The Drive-By Truckers (DBT) may be one of the most resilient bands around. For going on twenty years these Southern rockers have stayed on the road almost constantly while somehow managing to release at least one album almost every other year since starting the band. It helps that the band is fronted by Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, two of the strongest and prolific working songwriters you will find anywhere.
In their guitar playing, songwriting and vocals, Hood and Patterson each bring something different to the band. Both musicians often write in a fictional, storytelling style, but whereas Hood tends to focus on dark, deeply troubled and occasionally criminal characters, Cooley taps into more fragile issues such as domestic problems told from the female perspective. With two major talents, it is remarkable that Cooley and Hood have managed to strike a basically equal balance of featuring each other’s songs on Drive by Truckers albums and in their live shows. Nowhere is the Cooley/Hood balance more present than on the band’s latest album, English Oceans (ATO Records).
A lot has happened since the band’s last release, Go-Go Boots in 2011, most notably the departure of longtime bassist Shonna Tucker in 2011 and the abrupt exit of guitarist John Neff in 2012. In that span of time various members of the Truckers, including Hood and Cooley, have all released critically acclaimed solo albums as well. English Oceans is a return to form for the Truckers, but it is also unlike anything they have ever done. The record has a lighter, more optimistic feeling throughout in the songwriting of Hood and Cooley, more prominent piano work from Jay Gonzalez, and even a brass presence. There is a feeling that the band is well rested and ready to return to doing what they do best: giving fans a true rock and roll show. Now the Drive-By Truckers are gearing up for their biggest tour in years. Neil Ferguson caught up with Patterson Hood a few days before the release of English Oceans.
The span between English Oceans and Go-Go Boots is the longest ever between two Drive-By Truckers releases. Can you discuss some of what was happening in the band that pushed you to wait for so long?
We probably had been desperately needing to take time off but just hadn’t done it for sometimes financial reasons – because if we’re not working we’re not making any money and we’ve all got kids and shit – so we just kind of kept our noses to the grindstone. Also, the method by which we had always worked was kind of – we’d be working on the next record when we were releasing one and in some cases already writing for the one after that. So it just kind of took a long time to get off that treadmill. Then it became apparent a few years ago that we needed to fix some things in the band personnel wise and I think we had just run ourselves out. Even after that it was still another year or two before we were actually able to do those things and take the time off. It’s been really great taking the time. I wanted to know what it felt like to miss it because we’ve been riding it for so long that it just became what we did instead of what we wanted to do. We all wanted to know what it felt like to miss it and we succeeded in that. When we got back together to start making [English Oceans] it was a very different spirit than it’s been in a really long time. We had an absolute blast making it and worked really hard.
You, Mike Cooley and other members of the band have all had successful solo outings in the last few years. Is there a specific reason you find yourselves drawn back to the Truckers?
There are real good reasons. When I write a song that’s what I hear in my head is that band. Especially right now, the [Drive-By Truckers] is kind of like my ultimate band. [Mike] Cooley and I have played together for [close to] 29 years. We had four different bands before we started the Truckers together, and we’ve had the Truckers for 18 years. So obviously there’s something that works [with] the two of us; hell he plays on two of my solo albums [laughs].
The new album is fairly upbeat and optimistic, especially on songs like “Shit Shots Count,” which features horns. What kind of personal things in the band drove this creative vibe?
The band had gone through so much for a pretty long time, a lot of which was just the result of keeping it on the road for so long. The road just breaks shit – like if you have a car and just keep driving the shit out of it and don’t change the oil or whatever [laughs]. It’s kind of that way with the band; we had broken ourselves a little bit. I think we had time to get some new tires, brakes, kind of fix the shit and get it really tuned up.
There’s a serious lack of drama in our personal dynamics now, probably any time ever in the history of this band. I think everyone’s really enjoying that; it kind of frees us up to be more creative and open. It should be fun – it’s almost a sacrilege for this job to not be fun. I remember on the last record three years ago, anytime anyone would interview Cooley he would always make references to the job, and I was like, ‘it sucks that we have to feel that way now.’ We worked so hard to not have a job [laughs]. We built this thing to support ourselves doing what we love and it’s become a fucking job?
Cooley wasn’t wrong in saying that, he was being honest and I agreed. We fixed it up and now everyone’s really excited about doing this. Even the parts of the job that are tedious, like I’ve been doing a lot of interviews this week and sometimes those can be a little mind-numbing, especially when you get the bad questions. But even all of that has been a little better spirited than usual.
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the worst question that you’ve been asked?
‘So, how would you describe your sound?’ It is like, ‘dude that’s your job! I make this shit! Did you listen to the fucking record?’ When that’s the first question you know it ain’t going to get no better [laughs].
This may be a better question for Cooley, but can you talk about that feeling you get as a writer when you can’t write a single word and then what it’s like getting inspiration again?
It’s great. It’s pretty well known that Cooley went through a particularly drawn out writer’s block period. I can see it in his eyes being around him how liberating it’s been for him to deal with that and come out the other end. Ironically, during that time he did write one of my favorite songs, “Birthday Boy,” which is probably my favorite song on Go-Go Boots and The Big To-Do. He wrote that during that time, but it was the only new song for such a long time. I know it was rough on him; I’ve had much shorter times like that and they’re hard on you. When this is what you do and all of the sudden you just can’t seem to do it anymore it iss kind of scary, like ‘fuck, what do I do now? I’ve come this far and now I can’t write another record.’
I’m pretty sure Cooley couldn’t tell you what caused the breakthrough for him to fix it. If he does have an answer for that I want to write it down. I do think taking the time off helped. Sometimes writing occurs best in a bit of a vacuum and there’s been very little vacuum in our lives, especially since we have kids. You come home from the road and you’re exhausted and now you gotta make up for having been gone for so long. None of us want to be shitty dads, so when you come home and spend every waking hour trying to be the dad that they’ve been missing while you were gone, and then you’re gone again, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for contemplation and reflection. A lot of times the act of writing looks like you’re just sitting there doing nothing. It’s really easy for your wife to put a broom in your hand and say, ‘oh honey, you’re not doing anything, here’ [laughs]. Not to blame our wives for our dry spells, that’s just part of life.
As you grow older and settle down, are there challenges to tapping into those dark storylines and characters that live in so many of your songs?
On some levels nothing will piss you off and make you feel more punk rock than getting older. You get old and sometimes it just makes you mad! It may be a different kind of anger than it was when I was a teenager, but I’m still driven by a lot of the same wants and needs I had when I was much younger. I may be a lot more careful with what I do with them and how I let that out. I can’t stay up all night doing some of the things I used to stay up all night doing – thankfully! But it’s not like I didn’t spend plenty of time getting that out of my system. Generally, the things I’ve done along the way I’ve been pretty ready to move on from.
It seems like in the last couple of years there has been a major renaissance of Alabama bands. Do you feel at all responsible for that and what’s it like seeing all of these young bands break out after so many years of trying to convince people that kick ass music does come out of Alabama?
There have always been the bands, but there has been a nice renaissance of some of those bands getting to break out and not just be locally good. I don’t know if I could really give myself or [the band] too much credit – maybe a teeny bit – but I’m very proud about it. Likewise, I’ve been in Athens, Georgia for twenty years and I’m proud of how the scene here continues to be good. I think that there continues to be great music getting made all over. I’m glad that at my age I can still get excited to go to the record store. I really still have to keep myself in check from going out and blowing the budget on a bunch of records, because I could easily go into [the record store] right now and drop a few hundred bucks.
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