Patterson Hood is singer/guitarist/songwriter for the band Drive-by Truckers. He has produced albums for artists like Bettye LaVette and Jason Isbell; as well as performed with Booker T., Cracker, Widespread Panic, and Michael Stipe.
Q: Are these going to be like your previous solo shows where you split pretty evenly between solo material and Drive-by Truckers’ songs?
Patterson Hood: It’s going to be pretty much solo stuff. I don’t expect to be doing any Truckers stuff…well I might do one song or somethin’, but the show’s going to be centered around the songs from Murdering Oscar; and maybe a few songs from Killers & Stars flushed out with a full band. Because I recorded Killers & Stars by myself with an acoustic guitar, so I’m kinda lookin’ forward to pluggin’ in and playin’ full band versions of some of those songs, too. This is a great band, The Screwtopians is a fucking hot band, ya’ know? So I’m excited to take them out and spend a couple of weeks playin’ songs with that line-up. This is the first time David Barbe has toured since Sugar broke-up in ’95. He went out with me for a weekend about a year ago, and we actually played Nashville show at the Mercy Lounge together on that little run, but he hasn’t done anything past a long weekend of touring since Sugar broke-up. So I’m really excited about that because he is such a great player. He’s known, now, mostly for what he does in the studio as a producer and engineer, but he is a phenomenal bass player and performer, so it’s going to be fun. And of course Will Scott, who’s in Centro-Matic, and that’s been my favorite band for a number of years. I’m an uber-fan of their band so having him at my disposal is going to be amazing; and he’s going to be opening solo, so that’s cool. That’s always a great show.
Q: Are you all working up any surprises for the audience, covers, etc.?
PH: Oh yeah, but I can’t tell ya’ or it won’t be a surprise. [He laughs] But yeah, we’ve got a couple things up our sleeve. The only hint I’ll give ya’ is: they probably come from the 70’s. But we’ve got a small list of songs we’re gonna work up to throw in, and I think they’ll be a lot of fun.
Q: You’ve come through
PH: It’s kinda hard for me to believe that I’ve never played
Q: [Jason] Isbell (former singer/songwriter/guitarist for DBT) once told me that you won’t play “The Assassin” in concert, why is that?
PH: I don’t know I might work it up, one of these days, again. I like the song, but I kinda like what Jason does with it better. He plays it in his show with his band, and I’m really honored that he still does that song. From what I understand he’s still doing it. I really like the version he did, he even recorded a version of it for his first record, and then ended up taking it off. But it was a really cool version of it. So I’ve always told him, “ya’ know, you can have that one, man. As long as you wanna play it, it’s kinda your song.” But I don’t know, I might work it up again, at some point, with the band. I was in such weird state of mind at that time, when I made that record and wrote that song. It’s kinda like it’s not a really happy memory for me, so I don’t usually play it very often. I probably oughtta learn it and work it up, at some point, again. It is a pretty good song, I guess.
Q: What are you reading?
PH: I just finished reading a book on the history of the Wringling Brothers, and it was really interesting. I’ve been trying to finish Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, but it’s been taking me a long time, I keep putting it down, because I just have to take a break from it. It’s great, it’s just not an easy read. I have so many distractions with the band, the solo thing happening, my family at home, and all of that – reading something that’s that consuming, is hard for me to find the time to do it justice. So I kinda have to keep putting it down, maybe if I go on a vacation or somethin’ I’ll be able to finish it. But I read Wringling Brothers book the way to
Q: Are there any artists or bands out there that are exciting you right now, except Centro-matic of course?
PH: The thing about Centro-Matic is that a lot of people just don’t know about them, and it’s just a damn shame to me, I think they should be a much bigger band. They are a band that should be selling out much bigger rooms, and it’s just criminal, to me, that they aren’t better known; because they are phenomenal.
But yeah, there’s a ton of great stuff floatin’ around. I’ve been listening to the new P.J. Harvey record, and I listen to the new Wilco record a lot. There’s a younger punk rock band in
Q: Do you all have any plans to release the Adam’s House Cat album, or re-release Alabama Ass Whuppin’?
PH: I wanna put both of those out, real bad. If I do okay on this record, the little label I did this with, Ruth St. Records, will put out the Adam’s House Cat record next and maybe they’ll put out Alabama Ass Whuppin’ too. I definitely want to do something with both of those. And it’s kind of shame not to. It’s more of a timing issue than anything, because I will have been a part of five new releases in the last year, by January when the new Drive-by Truckers album comes out. There’s the Booker T record we did that came out in April; there’s a Drive-by Truckers Live at Austin City Limits DVD coming out in July; an album of rarities and outtakes from the [band’s tenure with New West Records] called The Fine Print comes out September 1st; and of course my album is coming out in a couple weeks; and we just finished tracking the new Truckers record, we’ve got twenty-five new songs for that, and it’ll be out either the end of this year or the beginning of next. So it’s kind of a full slate.
But next year will be 25 years since the beginning of Adam’s House Cat and the 20th anniversary of when we recorded Town Burned Down, so that might be a good time to put that out. It will also be the 10th anniversary for Alabama Ass Whuppin’.
Q: You just gave a synapses of what the immediate future holds for you. What do you think you’re going to do with 25 songs for the new record? Do a double album or what?
PH: We’ll whittle it down to one, I think. We might do a special edition version that has everything on it or something like that. But we’ll definitely be whittling it down to a more manageable length for the general release. Of course, I don’t know exactly what that means yet, that’s the hard part, figuring out what stays behind. It’s pretty strong; it’s really looking like its going to be a good one.
Q: Shonna [Tucker, the band’s singer/songwriter/bassist] really came into her own on he last album.
PH: Wheeeew! You just wait, you just wait. She’s got some badass shit on this one. Her growth has just been phenomenal to watch, I’m really proud of her.
Q: I saw they are going to do a documentary about the Muscle Shoals Studio Band, for whom your father played bass, are you going to be a part of that at all?
PH: I don’t know. My dad certainly is. If they end up wanting to talk to me about anything, I’ll be happy to tell ‘em what I saw. I mean, I didn’t see a lot, because I was a kid and I wasn’t really allowed to hang-out over there or anything. But I’ve got a pretty good grasp for the history about it all, because I’ve been obsessed with it for so long. So I don’t know, if they want to talk to me, I’d be willing to for sure.
I’m as curious as the next guy about it, but I’m really happy it’s happening, because someone’s really been needing to do it for a long time. I hope that Spooner [Oldham DBT’s keyboardist, and former Muscle Shoals Studio player] getting inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame this year, maybe will lead to the rhythm section getting inducted sometime, at some point, in the future. They’ve inducted Spooner and they’ve inducted Booker T & The MG’s, so I hope at some point they’ll get around to inducting the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. I think they deserve it.
Q: Well, I think you all deserve it when your time comes.
PH: Well, bless ya’. Thank ya’. I don’t know if I’ll ever see that day but I’m really proud of what we’re doing. I think we’re really doing good work. The Fact that we’re finishing up our tenth album and It think it’ll easily be as good or better than anything we’ve ever done; which is good, because not many bands are still interesting on their tenth record, so I’m pretty proud of that, that I actually think we’re still getting better.
Q: Is it fair to say that your working relationship with Cooley, that spans twenty-five years and two bands, is more than just friends or band mates?
PH: Maybe it’s like
Check out the latest solo release from Patterson Hood, Murdering Oscar (and other love songs). Available now.
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