Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's been nearly four years since Drive By Truckers
Speaker 1: released They're Pissed Off, politically charged album American band. That
Speaker 1: record was their rebel yell, full of songs that reflected
Speaker 1: life and injustice during the Trump era, and judging from
Speaker 1: their latest release, The Unraveling, it's clear the Drive By
Speaker 1: Truckers have moved from anger into a state of grief.
Speaker 1: The Unraveling is the Drive By Trucker's twelfth album. The
Speaker 1: band's two lead vocalists, Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, both
Speaker 1: grew up in rural Alabama. Patterson's dad, David Hood, was
Speaker 1: the basis for The Swampers, one of the most famous
Speaker 1: studio house bands of all time, who are officially known
Speaker 1: as the Muscle Shoals rhythm section the backed artist I
Speaker 1: could read the Franklin, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and
Speaker 1: Paul Simon, but Patterson explains to Bruce Headlam in this
Speaker 1: interview why he never talked about his dad's until he
Speaker 1: was in his thirties. Patterson and Mike also played songs
Speaker 1: from the new album, most of which are protest songs
Speaker 1: inspired by the current political climate and conversations they've had
Speaker 1: to have with their kids about it, and as you'll hear,
Speaker 1: they've had to rethink their live set lists after fans
Speaker 1: started waiving the Confederate flags at a festival they were
Speaker 1: playing alongside one of their favorite rappers. This is broken
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Here's Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood in conversation with Bruce
Speaker 1: had them. We're here with Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood,
Speaker 1: who for more than twenty years have been the leaders
Speaker 1: and songwriters for Drive by Truckers. Songwriters doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: quite capture it almost You guys have been so prolific,
Speaker 1: and you write with such strong themes, it's easy. You're
Speaker 1: almost to think of you as novelists with guitars. I
Speaker 1: think because you've done so much work. Uh tell me
Speaker 1: where this song came from. The song came from a
Speaker 1: stopover on an off ramp off ninety outside of Gilette, Wyoming.
Speaker 1: And uh, I don't I don't write a lot on
Speaker 1: the run. I don't write a lot of songs on
Speaker 1: the road because it tends to be hard with on
Speaker 1: a bus with you know, eleven people and and all
Speaker 1: the loud noises and music playing and stuff. But um,
Speaker 1: but we uh were on our way from Sioux Falls,
Speaker 1: South Dakota to Missoula and uh taking the required the
Speaker 1: legally required bus stop where the driver hopefully sleeps for
Speaker 1: a few hours. And those pretty good laws. We've seen
Speaker 1: the other side. We've seen the other side. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've seen naught abiding by them. Yeah. We we had
Speaker 1: a driver one time go for Minneapolis to Seattle non stop.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know if he pete. I
Speaker 1: mean he just went and uh and it was a
Speaker 1: little terrifying, but uh, but so were. We were stopped
Speaker 1: at a holiday in express Us on an off ramp.
Speaker 1: I mean it could just as easily have been somewhere
Speaker 1: in Alabama or Arizona other than how cold it was.
Speaker 1: And uh, because it was wintertime. It was January, and
Speaker 1: it was it was nice and cold, and we were hungry,
Speaker 1: and we were walking to uh going to walk to
Speaker 1: this like Mexican restaurant a couple of blocks away. There
Speaker 1: was the only thing on that off ramp that wasn't
Speaker 1: a chain and uh there was like three stars on yelp,
Speaker 1: you know, sold and uh and we met in the
Speaker 1: lobby and we were walking when I walked out of
Speaker 1: the door with like patches of snow and ice. You know,
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, our buses parked under this giant
Speaker 1: billboard that said the Oasis Tanning Salon. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how that became a song, but by the time
Speaker 1: we got to the restaurant, I wrote the first verse
Speaker 1: on a napkin, and after I ate, I went back
Speaker 1: to the hotel room, in our motel room and wrote
Speaker 1: the rest of the song that afternoon, And that kind
Speaker 1: of opened the floodgates for the songs that I wrote
Speaker 1: on this album, because I, up to that point, was
Speaker 1: having a real hard time wrapping my head around how
Speaker 1: I wanted to approach writing about this crazy time that
