Pages tagged “drive by truckers”

As Bonnaroo gets more and more indie and less and less grassroots, America's favorite destination for some good ole-fashioned camping out and jamming late into the night may soon be Masontown, W.V.'s All Good Music Festival.

Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Marvin's Mountaintop, the festival is currently the East Coast's longest-running camping event. Now in its 11th year, the annual All Good Festival has a strong lineup that just keeps getting better.

Recent additions to the already-stellar roster include Drive-By Truckers, Sam Bush, Benevento-Russo Duo, The Bridge, Lee Boys and the Ryan Montbleau Band.

Early-Bird tickets for the July 13-15 festival are onsale now for just $89, so head on over to the official website to view the complete lineup and to order your tickets.

Related links:
All Good Festival’s homepage
Drive-By Truckers’ homepage
Paste’s feature on Drive-By Truckers
Benevento-Russo Duo’s homepage

Jason Isbell, one-third of the songwriting/guitar onslaught leading the Rock known as the Drive-By Truckers, is no longer with the band, according to a posting on DriveByTruckers.com.

The announcement, by co-frontman Patterson Hood on April 6, says the “amicable” split “is the result of a period of personal and artistic growth from all sides which has left us with differing dreams and goals.”

In a posting on his MySpace page, Isbell said, to the point, “I am not in the Drive-By Truckers anymore. Go figure. I wish them luck. I will not answer questions about it.” In a more elaborate post the next day, he said he was “excited about the new opportunities I’ve been given” and asked fans to continue to support the Truckers.

Isbell is in the midst of a solo tour and will release his first solo album, Sirens of the Ditch, on June 10 on New West Records, also record label to the Truckers. Hood says the Truckers will continue in present form—minus Isbell, of course—but adding constant collaborator John Neff full-time on pedal steel and guitar and will enter the studio to record their eighth album on the “very day” of the band’s 12th anniversary.

Related links:
Drive-By Truckers’ site
Jason Isbell on MySpace
New West Records’ site

Leaving The South: The Truckers strive to broaden their music’s regional context beyond the Dirty South

Patterson Hood sums up Drive-By Truckers’ new album, A Blessing and a Curse, in one line of the closing track: “To love is to feel pain, there just ain’t no way around it.” The song, “A World of Hurt,” actually expresses deep hope. It’s one of the Truckers’ trademark spoken-word narratives wherein Hood, in his sing-song Alabama drawl, has an intimate conversation with his listeners over a haze of loud, shimmering guitar rock. In this one, he comes to terms with the pain and loss that have driven his life and music; the pain and loss that drive some to suicide and push others into adulthood. It’s the pain of love, pure and simple. Hood ultimately decides real love is worth the agony we suffer getting to it.

He and his songwriting bandmates Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell have been baring their Southern souls in the Truckers’ dirty-ass rock ’n’ roll for some time now. But unlike the pretentious gloom-and-doom of goth or emo, their downcast twang rock hasn’t grown tiresome or embarrassing. The band’s most celebrated disc, Southern Rock Opera, used the narrative thread of a tragic plane crash involving the Truckers’ childhood anti-heroes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, as a metaphor for the South and a jumping-off point for their own collective coming-of-age during a particularly thorny period of Southern history—the post-desegregation 1970s, in which young people were faced with issues of race and class at every turn. The band followed that ambitious behemoth with the even stronger—and much tighter—Decoration Day, a set of tales, told from different perspectives, about living, loving and dying in the beautiful South. If Southern Rock Opera was a novel, Decoration Day was a collection of taut short stories. Then came The Dirty South, another brilliant turn, this time with short stories focusing on the blood, sweat and tears of Southern characters living on the fringes of society: a poker-playing daddy, a rockabilly star, a glorified vigilante. “Welcome to the Mythological South,” Hood wrote in the liner notes. “Welcome to the Dirty South.”

On A Blessing and a Curse, the band seems to be saying, “Welcome to our own private Hell.” The difference between this collection and previous ones is that, in the lyrics, the Truckers appear to be trying to bust out of the Southern typecast they’ve built around themselves. But without the regional context, their prickly stories of hard times and lost love feel less grounded, less defined. The opener, “Feb 14,” spews invective against Valentine’s Day and comes off like The Replacements doing Dinosaur Jr. (without the guitar heroics); the song could’ve been written by any scruffy post-punk band. Same with the generic “Easy on Yourself” and the Stones-inspired “Aftermath USA,” a balls-out, cartoonish rocker about waking up from a blackout to the repercussions of too much partying. Without the character sketches we’re used to getting from this band, the references to blood and crystal meth don’t resonate like they would’ve on, say, The Dirty South.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of solid, DBT-worthy songs here. Take “Gravity’s Gone,” in which Cooley—in the clipped vocal style of Texas garage-rock legend Roky Erickson—sings about spiraling out of control: “So I’ll meet you at the bottom if there really is one, they always told me when you hit it you’ll know it / But I’ve been falling so long it’s like gravity’s gone and I’m just floating.” At its best, Blessing soars from the sweet delirium of Isbell’s hopeful “Daylight,” to the melancholia of Hood’s “Goodbye,” a six-minute-long slow-burner that rides a bed of funky keyboards, drums and guitar, and wobbles around the singer’s reminiscences of a friendship that fell apart. It’s Hood’s reflections on relationships that pull the album together into a semi-cohesive meditation on love, both lost and found. His exasperated cry on the title track perfectly encapsulates both the highs and lows of this uniquely human emotion: “It’s a blessing and a curse, wish it didn’t hurt so much, wish it didn’t hurt so much.”

