Patterson Hood likes to tell stories, OKAY?
Wow - That's kinda shitty
Gangstabilly:
This is our weakest album and we didn't really know how to do what we were trying to do yet.
It does, however have The Living Bubba, which is still the best song I've ever written, Panties In your Purse, which was one of Cooley's earliest creations, and Late For Church, which was written by our original bass player Adam Howell and is one of the weirdest and sublime things we ever recorded.
Jim Stacy's artwork was great, appropriate and misunderstood. I still love it. On the original CD we tried to make it sound like 2 sides of vinyl. Here on vinyl, it is actually 3 sides and sounds so much better than the original release that it is like a much better album to me. I wrote Demonic Possession during Pat Buchanan's speech at 1996 GOP convention, which was on the TV in the kitchen where I was (hardly) working at the time.
Trufax: I love "Late for Church" a lot.
Pizza Deliverance:
I'll always have an extra soft spot for this one. We recorded it in my living room on Jefferson Rd. n Athens GA in five days in mid-january 1999. You can hear my dogs fighting over which one gets to eat the other's puke in the background of Mrs. Dubose. (True story).
On that Sunday afternoon we invited a bunch of friends over and got plowed and recorded takes of Nine Bullets, The Company I Keep and a drunken, unplanned The President's Penis is Missing, which we ended up laughing so hard at we put it on the album only to see most early reviews concentrate on how terrible it was. That's alright, I still think it was the right call nearly ten years later.
Cooley came into his own with Uncle Frank, One Of These Days and Love Like This. PD captures an earlier incarnation of this band at a turning point and I'll always love this one.
The Night GG Allin Came To Town was written as a birthday present to Cooley at a time when we weren't speaking.
Trufax: BOYFRIENDS
Alabama Ass Whuppin':
This one is out of print right now and probably will be for a while. Burn it if you can find it. I'm quite proud of this album, and will see to it that it gets reissued one of these days, but this just isn't the time.
Trufax: Here! Burn a copy!
Southern Rock Opera:
We began writing the Southern Rock Opera some years ago. We wanted to examine people's misconceptions of the South, and study some modern-day southern mythology. The band Lynyrd Skynyrd's story seemed like the ultimate vehicle for tying all of these loose ends together into what would hopefully flow like one big story. It also gave us a great excuse for going with a 3 guitar lineup and exploring that musically. It should also be noted that the record was intentionally paced like a movie and was originally planned as a screenplay before it became an album.
BETAMAX GUILOTINE
The name of the fictional band in the story.
ACT I
Set in the late 1970s. Our hero is growing up in a small southern town and dreaming of being a big Rock Star. In the meantime he has to deal with the mundane shit that most teenagers deal with. As he grows up and leaves the south, he is shocked at how different people's perceptions of his home were from what he remembered.
DAYS OF GRADUATION
The first fatal carwreck of some peers in High School is unfortunately a near universal right of passage. We tied that in with the old urban legend about "Free Bird still playing on the stereo" as a way to kick our story off and set the tone for the album.
RONNIE AND NEIL
I wrote this song to tell of the misunderstood friendship between Ronnie VanZant and Neil Young, who were widely believed to be bitter adversaries, but were in truth very good friends and mutual admirers... I also used it as a personal way of writing for the first time about my hometown's musical and cultural legacy. (Muscle Shoals AL. was the town where many of the finest R&B and Soul records ever made were created, with whites and blacks working together during the height of the civil rights movement in the 60's).
72 (THIS HIGHWAY'S MEAN)
You pretty much can not get in or out of our hometown (the Shoals Area in North Alabama) without travelling down Hwy. 72... Cooley wrote this song.
DEAD, DRUNK, AND NAKED
I wrote this song about a guy I used to work with who was pretty much the poster child for why one shouldn't sniff glue in Junior High School.
GUITAR MAN UPSTAIRS
Another Cooley song. He wrote this one about the guy upstairs who used to call the cops every time he played his guitar (even acoustic guitar in the middle of the afternoon) yet never seemed to mind any other kind of noise. It's perfectly typical of Cooley that he told the tale from his adversary's point of view.
BIRMINGHAM
This is actually a rewrite of a very old Adam's House Cat song that I wrote years ago. I changed the ending (and most of the music) to tell of Birmingham's rebirth and somewhat successful reinvention of itself. It was rewritten while we were in the studio recording the album.
THE SOUTHERN THING
We were nearly finished recording the album and something was still missing. I felt that we were still lacking that song that would tie it all together (particularly Act 1) and define what it was all about. We recorded the album in downtown Birmingham, ground zero for much of the Civil Rights Struggle, and I think that helped with the writing of this song. Musically, it's the most blatantly "Southern Rock" of any of the songs on the album.
THE THREE GREAT ALABAMA ICONS
This one explains most of the first Act's intentions and was painstakingly the most historically accurate and in some way most personal song on the album. It examines the duality of the Southern Thing, my relationship with Football (which I grew up hating) and it's ramifications. And for the record (which I rechecked numerous times) Wallace DID win in 82 with over 90% of the black vote. (and the Devil IS a Southerner).
WALLACE
I wrote this song the week that the famed former Alabama Governor died. I decided to set the song in Hell and tell it from the Devil's point of view as he welcomed his new guest with some down home (and red hot) southern hospitality.
ZIP CITY
Cooley wrote this one and should be the one explaining it. I do know that it is at least 90% true and is my personal favorite song on the album.
MOVED
Rob Malone wrote this beautiful and very disturbing song. It's the lonliest song on the album and sounds like the room we recorded it in.
ACT II
Our hero has now become the big Rock Star that he always fantasized about being, but it's somehow nothing like he thought it would be... Is anything ever?
LET THERE BE ROCK
A pretty damned autobiographical account of my teenaged years, and how partying and going to Arena Rock shows kept me from going off the deep end in High School.
ROAD CASES
When Rock Stars hit it big, they tend to put everything they own in those indestructible road cases (with the name of their band stenciled on them). Unfortunately, fame is a fleeting thing. The records quit selling but the bills keep coming in. Eventually you have to sell the road case to pay off the coke dealer. A fitting parable for fame and fortune if ever there was one.
WOMEN WITHOUT WHISKEY
Cooley's examination of true love and alcoholism (I guess). "You know the bottle ain't to blame and I ain't trying to / It don't make you do a thing it just lets you / When I'm six feet underground I'll need a drink or two / and I'll sure miss you".
PLASTIC FLOWERS ON THE HIGHWAY
One of the more personal songs on the record. It pays tribute to a good friend and comrade Chris Quillen who 4 out of 5 of us played with in the past, and was set to be a member of this band before being killed in a car crash a couple of weeks before our 1st gig. Salute!
CASSIE'S BROTHER
Rob's tribute to Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie, both of whom were killed in the plane crash that ended the original lineup of the band on 10/20/77. Kelly Hogan plays the part of Cassie in the song.
LIFE IN THE FACTORY
I wrote this one to tie all of the Act II loose ends together, particularly in regards to the legends surrounding Lynyrd Skynyrd. One of the only songs on the album that is actually about the band itself. It also set the stage for the final scene.
SHUT UP AND GET ON THE PLANE
Another Cooley song. Based on a bit of mythology about Skynyrd that claimed that on that fateful day, Cassie Gaines had actually bought a ticket to fly comercial instead of getting back on the plane (which had had engine trouble in route to Greenville SC the night before). According to legend (and who ever knows what's myth and what's truth) Ronnie VanZant persuaded her to sell her ticket and fly to Baton Rouge with the rest of the band. Ronnie, Cassie, and her brother Steve ware all killed that day in the plane crash. Cooley wrote the song from the point of view that it was still the right decision because "Living in fear's just another way of dying before your time"...Wise words and probably the most important line on the record.
GREENVILLE TO BATON ROUGE
Tells the tale of the actual final flight. For the record, the plane was a 1947 Convair Turbo Prop that had formerly been used as an airliner for Eastern before they moved to an all jet fleet. It was leased from a company in Dallas TX. The band Kiss had formerly leased it and Aerosmith had planned on taking it, but their management was appalled at how shabbily it had been maintained and passed on it.
ANGELS AND FUSELAGE
Set inside the plane after the engines shut down and everything went quiet. Just the sound of the wind over the wings and your own heartbeat. Again, Miss Kelly Hogan plays the part of Cassie.
Decoration Day:
Comments by Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell
1. The Deeper In
Patterson: This song is about the only two people currently serving time in America for consensual brother/sister incest. It is one of the few songs I've written in the third person. Jason plays an electric mandolin through one of Barbe's old Ampeg Gemini amps. The song also marks the return of pedal steel player John Neff, who played on our first two albums and appears on nearly half of this one.
2. Sink Hole
Patterson: "The Accountant", a short film by Ray McKinnon, inspired this song.
The film is a very dark comedy about saving the family farm "by any means necessary".
This incredible movie went on to win the 2002 Academy Award for Best Feature Short.
We recorded Sink Hole live in one take our first day in the studio.
The song itself tells a different story and utilizes the geography of my family's old homestead in North Alabama. At the foot of the McGee Town hill lays an actual thirty-foot deep sinkhole. In the end, the protagonist feels morally justified as he fantasizes about burying the foreclosing banker there.
3. Hell No, I Ain't Happy
Patterson: This song was written on the road in January 2002 (although the title dates back to a year earlier). One night in Northern Florida, we passed a car driving the wrong way down I-10 At the time we were deep into the recording of "Southern Rock Opera", which dealt with dying on the road. This near brush with fate helped me to get past my phobia of getting creamed on the highway.
4. Marry Me
5. My Sweet Annette
Patterson: Two very different views of marital bliss.
With Marry Me, Cooley has written my favorite line on the album:
"Rock and Roll means well but it can't help tellin' young boys lies".
Both benefit from the great harmony vocal talents of our good friend Clay Leverett. Centro-Matic's piano player, Scott Danborn played fiddle on My Sweet Annette.