Speaker 1: we're all trying to live through right now. You know,
Speaker 1: your last album, American Band was also written about an
Speaker 1: earlier part of the crazier time, back in the good
Speaker 1: old days when we thought it Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: parts of that album seem to be written more in
Speaker 1: sorrow than an anger. Um, you seem to have become
Speaker 1: a little easier with your anger in this one. It's
Speaker 1: a tough, tough album. It's it's funny because I because
Speaker 1: I almost almost if taken the opposite thought on I
Speaker 1: love hearing that, hearing it. I love here how different
Speaker 1: people gauge it and react to it, you know, because
Speaker 1: because from my point of view, I thought of the
Speaker 1: last record is more the angry one, and this is
Speaker 1: more just the sad one. It's just like, now, now,
Speaker 1: what what do we do now? You know? And uh,
Speaker 1: so so much of the so many of the songs
Speaker 1: I wrote on this record were directly inspired by conversations
Speaker 1: with my kids and uh, trying to raise your family,
Speaker 1: and you know, in all of this and uh and
Speaker 1: and you know, the questions they had about different things,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to you know, my kids about the
Speaker 1: lockdown drill they had in school, you know, and and
Speaker 1: uh and my son had all these questions about, you know,
Speaker 1: if if someone was going to take him away from
Speaker 1: his mommy and I and put him in a cage
Speaker 1: and a holding. I mean, he was literally he was
Speaker 1: worried about that, you know. And and you know, first
Speaker 1: I comforted him and told him that that wasn't going
Speaker 1: to happen, which led to the real uncomfortable, unpleasant conversation
Speaker 1: about why you know, and and you know the fact
Speaker 1: that you know they aren't taking little white kids away
Speaker 1: from their parents and doing that, and uh and and
Speaker 1: the look on his face as you could see him
Speaker 1: trying to wrap his head around that concept, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was just heartbreaking to me, you know, and that
Speaker 1: that directly led to you know, at least one if
Speaker 1: not more, of the songs on the record, and some
Speaker 1: of the songs and what you just played is not
Speaker 1: an example of that, but a lot of the songs
Speaker 1: take the form of really protest songs. Yeah, in a
Speaker 1: very old fashioned way, which is something of the departure
Speaker 1: for you guys. Yeah, I guess you know, we've always
Speaker 1: I've always thought of our band as political, and and
Speaker 1: my songs is is political. But you know, so often
Speaker 1: it was like done in the form of telling a story,
Speaker 1: often a story said in a different time and place,
Speaker 1: you know, almost like the Chinatown, you know, the way
Speaker 1: the movie Chinatown used the thirties noir you know, format
Speaker 1: to to tell to talk about, you know, what was
Speaker 1: going on at that time in the seventies, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh so, uh so I always kind of took
Speaker 1: that approach, you know. I mean I considered Southern rock
Speaker 1: opera to be a very very political record, you know,
Speaker 1: with all of the George Wallace stuff and all that
Speaker 1: and uh, but but starting with American Band, we've been
Speaker 1: we made a kind of very conscious decision that that
Speaker 1: record in this last one are set right now, and
Speaker 1: there isn't there isn't some story to you know, necessarily,
Speaker 1: you know, he's the he's the he's you into it. Um,
Speaker 1: we are going to get back to politics, but I
Speaker 1: do want to ask you just a bit about the
Speaker 1: making of the album itself. Uh, you went to Memphis
Speaker 1: for this, yes, so tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: We went to Sam Phillips Recording Service, uh studio that went. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, of course Sam. Sam's actually from our hometown.
Speaker 1: He grew up. He grew up two farms over from
Speaker 1: my grandmother. They're the same age, and they went to
Speaker 1: elementary school together even and uh, you know, of course
Speaker 1: he moved to Memphis and you know, basically discovered rock
Speaker 1: and roll and and Sun Studios and Elvis and Carl
Speaker 1: Perkins and all of that. And and around nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: or so when he sold Sun Records and the Sun Studios,
Speaker 1: he took his money and he built like his dream studio.
Speaker 1: And so that's the place where we recorded our record.
