Biography
It seems simplest to understand Patterson Hood as the director
and/or producer of low-budget films, which is maybe what he thought he
was doing when this all started. Each is released in record album form
under the name Drive-By Truckers and features a closely held assortment
of friends and combatants.
Ten of those, so far, going back to 1998's Gangstabilly, plus two more
under Hood's own name, have delighted the critics and enthralled fans.
Each release filled with carefully told, fiercely rendered short
subjects. Cinematic songs. Not Ed Wood films, by the way. More... well,
did you see John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer? Or,
perhaps better, their friend Ray McKinnon's short, The ant?
The new one, the one we're meant to enjoy just now, is called The
Big To-Do and ushers in a new relationship with ATO. And it offers up
the curious, abiding peace which only great rock can still bring.
Which is not to say that Hood and his long-time fellow-travelers - Mike
Cooley (vocals and guitars), along with Brad Morgan (drums), Shonna
Tucker (vocals and bass), John Neff (extra guitars, as if there could
be such a thing), Jay Gonzalez (keyboards) and studio facilitator David
Barbe - travel only on the darkest side of the street. But they do know
the road tolerably well.
Well-traveled, they have become a family band: Patterson has a new son,
and a daughter; Cooley (nobody calls him Mike) has a trio of little
ones, both men betraying more optimism than their songs might hint at.
They took most of 2009 off from the road, in part because there was a
child on the way and in part because Patterson ended up finishing their
last tour on the sidelines with pleurisy. Dog sick. Way worse than
hungover.
Somewhat to their surprise they've stumbled into a stable ensemble -
not that the Truckers have been anything like Savoy Brown - which
confuses even Patterson. "I've loved all the different line-ups, at
various times," he says with genuine affection. "They've all had their
special things they've done. But this time it seems like our
possibilities go a lot further, because there's no drama, no bullshit,
and everyone seems really glad to be there all the time. Which is a
nice thing. And we really just work well together."
Well, it is suggested, it's about time.
"Yeah, no kidding. That Alabama thing, man."
You have to grow out of doing everything through conflict, right?
"Yeah, no kidding. And... I fortunately don't feel like I have to get divorced again to write a decent song. Thank god."
The Big To-Do was recorded in three concentrated sessions during the
first part of 2009: ten days in January, five days in March, ten days
in May. That added up to 25 songs, a dozen of which sequenced into The
Big To-Do. "We had it mixed, mastered, and completely done, and Cooley
wrote the best song that just needed to be on it," Patterson says with
his raspy chuckle. This happens a lot with the Truckers, and it's
always a good sign. "So we went back in and recorded, mixed, and
mastered 'Birthday Boy' pretty much in one fell swoop." Thirteen songs,
then.
The balance of the remaining tracks, plus five more they've cut in
the interim, will make up the Truckers' next album, which Patterson
projects as a quieter affair.
This is, in large part, possible because the Truckers have such a
long-standing relationship with David Barbe (ex-Sugar, etc.) and the
Athens, GA, studio he calls Chase Park Transduction, which long ago
Patterson helped to build so as to earn the right to record there.
"It's gotten to where, that day of set-up time to get sounds and
levels and all of that takes us about two hours," Patterson says. "We
can pretty much walk in the door, and we know exactly where to put
everything to get that sound, so that's just one less thing to have to
think about. I wanted to eliminate the distractions."
That clarity of purpose translates into a delicious assortment of
Trucker songs themed loosely around crime and (self-) punishment. "The
Wig He Made Her Wear," Patterson says, is both a true story (as seen on
Court TV) and the closest he's come to making the movie he started out
to make a decade or more back. "The Fourth Night of My Drinking" will
speak for itself, and "This Fucking Job" (paired thematically with
Cooley's wry "Get Downtown") is arguably the most political song the
Truckers have made since "Living Bubba." Which leaves the deceptive,
airy simplicity of Shonna Tucker's "You Got Another" and "(It's gonna
Be) I Told You So" to reckon with.
"We always knew she had that in her," Patterson says, delighted with
the emergence of another strong songwriter in the band. "It was never a
secret. She was writing songs all along. But watching it come out has
been a really amazing thing to behold."