6. Outfit
Jason: This one focuses on the advice I got growing up, mostly from my father. We recorded the song just before Father's Day and I gave Dad a copy as a present.
I'm really fond of Cooley's psycho solo and Patterson's guitar harmonies toward the end.
7. Heathens
Patterson: This song and Sounds Better in the Song provide the center of gravity for this album.
Heathens was originally to be the title track and it's probably the strongest of the songs that I wrote for this record.
I particularly love the interplay between Cooley's almost Eddie Hinton-esque guitar part juxtaposed against my original chord progression.
Jason put down two tracks of E-Bow guitar, John Neff again plays pedal steel and Scott Danborn again plays fiddle.
"She ain't revved till the rods are thrown".
8. Sounds Better in the Song
"I might as well have put that ring on her finger
from the window of a van as it drove away" - Mike Cooley
9. (Something's Got to) Give Pretty Soon
10. Your Daddy Hates Me
Patterson: Two more songs about divorce and the emotional fallout that follows.
11. Careless
Patterson: This song was written in 1996, following the accidental death of a good friend
12. When the Pin Hits the Shell
13. Do It Yourself
Patterson: Mine and Cooley's somewhat different take on another friend's not-so accidental death.
When the Pin Hits the Shell features veteran keyboardist Spooner Oldham (Aretha Franklin, Neil Young, Bob Dylan) playing what he referred to as his "Star Wars Solo" on the Wurlitzer.
Both of these songs were first takes.
Do It Yourself features a guest appearance from Bob Spires of Athens Ga's incomparable band, The Possibilities.
14. Decoration Day
Jason: This was the first song I wrote after joining the band, and it uses a fictional protagonist to tell a story that's rumored to be true. If a fight goes on long enough, it can be impossible to remember who started it.
I really love the coda. Barbe and the boys turned it into a tornado.
15. Loaded Gun in the Closet
Patterson: Cooley played this song for me a while back and it just had to be the last cut on the record. On an album about choices, it is noteworthy that the gun "stays" in the closet and everyone lives to carry on another day. Seconds after finishing this first take, my Gibson J-40 fell off the stand and broke in two.
Turn it up LOUD!
The Dirty South
The following is a brief rundown of the songs with notes by me (except for where otherwise noted) and a few key lines or verses. - Patterson Hood
WHERE THE DEVIL DON'T STAY
"Tell me why the ones who have so much make the ones who don't go mad
With the same skin stretched over their white bones and the same jug in their hand" *
Mike Cooley wrote this one, based on a poem by his uncle Ed Cooley. Ed got to be there when we recorded it. Think he packed for a long evening of recording, but we'd been playing it live for a year or so and ended up nailing it in one take. Think Ed might have been a little disappointed by that.
TORNADOES
"Pieces of that truck stop, litter up the highway, I been told
And I hear that missing trucker ended up in Kansas
(or maybe it was Oz)." **
I wrote this one back in 1988. It was inspired by two tornadoes, two Music Biz guys from Nashville, one empty theatre, one front-page headline, and "too many goddamned train songs". Way too long a story to go into here. For the really curious, here's a link to the whole dirty story.
THE DAY JOHN HENRY DIED
"That new machine was cheap as hell and only John would work as well,
so they left him laying where he fell the day John Henry died." ***
Jason Isbell: My grandfather used to play and sing to me when I was a kid. "John Henry" was one of our favorites. I was always intrigued by the fact that John beat the steam engine, but didn't live to enjoy his victory.
According to family legend, my grandfather could pick four hundred pounds of cotton in a single day in his prime. When he first heard that men were making money-riding bulls, he hopped on the biggest one he could find and made his brother tie his feet together underneath the animal. Somehow he got loose before he got trampled. He spent years working in a rock wool plant producing the material that was fazed out in favor of the cheaper, safer alternative -- asbestos. He died last year of lung cancer.
PUTTIN' PEOPLE ON THE MOON
"Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon" **
I wrote this one in the van, shortly before we completed the album. Sort of my latest, and best attempt at a song that I've written and re written at least a dozen times since the mid-80's.
This song deals with "rocket envy", a non-diagnosable psychosis affecting people in an economically depressed community, located just 60 or so miles from The NASA Space and Rocket Center.
To make matters worse, our community is downstream from industry, contributing (surely) to our massive cancer rate.
"Mary Alice got cancer just like everybody here
Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year
And we can't afford no insurance, I been ten years unemployed
So she didn't get no chemo so our lives was destroyed
And nothin' ever changes, the cemetery gets more full
And over there in Huntsville, even NASA's shut down too" **
CARL PERKINS' CADILLAC
Cooley's song about the legendary SUN Records folks and the music industry in general.
It took on an extra poignancy last fall with the back to back passing of Sam Phillips and Johnny Cash.
THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
As a kid, I spent every weekend at my Great-Uncle's farm (my family's old homestead) where I rode go-carts and acted out my favorite movie scenes in the woods. George A. is an amazing man (still kicking hard at 84) and I have long tried to capture a glimpse of those times in a song.
During World War II he was drafted and ended up on the island Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. As a curious child, I'd often innocently ask him about all that. One night while watching the old John Wayne movie (The Sands Of Iwo Jima) on TV, he simply said that he "never saw John Wayne over there".
So many of the folks I've written about in this album feel forced into doing terrible things. George A. was no doubt, changed by his experience, but I know him to be easily one of the greatest men I have ever met, thus, making it a much trickier subject to write about.
DANKO / MANUEL
"Got to sinking in the place where I once stood." ***
Jason Isbell: When I started writing this one, I wanted to capture some of Levon Helm's feelings about the deaths (and lives) of Richard Manuel and Rick Danko. The longer I worked on the song, the more impossible that became. I felt like the best I could do was to explain my own attitude toward being a working and traveling musician.
The horn parts came to me in a dream.
THE BOYS FROM ALABAMA
"Don't piss of the Boys from Alabama / Better take it like a man
Ain't nobody gonna stick anything up your ass / If you remember who your friends are" **
TBFA was the first of a series of songs we worked on based (loosely) on some of the folklore surrounding The Redneck Mafia whose exploits have inspired countless books and a few (really bad) movies.
As kids, we all saw some of those movies (the most famous being the original "Walking Tall" from 1973) telling of the good Sheriff Buford Pusser and his battle against the bootleggers.
I never cared for those movies, but there was no denying the cultural phenomenon they became.
It always seemed to me that a far better story lay in "bad guys" point of view.
This year, Hollywood blew its chance to get it right, yet again.
This song could be the opening sequence for the movie I'd like to make about it.
COTTONSEED
"I used to have a wad of hundred dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit
I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot
I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased
And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed
I spent a few years on vacation, sanctioned by the state I mentioned
But a man like me don't do no time too hard to come back from
The meanest of the mean, I see you lock away and toss the key
But they're all just loud mouth punks to me; I've scraped meaner off my shoe
Somewhere, I ain't saying, there's a hole that holds a judge
The last one that I dug myself
And I must admit I was sad to lay him in it, but I did the best I could
Once his Honor grows a conscience, well folks, that there just ain't no good" *
THE BUFORD STICK
"Hit an embankment doing 120 on a straight-away
The Lord works in mysterious ways" **
This was one last stab at the folklore surrounding Sheriff Buford Pusser from the point of view of a man that would just as soon see him dead. I wrote this one in the studio at FAME right before we wrapped the album. It was originally set to be a country type song, but (producer) David Barbe suggested we put the pedal to the floor on it. We love David Barbe.
DADDY'S CUP
"You just wait till them little legs get long enough to reach the gas
Once you put her on the floor one time their ain't no turning back" *
NEVER GONNA CHANGE
"You can throw me in the Colbert County jailhouse / You can throw me off the Wilson Dam
but there ain't much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am
We ain't never gonna change" ***
Jason: This one's pretty self-explanatory. It centers around a North Alabama man who refuses to live in fear. There are quite a few of those.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN
"Who's gonna mow the cemetery when all of my family's gone?" **
Cooley and I have been playing various versions of this song since about 1990 (Adam's House Cat).
It has always been one of our favorites to play, but was a last minute addition to this album.
In the mixing stage, we swapped a song called "Goode's Field Road" for it because we wanted a harder rocker for this spot on the album. GFR was one of my favorites on the album but I stand by this as the better call.
A first take from the FAME sessions.
GODDAMN LONELY LOVE
"Stop me if you've heard this one before:
A man walks into a bar and leaves before his ashes hit the floor.
Stop me if I ever get that far.
The sun's a desperate star that burns like every single one before.
And I could find another dream,
one that keeps me warm and clean
but I ain't dreamin' anymore, I'm waking up.
So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take everything you got
to kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love." ***
Jason Isbell: I tried real hard to come up with a different way of saying this, but it just seemed to fit.
Loneliness can be drowned if you hold it under long enough, but it takes a lot of other things with it.
David Barbe deserves some credit for the way this track turned out. He's a walking encyclopedia of cool old sounds. * Lyrics by Mike Cooley © Wayward Johnson Music (BMI)
** Lyrics by Patterson Hood © Soul Dump Music (BMI)
*** Lyrics by Jason Isbell © House of Fame Music (BMI)
As always: Turn it up.
A Blessing & a Curse
Our most controversial and polarizing album. I'm frequently told it's someone's favorite one of our albums. Then ten minutes later someone tells me how much they hate it. I've been through periods of both emotions at different times myself. Upon listening to it 2+ years later I still have decidedly mixed feelings.
I always loved Big Star and The Replacements and side one is sort of our attempt at making that kind of record. (With a little Faces and Blue Oyster Cult thrown in for good measure). We had an agenda and were trying to find common ground at a time when it was a little hard to come by. I can kinda see why some folks hate it and why some folks love it.
Side two is less controversial to me. Space City is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and A World of Hurt is probably my 2nd favorite song I've written. Wednesday sounds like Adam's House Cat and I always liked that band.