Speaker 1: It's like a time capsule from like nineteen sixty two basically, uh,
Speaker 1: with with some early seventies updates here or there, and
Speaker 1: uh some amazing old tube gear and just and those
Speaker 1: echo chambers. He designed and built three different echo chambers
Speaker 1: of different sizes into the actual building. And so we're
Speaker 1: like running our stuff through though echo chambers and really
Speaker 1: digging the way it sounded and kind of being inspired
Speaker 1: by did it changed to the sound of this album
Speaker 1: from other albums? I think it did. I think I
Speaker 1: think a combination of that and just you know, how
Speaker 1: the band's evolved too, because uh, you know, because uh,
Speaker 1: we've been you know, we we've we haven't had any
Speaker 1: kind of a personnel lineup change or anything for about
Speaker 1: eight years now. And uh, and so this this incarnation
Speaker 1: of the band is just really really jailed in a
Speaker 1: way that I don't think we were ever able to
Speaker 1: quite achieve before because in our more tumultuous earlier days. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I heard there was a celebrity setting there. There was, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: Um Peter Grownick, who wrote the Sam Phillips book, came
Speaker 1: and visited us, and uh, and he had Mick Jagger
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, okay, but did you talk to Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger there or yeah, a little bit for for a second,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, um, we knew that Peter was
Speaker 1: coming and uh and of course I'd read I'd read
Speaker 1: as Sam Phillips book. I've read probably all his books
Speaker 1: and uh, and so i knew he was coming, and
Speaker 1: I was looking forward to meeting him. And we're seeing him.
Speaker 1: I've met him before, seeing him again. But uh, and
Speaker 1: then when Mike Jagger stuck his head in, it was, uh,
Speaker 1: it was it was a bit of a trip, all bad.
Speaker 1: You know. The song you just played describes, uh, sort
Speaker 1: of how homogeneous sort of the American landscape has become.
Speaker 1: You guys grew up in a in a very particular
Speaker 1: part of Alabama. Now, when you say Alabama to most Northerners,
Speaker 1: they have a certain idea and it's probably Birmingham or
Speaker 1: Mobile or football or oil or whatever it is. My cousin, Ben,
Speaker 1: cousin Benny, was that in Alabama? Yeah? Okay, Um, they're
Speaker 1: not thinking Emmy Lou Harris or you know, any of
Speaker 1: the people who are actually from there. What was what
Speaker 1: was that part of Alabama? Let growing up. I mean
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, it was it was kind
Speaker 1: of isolated in a way because there's no major highway
Speaker 1: through our town. There's a pretty major waterway through there
Speaker 1: as far as the Tennessee River, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of barges that floated through. But you know, the closest
Speaker 1: airport of any size, you know, was at least two
Speaker 1: hours away, and the interstate was an hour away. And
Speaker 1: and uh, we're kind of right between three cities. It's
Speaker 1: about two to three hours away. Birmingham and Nashville and
Speaker 1: Memphis were kind of right in the middle of of
Speaker 1: the you know, of that triangle. But yeah, the Shoals area,
Speaker 1: it's four cities all that border each other. But I
Speaker 1: would describe the four of them collectively as a small
Speaker 1: town with a lot more people in it than you
Speaker 1: usually see in a small town. But it's still very
Speaker 1: much a big small town, right. Yeah. And it also
Speaker 1: I mean to the rest of the world because of
Speaker 1: Muscle Shoals where your fatherhood played for years and years
Speaker 1: and some of the greatest soul records ever. Right Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger came to his studio too. Yeah, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the you know, they the Stones recorded brown sugar and
Speaker 1: wild horses and you got to move there. And uh
Speaker 1: but um, and at that time, I mean it was
Speaker 1: a dry county. You know, it was when I when
Speaker 1: we were growing up, it was still a dry county.
Speaker 1: Was almost in high school before we had illegal alcohol
Speaker 1: was right there. Yeah yeah, so uh wow, so it
Speaker 1: was time. Yeah, they saw you coming. Yeah, they needed
Speaker 1: to raising taxes. Always say the best thing for you know,
Speaker 1: for a hard drinking teenagers to live in a dry
Speaker 1: county because the bootleggers don't care how old you are,
Speaker 1: you know, and if you don't and you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't have legal liquor, then you're just gonna have
Speaker 1: illegal liquor. I mean it's no, it's not like you're
Speaker 1: gonna keep anyone from doing what they want to do.