Of the two acoustic-based songs—Hood’s “Little Bonnie” and Cooley’s “Space City”—the latter, in particular, packs an emotional wallop. Sung from the perspective of Cooley’s grandfather after the death of his wife, one bittersweet couplet finds the old man reflecting on the pain he put her through: “Sometimes the words I used were as hard as my fist / She had the strength of a man and the heart of a child, I guess.” But it’s grandpa’s acceptance of his own mortality that reveals how important the longing for love and the strength of a romantic bond really is. “Somewhere,” he ponders, “she’s wondering what’s taking me so long.”

Too often, the Truckers are described casually as a Southern-rock band, which is too bad, because they’re more than just Skynyrd funneled through R.E.M. But it’s true that when DBT wraps its songs around a familiar Southern theme, its work jumps from being good, solid rock ’n’ roll to being great American music as deep as a country well and ancient as an old-time Appalachian love song or murder ballad. Blessing is merely good, solid rock.

(Above [L-R]: Jason Isbell, Don Chambers, Patterson Hood. Photo by Justin Larose.)

Thanks to Turner South for putting on a show about real music. What a great thing this is, because for older people and other people who don’t or can’t get out to clubs—all they have is crap like American Idol, and they’re completely unaware of all the great music out there. It’s a shame no one is telling them, and it’s an insult to all the thousands of great bands playing in clubs all over this country. – Patterson Hood (paraphrased)

I have to say, it was pretty funny to see all the hipster local-music heroes, journalists, scenesters, club owners and townies who can usually waltz straight into the 40 Watt Club like they super-cool-damn-well own the place have to wait 30 minutes in a long line outside in the mist before they could enter. But there’s not much you can do when all 200 people are on the list.

So why the fuss? What drew indie-rock acolytes and grizzled rock-show pros alike from their vinyl-lined tombs? I mean, the Silver Jews show is still a month away—what gives? I’ll tell you what. New traveling Turner South show Music Road, hosted by Southern pop rocker Edwin McCain, didn’t waste much time finding its way to Athens. This live-music program hits various hotspot venues around the South, showcasing the region’s finest—if not most high-profile—musicians and songwriters, and tonight’s lineup sets the bar Olympic-finalist high with Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power, Drive-By Truckers and Phosphorescent, plus local favorites Don Chambers & Goat, Chesnutt’s niece Liz Durrett and members of Hope For A Golden Summer.

Around 7 p.m. the doors finally open for the first set and in march the rows of Converse. It’s unusually quiet tonight inside the 40 Watt (a hush, I realize later, that was all too short-lived). Several camera operators roam freely and there are three swiveling TV-camera platforms set up around the room, as well as some tables and chairs up front. Since when did the quintessential, no-frills rock club get all Bluebird Café on us? Since a few hours ago, but it’d be back to normal by the more energetic second set.

Meanwhile, idiosyncratic songwriter Vic Chesnutt sits onstage in his wheelchair, waiting patiently with Elf Power, his backing band for the evening. Wendy Musick of up-and-coming rock outfit Southern Bitch is working monitors, because, hey, this is Athens—of course your friends in other local bands are running sound.

Chesnutt gets the cue and, ‘Here we go ladies and gentleman, we’re gonna play some songs now,” he says nonchalantly. “This song’s called ‘Distortion’—it’s a philosophical diatribe, straight out of my mouth.” And the musical adventure begins, with a hypnotic beat, some gypsy violin and lyrics that could burn a hole in your psyche.

After a few songs, McCain—who admits he’s still a little weirded out being referred to as a “host”—walks onstage to pump the crowd and plug the show. Vic and Elf Power do one more amazing tune, and vacate the stage for the next act. It’s clear that—if they haven’t already in secret—these two musical camps need to pitch their tents in the same studio and make a record together, like Chesnutt did with Widespread Panic on the Brute albums.

After a speedy set change, Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck breaks the chatter as he warms up, his lonesome warble and acoustic guitar subtly expanding through the room—ripples set off by a stone skipped across some metaphorical pond he’s about to invoke. His songs are gorgeous, dreamy, imperfect, jutting off the space-time continuum straight from some old Bonnie “Prince” Billy record and into Houck’s own wonderfully bizarre parallel dimension. Tonight he seems conscious of the cameras; more self-conscious than I’ve ever seen him onstage. But it’s a good thing. The songs are much tighter than usual, though not overly perfect in a way that might rob them of their frayed charm. Houck’s intense concentration brings a cohesiveness to this particular performance, making songs like “Not a Heel” (from Phosphorescent’s latest, Aw Come Aw Wry) better than ever.