It's hard to write about a cliché without sounding clichéd and the title cut pushes that to the edge. I still don't know if I like that song, but I really love the guitars. Vinyl seems to make the least difference on this one but as I said, side 2 is pretty good.
Trufax: I think there used to be more commentary on this one, like Patterson mentioning that he wrote "A World of Hurt" as a "try to reconcile Jason and Shonna" song and it ended up being kind of an "ending of the relationship and the band" song.
Brighter than Creation's Dark:
An Attempted Song By Song by Patterson Hood
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife was written as a result of trying to make some kind of peace with an unspeakable tragedy that affected so many people I know and love. I was hoping to help with the healing and closure by trying to provide a beautiful song that dwells on the positives of love and family. I knew it was the first song on the album the moment I wrote it.
3 Dimes Down is a Cooley song and he never really discusses any of his lyrics with me or anyone else so I'm not going to do him the disservice of doing so myself except to say Tom T. Hall's "Week in a Country Jail" is certainly worth checking out for a clue. He played me a 4-track demo he recorded of it one night while we were all working on the Bettye LaVette album and I doubled over in laughter. The second verse may be my all-time favorite on a Drive-By Truckers album.
We were almost through tracking this album when I wrote The Righteous Path. It was the missing piece of the puzzle and I knew it immediately. I played it through for everyone once and then we nailed it in one take. Some songs are just meant to be.
Shonna has been writing songs as long as I've known her. She always said that one day she'd bring one or two in for us to possibly perform. I kinda thought she was going to pull one out during the making of our last album but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. The week before we began recording the album, Shonna wrote The Purgatory Line and I'm Sorry Huston. She demoed them in her living room and played them for us when we convened. We were all blown away by what great and beautiful songs they were. A day or two later, she stayed behind while the rest of us went to supper and wrote Home Field Advantage.
Every time I hear Perfect Timing, I pick up on something new in it. It's really a grower and a really good performance. John Neff did a great job with the acoustic guitar solos.
Daddy Needs A Drink really showcases the chemistry we have with Spooner Oldham. His legendary playing has graced some of our favorite records in the world. He co-wrote "I'm Your Puppet" and played on "When A Man Loves A Woman" and Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" and "Do Right Woman". He is the single most creative soul I have ever met and his talent is only exceeded by his charm as he is one of the single sweetest men we have ever met. Every single day on the road and in the studio was brightened by his presence and his contribution to this album is monumental (thus its dedication to him).
Cooley seldom talks about what inspires specific songs, but I was there with him in 1991 and saw Self Destructive Zones play out in living color. I think the imagery about the pawnshops and pointy cheap guitars is priceless. I know Bob and you do too. Everyone knows him and he's probably about as good as they come. I probably know his mother too.
There are things you sometimes have to do in order to do what you got to do. The trick is to not let that thing kill you before you do what you got to do. Some folks don't learn that one in time. The Opening Act began as a song written on the back of a discarded setlist from the headlining band on a sticky table at the shithole bar described within it. The fake bull and faux cowboy were all too real, as was the trip to the hospital for the guy looking for his manhood in all the wrong places. I struggled with an ending for the thing for several years, leaving it behind only to be drawn to it again. It was only with the retrospect offered by a year or two of distance that revealed the song's true meaning to me, thus telling me exactly how to close it out. I like to think of it as a short film without the film. There is nothing like a Technicolor horizon to offer a centerpiece on an album so full of black and white and nighttime skies.
Lisa's Birthday was inspired by a story told to Cooley by our old guitar tech Mark Messner. I think it sounds like pure Country Gold circa 1967.
Two separate backstage visits by almost strangers, each touched in different ways by our American tragedy in Iraq, led to the writing of The Home Front and That Man I Shot. I was only a kid when we were over in Vietnam, but I somehow did learn a lesson or two from it. I never so much wanted to be proven wrong in my beliefs as with our current situation, but the evidence so far seems to support that it ain't working out too good for anybody. Now, we're just trying to save face, at the expense of many young lives that could be ordered to serve our country in more productive ways. Seems our band has some fans over there and we're always moved by the stories of really fine folks who are sacrificing so much for our privileged existence. The man in That Man I Shot probably doesn't agree with a lot of my viewpoints, but I tried to be true to what he said and how he said it. You don't have to agree with someone to respect them and that seemed to run both ways with us. As a writer, it's not my job to agree or disagree and certainly not to judge. It is my job to be as true to the character's voice as humanly possible and to tell the story accordingly. The extended family that inspired The Home Front absolutely broke my heart with their story. I changed the names and some details but again tried to be true to the spirit of what they told me.
Wanted to be true also to that guy riding to his destiny in the back of a rented car in the middle of the night to a destination that he thinks will be the answer to all his problems. It was an ageless story with a different twist. Insurance money for the family seemed like a better option than the kind of prison awaiting him. A thousand decisions had led him there and it wasn't my place to question them. There isn't an actual road called Goode's Field Road but if you grew up where I did you know exactly where it is. Some of the best stories aren't really for the telling and the best songs come from the details and spaces locked within.
I wrote this song in 2000 and planned it for The Dirty South album, but at the last minute decided we didn't have the magic take and swapped it for Lookout Mountain. The song has been on my mind ever since but its transition from the mannered country of its original version to the raging primal stomp we landed on here (one magic take) made all the difference and once again proved to me that all things happen for a reason, you just have to trust your instincts (if they seem to be good ones at least) and let things reveal themselves in their own due time.
You And Your Crystal Meth was recorded for A Blessing and A Curse but voted off the album. I was quite unhappy about it until I realized how perfect it sits between Checkout Time in Vegas and Goode's Field Road. We used the old take exactly as it was. I think that take was when I knew that John Neff HAD to rejoin this band. Our beloved producer David Barbe played an extra big part in the creation of that song too.
Checkout Time in Vegas was inspired by the true-life story of our dear friend Scott Baxendale. He builds guitars for a living (he's currently working on a second one for me and a third one for Cooley). He is also a talented screenwriter and documentary director. The story this song alludes to is the basis for an excellent screenplay that he has been trying to get filmed. He became convinced that Johnny Depp should play his character (I want him to maybe play me too for that matter) and went to great lengths to get him a copy. He filmed these great lengths and made a documentary about it all, which recently was screened at The Hollywood Film Festival to rave reviews. He is currently negotiating a distribution deal for it. This guy is amazing and you should play one of his guitars. We meet the most unbelievable people out there on the road.
Cooley closes his set with A Ghost to Most, which I am firmly convinced is the best song he's ever written. We worked it up in practice for The Dirt Underneath Tour and it quickly became one of the standout tunes of each show. The chorus reveals an image so basic and simple yet each listen reveals another layer of story implied within. I overheard Cooley being asked by a friend what it all meant and his response was how "It's really hard for me to find a suit that fits me right."
The album closes with The Monument Valley and the classic imagery from John Ford's immortal masterpiece The Searchers as the door closes on John Wayne's walk off into the desolate beauty of a disappearing America. Ford may have been America's greatest ever filmmaker and repeated viewings of his work reveals insights into our psyche that have never been expressed better. For me it's an extremely personal song and it was a magical take that night in the studio. I knew that it would be the last song on the album the moment I wrote it.
I often write liner notes for our albums and worked most of the summer on a set juxtaposing the two backstage meetings last year. One with the three Green Berets soldiers who had returned home and the other with the family of the soldier who didn't. Those two events played a large part on the writing of this album and I plan to get around to writing about something else pertaining to all of it at a later time.
The Big To-Do
1. Daddy Learned To Fly
I wrote this song after the death of a friend of mine a few years ago. It was written from the point of view of a child missing his Dad and trying to understand it all. I actually wrote it on a cross-country flight during a very long tour and while missing my own child. I kinda had the idea of it for a while but was struggling with the reality of actually writing it. Once it came together, it happened really fast.
We usually track our songs live and in minimal takes and this one was especially quick in the studio. I think everyone felt it right away and we had it in a take or two.
2. The Fourth Night Of My Drinking
Wrote this one in my office, which is just off from my kitchen at my house in Athens, GA. It's a pretty self-explanatory snapshot of binge drinking taken to a nearly "Leaving Las Vegas" extreme. I used to binge drink quite a bit in my younger days but never tended towards violence. I was always a sweet drunk, although vodka could make me quite belligerent in a comical way. My wife asked me not to drink vodka around her. Never serve white liquor to a redneck.
We spent some time tracking this one, as it originally had a slower intro that bogged it down and it took a bit of time to figure out that it needed dropping. After the basic track I asked Jay Gonzalez (who's now playing keys in the band) to add a horror movie organ part and he lit up like a Christmas tree and immediately nailed the part that's on the record.
I wanted to shoot a video that was part take off / tribute to the old "Dark Shadows" TV show for it, but we'll have to see what happens.
3. Birthday Boy
This was the last song written and recorded for the album. We had already mastered the finished album when Cooley wrote this, which to me provided the one missing element of the album. Not sure of Cooley's motivation and don't want to speak for him except to say the song involves an "awkward" lap dance and Miss Trixie was the character that Madeleine Kahn played in Paper Moon, which is one of our favorite films. In the movie she tells Tatum O'Neal's character to "Let Miss Trixie sit up front with her big ole titties." One of the funniest lines in movie history.
We came home from the road and cut, mixed and mastered this really quickly so that it could make the final cut. I love playing in this band.
4. Drag The Lake Charlie
Not sure what inspired this one. It just kinda played out like a scene from a movie in my head and I just wrote it down. When Wes Freed (our beloved friend who does all of our art work) heard it, he immediately pictured that great scene from The Night of the Hunter where Shelly Winters' dead body is sitting in that old car underwater with seaweed flowing in her hair.
This was the first song we tracked for the album and it kinda set the tone for how the album was going to sound sonically. We wanted to do a "Big Rock" album since our last one was so swampy.