Speaker 1: There's a certain image, you know, musically, at least of
Speaker 1: kind of racial harmony. Um, people associate with muscle shoals, right. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a place that great soul records were made by,
Speaker 1: you know, by racial bands. And well I guess the
Speaker 1: band itself was mainly white, but yeah, they were artists
Speaker 1: mainly white, at least at least Dad's group. Some of
Speaker 1: the some of the later groups, it got a little
Speaker 1: more integrated. But uh, but yeah, I mean, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: my in the heart of the George Wallace era, my
Speaker 1: dad was making his living backing up Aretha Franklin and
Speaker 1: Wilson Pickett and Bobby Womack, Atta James and you know,
Speaker 1: all these amazing records that came out of there. And uh,
Speaker 1: and yet you know, at times, especially in the earlier days,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think some of the you know,
Speaker 1: some of the African American artists that were recording there
Speaker 1: were particularly comfortable going out and having dinner. You know,
Speaker 1: when some of the restaurants there, I think it got
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't nearly as bad there as like
Speaker 1: what you see from like burning Ham and and you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have Bull Connor and you know, they weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily seeking police dogs on people, but it still was
Speaker 1: a closed minded, you know, bibble Belt religious. I used
Speaker 1: to have to pass by there was a radio station
Speaker 1: pretty much from where I lived to get to anywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a black owned AM radio station. So the
Speaker 1: w ZZ A the soul of the shows, and it
Speaker 1: very often it wasn't uncommon at all to pass by
Speaker 1: there and see that it had been vandalized again. Um,
Speaker 1: some kind of racist epitap spray painted on the door,
Speaker 1: you know. So yeah, you had both you right, you
Speaker 1: had you had a little of both worlds. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: is it is it changed in a way that we'd
Speaker 1: recognize from the song you just played? Is it become
Speaker 1: more commodified in big box? I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of gotten cool in a way because they've you know,
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, like the whole music thing
Speaker 1: that was happening, there was a secret. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was almost like a secret society. I mean I learned
Speaker 1: really early on that I didn't go to school and
Speaker 1: talk about what my dad did. It was not something
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about at school because if
Speaker 1: if he were my dad, that was literally all I
Speaker 1: would talk about it. Even today. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: I was like thirty before all of a sudden, I realized, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think it's okay for me to talk about my
Speaker 1: dad now. But but it was kind of like a
Speaker 1: it was almost like they were in a secret society
Speaker 1: because they were I mean, they were afraid if they
Speaker 1: got too much attention, someone would try to stop them
Speaker 1: from doing what they were doing, you know, but they
Speaker 1: knew if they just kind of stayed under the radar
Speaker 1: and you know, and and and donated money to the
Speaker 1: Little League teams and and you know, did did did
Speaker 1: the you know, the the nice community stuff that you
Speaker 1: know that they could do. They would generally get left
Speaker 1: alone to kind of do what they were doing. And
Speaker 1: if there if there's a Little League team sponsored by
Speaker 1: the Swampers, I want that really At one point there
Speaker 1: definitely was we should explain Swampers. Who's the name for
Speaker 1: the what's also called the Muscle Shoal A lot of
Speaker 1: the realm to attract a lot of the artists there too,
Speaker 1: especially the ones who are on the more famous at
Speaker 1: the end of the spectrum at the time, because I
Speaker 1: mean Elton John could probably walk down the street there
Speaker 1: right now and not get recognized. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know the rolling Stone State
Speaker 1: at the Holiday Inn right there, you know, right across
Speaker 1: the river from Muscle Shoals in Florence, and uh, the
Speaker 1: first time they've been able to walk around in public
Speaker 1: in years at that. Boy, Yeah, you know, Linda Linda Ronstat,
Speaker 1: legend has it Linda Ronstat was the was the first
Speaker 1: girl to go sit at the counter at the pool
Speaker 1: room in order. There's a pool room in Florence that
Speaker 1: had like good chili burgers and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: it was it was, you know, kind of an unwritten
Speaker 1: law that it was men only. This would have been
Speaker 1: like seventy one maybe when she recorded there and uh,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to go to the pool room and
Speaker 1: shoot pool and uh sit at the counter and did
Speaker 1: because Linda Ronstad did what she wanted, you know, and
Speaker 1: she wasn't a big store yet, but she was already
Speaker 1: she was already Linda Ronstad wear her cut off wearing
Speaker 1: her cut off shorts, no less, you know, at the
Speaker 1: pool room and uh, and you know they served her
Speaker 1: and that was, you know, pretty pretty nice way to
Speaker 1: have change occur. But uh but yeah, I mean now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's in some ways unrecognizable to me because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a kind of a cool town. Now
Speaker 1: they've embraced their musical heritage, and you know, we've got
Speaker 1: a you know, we've got hipsters and a boutique hotel
Speaker 1: and you know, a fancy barber shop, a barber shop
Speaker 1: with guys and handlebar mustaches and their jeans rolled up,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, it's it's it's kind of crazy. So
Speaker 1: they've just turned into Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, that's Brooklyn. Kind
Speaker 1: of is a big box store. Now you just find
Speaker 1: it all over the country. We'll be back with more
Speaker 1: of Bruce's interview with Mike William Patterson Hood if the
Speaker 1: drive by Truckers. After a quick break, we're back with
Speaker 1: Mike William Patterson Hood performing Grievance Merchants from their latest album,
Speaker 1: The Unraveling Thank You. That was grievous Merchants. Yeah, can
Speaker 1: you tell me about the writing of that song. I
Speaker 1: started thinking about everything that went into it. And after
Speaker 1: that the Parkland, Florida shooting that mobilized those kids so much.