Next, he’s joined by mesmerizing solo artist Liz Durrrett and sisters Page and Claire Campbell (from alt-folk outfit Hope For a Golden Summer), who provide some nice triple harmonies while Elf Power’s two-piece horn section fills in the holes like a pair of Stax session players on tour in Mexico who had a few downers slipped in their tequila, but still pulled through, miraculously, with a top-notch performance.

In the spirit of Athens’ communal musical history, tonight’s show is a collaborative effort. The musicians—most of whom play in two or three bands, sometimes more—float from ensemble to ensemble, backing each other up, sharing equipment and, most importantly, trying to help each other achieve their unique artistic visions. There’s no competition here—just good-hearted camaraderie and a deep love of music.

Following Phosphorescent, Elf Power returns in full to play some of its own material. Former Of Montreal bassist Derek Almstead lends a hand while these indie-rock mainstays—who’ve been at it for a decade now—plow through brand new songs from forthcoming album Back to the Web. The band rocks out with pounding toms and jangling Mid-East-tinged guitars spruced up by accordion, violin and cello. It’s good, but not quite as good as the epic set they played here last time around, opening for the briefly reunited Olivia Tremor Control.

After a while, Elf Power brings Chesnutt back out to wrap up the first round of filming. Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood stands up front next to a stack of amplifiers bobbing his head to “Rambunctious Cloud,” a song Chesnutt introduced as “a little slice of Athens.”

For the last tune before the break, Chesnutt calls on everyone who’s played thus far. The stage is awash in instruments and amplifiers, and there are 14 musicians scattered about, gleefully plinking and swooshing—after two false starts—through “Georgia On My Mind.” Nine singers singing, 3 electric guitars a-buzzing, two acoustics strumming, one bass a-bouncing, a sparkly set of jazz drums, plus violin and clarinet! (Just follow the bouncing ball, folks.)

But what seems like it’s about to be a dream come true rapidly devolves into a God-awful mess. Chesnutt, uses this grating robot-voice effect, the impromptu choir isn’t really cutting through the sonic sludge and everyone seems terribly lost. But it was a nice gesture, I suppose—all those Georgia musicians cranking through the Hoagy Carmichael-penned Official State Song—even if it didn’t quite work out.

At 10 p.m., after a long break and a tasty burger at Portland-style diner Clocked next door, I return to the 40 Watt just in time for Athens’ biggest success story of the last few years, the Drive-By Truckers, who have been slowly moving from big rock clubs to even larger concert halls. This band is stadium-bound; I’m convinced it’s inevitable. The only question is how long it’ll take, and if the band can avoid any tragic and/or stupid Behind the Music-style implosions. I’d like to think that, at this point, after years in the rock ’n’ roll trenches, with that loaded gun waiting in the closet back home, these guys have survived life’s myriad ass-whoopin’s long enough to have the wisdom to continue surviving. And I’d be a damn-dirty liar if I said I wasn’t cheering from the sidelines for a band like this to endure.

The Truckers, joined by former member/pedal-steel wizard John Neff, take the 40 watt stage unassumingly. They’re dressed up all purty and stylish-like for the cameras, which is new for them—coming off a bit like Keith Richards meets Paul Westerberg at Dreamland Barbecue. But the reason this works is because the look is pretty much the dead-on clothing equivalent of the music from the band’s new record, A Blessing And A Curse. (Out on New West this April.)

“We’re actually gonna tune up, since this is gonna be on TV,” deadpans guitarist Mike Cooley. The set starts intensely as the Replacements-indebted post-punk-sledgehammer downstroking of “Wednesday” washes over the crowd. Is this still the same band that recorded all those Redneck Underground country gems like “Demonic Possession” and “Nine Bullets,” the same band that cut neo-Southern-rock staples like “Sink Hole,” “Zip City” and “Outfit”? Well, no, there have been a few personnel changes along the way. But—even compared to the last album (2004’s The Dirty South), which debuted the band’s first lineup that held steady for more than one record—this new material is a pretty major stylistic shift.

As much as I’ve dug the Truckers’ past albums, I’m still digesting their latest and, after two or three listens, I honestly am not sure what to think about it yet… wall-to-wall guitars (yet less riffs and more power chords), buried vocals, more punk and less country, some early-’80s-college-rock-sounding production, but with a more radio-friendly (yet not exactly glossy) vibe than past releases. The only song I can think of that foreshadowed this new direction is guitarist Jason Isbell’s “The Day John Henry Died” from The Dirty South, and the only real links back to the band’s previous work are A Blessing and A Cruse’s few Stonesy rockers. One thing’s for sure, though: the Truckers are challenging their listeners, and whether it turns out a misstep or a giant leap, the music is evolving—the hallmark of any lasting, creative band.