5. The Wig He Made Her Wear
I write about this one in the liner notes. It is based on a real murder that happened in Selmer, TN a few years ago. A prominent preacher in town was shot by his wife and her defense attorney played on the mores and religiousness of the town, successfully I might add, as she was basically handed a suspended sentence and within a couple of years had her kids back. As I've said before, I try hard to never be judgmental about the stories I tell.
When the story broke, we were touring in Norway and I actually saw it on the news over there. The fact that it was all happening about 35 miles from my hometown got my attention. To drive home the fact that I would have to write about it, I have never watched Court TV in my life and happened to be watching it the morning they presented her defense. When they held up the wig, shoes and special outfit he'd make her wear when they had sex, you could literally hear the gasp in the courtroom and I knew she was going to walk. I let the story percolate in my head for a couple of years and wrote it on a Sunday night right before we began tracking the album.
If my memory serves me right, the tracking of this song was one magical take, Everyone just knew exactly where to go with it. Johnny plays that beautiful sleezy slide part and Cooley plays what I refer to as the "Beat It" guitar throughout with the "Purple Rain" sounding soloing at the end. One of my favorite things this band has ever done.
6. You Got Another
One of my favorite things about this band is its messy democracy and open-endedness. Watching Shonna grow into her expanded roles within the band has been a blast. She came in with a really cool sounding demo of this that she cut at home and we all enthusiastically climbed on board.
We tracked this one live in the studio with Shonna playing the piano facing us. Jay played the B3 on the basic then added the Mellotron later. I've always loved Big Star's "Kangaroo" and have always wanted a Mellotron on an album. Johnny plays the Juice Harp during the chorus. This one is going to be a showstopper when we work it up live.
7. This Fucking Job
I wrote this one in my office shortly before the economic collapse of last 2008. I came out of a several year drought of songwriting and wrote about three albums worth of songs for this project but I always knew that this one would be for The Big To-Do.
I never forget how lucky I am to get to do what I love so much as a job and career. I also never forget that it almost never happened and happened only after a lot of sacrifice and some gut wrenching decisions that at the time seemed very foolish to anyone looking for tangible evidence of our reasons. Cooley and I were in our 30's when we started this band. We hit the road with a vengeance that went way beyond obsession and at a pace of much younger bands. At the same time, coming home meant working shitty jobs to pay off the debt that touring at that level incurred (plus some of us were married and everyone had to eat). I can still remember a soul-searching decision where we just decided to go for broke and try to make all of this happen. We didn't really have much chance of making all of this work out to a point of actually making a living at it but decided to do it anyway.
We worked really hard, made some right moves but inevitably we also got lucky and I still go to bed knowing that my shitty old day job is still nipping at my heels and with children in the picture we certainly couldn't be so cavalier in waging it all on some pipe dream.
8. Get Downtown
From day one, this band has gotten lucky with Cooley and I showing up with songs covering similar themes from different points of view and this one connects with "This Fucking Job" in unintended and beautiful ways. I love the conversational lyrics and the back and forth between Kim and Jimmy. I feel like I know them (and probably do).
We had fun cutting it. I especially love the old school battle of the guitars / piano soloing. We used to do that kind of thing a lot and haven't in a while. Having Jay in the loop has taken it to a new level.
9. After The Scene Dies
This one predates the other songs on this album. I actually wrote it on the road during The Black Crowes tour we did back in 2006. We worked it up acoustically and played it during The Dirt Underneath Tour in 2007 and took a few stabs at it for Brighter Than Creation's Dark but never had a take we liked and also just felt like it didn't fit that album (which it didn't).
We've been on the road long enough to see clubs and venues come and go. Every so often we lose a really good one and it's always sad. A "scene" is a fragile thing and sometimes success can kill one as fast as failure. (The same could be said for bands too). I moved to Athens 16 years ago because of the amazing music scene here and have watched it change but continue to thrive. Same time, I see the gentrification of downtown and always fear that a beloved venue will become a parking deck. That's what I wrote this song about.
Shortly after we recorded this song, The Georgia Theatre burned down. Ironically, there was already a plan in place to build a mammoth parking deck, basically surrounding it. Fortunately, my community is rallying and it appears like they will be able to rebuild. I sure hope so.
10. (It's Gonna Be) I Told You So
We were all thrilled when Shonna came in with this kickass rocker. To me it is one part Motown, one part early Pretenders, maybe even a little Wall of Sound girl-group heyday.
We tracked it with Shonna on guitar and David Barbe playing bass. The (World Famous) Bottom Feeders (USA) came by to sing backup. Oh Boy!
11. Santa Fe
I've been writing songs since I was 8 years old and I'm still as perplexed by it's mysteries as ever. Maybe even more so since I probably figured I would have figured it out by now. Sometimes I'll go six months without writing a damned thing and then one day for no apparent reason I'll write several songs in a row. I don't multi-task very well so when I'm in writing mode, I'm seriously not any good for anything else. I'll forget words to songs I know and forget where I put my keys. I have to be really careful crossing streets.
We were parked at the venue in Santa Fe last year waiting to sound check and sitting around on the bus and I wrote the first half of this song. I was interrupted by a visit from a friend and during the visit, he told me a story so intense that I wrote another song based on it five minutes after he left (a song called "Ray's Automatic Weapon" which we have already recorded for our next album) then went back to this one and finished it right after sound check.
This song wasn't based on anything literal happening that day, but I felt like it captured the homesickness and loneliness that often accompanies doing what I love so. We were on The Home Front Tour shortly after the release of Brighter Than Creation's Dark and the Midwest was flooded. We were ending that tour in Des Moines and there was talk that day of having to cancel due to the venue being underwater. It all worked out and we ended up having a great time there.
We spent a little extra time figuring out how we wanted this one to sound and tried several slants and arrangements before locking in on this one. I felt like it was a day very well spent and I think Johnny and Cooley play some extra cool shit on this track.
12. The Flying Wallendas
My favorite movie of 2008 was Man On Wire about that crazy Frenchman who walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974. I ended up reading Philippe Petit's autobiography about it also, all of which made me start thinking about The Flying Wallendas, who had fascinated me as a kid. My Grandparents did in fact live two doors down from one of the surviving Wallendas in Sarasota when I was a kid. I first became aware of their story from a TV movie that I saw when I was probably around 8 or 9 (around the same time as Petit's famous walk).
I've never been much of a daredevil. Crossing streets sometimes makes me nervous. However, watching that madman describe his obsession and blind pursuit of his dream totally hit a nerve in me. Maybe several. We were already calling the album The Big To-Do before we started recording it. Shonna came up with that title back when we were recording our last album and we all agreed that it would make a great album title (just not that album). It never really had anything to do with circuses but always seemed to imply the show, whatever kind of show. The preacher in the small town was putting on a show. (One could argue the parallels between the church and the Rock Show all day long). We had the clubs closing and the homesickness and somehow all of that led me to write this one about the actual show.
The next day we recorded it and the day after that my friend Jason Thrasher gave me a book on The Ringling Brothers. Jay Gonzalez did an amazing job singing harmony on this one.
13. Eyes Like Glue
This gem of a Cooley song was inspired by something his son said to him a few months ago. I think it's a beautiful song and it certainly speaks for my feelings for my children as well. I would think it speaks pretty well for anyone with children and families and all of the weighty decisions that accompany them.
The Big To-Do Art
This album is the seventh one in a row that has featured artwork by our dear friend Wes Freed. He and his wife Jyl live in Richmond, VA and have been a part of our family for nearly as long as we've had this band. We never tell him what to draw and often give him no input at all, yet he always seems to find some subtext, often one we didn't know was there, that he brings out and runs with.
I think that the relationship has hit a new level on this album, as he basically illustrated every song. He honed in on the circus allusions on The Rock Show and how it all could be tied together in The Big To-Do. As I've said, a lot of this one was written on the road and it has a movement in it that reflects that. Wes picked up on that and ran with it.
Recording The Big To-Do
This album marks the seventh album we've made with David Barbe. (He mixed Alabama Ass Whuppin' and co-produced Southern Rock Opera also, but didn't start from the ground up on one until Decoration Day). It's a partnership that rivals any within the band itself. David is a consummate artist as a player, producer and engineer (as well as parent and baseball coach, both of which are sometimes called for in making our records). There is also a trust between us that can't be quantified and a communication that often helps break through barriers of dysfunction in uncanny ways.
We began recording in January of 2009 and reconvened a couple of times as the year progressed. We actually cut 26 songs (so far) but fairly quickly surmised that it would be best to divide them into two albums (The Big To-Do and Go-Go Boots) and work on finishing The Big To-Do first. We will piddle with the remainders for a while between tours until we have it like we want it and release it at the appropriate time.
Sonically, as a band, we've always resisted trendy sounds and production techniques. They certainly have their place in the grand scheme of things and sometimes in my personal record collection but we've always maintained a preference to record this band in an old school way. Analog, on a sixteen-track tape machine onto 2" tape; then mixed to another tape machine (1/2" two-track stereo). We run a computer simultaneously so that we always have a tape running in case something accidental and beautiful happens and so we never have to ask if it was on but we prefer to get the sounds in as natural a way as possible. The reverb comes from two custom-built plate reverb chambers that David keeps at his studio. David actually has a working Mellotron and our friends in Widespread Panic loaned us their beautiful B-3 for Jay to play.
Our preferred format upon completion is on 180gm vinyl and we spared no expense having Stan Ricker half speed master it onto the lathe and having R.T.I. manufacture the actual record. The vinyl version with its gatefold sleeved album cover (beautifully laid out from Wes' art by my sister Lilla Hood, who has done all of our album art design since Southern Rock Opera) is the absolute best way to enjoy this record. We have also included a CD in the vinyl version so you can listen to it in your car and download it into your iPod. ENJOY!
All information (except the Trufax stuff) taken from The Drive By Trucker's Website. Go there. Support them. They're awesome.
