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Drive-by Truckers explore “duality of the Southern thing”By Chris RiemenschneiderMinneapolis Star Tribune Published February 1, 2004 Sounding a lot like the Democratic presidential candidates stumping for votes in South Carolina this week, Patterson Hood thinks the South is not as different as many people would have you believe. "The more I tour and see the rest of the country, the more I realize the problems and poverty of the South are spread all over," said Hood, who leads the Alabama/Georgia rock band Drive-by Truckers. With two Truckers shows Friday and Saturday in Minneapolis, Hood talked by phone last week about "the duality of the Southern thing" -- the blessing and curse of being a Southerner. The Truckers explored this topic with careful lyrical insight but reckless musical abandon on their epic 2001 double-CD, Southern Rock Opera. The album used the rise and fall of Southern rock giant Lynyrd Skynyrd as an allusion to the South's own tragedy-filled history. For proof of the Truckers' universality, Hood pointed to The Deeper In, the opening track on their triumphant follow-up CD, Decoration Day, which recently cleaned up in year-end critical accolades. A sad, slow-rolling song, The Deeper In is about a real-life case of incest between an impoverished brother and sister. "The district attorney said he might have forgiven," Hood sings in his scratchy drawl. "You had lots of reasons to turn out this way." Here's the kicker most people missed: It took place in Wisconsin, not the South. "That's just more irony for the fire," Hood said. Assume nothing about the Drive-by Truckers, who -- whether or not they're singing about the South -- make fantastic rock 'n' roll out of the plight of poor or rural Americans without being preachy, cutesy, condescending or cliché-ridden. Lyrically and musically, their songs are like a combination of the best parts of Neil Young's and Skynyrd's feuding anthems, Southern Man and Sweet Home Alabama. Far from typical Southern rockers, though, Hood and his bandmates were also raised on punk and indie rock. In particular, the singer was a fan of Minneapolis' Replacements, whose erratic musicianship flew in the face of everything he learned as the son of Muscle Shoals studio bassist David Hood, a player on albums by Aretha Franklin, James Brown and others. "I always thought I simply wasn't good enough as a musician to play in a professional rock band because of my dad's background," Hood recalled. "When I heard [the Replacements], though, I was like, 'These guys ain't no damn Steely Dan, either.' " While Hood sings and writes most of the songs, the band boasts two other singer-guitarists cut from the same cloth: Mike Cooley, a long-time friend who helped start the group in 1996, and Jason Isbell, who joined in 2001. "I think it's fascinating having these different voices, all singing about many of the same things from different perspectives," Hood said. While writing Decoration Day, the members endured a heavy load of personal strife. They toured seemingly nonstop to promote Southern Rock Opera. Money was scarce. Marriages were on the rocks. In separate songs, Hood and Cooley sing about the havoc that the band wreaked on their personal lives. Cooley was apologetic about his rock 'n' roll lifestyle (" 'Lord knows I can't change' sounds better in the song"), but Hood seemed unrepentant ("I never hear a single word you say when you tell me not to have fun"). "Not surprisingly, Cooley's marriage lasted and mine fell apart," said Hood, who's engaged again. Michael Moore and Me For their next record, which they've nearly completed, the Truckers have traded the personal tone of Decoration Day for more of a political theme. The CD will be called The Dirty South, a coy play on the label applied to hip-hop acts such as OutKast and Goodie Mob. While the Truckers are fans of that music -- "It's the only thing we can all agree on in the van" -- Hood said the title really refers to "everything that went on in our hometowns politically and economically in the late '70s and early '80s." "The Ford plant by my house closed, and all sort of jobs were being lost," he said. Hood mentioned the Michael Moore documentary Roger and Me, about General Motors plant closings in Michigan, as an influence: "I couldn't get over how much that movie reminded me of home, except the accents were different," he said. More irony for the fire: So far, the Truckers have found more fans in Chicago and New York than in Atlanta or Birmingham. "We're just now catching on in the South, it seems," he said, adding, "I don't know, maybe we hit a little too close to home or aren't as interesting here because of what we do." On stage, the Truckers -- who recently replaced bassist Earl Hicks with Isbell's girlfriend Shonna Tucker -- brim with loud, raucous guitars and unbridled energy. They're known to be a little "loose with the juice" (alcohol) on stage, although never too carelessly. "We've got to entertain ourselves as much as the audience," Hood said, noting that they don't use setlists. "That's maybe the Alabama nature of the group. We can get very ornery and are easily bored, so we gotta do what we gotta do to keep it interesting." That he mentions this not long after discussing the Replacements once again makes the point: Those Southerners really aren't so different. |