After a few new tracks, Hood starts to tell a story introducing band staple, “The Living Bubba,” about Gregory Dean Smalley, a pivotal member of Atlanta’s Redneck Underground scene, who influenced Hood considerably before dying of AIDS a decade ago. But the crowd, now used to—and unfazed by—all the TV cameras, won’t stop chattering. It’s a shame, because Smalley’s story is one worth telling, and it would’ve been a good thing for it to reach a much larger, if regional, TV audience. The crowd noise breaks Hood’s concentration, and he’s forced to abandon the speech he’s passionately delivered hundreds of times, all before he has a chance to get to the point. I suppose it’s some consolation that the song, itself, was powerful as ever. [To read more about Greg Smalley click here.]

The Truckers make way for friend and local songwriter Don Chambers, who slides into a darkly impressive solo banjo tune. The vibe is a little like 16 Horsepower in its mix of Gospel and Gothicism, but with most of the hell-fire-and-brimstone creepiness replaced by a more irreverent, yet less-intense approach. Two of Chambers' bandmates from Goat join in on bass and acoustic guitar for a few numbers that get the crowd stomping and clapping. The short set ends with Hood, Isbell and Truckers drummer Brad Morgan aiding and abetting on what Chambers refers to as his theme song—the raucous singalong rocker, “GOAT.” (“I Swear I won’t never let ’em get my goat,” they all scream on the chorus.)

To close out the night, the rest of the Truckers come back for “World of Hurt,” a mostly spoken-word, open letter of a song—to anyone desperate enough to consider ending his or her own life. It’s probably the most genuine anti-suicide song I’ve heard, made more affecting by Hood’s passionate delivery. You can glean from the lyrics that he’s been to the brink himself a few times. When he shouts the line, “It’s great to be alive,” delivered with the perfect measure of determination and sadness, I look around the room—some people are screaming the words back triumphantly, but some people are actually in tears.

I don’t think Hood has any grand illusions about the message he’s delivering; music is powerful but it’s not always a cure-all. Still, the song is a lifeline. It won’t save everybody, but it’s moving and it’s real enough to maybe make someone stick around for another day. And the longer you stick around, the more chance you have of breaking through, of turning your life around.

The world of rock ’n’ roll can be seedy, selfish and self-obsessed—and the Truckers ain’t squeaky clean—but with songs like this, the band is, in its own way, railing against the darkness. And let’s not forget Isbell’s challenge to hold yourself to high standards (“Easy On Yourself”), or his inclusion of his Dad’s advice to stay away from heroin in "Outfit" (“Have fun and Stay clear of the needle”), or Cooley’s admission of weakness in “Space City” (“If I could have one wish right now, I’d be half as tough as I pretend I am”), or Hood’s non-preachy plea for safe sex during “The Living Bubba” (“Wear a rubber and be careful who you screw!”) and his passionate rants about getting involved in local politics, where you can really make a difference, and in support of Nuci’s Space, a non-profit in Athens that offers affordable counseling and healthcare for musicians.

For the Drive-By Tuckers, no matter what they sang on Decoration Day’s “Hell No I Ain’t Happy,” there’s not really “a lot of bad wood underneath the veneer”—there’s a heart as strong as oak.

(Above [L-R]: Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell and John Agnello in the control room at Chase Park Transduction. Background [L-R]: Assistant engineers Mark Brut, Billy Bennett and Ben Holst. Photo by Jeff Snowden.)

The Drive-By Truckers are finishing their seventh record, A Blessing and A Curse, at Mitch Easter’s studio, the Fidelitorium in North Carolina, and at Producer David Barbe’s studio, Chase Park Transduction, in Athens, Ga. The album’s planned release is April 2006 on New West.

Sweat-soaked live document from redneck rockers proves way Pabst due

You don’t have to hail from the South to be seduced by the Drive-By Truckers, though it doesn’t hurt. After all, this Alabama-bred band of brothers wears its Dixie-fried heritage like a badge of honor (or, more appropriately, a Purple Heart) that’s as unavoidable as the upside-the-head-whacking piece of hardwood referenced in lumbering, swaggering tune “The Buford Stick.” With its lawman-as-villain/outlaw-as-hero perspective, it’s prototypical Drive-By Truckers—one of the many songs from the band’s latest studio recording, The Dirty South, featured on this two-hour DVD culled from an August 2004 two-night stand at the 40 Watt club in the group’s surrogate hometown of Athens, Ga.

Actually, it’s not just lawmen, but virtually all authority figures who are viewed with a combination of fear and loathing in numerous DBT songs—in particular, those penned by Patterson Hood (the son of famed Muscle Shoals session bassist David Hood) who formed the band back in the mid ’90s with fellow guitarist/songwriter Mike Cooley. And whether it’s attacking greedy bankers in the bitter “Sinkhole” or decrying governmental priorities in the workingman’s blues “Puttin’ People On The Moon,” Hood’s compositions ripple with a combustibility articulated most strongly in “The Southern Thing,” the don’t-tread-on-me centerpiece of the group’s ambitious 2001 concept opus, Southern Rock Opera, that is likewise this DVD’s showstopper.