Gangstabilly:
This is our weakest album and we didn't really know how to do what we were trying to do yet.
It does, however have The Living Bubba, which is still the best song I've ever written, Panties In your Purse, which was one of Cooley's earliest creations, and Late For Church, which was written by our original bass player Adam Howell and is one of the weirdest and sublime things we ever recorded.
Jim Stacy's artwork was great, appropriate and misunderstood. I still love it. On the original CD we tried to make it sound like 2 sides of vinyl. Here on vinyl, it is actually 3 sides and sounds so much better than the original release that it is like a much better album to me. I wrote Demonic Possession during Pat Buchanan's speech at 1996 GOP convention, which was on the TV in the kitchen where I was (hardly) working at the time.
Trufax: I love "Late for Church" a lot.
Pizza Deliverance:
I'll always have an extra soft spot for this one. We recorded it in my living room on Jefferson Rd. n Athens GA in five days in mid-january 1999. You can hear my dogs fighting over which one gets to eat the other's puke in the background of Mrs. Dubose. (True story).
On that Sunday afternoon we invited a bunch of friends over and got plowed and recorded takes of Nine Bullets, The Company I Keep and a drunken, unplanned The President's Penis is Missing, which we ended up laughing so hard at we put it on the album only to see most early reviews concentrate on how terrible it was. That's alright, I still think it was the right call nearly ten years later.
Cooley came into his own with Uncle Frank, One Of These Days and Love Like This. PD captures an earlier incarnation of this band at a turning point and I'll always love this one.
The Night GG Allin Came To Town was written as a birthday present to Cooley at a time when we weren't speaking.
Trufax: BOYFRIENDS
Alabama Ass Whuppin':
This one is out of print right now and probably will be for a while. Burn it if you can find it. I'm quite proud of this album, and will see to it that it gets reissued one of these days, but this just isn't the time.
Trufax: Here! Burn a copy!
Southern Rock Opera:
We began writing the Southern Rock Opera some years ago. We wanted to examine people's misconceptions of the South, and study some modern-day southern mythology. The band Lynyrd Skynyrd's story seemed like the ultimate vehicle for tying all of these loose ends together into what would hopefully flow like one big story. It also gave us a great excuse for going with a 3 guitar lineup and exploring that musically. It should also be noted that the record was intentionally paced like a movie and was originally planned as a screenplay before it became an album.
BETAMAX GUILOTINE
The name of the fictional band in the story.
ACT I
Set in the late 1970s. Our hero is growing up in a small southern town and dreaming of being a big Rock Star. In the meantime he has to deal with the mundane shit that most teenagers deal with. As he grows up and leaves the south, he is shocked at how different people's perceptions of his home were from what he remembered.
DAYS OF GRADUATION
The first fatal carwreck of some peers in High School is unfortunately a near universal right of passage. We tied that in with the old urban legend about "Free Bird still playing on the stereo" as a way to kick our story off and set the tone for the album.
RONNIE AND NEIL
I wrote this song to tell of the misunderstood friendship between Ronnie VanZant and Neil Young, who were widely believed to be bitter adversaries, but were in truth very good friends and mutual admirers... I also used it as a personal way of writing for the first time about my hometown's musical and cultural legacy. (Muscle Shoals AL. was the town where many of the finest R&B and Soul records ever made were created, with whites and blacks working together during the height of the civil rights movement in the 60's).
72 (THIS HIGHWAY'S MEAN)
You pretty much can not get in or out of our hometown (the Shoals Area in North Alabama) without travelling down Hwy. 72... Cooley wrote this song.
DEAD, DRUNK, AND NAKED
I wrote this song about a guy I used to work with who was pretty much the poster child for why one shouldn't sniff glue in Junior High School.
GUITAR MAN UPSTAIRS
Another Cooley song. He wrote this one about the guy upstairs who used to call the cops every time he played his guitar (even acoustic guitar in the middle of the afternoon) yet never seemed to mind any other kind of noise. It's perfectly typical of Cooley that he told the tale from his adversary's point of view.
BIRMINGHAM
This is actually a rewrite of a very old Adam's House Cat song that I wrote years ago. I changed the ending (and most of the music) to tell of Birmingham's rebirth and somewhat successful reinvention of itself. It was rewritten while we were in the studio recording the album.
THE SOUTHERN THING
We were nearly finished recording the album and something was still missing. I felt that we were still lacking that song that would tie it all together (particularly Act 1) and define what it was all about. We recorded the album in downtown Birmingham, ground zero for much of the Civil Rights Struggle, and I think that helped with the writing of this song. Musically, it's the most blatantly "Southern Rock" of any of the songs on the album.
THE THREE GREAT ALABAMA ICONS
This one explains most of the first Act's intentions and was painstakingly the most historically accurate and in some way most personal song on the album. It examines the duality of the Southern Thing, my relationship with Football (which I grew up hating) and it's ramifications. And for the record (which I rechecked numerous times) Wallace DID win in 82 with over 90% of the black vote. (and the Devil IS a Southerner).
WALLACE
I wrote this song the week that the famed former Alabama Governor died. I decided to set the song in Hell and tell it from the Devil's point of view as he welcomed his new guest with some down home (and red hot) southern hospitality.
ZIP CITY
Cooley wrote this one and should be the one explaining it. I do know that it is at least 90% true and is my personal favorite song on the album.
MOVED
Rob Malone wrote this beautiful and very disturbing song. It's the lonliest song on the album and sounds like the room we recorded it in.
ACT II
Our hero has now become the big Rock Star that he always fantasized about being, but it's somehow nothing like he thought it would be... Is anything ever?
LET THERE BE ROCK
A pretty damned autobiographical account of my teenaged years, and how partying and going to Arena Rock shows kept me from going off the deep end in High School.
ROAD CASES
When Rock Stars hit it big, they tend to put everything they own in those indestructible road cases (with the name of their band stenciled on them). Unfortunately, fame is a fleeting thing. The records quit selling but the bills keep coming in. Eventually you have to sell the road case to pay off the coke dealer. A fitting parable for fame and fortune if ever there was one.
WOMEN WITHOUT WHISKEY
Cooley's examination of true love and alcoholism (I guess). "You know the bottle ain't to blame and I ain't trying to / It don't make you do a thing it just lets you / When I'm six feet underground I'll need a drink or two / and I'll sure miss you".
PLASTIC FLOWERS ON THE HIGHWAY
One of the more personal songs on the record. It pays tribute to a good friend and comrade Chris Quillen who 4 out of 5 of us played with in the past, and was set to be a member of this band before being killed in a car crash a couple of weeks before our 1st gig. Salute!
CASSIE'S BROTHER
Rob's tribute to Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, backup singer Cassie, both of whom were killed in the plane crash that ended the original lineup of the band on 10/20/77. Kelly Hogan plays the part of Cassie in the song.
LIFE IN THE FACTORY
I wrote this one to tie all of the Act II loose ends together, particularly in regards to the legends surrounding Lynyrd Skynyrd. One of the only songs on the album that is actually about the band itself. It also set the stage for the final scene.
SHUT UP AND GET ON THE PLANE
Another Cooley song. Based on a bit of mythology about Skynyrd that claimed that on that fateful day, Cassie Gaines had actually bought a ticket to fly comercial instead of getting back on the plane (which had had engine trouble in route to Greenville SC the night before). According to legend (and who ever knows what's myth and what's truth) Ronnie VanZant persuaded her to sell her ticket and fly to Baton Rouge with the rest of the band. Ronnie, Cassie, and her brother Steve ware all killed that day in the plane crash. Cooley wrote the song from the point of view that it was still the right decision because "Living in fear's just another way of dying before your time"...Wise words and probably the most important line on the record.
GREENVILLE TO BATON ROUGE
Tells the tale of the actual final flight. For the record, the plane was a 1947 Convair Turbo Prop that had formerly been used as an airliner for Eastern before they moved to an all jet fleet. It was leased from a company in Dallas TX. The band Kiss had formerly leased it and Aerosmith had planned on taking it, but their management was appalled at how shabbily it had been maintained and passed on it.
ANGELS AND FUSELAGE
Set inside the plane after the engines shut down and everything went quiet. Just the sound of the wind over the wings and your own heartbeat. Again, Miss Kelly Hogan plays the part of Cassie.
Decoration Day:
Comments by Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell
1. The Deeper In
Patterson: This song is about the only two people currently serving time in America for consensual brother/sister incest. It is one of the few songs I've written in the third person. Jason plays an electric mandolin through one of Barbe's old Ampeg Gemini amps. The song also marks the return of pedal steel player John Neff, who played on our first two albums and appears on nearly half of this one.
2. Sink Hole
Patterson: "The Accountant", a short film by Ray McKinnon, inspired this song.
The film is a very dark comedy about saving the family farm "by any means necessary".
This incredible movie went on to win the 2002 Academy Award for Best Feature Short.
We recorded Sink Hole live in one take our first day in the studio.
The song itself tells a different story and utilizes the geography of my family's old homestead in North Alabama. At the foot of the McGee Town hill lays an actual thirty-foot deep sinkhole. In the end, the protagonist feels morally justified as he fantasizes about burying the foreclosing banker there.
3. Hell No, I Ain't Happy
Patterson: This song was written on the road in January 2002 (although the title dates back to a year earlier). One night in Northern Florida, we passed a car driving the wrong way down I-10 At the time we were deep into the recording of "Southern Rock Opera", which dealt with dying on the road. This near brush with fate helped me to get past my phobia of getting creamed on the highway.
4. Marry Me
5. My Sweet Annette
Patterson: Two very different views of marital bliss.
With Marry Me, Cooley has written my favorite line on the album:
"Rock and Roll means well but it can't help tellin' young boys lies".
Both benefit from the great harmony vocal talents of our good friend Clay Leverett. Centro-Matic's piano player, Scott Danborn played fiddle on My Sweet Annette.