Speaker 1: I was pretty moved by what they were up to,
Speaker 1: you know, but the predictable reaction they got, being accused
Speaker 1: of being less than sincere. They were called crisis actors.
Speaker 1: They were discredited, insulted and made fun of. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if that particular shooter or not was one.
Speaker 1: I think you may have been. But there was a pattern,
Speaker 1: um of all these young men that were committing these acts,
Speaker 1: you know, um every twenever it was over and you'd
Speaker 1: get a look at their uh, at their laptops, their phones,
Speaker 1: what they'd been looking at, what they've been posting, liking
Speaker 1: on social media. It was kind of a who's who
Speaker 1: are the usual suspects? Um, maybe not the same names,
Speaker 1: but definitely the same message. Um. And that was that
Speaker 1: was what it all boiled down to me. Was this
Speaker 1: this cottage industry whose product was grievance and victimhood. Um
Speaker 1: too mostly young white guys now maybe sometimes not so young.
Speaker 1: And at that time, you know that the that Alex
Speaker 1: Jones guys probably the most household name of all of them. Um.
Speaker 1: I never went far enough down that rabbit hole to
Speaker 1: even know who most of the rest of the names
Speaker 1: are because I just don't want, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want that stuff to start popping up on my phone
Speaker 1: when I'm in public. Um uh. But yeah, it was
Speaker 1: that they all seem to uh have some kind of
Speaker 1: problem with women. They had ex girl friends x wise
Speaker 1: with restraining orders, that they had been arrested for stalking.
Speaker 1: They couldn't get the kind of attention from women they
Speaker 1: thought they deserved. Um that they were honestly that they were.
Speaker 1: Their whiteness was losing its value was the message that
Speaker 1: was constantly being pumped at them. And it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: They're kind, you know, sending them that message that you know,
Speaker 1: it's not because you're socially awkward, or because you inevitably
Speaker 1: open your mouth and say the wrong thing, or because
Speaker 1: you're you know, it's got to be this, it's got
Speaker 1: to be this thing or that thing, this is m
Speaker 1: or that ism that's turning these people against you. And uh,
Speaker 1: and you know you go far enough down it and uh,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you've you've completely self radicalized, which a
Speaker 1: lot of these guys have, and you know, you I
Speaker 1: I just don't want to you know, I can't draw
Speaker 1: a line to people on the internet or the TV
Speaker 1: or the radio saying something and somebody doing something. Of
Speaker 1: course not. But I'm not going to let them off
Speaker 1: the hook either. Um. Some of them are true believers
Speaker 1: in what they're peddling, and they're pure evil, and some
Speaker 1: are just con jobs who are in it for the attention,
Speaker 1: the money and the ratings, and they're more than pure evil.
Speaker 1: Is there there's a wonderful line in that song conspiracy
Speaker 1: to dilute their blood. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's that's a Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great line. But it connects to that idea
Speaker 1: of lost hand manhood emasculation, which is very much needing
Speaker 1: to see um, non white men as sexual predators. Um.
Speaker 1: And and how it's in some grand conspiracy to get
Speaker 1: white women to have fewer white babies. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they really do. That's really out there. That's literally what
Speaker 1: these people are feeding up. Do you think that connects
Speaker 1: to a bigger sense in the South of being looked
Speaker 1: down upon, um by the elites, and and you know
Speaker 1: that's always been part of it. I mean yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: anti eliteism, anti intellectualism. UM. Growing up around you know,
Speaker 1: working class southern white men, there was all at men
Speaker 1: or who were more educated or more successful. Um, there
Speaker 1: was always that sense that he thinks he's better than
Speaker 1: I am. And maybe some of them did, but he
Speaker 1: got above his raisin. Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe some of
Speaker 1: them did. I'm sure some of them, you know, or
Speaker 1: they look at academics and uh they don't they think
Speaker 1: they're so smart. Well they kind of are, um, but
Speaker 1: you know, whether they are or not, it's not why
Speaker 1: that person thinks that. They're going to think that no
Speaker 1: matter what. And it's just there's definitely a blue collar
Speaker 1: chip on the shoulder. Well it's all, you know, fear
Speaker 1: of the other is such a you know, which has
Speaker 1: been a prevalent thing that our band has written about
Speaker 1: for years and years. It's been that's been kind of
Speaker 1: an ongoing theme, you know. And and and our records
Speaker 1: kind of from that day one. But uh and and
Speaker 1: it's like there's always somebody to blame, some other that's
Speaker 1: that's taking what's rightfully mine or whatever, you know, And
Speaker 1: you know, and I mean, you know, our current president,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what that's how he got elected was
Speaker 1: capitalizing on that over and over and over and over.
