by Jane Roser
Patterson Hood was playing a solo show at The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach this past spring when I first met him. My 69-year-old South Georgia mom came along and for someone who normally only listens to Susan Boyle and Perry Como, I was tickled that she was really digging the concert. When Hood graciously gave mama a hug after the show, she was grinning from ear to ear and I witnessed how Hood and his band, The Drive-By Truckers, speak to people from every generation and their inspirational, thought provoking songs truly give their audience something to ponder over on the way home. That is the definition of not just a good band, but a great one.
Hood is charming and colorful, telling stories during his show of growing up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and sneaking over the state line to buy liquor since he lived in a dry county. “It was like Redneck Oz. With murders,” he says of those times. When a slightly inebriated gentleman at the bar wanted to hear Hood’s song “Murdering Oscar”, he yelled out “Kill Oscar!” Hood replied without missing a beat, “I’m tryin’ man. He’s a tough motherfucker.”
Patterson Hood (photo credit, Andy Tennille)
The Truckers were founded in 1996 by Hood (the son of Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section bassist David Hood) and longtime friend Mike Cooley. Both Hood and Cooley (and later for a short while, Jason Isbell) defined the Truckers’ unique, electric guitar driven sound punctuated by brilliant, witty and sometimes politically inspired songwriting. Currently, the band consists of Jay Gonzalez, Hood, Cooley, Brad Morgan and Matt Patton.
In 2001, DBT released a double album based upon the legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd juxtaposed with Southern mythology. Their song, “The Southern Thing”, off this album is very popular with their fans, and as former tour manager/producer Dick Cooper so eloquently says in the DBT documentary The Secret To A Happy Ending, “The contrast of the thing that startled me was what had gone on in Birmingham in the mid-60s and what had gone on in Muscle Shoals at the very same time. In Birmingham you have the perfect example of how bad things can be when people are oppressed over something they have no means of changing like their race. Muscle Shoals, on the other hand, was the antithesis of that. It was how good things could be when divergent cultures brought the best they had to offer and that, to me, was the essence of what was right and what was wrong about Alabama. Whence cometh the duality of the southern thing.”
When I ask Hood if there was a particular catalyst that prompted this song to be written, he tells me, “We were finishing the Southern Rock Opera album and I felt there was a missing piece. I wrote that at the last minute to complete the cycle. I was noticing that there’s this thing that everyone talks about, but each person has a different take on what it actually is. Every line in the song is contradicted by another line. It’s probably one of my most misunderstood songs.”
Touring this fall to promote the re-release of their 2000 album Alabama Ass Whuppin‘, the Truckers will make an appearance at the TLA in Philadelphia on November 5th. “I love playing the TLA,” says Hood, “Philly was a tough town for us to break for some reason, but once we finally did, it’s been very sweet to us. TLA is a great little room and we always have a really good time. We’re way past overdue for a Philly play, so we’re looking forward to it.”
One song included on Alabama Ass Whuppin‘ is the dare-I-say catchy tune “Steve McQueen” (“the coolest doggone motherscratcher on the silver screen.”) I recently had dinner in Atlanta with Steve McQueen’s grandson, Steven, who got very excited when I showed up wearing a DBT t-shirt. “They do a song called Steve McQueen!” he spiritedly said and we even listened to it on my iPod over dessert. “I wrote that song as a tribute to my granddad who was a huge Steve McQueen fan and who also died of mesothelioma,” explains Hood. “He was a bad ass, like a McQueen character (although much nicer).”
Another interesting song choice for this album is a cover of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” and I wonder what prompted this pick. “I actually covered that one in a band I had in high school when it was a brand new song,” Hood recalls. “I’ve played that song in every band I’ve ever had, it’s just amazing. I was also a big fan of the book The Basketball Diaries when I was young. I was told that Jim Carroll dug our version of his song.”
DBT concerts are something incredible to behold and they last for hours, feeling like a well organized jam session, so I wonder if a set list is decided upon ahead of time? “We never use a set list, ” Hood says, “We decide the opening song as we’re about to go up to play and then it gets winged from there. We have all kinds of elaborate cues and signals to give each other so we know what’s coming next. It usually works and keeps it fresh and exciting for us, which I think translates to a more fun evening for the fans.” And, of course, includes “the usual Drive-By Truckers debauchery.”
The Truckers have toured with some amazing iconic musicians including Tom Petty, Booker T. Jones and T. Hardy Morris, but if you ask Hood who his dream collaboration would be with, he says, “It’s hard to top playing with Booker T. Jones. I love Neil Young and he played with us on the Booker album, although he recorded his parts separately, so we didn’t hang out. I’ve hung out with musicians all my life, so I don’t tend to geek out too much (although I might secretly a bit over Tom Waits).”
The Drive-By Truckers have just completed their newest album and we should know a release date soon, as well as another tour early next year. When I ask Hood what fans can look forward to in 2014, he replies, “A new album and a massive tour.” And what is Hood looking forward to personally? “Selling a million plus copies of the new album.”
And, that, my friends, could just be the secret to a happy ending.