6. Outfit
Jason: This one focuses on the advice I got growing up, mostly from my father. We recorded the song just before Father's Day and I gave Dad a copy as a present.
I'm really fond of Cooley's psycho solo and Patterson's guitar harmonies toward the end.
7. Heathens
Patterson: This song and Sounds Better in the Song provide the center of gravity for this album.
Heathens was originally to be the title track and it's probably the strongest of the songs that I wrote for this record.
I particularly love the interplay between Cooley's almost Eddie Hinton-esque guitar part juxtaposed against my original chord progression.
Jason put down two tracks of E-Bow guitar, John Neff again plays pedal steel and Scott Danborn again plays fiddle.
"She ain't revved till the rods are thrown".
8. Sounds Better in the Song
"I might as well have put that ring on her finger
from the window of a van as it drove away" - Mike Cooley
9. (Something's Got to) Give Pretty Soon
10. Your Daddy Hates Me
Patterson: Two more songs about divorce and the emotional fallout that follows.
11. Careless
Patterson: This song was written in 1996, following the accidental death of a good friend
12. When the Pin Hits the Shell
13. Do It Yourself
Patterson: Mine and Cooley's somewhat different take on another friend's not-so accidental death.
When the Pin Hits the Shell features veteran keyboardist Spooner Oldham (Aretha Franklin, Neil Young, Bob Dylan) playing what he referred to as his "Star Wars Solo" on the Wurlitzer.
Both of these songs were first takes.
Do It Yourself features a guest appearance from Bob Spires of Athens Ga's incomparable band, The Possibilities.
14. Decoration Day
Jason: This was the first song I wrote after joining the band, and it uses a fictional protagonist to tell a story that's rumored to be true. If a fight goes on long enough, it can be impossible to remember who started it.
I really love the coda. Barbe and the boys turned it into a tornado.
15. Loaded Gun in the Closet
Patterson: Cooley played this song for me a while back and it just had to be the last cut on the record. On an album about choices, it is noteworthy that the gun "stays" in the closet and everyone lives to carry on another day. Seconds after finishing this first take, my Gibson J-40 fell off the stand and broke in two.
Turn it up LOUD!
The Dirty South
The following is a brief rundown of the songs with notes by me (except for where otherwise noted) and a few key lines or verses. - Patterson Hood
WHERE THE DEVIL DON'T STAY
"Tell me why the ones who have so much make the ones who don't go mad
With the same skin stretched over their white bones and the same jug in their hand" *
Mike Cooley wrote this one, based on a poem by his uncle Ed Cooley. Ed got to be there when we recorded it. Think he packed for a long evening of recording, but we'd been playing it live for a year or so and ended up nailing it in one take. Think Ed might have been a little disappointed by that.
TORNADOES
"Pieces of that truck stop, litter up the highway, I been told
And I hear that missing trucker ended up in Kansas
(or maybe it was Oz)." **
I wrote this one back in 1988. It was inspired by two tornadoes, two Music Biz guys from Nashville, one empty theatre, one front-page headline, and "too many goddamned train songs". Way too long a story to go into here. For the really curious, here's a link to the whole dirty story.
THE DAY JOHN HENRY DIED
"That new machine was cheap as hell and only John would work as well,
so they left him laying where he fell the day John Henry died." ***
Jason Isbell: My grandfather used to play and sing to me when I was a kid. "John Henry" was one of our favorites. I was always intrigued by the fact that John beat the steam engine, but didn't live to enjoy his victory.
According to family legend, my grandfather could pick four hundred pounds of cotton in a single day in his prime. When he first heard that men were making money-riding bulls, he hopped on the biggest one he could find and made his brother tie his feet together underneath the animal. Somehow he got loose before he got trampled. He spent years working in a rock wool plant producing the material that was fazed out in favor of the cheaper, safer alternative -- asbestos. He died last year of lung cancer.
PUTTIN' PEOPLE ON THE MOON
"Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon" **
I wrote this one in the van, shortly before we completed the album. Sort of my latest, and best attempt at a song that I've written and re written at least a dozen times since the mid-80's.
This song deals with "rocket envy", a non-diagnosable psychosis affecting people in an economically depressed community, located just 60 or so miles from The NASA Space and Rocket Center.
To make matters worse, our community is downstream from industry, contributing (surely) to our massive cancer rate.
"Mary Alice got cancer just like everybody here
Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year
And we can't afford no insurance, I been ten years unemployed
So she didn't get no chemo so our lives was destroyed
And nothin' ever changes, the cemetery gets more full
And over there in Huntsville, even NASA's shut down too" **
CARL PERKINS' CADILLAC
Cooley's song about the legendary SUN Records folks and the music industry in general.
It took on an extra poignancy last fall with the back to back passing of Sam Phillips and Johnny Cash.
THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
As a kid, I spent every weekend at my Great-Uncle's farm (my family's old homestead) where I rode go-carts and acted out my favorite movie scenes in the woods. George A. is an amazing man (still kicking hard at 84) and I have long tried to capture a glimpse of those times in a song.
During World War II he was drafted and ended up on the island Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. As a curious child, I'd often innocently ask him about all that. One night while watching the old John Wayne movie (The Sands Of Iwo Jima) on TV, he simply said that he "never saw John Wayne over there".
So many of the folks I've written about in this album feel forced into doing terrible things. George A. was no doubt, changed by his experience, but I know him to be easily one of the greatest men I have ever met, thus, making it a much trickier subject to write about.
DANKO / MANUEL
"Got to sinking in the place where I once stood." ***
Jason Isbell: When I started writing this one, I wanted to capture some of Levon Helm's feelings about the deaths (and lives) of Richard Manuel and Rick Danko. The longer I worked on the song, the more impossible that became. I felt like the best I could do was to explain my own attitude toward being a working and traveling musician.
The horn parts came to me in a dream.
THE BOYS FROM ALABAMA
"Don't piss of the Boys from Alabama / Better take it like a man
Ain't nobody gonna stick anything up your ass / If you remember who your friends are" **
TBFA was the first of a series of songs we worked on based (loosely) on some of the folklore surrounding The Redneck Mafia whose exploits have inspired countless books and a few (really bad) movies.
As kids, we all saw some of those movies (the most famous being the original "Walking Tall" from 1973) telling of the good Sheriff Buford Pusser and his battle against the bootleggers.
I never cared for those movies, but there was no denying the cultural phenomenon they became.
It always seemed to me that a far better story lay in "bad guys" point of view.
This year, Hollywood blew its chance to get it right, yet again.
This song could be the opening sequence for the movie I'd like to make about it.
COTTONSEED
"I used to have a wad of hundred dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit
I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot
I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased
And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed
I spent a few years on vacation, sanctioned by the state I mentioned
But a man like me don't do no time too hard to come back from
The meanest of the mean, I see you lock away and toss the key
But they're all just loud mouth punks to me; I've scraped meaner off my shoe
Somewhere, I ain't saying, there's a hole that holds a judge
The last one that I dug myself
And I must admit I was sad to lay him in it, but I did the best I could
Once his Honor grows a conscience, well folks, that there just ain't no good" *
THE BUFORD STICK
"Hit an embankment doing 120 on a straight-away
The Lord works in mysterious ways" **
This was one last stab at the folklore surrounding Sheriff Buford Pusser from the point of view of a man that would just as soon see him dead. I wrote this one in the studio at FAME right before we wrapped the album. It was originally set to be a country type song, but (producer) David Barbe suggested we put the pedal to the floor on it. We love David Barbe.
DADDY'S CUP
"You just wait till them little legs get long enough to reach the gas
Once you put her on the floor one time their ain't no turning back" *
NEVER GONNA CHANGE
"You can throw me in the Colbert County jailhouse / You can throw me off the Wilson Dam
but there ain't much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am
We ain't never gonna change" ***
Jason: This one's pretty self-explanatory. It centers around a North Alabama man who refuses to live in fear. There are quite a few of those.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN
"Who's gonna mow the cemetery when all of my family's gone?" **
Cooley and I have been playing various versions of this song since about 1990 (Adam's House Cat).
It has always been one of our favorites to play, but was a last minute addition to this album.
In the mixing stage, we swapped a song called "Goode's Field Road" for it because we wanted a harder rocker for this spot on the album. GFR was one of my favorites on the album but I stand by this as the better call.
A first take from the FAME sessions.
GODDAMN LONELY LOVE
"Stop me if you've heard this one before:
A man walks into a bar and leaves before his ashes hit the floor.
Stop me if I ever get that far.
The sun's a desperate star that burns like every single one before.
And I could find another dream,
one that keeps me warm and clean
but I ain't dreamin' anymore, I'm waking up.
So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take everything you got
to kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love." ***
Jason Isbell: I tried real hard to come up with a different way of saying this, but it just seemed to fit.
Loneliness can be drowned if you hold it under long enough, but it takes a lot of other things with it.
David Barbe deserves some credit for the way this track turned out. He's a walking encyclopedia of cool old sounds. * Lyrics by Mike Cooley © Wayward Johnson Music (BMI)
** Lyrics by Patterson Hood © Soul Dump Music (BMI)
*** Lyrics by Jason Isbell © House of Fame Music (BMI)
As always: Turn it up.
A Blessing & a Curse
Our most controversial and polarizing album. I'm frequently told it's someone's favorite one of our albums. Then ten minutes later someone tells me how much they hate it. I've been through periods of both emotions at different times myself. Upon listening to it 2+ years later I still have decidedly mixed feelings.
I always loved Big Star and The Replacements and side one is sort of our attempt at making that kind of record. (With a little Faces and Blue Oyster Cult thrown in for good measure). We had an agenda and were trying to find common ground at a time when it was a little hard to come by. I can kinda see why some folks hate it and why some folks love it.
Side two is less controversial to me. Space City is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and A World of Hurt is probably my 2nd favorite song I've written. Wednesday sounds like Adam's House Cat and I always liked that band.