Off the road, incidentally, didn't mean out of work. First off,
there was the matter of cutting an instrumental album with the
legendary Booker T, having previously served as the backing band to the
equally legendary soul singer, Bettye Lavette. Potato Hole turned out
all right, got a Grammy nod, and Neil Young added his touches
separately even though it's pretty much a Truckers effort. But it's
what they learned making Potato Hole that counts most.
"I think doing the Booker album really, really paid off a lot on the
musical end of this record, even though stylistically it might not
sound anything like that record," says Patterson, and then tells the
story.
"We made that record in four days, and that included the first day
when it was, 'Booker, it's wonderful to meet you!' Maybe the third song
we tracked just wasn't going the way he wanted it to go. We weren't
quite understanding what he wanted. We were playing it right, but it
wasn't right. All the sudden he just stopped the session. He gathered
us around, and he told us a story about a Thanksgiving dinner, and the
way it smelt in the house, he'd been on the road a long time, and they
were all in -- cousins and aunts he hadn't seen in several years. He
said, 'It's just a day where nothing happens, but it's all really good.'
"And we sat down and we played it, and we nailed it. It was like a
revelation. We're a lyric-driven band, and our songs generally paint
scenes and tell stories based on scenes. He instinctively knew that was
how we operated. And I think it taught us a lot about how we operated.
Going in and making this record, I could tell a real difference in the
way the songs hold up musically. We put a little more care into that
side of it than I think we ever did before because of what we learned
from him."
As for the movie Patterson started writing all those years ago,
well, he's no closer to being done with it. "That might just be part of
the drive to the songs I'm writing," he its. And brightens. "I
placed a couple of songs in a movie that just came out, shot outside of
Knoxville, called That Evening Sun. It's Hal Holbrook's new film,
produced by Ray McKinnon."
And then he's off again, headed home to see his family and wondering
if maybe Tom T. Hall needs a backing band. It's a beautiful thing to
behold.
- Grant Alden
January 2010
Morehead, KY(www.drivebytruckers.com)
and/or producer of low-budget films, which is maybe what he thought he
was doing when this all started. Each is released in record album form
under the name Drive-By Truckers and features a closely held assortment
of friends and combatants.
Ten of those, so far, going back to 1998's Gangstabilly, plus two more
under Hood's own name, have delighted the critics and enthralled fans.
Each release filled with carefully told, fiercely rendered short
subjects. Cinematic songs. Not Ed Wood films, by the way. More... well,
did you see John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer? Or,
perhaps better, their friend Ray McKinnon's short, The ant?
The new one, the one we're meant to enjoy just now, is called The
Big To-Do and ushers in a new relationship with ATO. And it offers up
the curious, abiding peace which only great rock can still bring.
Which is not to say that Hood and his long-time fellow-travelers - Mike
Cooley (vocals and guitars), along with Brad Morgan (drums), Shonna
Tucker (vocals and bass), John Neff (extra guitars, as if there could
be such a thing), Jay Gonzalez (keyboards) and studio facilitator David
Barbe - travel only on the darkest side of the street. But they do know
the road tolerably well.
Well-traveled, they have become a family band: Patterson has a new son,
and a daughter; Cooley (nobody calls him Mike) has a trio of little
ones, both men betraying more optimism than their songs might hint at.
They took most of 2009 off from the road, in part because there was a
child on the way and in part because Patterson ended up finishing their
last tour on the sidelines with pleurisy. Dog sick. Way worse than
hungover.
Somewhat to their surprise they've stumbled into a stable ensemble -
not that the Truckers have been anything like Savoy Brown - which
confuses even Patterson. "I've loved all the different line-ups, at
various times," he says with genuine affection. "They've all had their
special things they've done. But this time it seems like our
possibilities go a lot further, because there's no drama, no bullshit,
and everyone seems really glad to be there all the time. Which is a
nice thing. And we really just work well together."
Well, it is suggested, it's about time.
"Yeah, no kidding. That Alabama thing, man."
You have to grow out of doing everything through conflict, right?
