Drive-By Truckers

TEN, NINE…

This is a story about rock ’n’ roll.

EIGHT…

It’s a story about rock ’n’ roll and a few boys—and, much later, a gal—from Northwest Alabama, who head out on the road—searching souls ramblin’ the highways of America, tearing up the countryside like a Tuscumbia twister…

SEVEN, SIX…

This is a story about rock ’n’ roll and a band called Drive-By Truckers, a bunch of irreverent bastards with good hearts and big dreams, ready to show the rest of the world what The South is really all about, who wind up in Athens, Ga., where you don’t have to play in a cover band, where it’s cheap to live and there’re plenty of people to make music with …

FIVE, FOUR, THREE…

And it’s a story about everything you have to go through to get people to hear your music in the first place—all the bullshit they never tell you about when you’re a runaway kid at a Springsteen concert with delusions of rock ’n’ roll grandeur: endless nights in stinking vans, stolen equipment, broken hearts, electrocution, hangovers, backstabbers, bad weather, divorce, death and destruction. And, if you’re lucky, you might live to tell about it, and you might live to do a whole lot more crazy, stupid shit…

TWO, ONE…

HAPPY NEW YEAR

All that’s visible is a pair of glowing red EXIT signs. Suddenly, the black curtain flies open, and the Truckers—flanked on either side by dark crimson walls and white concrete pillars—stare out from the stage’s darkness at over a thousand screaming fans. It’s New Year’s Eve at Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse and the place is sold-out. An ominous drumbeat pounds over the deafening roar, and the spotlight illuminates Mike Cooley, black-and-white Flying V guitar slung over his shoulder, as the band breaks into “Where the Devil Don’t Stay,” the lead track from their new record, The Dirty South. Clad in faded blue jeans and a black button-up, embroidered roses on the collar, Cooley looks like Keith Richards’ long-lost little brother.

Jason Isbell cranks out vicious slide licks from his hollow-body guitar as frontman Patterson Hood strums away, thick mop of brown hair flopping while his toothy grin lights the room with mischief. The stage is a sea of Marshall stacks and Fender combos. Bassist Shonna Tucker—dressed head-to-toe in black—locks in with thick armed-drummer Brad Morgan, to whom the band lovingly refers as “EZB.”

After a year involving label changes (Lost Highway to New West), shifting band members (bassist Earl Hicks left in late 2003, making way for Isbell’s wife, studio veteran Tucker), and increasing success (the band’s Decoration Day proved the critically lauded Southern Rock Opera was no fluke), the Truckers need a little release to ring in 2004. And it comes in the form of “Hell No, I Ain’t Happy.” Patterson screams the chorus into the mic as the crowd—-hippies, indie rockers, frat boys, clean-cut adults, bikers and every other demographic you can think of—sings along, fists pumping, PBR longnecks held high in defiance. This is mass catharsis. All the pain, failure and shortcomings of the past year mean nothing now—-they’ve been temporarily erased by this reckless, unapologetic rock ’n’ roll.

As the band counts down to the New Year, multi-colored balloons descend on the crowd. Hood kisses his soon-to-be wife, Rebecca, and manager Scott Munn douses the band and the first few rows with champagne. After years of hard work, it’s the Truckers’ time to celebrate. But sometimes it seems they can’t shake the hard luck always nipping at their heels like Robert Johnson’s infamous hellhound.