Were Hood the band’s only songwriter, all this attention to matters of pride and prejudice might overload listeners, but the strong presence of co-founder Cooley acts as a vital counterbalance. His Dirty South songs performed here, such as the race car themed-“Daddy’s Cup” and the Sun-dried “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac,” deal more with everyday life than the Big Picture— between them and the introspective contributions of DBT's third writer, chief lead guitarist Jason Isbell (represented in particular on this show by a brooding, intense version of “Decoration Day”), both the group’s subject matter and approach are considerably wider than the Redneck Underground-ed image they’ve acquired over the years.

With so much of this image also caught up in the Truckers’ reputation as a formidable concert band, this basically straightforward documentation of their live act (outside of a bit of backstage patter, it’s wall-to-wall performance footage) should be a welcome souvenir for longtime fans. It may also serve as a fitting introduction for those curious about what happened to the Southern rock tradition after it was impacted by both the punk and grunge movements: you can hear vestiges of the former on the Ramones-ish chord changes of “Careless,” and of the latter on the bristling “Lookout Mountain.” Ultimately, though, the Drive-By Truckers’ music, in all its rough-hewn, ragged glory, is about one basic value—honesty. And you can certainly appreciate that regardless of where you come from.

The new Drive-By Truckers album The Dirty South has infiltrated the Billboard Top 200 chart. Currently the album is at #198 and has also hit #5 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, #14 on Top Independent Albums, and #16 on Top Internet Sellers.

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.

In the middle of “Zip City” the sound cuts out, bringing the party to a grinding halt. Furious, Cooley slams his red SG to the ground—snapping the headstock from the guitar’s neck—and storms offstage. Hood assures the crowd that as soon the problem’s fixed, they’ll be “back to finish the rock show.”

A few minutes later the band returns, sans Cooley. Hood plays the intro to the anthemic “Let There Be Rock” and the band falls in. They jam for a minute, and finally, Cooley emerges from backstage with a beer in his hand and a fiery look in his eyes. He straps on a new guitar as Hood ad libs some lyrics, “I’d like to say I’m sorry, but it’s New Year’s Day 2004, and I’m standin’ here in Atlanta, Ga., and the power’s blinkin’ and everybody’s drunk, and guitars are getting smashed … AND I AIN’T SORRY FOR A GODDAMNED THING!”

THE NIGHTMARE TOUR

“Being a musician myself, I didn’t want Patterson to go into that. It’s not a settled life. You’re gone a lot, there’s travel involved—weeks when you don’t work, and weeks when you’re just covered up. I wanted him to be a pharmacist or a lawyer. But you could tell right from the start he wasn’t gonna be.”— David Hood, Patterson’s father and founding member of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

“Mike was doing good before I met him,” says Patterson. “His mama’s never forgiven me for that. He was a straight-A student, practically.”

“No, I was average,” Cooley interjects. “I wasn’t Dean’s List, but I wasn’t on academic probation, either.”

And the first time they met?

“I cussed him over the phone,” says Cooley.

“I thought he looked like Gilligan,” says Hood.

But they soon got past their differences. At least enough to start a rock band, which they called Adam’s House Cat. At first, it wasn’t pretty. But hope came in the form of an older drummer who’d cut his teeth in lounge-type bands on the hotel circuit. Chuck Tremblay was so sick of playing other people’s music that he swore he’d never be in another band again unless it performed all original music. And that suited Cooley and Hood’s plan just fine.

“In Muscle Shoals at that time, there were only cover bands,” says Hood. “You could play the recent hits up at The State Line and put a hundred bucks a night in your pocket, and that’s about as far as you ever think you’re gonna go. So trying to put together a band, playing our own songs, was difficult. But Chuck fit perfectly. He took us under his wing and taught us how to be a band.”

Adam’s House Cat lasted six years and, while Hood and Cooley honed their rock chops, the band had one heartbreak after another. The low point was The Nightmare Tour in 1988. The band hit the road hard, playing 40 shows around the Southeast, but that aforementioned hellhound was on their trail. Cooley’s father fell ill and died of cancer. Soon after, $1,500 worth of equipment was ripped-off from the back of the band’s truck. Then, in Tuscaloosa, someone stole Hood’s wallet, which contained the band’s gig money and a two-week paycheck. Distraught, they headed back to Florence, Ala., for what was supposed to be their triumphant return.

For the homecoming show, the band rented the Shoals Theatre, hired an opening act and placed ads in the local paper. They expected 400-500 people. But that evening, just before soundcheck, a tornado ravaged the town, destroying several homes and a truck stop. Only 17 people showed up and Hood had to take out a loan to cover the band’s losses.

By 1994, Hood left Alabama and ended up in underground-rock mecca Athens. There he rediscovered country music (via Loretta Lynn), which snapped him out of a writing slump. He worked sound at the High Hat and 40 Watt clubs, where he first encountered Redneck Underground-scene legend Gregory Dean Smalley, who fronted a band called The Diggers. Smalley was dying of AIDS but refused to quit doing what he loved best. And, without want for sympathy, he played his music ’til the end. His strength and determination inspired Hood, who wrote a song about it after Smalley died (and just before the Truckers were born) called “The Living Bubba.” “Smalley’s story is a sad one,” says Hood, “but there’s much to be gained from it. It changed my life, and writing that song changed my life. It set the standard for Drive-By Truckers.”