It's hard to write about a cliché without sounding clichéd and the title cut pushes that to the edge. I still don't know if I like that song, but I really love the guitars. Vinyl seems to make the least difference on this one but as I said, side 2 is pretty good.
Trufax: I think there used to be more commentary on this one, like Patterson mentioning that he wrote "A World of Hurt" as a "try to reconcile Jason and Shonna" song and it ended up being kind of an "ending of the relationship and the band" song.
Brighter than Creation's Dark:
An Attempted Song By Song by Patterson Hood
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife was written as a result of trying to make some kind of peace with an unspeakable tragedy that affected so many people I know and love. I was hoping to help with the healing and closure by trying to provide a beautiful song that dwells on the positives of love and family. I knew it was the first song on the album the moment I wrote it.
3 Dimes Down is a Cooley song and he never really discusses any of his lyrics with me or anyone else so I'm not going to do him the disservice of doing so myself except to say Tom T. Hall's "Week in a Country Jail" is certainly worth checking out for a clue. He played me a 4-track demo he recorded of it one night while we were all working on the Bettye LaVette album and I doubled over in laughter. The second verse may be my all-time favorite on a Drive-By Truckers album.
We were almost through tracking this album when I wrote The Righteous Path. It was the missing piece of the puzzle and I knew it immediately. I played it through for everyone once and then we nailed it in one take. Some songs are just meant to be.
Shonna has been writing songs as long as I've known her. She always said that one day she'd bring one or two in for us to possibly perform. I kinda thought she was going to pull one out during the making of our last album but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. The week before we began recording the album, Shonna wrote The Purgatory Line and I'm Sorry Huston. She demoed them in her living room and played them for us when we convened. We were all blown away by what great and beautiful songs they were. A day or two later, she stayed behind while the rest of us went to supper and wrote Home Field Advantage.
Every time I hear Perfect Timing, I pick up on something new in it. It's really a grower and a really good performance. John Neff did a great job with the acoustic guitar solos.
Daddy Needs A Drink really showcases the chemistry we have with Spooner Oldham. His legendary playing has graced some of our favorite records in the world. He co-wrote "I'm Your Puppet" and played on "When A Man Loves A Woman" and Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" and "Do Right Woman". He is the single most creative soul I have ever met and his talent is only exceeded by his charm as he is one of the single sweetest men we have ever met. Every single day on the road and in the studio was brightened by his presence and his contribution to this album is monumental (thus its dedication to him).
Cooley seldom talks about what inspires specific songs, but I was there with him in 1991 and saw Self Destructive Zones play out in living color. I think the imagery about the pawnshops and pointy cheap guitars is priceless. I know Bob and you do too. Everyone knows him and he's probably about as good as they come. I probably know his mother too.
There are things you sometimes have to do in order to do what you got to do. The trick is to not let that thing kill you before you do what you got to do. Some folks don't learn that one in time. The Opening Act began as a song written on the back of a discarded setlist from the headlining band on a sticky table at the shithole bar described within it. The fake bull and faux cowboy were all too real, as was the trip to the hospital for the guy looking for his manhood in all the wrong places. I struggled with an ending for the thing for several years, leaving it behind only to be drawn to it again. It was only with the retrospect offered by a year or two of distance that revealed the song's true meaning to me, thus telling me exactly how to close it out. I like to think of it as a short film without the film. There is nothing like a Technicolor horizon to offer a centerpiece on an album so full of black and white and nighttime skies.
Lisa's Birthday was inspired by a story told to Cooley by our old guitar tech Mark Messner. I think it sounds like pure Country Gold circa 1967.
Two separate backstage visits by almost strangers, each touched in different ways by our American tragedy in Iraq, led to the writing of The Home Front and That Man I Shot. I was only a kid when we were over in Vietnam, but I somehow did learn a lesson or two from it. I never so much wanted to be proven wrong in my beliefs as with our current situation, but the evidence so far seems to support that it ain't working out too good for anybody. Now, we're just trying to save face, at the expense of many young lives that could be ordered to serve our country in more productive ways. Seems our band has some fans over there and we're always moved by the stories of really fine folks who are sacrificing so much for our privileged existence. The man in That Man I Shot probably doesn't agree with a lot of my viewpoints, but I tried to be true to what he said and how he said it. You don't have to agree with someone to respect them and that seemed to run both ways with us. As a writer, it's not my job to agree or disagree and certainly not to judge. It is my job to be as true to the character's voice as humanly possible and to tell the story accordingly. The extended family that inspired The Home Front absolutely broke my heart with their story. I changed the names and some details but again tried to be true to the spirit of what they told me.
Wanted to be true also to that guy riding to his destiny in the back of a rented car in the middle of the night to a destination that he thinks will be the answer to all his problems. It was an ageless story with a different twist. Insurance money for the family seemed like a better option than the kind of prison awaiting him. A thousand decisions had led him there and it wasn't my place to question them. There isn't an actual road called Goode's Field Road but if you grew up where I did you know exactly where it is. Some of the best stories aren't really for the telling and the best songs come from the details and spaces locked within.
I wrote this song in 2000 and planned it for The Dirty South album, but at the last minute decided we didn't have the magic take and swapped it for Lookout Mountain. The song has been on my mind ever since but its transition from the mannered country of its original version to the raging primal stomp we landed on here (one magic take) made all the difference and once again proved to me that all things happen for a reason, you just have to trust your instincts (if they seem to be good ones at least) and let things reveal themselves in their own due time.
You And Your Crystal Meth was recorded for A Blessing and A Curse but voted off the album. I was quite unhappy about it until I realized how perfect it sits between Checkout Time in Vegas and Goode's Field Road. We used the old take exactly as it was. I think that take was when I knew that John Neff HAD to rejoin this band. Our beloved producer David Barbe played an extra big part in the creation of that song too.
Checkout Time in Vegas was inspired by the true-life story of our dear friend Scott Baxendale. He builds guitars for a living (he's currently working on a second one for me and a third one for Cooley). He is also a talented screenwriter and documentary director. The story this song alludes to is the basis for an excellent screenplay that he has been trying to get filmed. He became convinced that Johnny Depp should play his character (I want him to maybe play me too for that matter) and went to great lengths to get him a copy. He filmed these great lengths and made a documentary about it all, which recently was screened at The Hollywood Film Festival to rave reviews. He is currently negotiating a distribution deal for it. This guy is amazing and you should play one of his guitars. We meet the most unbelievable people out there on the road.
Cooley closes his set with A Ghost to Most, which I am firmly convinced is the best song he's ever written. We worked it up in practice for The Dirt Underneath Tour and it quickly became one of the standout tunes of each show. The chorus reveals an image so basic and simple yet each listen reveals another layer of story implied within. I overheard Cooley being asked by a friend what it all meant and his response was how "It's really hard for me to find a suit that fits me right."
The album closes with The Monument Valley and the classic imagery from John Ford's immortal masterpiece The Searchers as the door closes on John Wayne's walk off into the desolate beauty of a disappearing America. Ford may have been America's greatest ever filmmaker and repeated viewings of his work reveals insights into our psyche that have never been expressed better. For me it's an extremely personal song and it was a magical take that night in the studio. I knew that it would be the last song on the album the moment I wrote it.
I often write liner notes for our albums and worked most of the summer on a set juxtaposing the two backstage meetings last year. One with the three Green Berets soldiers who had returned home and the other with the family of the soldier who didn't. Those two events played a large part on the writing of this album and I plan to get around to writing about something else pertaining to all of it at a later time.
The Big To-Do
1. Daddy Learned To Fly
I wrote this song after the death of a friend of mine a few years ago. It was written from the point of view of a child missing his Dad and trying to understand it all. I actually wrote it on a cross-country flight during a very long tour and while missing my own child. I kinda had the idea of it for a while but was struggling with the reality of actually writing it. Once it came together, it happened really fast.
We usually track our songs live and in minimal takes and this one was especially quick in the studio. I think everyone felt it right away and we had it in a take or two.
2. The Fourth Night Of My Drinking
Wrote this one in my office, which is just off from my kitchen at my house in Athens, GA. It's a pretty self-explanatory snapshot of binge drinking taken to a nearly "Leaving Las Vegas" extreme. I used to binge drink quite a bit in my younger days but never tended towards violence. I was always a sweet drunk, although vodka could make me quite belligerent in a comical way. My wife asked me not to drink vodka around her. Never serve white liquor to a redneck.
We spent some time tracking this one, as it originally had a slower intro that bogged it down and it took a bit of time to figure out that it needed dropping. After the basic track I asked Jay Gonzalez (who's now playing keys in the band) to add a horror movie organ part and he lit up like a Christmas tree and immediately nailed the part that's on the record.
I wanted to shoot a video that was part take off / tribute to the old "Dark Shadows" TV show for it, but we'll have to see what happens.
3. Birthday Boy
This was the last song written and recorded for the album. We had already mastered the finished album when Cooley wrote this, which to me provided the one missing element of the album. Not sure of Cooley's motivation and don't want to speak for him except to say the song involves an "awkward" lap dance and Miss Trixie was the character that Madeleine Kahn played in Paper Moon, which is one of our favorite films. In the movie she tells Tatum O'Neal's character to "Let Miss Trixie sit up front with her big ole titties." One of the funniest lines in movie history.
We came home from the road and cut, mixed and mastered this really quickly so that it could make the final cut. I love playing in this band.
4. Drag The Lake Charlie
Not sure what inspired this one. It just kinda played out like a scene from a movie in my head and I just wrote it down. When Wes Freed (our beloved friend who does all of our art work) heard it, he immediately pictured that great scene from The Night of the Hunter where Shelly Winters' dead body is sitting in that old car underwater with seaweed flowing in her hair.
This was the first song we tracked for the album and it kinda set the tone for how the album was going to sound sonically. We wanted to do a "Big Rock" album since our last one was so swampy.
