Thirteen studio albums and a handful of live albums. For the last 25 years or so, the Drive By Truckers and its members have sped along at a prolific pace, creating authentic, honest rock songs that weren’t afraid to tell the truth or get their hands dirty.
Last year, the band released two albums, The Unraveling and The New OK. It wasn’t their intention to put out a pair of albums. However, as guitarist and singer Patterson Hood puts it “nothing really went as planned last year.” They had booked a solid year and a half worth’s full of touring to support The Unraveling, which came out in January 2020. However, after three weeks, everything shut down due to the pandemic and they had extra time.
“We had a new record we couldn't really do anything with, and then the stuff that happened last summer out here in Portland, where I live, led to me writing a couple of songs about that,” says Hood. “We had some more songs in the vault from the same sessions that Unraveling came out of, from Memphis. We had a couple of other things floating around that we've been working on, but hadn't finished, and we set tracks back and forth to record the new songs, and to finish the unfinished stuff and put together that second album.
“Then we had two brand new records that we couldn’t tour behind, but the act of doing all that, at least made us feel like we had something we could do. I’m glad we did the second album and enjoyed doing it and getting it out there. We felt like it was important to get those two new songs out while they were new.”
Quicker, Timelier
By bypassing the standard put an album out and tour for two or two years, the band was able to release the music quicker, when it was timelier.
“I’ve always liked the idea of actually do it while it’s hot,” says Hood. “Went to the protests. I wrote the song about the protest. We recorded the song, and a month later the song was out there.”
While the band has dabbled in Southern rock, such as 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, Hood thinks they’re more than just a southern rock band. The Drive-By Truckers have traversed any road they can in rock and roll.
“We made a record sort of about that once upon a time, but that's not really how I view us,” says Hood. “At least not in the sense that that term conjures up. If we want to call OutKast and R.E.M and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Southern rock, then I would like to think we somehow fit in there somewhere, but we don't really sound like the bands that people tend to think of in that genre.
“We put out a record that was set during the timeframe that that genre was a big deal, and so we tried to play that record as true to the period that it was set as we could achieve, and I'm proud of that. I’m proud of what we did with it, but it's not really necessarily a box I want to spend my life locked inside of.”
The Shepherd Express caught up with Hood recently to talk about the band’s recent work, the band’s unique chemistry and the art of creating meaningful songs.
The band recorded some of the songs from The New OK during lockdown last year. What was that challenge like?
Most of what we record, most of our catalog, is basically live in the studio. We’re not really a band that goes in and does the Fleetwood Mac Tusk, spends a whole lot of time on a record type thing. There's certainly been a few songs along the way that we’ve done differently for various artistic reasons, but the majority of the catalog is pretty much live. We might have some overdubs, or redo the vocal, or whatever, do some things to tighten it up, but it’s pretty much as it was played when we played it. Often, as soon as possible after it was written.
The challenge for those new songs was for it to match the feel ... because we obviously weren’t able to all be in a room. I live out here and the rest of the band is in three different states in the south. During that time, the studio that we record, was in a lockdown, so we couldn’t even have all gotten together, even if we were in the same town. Our producer was, at that time, caring for his elderly father, and so he had to be super locked down, so the challenge was to send tracks back and forth, but have it come off sounding like we all recorded in the room together. I feel like we pulled that off.
I think you would have a hard time telling, blindfolded, which tracks were recorded live in the room in Memphis, and which tracks were sent with tracks back and forth. It was a fun experiment, and a fun process. At the same time, I’m pretty excited about the next record, which we basically just recorded in a few days, all together, in the room. That’s still my favorite way of doing it, because I like the way the band sounds when we’re all playing together. There is a good chemistry. That’s a more fun way of doing it.
Much of the band’s music is politically and socially conscious. What’s your typical strategy or goal in writing those types of songs?