Before long Cooley moved to town and Hood booked a studio to record a new collection of songs, some of which wound up on Pizza Deliverance and Gangstabilly, the first two Truckers albums. Riding high on the fuel of Smalley’s inspiration, the fledgling band hit the road and didn’t look back.

THE LITERATE SOUTH

Exactly five months after New Year’s Eve, the Truckers amble about the stage at Augusta, Ga.’s Imperial Theatre while the crew sets up lights and sound, taking special care no one gets fried by a bad connection like Cooley did at SXSW.

The band’s been touring most of the year but has still cranked out a slew of new releases. Hood’s Killers & Stars—a collection of lo-fi four-track demos he recorded after his first marriage broke up in 2001—is finally seeing daylight (Why? “Closure,” he says). Isbell also has a soulful solo record in the works (co-produced by Hood) that’ll likely be out next year. But the crown jewel is the band’s latest, the David Barbe-produced Dirty South. A wilted magnolia blossom in the muddy clay, the record spins yarns about the economic ruin and bleak desperation of the impoverished pockets of the South, with a few sinister redneck mafia tales (inspired by the film Walking Tall) thrown in for good measure.

In the wake of the storytelling and brilliant lyrics of their last three records, the Truckers—and their three singer/songwriter/guitarists—have cemented their legacy as the band that brought Southern Rock to a new level of literacy, penning intelligent and heartfelt tunes like “Sounds Better in the Song,” “The Three Great Alabama Icons,” “Outfit,” “Cottonseed” and “Puttin’ People on the Moon.”

“We didn’t really intend on these albums being a trilogy,” says Hood, “but it kind of worked out that way. Southern Rock Opera is the more idealized, ‘someday I’m gonna grow up and be a rock star’ view of it all. Decoration Day deals with the results of the choices you make, and The Dirty South is about people who don’t have a choice.”

After years of shifting lineups and personnel changes, the Truckers seem to have finally found the magic combination. “There’s been a lot of generations of this band,” says Hood, “and there’s good things to be said for all of ’em. But there’s so much besides being good that makes it the right thing. It goes beyond playing—how well you communicate with each other, how well you can put up with each other in cooped quarters for months on end. But this is the pinnacle. It’s so far beyond the band I dreamed of as a teenager that I’d just as soon not continue without a single one of the people in this lineup.

“And I like having two other writers in the band who kick my ass on a daily basis. It pushes everybody to be better, and I love that. That’s what makes us the band we are. Not to mention Shonna’s a great writer, too, which no one even knows yet. I look forward to doing a record where everybody co-writes instead of having individual song credits. That seems like the next step of the evolution to me. With everyone doing solo projects and side projects, it seems that much more feasible to have the record we do together be more of a group effort than ever before.”

LOOK FOR THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL (AND HOPE IT AIN’T A TRAIN)

It’s been a twisted path down many a lonely highway, but times are changing for the Truckers. The saving power of Rock ’n’ Roll has led to redemption; they can finally see the light at the end of their hellish tunnel. Jason and Shonna, EZB, and Patterson have all recently married, with multi-talented friend/producer/musician/wiffle-ball legend—and now, reverend—extraordinaire David Barbe performing the latter’s ceremony. (“I think he’s found his true calling,” Hood says.) And to top it off, Cooley and his wife added a son to their family last year, the first DBT offspring (“the demon seed,” Isbell jokes).

Now wait just a minute—what’s with this cutesy happy-ending horseshit? This a story about rock ’n’ roll, right?

“Ever since that kid’s been born,” says Cooley, “I ain’t been able to write a goddamn thing. And that’s the honest to God truth. I’d love to sit here and say, ‘Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s magical, and reedeereedee-dee,’” he coos, in gurgling baby talk. “I love my son. I’d kill for him. I would, literally. But I can’t write a goddamn thing to save my ass. But I’ll work through that. I’ve been at this point before, and I’ll emerge and I’ll kick ass again. But it’s changed everything. It changes the way you live, the way you think. It’s a life-changing experience—and some of it’s for the better, and some of it’s not.”

THE LIVING TRUCKERS

After midnight at The Imperial Theatre, the Truckers are in the middle of another set. But tonight’s special. Greg Smalley’s 15-year-old son is in the audience, and it’s his first rock show. Earlier, he let Patterson play some of his daddy’s guitars and, in turn, Patterson told him about how Greg inspired the band. Now, the bittersweet opening chords of “The Living Bubba” ring throughout the theatre and Smalley’s kid and the rest of the crowd listen, enraptured. And Hood sings—maybe for the thousandth time—but the words that have become an anthem for this band don’t lose their luster. Not one bit.

“Some people stop living long before they die / Work a dead-end job just to scrape on by / but I keep living just to bend that note in two / and I can’t die now cuz I got another show to do …”

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In 1997, Drive-By Truckers played Bubbapalooza for the first time. An annual festival at Atlanta’s immortal Star Community Bar in Little Five Points, Bubbapalooza was a three-night showcase for a tragedy-laden little movement called “The Redneck Underground.” The movement was named and originally led by a performance artist named Deacon Lunchbox, who’s rising star was cut way too short by a horrific van accident that also claimed the life of half of Atlanta’s fantastic, The Jody Grind. Surviving members Kelly Hogan and Bill Taft went on to become vital members of the Atlanta and Chicago music communities in the years to come. Bubbapalooza itself was the brainchild of doomed Cabbagetown guitarist and songwriter Gregory Dean Smalley.