5. The Wig He Made Her Wear
I write about this one in the liner notes. It is based on a real murder that happened in Selmer, TN a few years ago. A prominent preacher in town was shot by his wife and her defense attorney played on the mores and religiousness of the town, successfully I might add, as she was basically handed a suspended sentence and within a couple of years had her kids back. As I've said before, I try hard to never be judgmental about the stories I tell.
When the story broke, we were touring in Norway and I actually saw it on the news over there. The fact that it was all happening about 35 miles from my hometown got my attention. To drive home the fact that I would have to write about it, I have never watched Court TV in my life and happened to be watching it the morning they presented her defense. When they held up the wig, shoes and special outfit he'd make her wear when they had sex, you could literally hear the gasp in the courtroom and I knew she was going to walk. I let the story percolate in my head for a couple of years and wrote it on a Sunday night right before we began tracking the album.
If my memory serves me right, the tracking of this song was one magical take, Everyone just knew exactly where to go with it. Johnny plays that beautiful sleezy slide part and Cooley plays what I refer to as the "Beat It" guitar throughout with the "Purple Rain" sounding soloing at the end. One of my favorite things this band has ever done.
6. You Got Another
One of my favorite things about this band is its messy democracy and open-endedness. Watching Shonna grow into her expanded roles within the band has been a blast. She came in with a really cool sounding demo of this that she cut at home and we all enthusiastically climbed on board.
We tracked this one live in the studio with Shonna playing the piano facing us. Jay played the B3 on the basic then added the Mellotron later. I've always loved Big Star's "Kangaroo" and have always wanted a Mellotron on an album. Johnny plays the Juice Harp during the chorus. This one is going to be a showstopper when we work it up live.
7. This Fucking Job
I wrote this one in my office shortly before the economic collapse of last 2008. I came out of a several year drought of songwriting and wrote about three albums worth of songs for this project but I always knew that this one would be for The Big To-Do.
I never forget how lucky I am to get to do what I love so much as a job and career. I also never forget that it almost never happened and happened only after a lot of sacrifice and some gut wrenching decisions that at the time seemed very foolish to anyone looking for tangible evidence of our reasons. Cooley and I were in our 30's when we started this band. We hit the road with a vengeance that went way beyond obsession and at a pace of much younger bands. At the same time, coming home meant working shitty jobs to pay off the debt that touring at that level incurred (plus some of us were married and everyone had to eat). I can still remember a soul-searching decision where we just decided to go for broke and try to make all of this happen. We didn't really have much chance of making all of this work out to a point of actually making a living at it but decided to do it anyway.
We worked really hard, made some right moves but inevitably we also got lucky and I still go to bed knowing that my shitty old day job is still nipping at my heels and with children in the picture we certainly couldn't be so cavalier in waging it all on some pipe dream.
8. Get Downtown
From day one, this band has gotten lucky with Cooley and I showing up with songs covering similar themes from different points of view and this one connects with "This Fucking Job" in unintended and beautiful ways. I love the conversational lyrics and the back and forth between Kim and Jimmy. I feel like I know them (and probably do).
We had fun cutting it. I especially love the old school battle of the guitars / piano soloing. We used to do that kind of thing a lot and haven't in a while. Having Jay in the loop has taken it to a new level.
9. After The Scene Dies
This one predates the other songs on this album. I actually wrote it on the road during The Black Crowes tour we did back in 2006. We worked it up acoustically and played it during The Dirt Underneath Tour in 2007 and took a few stabs at it for Brighter Than Creation's Dark but never had a take we liked and also just felt like it didn't fit that album (which it didn't).
We've been on the road long enough to see clubs and venues come and go. Every so often we lose a really good one and it's always sad. A "scene" is a fragile thing and sometimes success can kill one as fast as failure. (The same could be said for bands too). I moved to Athens 16 years ago because of the amazing music scene here and have watched it change but continue to thrive. Same time, I see the gentrification of downtown and always fear that a beloved venue will become a parking deck. That's what I wrote this song about.
Shortly after we recorded this song, The Georgia Theatre burned down. Ironically, there was already a plan in place to build a mammoth parking deck, basically surrounding it. Fortunately, my community is rallying and it appears like they will be able to rebuild. I sure hope so.
10. (It's Gonna Be) I Told You So
We were all thrilled when Shonna came in with this kickass rocker. To me it is one part Motown, one part early Pretenders, maybe even a little Wall of Sound girl-group heyday.
We tracked it with Shonna on guitar and David Barbe playing bass. The (World Famous) Bottom Feeders (USA) came by to sing backup. Oh Boy!
11. Santa Fe
I've been writing songs since I was 8 years old and I'm still as perplexed by it's mysteries as ever. Maybe even more so since I probably figured I would have figured it out by now. Sometimes I'll go six months without writing a damned thing and then one day for no apparent reason I'll write several songs in a row. I don't multi-task very well so when I'm in writing mode, I'm seriously not any good for anything else. I'll forget words to songs I know and forget where I put my keys. I have to be really careful crossing streets.
We were parked at the venue in Santa Fe last year waiting to sound check and sitting around on the bus and I wrote the first half of this song. I was interrupted by a visit from a friend and during the visit, he told me a story so intense that I wrote another song based on it five minutes after he left (a song called "Ray's Automatic Weapon" which we have already recorded for our next album) then went back to this one and finished it right after sound check.
This song wasn't based on anything literal happening that day, but I felt like it captured the homesickness and loneliness that often accompanies doing what I love so. We were on The Home Front Tour shortly after the release of Brighter Than Creation's Dark and the Midwest was flooded. We were ending that tour in Des Moines and there was talk that day of having to cancel due to the venue being underwater. It all worked out and we ended up having a great time there.
We spent a little extra time figuring out how we wanted this one to sound and tried several slants and arrangements before locking in on this one. I felt like it was a day very well spent and I think Johnny and Cooley play some extra cool shit on this track.
12. The Flying Wallendas
My favorite movie of 2008 was Man On Wire about that crazy Frenchman who walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974. I ended up reading Philippe Petit's autobiography about it also, all of which made me start thinking about The Flying Wallendas, who had fascinated me as a kid. My Grandparents did in fact live two doors down from one of the surviving Wallendas in Sarasota when I was a kid. I first became aware of their story from a TV movie that I saw when I was probably around 8 or 9 (around the same time as Petit's famous walk).
I've never been much of a daredevil. Crossing streets sometimes makes me nervous. However, watching that madman describe his obsession and blind pursuit of his dream totally hit a nerve in me. Maybe several. We were already calling the album The Big To-Do before we started recording it. Shonna came up with that title back when we were recording our last album and we all agreed that it would make a great album title (just not that album). It never really had anything to do with circuses but always seemed to imply the show, whatever kind of show. The preacher in the small town was putting on a show. (One could argue the parallels between the church and the Rock Show all day long). We had the clubs closing and the homesickness and somehow all of that led me to write this one about the actual show.
The next day we recorded it and the day after that my friend Jason Thrasher gave me a book on The Ringling Brothers. Jay Gonzalez did an amazing job singing harmony on this one.
13. Eyes Like Glue
This gem of a Cooley song was inspired by something his son said to him a few months ago. I think it's a beautiful song and it certainly speaks for my feelings for my children as well. I would think it speaks pretty well for anyone with children and families and all of the weighty decisions that accompany them.
The Big To-Do Art
This album is the seventh one in a row that has featured artwork by our dear friend Wes Freed. He and his wife Jyl live in Richmond, VA and have been a part of our family for nearly as long as we've had this band. We never tell him what to draw and often give him no input at all, yet he always seems to find some subtext, often one we didn't know was there, that he brings out and runs with.
I think that the relationship has hit a new level on this album, as he basically illustrated every song. He honed in on the circus allusions on The Rock Show and how it all could be tied together in The Big To-Do. As I've said, a lot of this one was written on the road and it has a movement in it that reflects that. Wes picked up on that and ran with it.
Recording The Big To-Do
This album marks the seventh album we've made with David Barbe. (He mixed Alabama Ass Whuppin' and co-produced Southern Rock Opera also, but didn't start from the ground up on one until Decoration Day). It's a partnership that rivals any within the band itself. David is a consummate artist as a player, producer and engineer (as well as parent and baseball coach, both of which are sometimes called for in making our records). There is also a trust between us that can't be quantified and a communication that often helps break through barriers of dysfunction in uncanny ways.
We began recording in January of 2009 and reconvened a couple of times as the year progressed. We actually cut 26 songs (so far) but fairly quickly surmised that it would be best to divide them into two albums (The Big To-Do and Go-Go Boots) and work on finishing The Big To-Do first. We will piddle with the remainders for a while between tours until we have it like we want it and release it at the appropriate time.
Sonically, as a band, we've always resisted trendy sounds and production techniques. They certainly have their place in the grand scheme of things and sometimes in my personal record collection but we've always maintained a preference to record this band in an old school way. Analog, on a sixteen-track tape machine onto 2" tape; then mixed to another tape machine (1/2" two-track stereo). We run a computer simultaneously so that we always have a tape running in case something accidental and beautiful happens and so we never have to ask if it was on but we prefer to get the sounds in as natural a way as possible. The reverb comes from two custom-built plate reverb chambers that David keeps at his studio. David actually has a working Mellotron and our friends in Widespread Panic loaned us their beautiful B-3 for Jay to play.
Our preferred format upon completion is on 180gm vinyl and we spared no expense having Stan Ricker half speed master it onto the lathe and having R.T.I. manufacture the actual record. The vinyl version with its gatefold sleeved album cover (beautifully laid out from Wes' art by my sister Lilla Hood, who has done all of our album art design since Southern Rock Opera) is the absolute best way to enjoy this record. We have also included a CD in the vinyl version so you can listen to it in your car and download it into your iPod. ENJOY!
All information (except the Trufax stuff) taken from The Drive By Trucker's Website. Go there. Support them. They're awesome.