"Yeah, no kidding. And... I fortunately don't feel like I have to get divorced again to write a decent song. Thank god."
The Big To-Do was recorded in three concentrated sessions during the
first part of 2009: ten days in January, five days in March, ten days
in May. That added up to 25 songs, a dozen of which sequenced into The
Big To-Do. "We had it mixed, mastered, and completely done, and Cooley
wrote the best song that just needed to be on it," Patterson says with
his raspy chuckle. This happens a lot with the Truckers, and it's
always a good sign. "So we went back in and recorded, mixed, and
mastered 'Birthday Boy' pretty much in one fell swoop." Thirteen songs,
then.
The balance of the remaining tracks, plus five more they've cut in
the interim, will make up the Truckers' next album, which Patterson
projects as a quieter affair.
This is, in large part, possible because the Truckers have such a
long-standing relationship with David Barbe (ex-Sugar, etc.) and the
Athens, GA, studio he calls Chase Park Transduction, which long ago
Patterson helped to build so as to earn the right to record there.
"It's gotten to where, that day of set-up time to get sounds and
levels and all of that takes us about two hours," Patterson says. "We
can pretty much walk in the door, and we know exactly where to put
everything to get that sound, so that's just one less thing to have to
think about. I wanted to eliminate the distractions."
That clarity of purpose translates into a delicious assortment of
Trucker songs themed loosely around crime and (self-) punishment. "The
Wig He Made Her Wear," Patterson says, is both a true story (as seen on
Court TV) and the closest he's come to making the movie he started out
to make a decade or more back. "The Fourth Night of My Drinking" will
speak for itself, and "This Fucking Job" (paired thematically with
Cooley's wry "Get Downtown") is arguably the most political song the
Truckers have made since "Living Bubba." Which leaves the deceptive,
airy simplicity of Shonna Tucker's "You Got Another" and "(It's gonna
Be) I Told You So" to reckon with.
"We always knew she had that in her," Patterson says, delighted with
the emergence of another strong songwriter in the band. "It was never a
secret. She was writing songs all along. But watching it come out has
been a really amazing thing to behold."
Off the road, incidentally, didn't mean out of work. First off,
there was the matter of cutting an instrumental album with the
legendary Booker T, having previously served as the backing band to the
equally legendary soul singer, Bettye Lavette. Potato Hole turned out
all right, got a Grammy nod, and Neil Young added his touches
separately even though it's pretty much a Truckers effort. But it's
what they learned making Potato Hole that counts most.
"I think doing the Booker album really, really paid off a lot on the
musical end of this record, even though stylistically it might not
sound anything like that record," says Patterson, and then tells the
story.
"We made that record in four days, and that included the first day
when it was, 'Booker, it's wonderful to meet you!' Maybe the third song
we tracked just wasn't going the way he wanted it to go. We weren't
quite understanding what he wanted. We were playing it right, but it
wasn't right. All the sudden he just stopped the session. He gathered
us around, and he told us a story about a Thanksgiving dinner, and the
way it smelt in the house, he'd been on the road a long time, and they
were all in -- cousins and aunts he hadn't seen in several years. He
said, 'It's just a day where nothing happens, but it's all really good.'
"And we sat down and we played it, and we nailed it. It was like a
revelation. We're a lyric-driven band, and our songs generally paint
scenes and tell stories based on scenes. He instinctively knew that was
how we operated. And I think it taught us a lot about how we operated.
Going in and making this record, I could tell a real difference in the
way the songs hold up musically. We put a little more care into that
side of it than I think we ever did before because of what we learned
from him."
As for the movie Patterson started writing all those years ago,
well, he's no closer to being done with it. "That might just be part of
the drive to the songs I'm writing," he its. And brightens. "I
placed a couple of songs in a movie that just came out, shot outside of
Knoxville, called That Evening Sun. It's Hal Holbrook's new film,
produced by Ray McKinnon."
And then he's off again, headed home to see his family and wondering
if maybe Tom T. Hall needs a backing band. It's a beautiful thing to
behold.
- Grant Alden
January 2010
Morehead, KY(www.drivebytruckers.com)