In 1995, I had been employed as a sound guy for a small club in Athens, Ga. called The High Hat Club. I was a fan of one of Greg’s bands, The Diggers. They were everything I needed at the time—rude and loud and very belligerent. If Greg were to cover “Shoot Out the Lights,” he’d probably introduce it as a song “by my favorite wife beater.” Towards the end of many a night, Greg ended up on stage butt-naked. He wasn’t a particularly handsome man before he got sick. Unfortunately, by ’95, Greg was dying of AIDS. He responded to his death sentence by joining several more bands and playing constantly, sometimes several nights a week.

On any given night, I’d head to work at 9pm to sound check whatever band was playing. On the other hand, if Greg was playing, I always headed in an hour early to make sure I had everything in proper order for him. If this f---er could get up there and play in that condition, he certainly wasn’t going to have to wait around for me to get my shit together. Most of the times he played there, he was fronting a rag-tag outfit called Gregory Dean and the Bubbamatics. They played a mixture of Greg’s songs from various bands he’d been in, a few songs by some of his friends (including Scott Miller), a few rambunctious country covers by the likes of Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, a blistering version of Georgia Satellites’ “Six Years Gone” and a bluegrass version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stump From the Sun” (sic).

Some of his antics were silly and seemed ridiculous, except that Greg had only weeks to live. He was a true believer. His songs cooked under their seemingly funny surface to reveal the same ageless longings that have earmarked great rock ’n’ roll songs since the beginning of the form. He would sound check, then head upstairs to High Hat’s cramped little office, where he would rest until showtime. Some nights, it would take him what seemed like an eternity to climb those stairs, and he would seem totally drained by the time he reached the top. I’d take him a joint I brought from home, in case he wanted it, and he was all too happy to light it up.

We’d sit there and have a little idle chatter. We weren’t close friends by any stretch; I hardly knew him before that time. I was, however, blown away by his conviction and what he was doing. It made me question and eventually reaffirm my own convictions and beliefs. Usually we just talked about surface stuff. The time he opened for Hellhounds, how he loved the Georgia Satellites and hated Gram Parsons. Greg was very opinionated and relished a good disagreement. It sometimes felt like he was giving you the flinch test. He’d tell an offhand joke about his condition and then measure our response. He didn’t want pity and by his very actions he commanded respect.

Some nights, he’d place a barstool on stage behind where he stood to prop him up for the set. When he wasn’t singing, he would lean back on that barstool and play his ass off. He would lean forward semi-upright and sing in that raggedy voice and crack nasty jokes between songs, occasionally looking like he was about to fall off the stool and drop dead on stage, but he stayed on his feet and never went down. As the terrible disease progressed, he got worse and worse. But the shows stayed consistently rock solid.

These were not packed houses, mind you. Some nights there wouldn’t be but eight or nine people in the audience. That wasn’t the point. The point was the playing. The Rock. By that time, it was what he was living for. It was the point of his existence.

I need to reiterate that I didn’t really know Greg well—not his hopes or dreams, not his family. I only knew a few of his friends and I was just getting to know them. And they weren’t all that informative. Greg did seem prone to self-mytholization (who ain’t), and, whether intentional or not (again, I don’t really know), his larger-than-life persona combined with his tiny physical stature made him the kind of man myths revolve around. On top of all this, he loved a good story and would certainly not hesitate to exaggerate if it enhanced the entertainment value. He was, as I said, a true entertainer and was constantly performing—whether it was on stage or in that tiny office.

I didn’t know either of Greg’s wives, and have still never met his son. I know he loved him, because folks who knew him better said so, and I certainly never saw any hint of a guy who would ever feel otherwise. But I was just a hired soundman with a beer and a joint. I was the guy you tell to turn up your monitor, someone who you might talk about a rock record with. Not someone you confide in or share your personal feelings with. Greg wasn’t that type anyway, and he just didn’t know me that well.

The next to last time he ever played the High Hat, he was feeling a little better and was “on” as shit. He played one of the most amazing rock shows I have ever seen in a small club (and Lord knows that’s where the best rock shows live). He and his band were all obviously having a great time. I was thrilled I’d thought to bring my boombox so I could at least get a good room tape of the show. Unfortunately, the boombox was very old and decided to crap out and eat my tape that night, so the show only lives in my memory (which is probably alright anyway).

Three weeks later he returned, but it was all different then. He looked 90 years old, and his weight had fallen to well below 100 pounds. Death was definitely closing in on him and he knew it. As we were smoking upstairs, he suddenly looked me square in the eyes and said, “You know, I’m dying, man.” “Yeah,” I said. There wasn’t really anything else to say, but I guess he just needed to verbally acknowledge it.