I've always considered our band to be political, and there to be a political aspect to what we do. The last three records, because of the towns we were living in, it sort of became a little more in the forefront, maybe, than it has been in the past. I didn't really necessarily think of it that way on a totally intentional level, but I think it just worked out that way. We basically follow the songs. I don’t like to sit down and go, “Oh, today, I’m going to write a song about Black Lives Matter.” It’s never anything like that. It’s more like the song happens because of something I’ve been thinking about, or something I’ve read about, or seen with my own eyes, or experienced, or know someone who’s experienced, or whatever.
I write the song not even really thinking in terms of what I’m going to do with it. I just write the song. I’m pretty strict about not editing myself in the writing process. I can do the editing part after I’ve written it, but as far as the actual writing process, I try to just let it be what it is and whatever it is that comes on the antenna goes on the page, and then I figure out the other parts.
Once it became apparent that both [Mike] Cooley and I were writing songs, like what became the American Band album, then it was just a matter of just being true to that and making the record as good as we could, and then putting it out. When we put out American Band, we figured that there would be something we would go out and play for about six months, leading up to the election of 2016, and then we'd figure out what to do next, and it would all be over.
Obviously, that was naive, and not what happened. We ended up touring behind that record for the better part of three and a half years. That was what it was, and we didn’t necessarily plan on following it up with another record that was even more political, but the shit that went down during the previous administration ended up inspiring songs. A lot of the Unraveling record was actually written as a result of conversations I have with my kids about things that were going on in the country, and so it was very much written from that point of view. Taking something political and applying it to the personal. My kids were having lockdown drills at their schools, and so the conversation I had with my kids about that inspired me to write “Thoughts and Prayers,” and so et cetera, et cetera.
At the same time, the record that we just recorded, it was really a lot more of a personal record and is more of a reflection on mortality. As a result of having lived through the last year and a half and all the stuff that's going down, and all the loss that we've all suffered for the last year and a half, I think it’s reflected in this record, but it's definitely its own thing. I consider the last three records a sort of unintended trilogy, and I don’t consider this part of that.
Right now, we're about to go to work. Get out and play. I’m just excited to play. We’re excited to be a band again. I’m hoping that the numbers come down, and shows don’t start getting canceled, and we can get on with our lives. I’m really hoping people do the right thing so that we can get on with life and put this sad chapter behind us.
As a songwriter, have you gotten better at not forcing an idea?
Yeah, I’d like to think I don’t force ideas too much. I generally probably go the other way. The idea almost has to force me. I tend to follow it, not lead it, because really largely just out of respect for it. I feel very lucky that these songs happen, and I’m able to be the person who writes them down, and that picks them up on the antenna. I just try to be respectful to that, to the extent that I can.
The band’s been playing for 25 years. How does it feel to hit that milestone?
We didn’t really celebrate it. We weren’t even really together yet, when we hit the milestone. We’re all still scattered by our all being different geographies and different places, the last remnants of the COVID lockdown, but yeah, it’s great. Most bands don't last that long. When we started this thing in 1996, I don't think any of us thought in terms of it necessarily having longevity. I don’t think that even occurred to any of us. But by the time we started this band, Cooley and I had already been playing together 11 years. He and I have just hit 35 or 36 years this month. August 1. We hit 36 years that we've been playing together. That's pretty crazy. Most marriages don’t last 36 years.
We actually get along better now than we did the first 25 years. We get along great. We just spent a week together doing the Dimmer Twins, our duo side project that we do, up in New York and Boston and Newport Folk Festival. We had a blast. We had a great time. We actually enjoy each other’s company, and I certainly enjoy playing with him. He's still fun to play with, and one of the most generous people I’ve ever known, as far as what he does playing wise. He wrote some of my favorite songs in the world. I love his songs, so I feel honored that I get to be the guitar player in his band for the songs that he writes.
The rest of the band we’ve got, it’s a killer lineup. It’s a magical chemistry between everybody, and everybody brings a whole lot to the table, and our drummer, Easy B, is a beast. He enables us to make records where many songs are first or second takes, because he’s so rock solid. We don’t really have to even worry about the drum part of it. It’s always going to be spot on because he's just so good. It’s a lot of fun.
