were fighting and not getting along, it was a horrendous experience that we somehow came out the other end on. And then we spent two years on the road touring behind it. And so I’m fiercely proud of the record. I can’t really listen to it now, but I am very proud that we survived it and made it, and I’m proud that it has brought us a bigger audience and all of that. But I’ve never wanted to be limited by it any more than I’d want to be limited by what this record might do.Why can’t you listen to it?
Oh, well, I don’t really sit around listening to my records too much. And if I was, I’d probably go, “Oh, God d–n, I would hope I would sing better now than I did then.”I think you’ve said you’ll play the entire album live in 2011. Is that true?Uh, probably a couple songs we won’t play. But we’re going to perform it in some form. It might be kind of a 10 years later, updated version of it in places. But, hopefully, it will be true to the original spirit of it, anyway.I’m sure fans would appreciate it.It would be fun! Ten years seems like a good place to do it, you know? We’ve had people actually, at times, even kind of wave money under our faces a little bit and say, “Would you be interested in doing a performance of this?” And we’ve kind of always said when it’s 10 years old would be a good time to maybe do that.But then you’ll be like the Southern rock version of Pink Floyd going out and doing “Dark Side of the Moon.”Uh. Well, I don’t know. I doubt we’ll have lasers.Michael Deeds: 377-6407
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