I did manage to get that night’s show on tape, and it’s one of my prize possessions. Technically, it wasn’t nearly the equal of the one that got away. The show was, however, even more miraculous, given his deteriorating condition. After the show, Greg went ahead and booked the band for another show the next month. He also asked me if I wanted to open for him at a show in Atlanta.

Later, after Greg’s death, another member of “The Redneck Underground,” Redneck Greece compiled a CD of Greg’s songs (Bubbapalooza Volume 2). Most were covered by other people, as Greg didn’t get to record nearly enough during his too short life. They did use one of my “boombox recordings” (Smalley’s gnarly “State of Co-Dependency”) from that evening.

I was still in the process of putting together my band, Drive-By Truckers (our first show was still three months away), and I was picking up gigs whenever and wherever I could with a band called The Possibilities. They had been together for years by that time, and would sometimes, as a side project, back me up on my own songs under the name The Lot Lizards. (Lot Lizard is trucker slang for a prostitute who sometimes frequents truck stops and rest areas, providing her service for lonely truckers).

The show was at a small dive called Dottie’s and it was my first time ever playing in Atlanta with a band. Greg was playing that night with Redneck Greece under the name Small Greece. It turned out to be his last live performance. We played a hard rocking set and were quite well received. Small Greece was excellent. There was a better crowd than any of the High Hat shows and Greg, although not feeling well, was in better spirits.

During a rambunctious cover of a Waylon Jennings song (forgive me for not remembering which one), Greg had a coughing fit and had to skip a verse. Annoyed, at the end of the song, Greg snarled into the microphone “Sorry about that second verse but I didn’t wear a rubber.”

You could hear a pin drop in the crowded club that moment. But Greg just laughed then launched into another rocker. Unapologetic and unflinching. Anyone else’s awkward discomfort was not his concern. He had the meanness and a job to do. He didn’t have time for that shit. He only had a little bit of time left and he had a lot he still wanted to do.

A few days later, my band and I were invited to play Bubbbapalooza. Greg had arranged it. I called him to thank him, but his wife answered the phone. She said that Greg was very sick and was back in the hospital. This time he probably wouldn’t be coming out. I felt bitch-slapped and went out to walk my dog. While out in the field behind my house, a song hit me and I ran back inside to write it down before it slipped away. I wrote it in about the same length of time it takes to play it live.

The LIVING BUBBA

I wake up tired and I wake up pissed Wonder how I ended up like this Wonder why things happen like they do But I don’t wonder long cause I got a show to do.

I’m sick at my stomach from the AZT Broke at my bank cause that shit ain’t free But I’m here to stay at least another week or two And I can’t die now cause I got a show to do.

Don’t give me no pity don’t give me no grief Wait till I die for sympathy Just help me with that amp and a guitar or two I can’t die now cause I got a show to do Don’t give me no preaching no self-serving I ain’t no angel but nobody’s deserving I can dance on my own grave, thank you But I can’t die now cause I got another show

Some people keep saying I won’t last long Cause I got my bands, I got my songs Liquor, beer, and nicotine to help me along I’m drunk and stubborn as they come Chain smoking, guitar picking till I’m gone gone gone

I ain’t got no political agenda Ain’t got no message for the youth of America Except wear a rubber and be careful who you screw And come see me next Friday cause I got another show

Some people stop living long before they die Work a dead-end job just to scrape on by But I keep living just to bend that note in two And I can’t die now cause I got another show

(For Gregory Dean Smalley)

Greg passed away a few days later. He went home and died at his mother’s house. Many of his closest friends were there by his side holding him in their arms. Only hours before he passed he was playing his guitar and watching “Raising Arizona.” A couple of days later, the show he had booked at the High Hat became a memorial show in his honor. It was packed with friends as well as folks who had never seen him in his lifetime. Redneck read a letter from his son Raymond (then about 9 or 10 years old) and everyone had tears rolling down their faces. There was much partying and much good rock played that night. Somewhere, he was smiling and making shit-eating remarks about how much better he was already drawing in death.

We played Bubbapalooza that May 25th at 6pm in front of about a dozen people. It was The Lot Lizard’s last gig. I already had the lineup together for my new band, but alas, fate had to jump in one more time. Late that night, my good friend and soon to be band-mate Chris Quillen was killed in a car accident.

Over the course of the next year, Drive-By Truckers did some recording, picked up as many shows as we could and began building a following, particularly in Atlanta at Dottie’s and The Star Bar. I was, at first, hesitant to play “The Living Bubba” live, as I really didn’t know Greg all that well and felt I had no right to write anything so personal (from his point of view, no less). But I did confide it to a few close mutual friends who were always very complimentary and all said I should play it for Greg’s Mama.

In May of 1997, we played Bubbapalooza in front of a packed house that included “Mama” (as everyone affectionately called her). As we began “The Living Bubba” she walked up to the front of the stage and stared me square in the eyes as I sang Greg’s song. When it was over, she walked up on stage, threw her arms around me and said “You done my boy right.” No review or compliment that my band or me ever get will ever equal that. - Patterson Hood - May 29, 2003

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