Speaker 1: They're coming across the border to get your jobs and
Speaker 1: you know, probably take your women to you know, as
Speaker 1: that whole. Now they've now they've morphed into these magic
Speaker 1: immigrants that can take your job and still not work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: never thought of it that way. Yeah. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: you're from the South. You've written quite a few songs where,
Speaker 1: for example, George Wallace appears you guys grew up. I mean,
Speaker 1: Wallace was still probably governor at something you probably remember
Speaker 1: misc into the eighties. Yeah, yeah, I mean he got
Speaker 1: elected his fourth term my freshman year in college. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I mean you and I don't remember the song,
Speaker 1: but I think you had a line something to the
Speaker 1: effect that, um, there's racism everywhere, but George Wallace gave
Speaker 1: it a Southern accent. I'm not remembering the phrase exactly
Speaker 1: from then, if you're going to have a racist in
Speaker 1: a movie, you're going to give him a Southern accent
Speaker 1: flat out. It's just it's like, uh, that's one of
Speaker 1: the ways that you established the character of of of
Speaker 1: being a racist as you give him that accent. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a James Bond movie, you know, Live and Let Die,
Speaker 1: you know the the you know, they they made sure
Speaker 1: to set set a Louisiana so that the so that
Speaker 1: the cop could be a redneck cop. You know, they
Speaker 1: said it so. But as the flip side of that
Speaker 1: that if somebody has a Southern accent, people then assume
Speaker 1: he's a racist. I mean some do, I'm sure, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean I'm you know, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's been people who've never listened to our
Speaker 1: music that would just assume we're something that we probably aren't.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's racist or just you know, whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you want to whatever presumptions you want to make
Speaker 1: about Southerners in the South, you know, And and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I tell people a lot. You know, It's
Speaker 1: like Trump won Alabama by sixty percent, which is horrific,
Speaker 1: but that's still forty percent that voted against him. That's
Speaker 1: still you know, over a million people who feel as
Speaker 1: strongly opposed to this as as I do, you know,
Speaker 1: or as you know, as someone in a different state does.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a matter of how the demographics
Speaker 1: of the population, how it how it all settles. But
Speaker 1: given how polarized the times are now, uh, there is
Speaker 1: probably not the same audience for a sophisticated, nuanced take
Speaker 1: on certain kinds of characters. And I'm wondering. Another example
Speaker 1: is you had a song, I think it was Southern
Speaker 1: thing where and you wrote about this in the Times,
Speaker 1: which is that people were bringing out Confederate flags. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it made you uncomfortable. It was hard, it was horrified. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you stopped playing the song largely, Yeah, and sell
Speaker 1: them will occasionally play it, and even then it's it's
Speaker 1: only in an environment where I feel comfortable with no
Speaker 1: one that the people I'm playing it for, no, they
Speaker 1: get it. They get where I'm coming from with it,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, that songs very very rarely played.
Speaker 1: Are there other songs that have that are now in
Speaker 1: that category in the last few years because of changing politics?
Speaker 1: Things that you may have felt your intentions were right,
Speaker 1: but it just is not going to be heard in
Speaker 1: the same way. Probably. I can't think of any examples offhand,
Speaker 1: but but but probably, I mean, you know, and the
Speaker 1: case of that song, you know, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I did it. I'm not sure I did my
Speaker 1: job adequately in writing that song. I mean, it's got
Speaker 1: a you know, it's got a really cool guitar lick,
Speaker 1: and it was always a crowd pleaser, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's a good rock song as far as musically on
Speaker 1: all of that, maybe, but the point I was trying
Speaker 1: to make in writing it, I'm not sure if I
Speaker 1: adequately made it. The mere fact that it was so
Speaker 1: misunderstood always kind of made me question the actual writing
Speaker 1: of the song itself. You know. The point I was
Speaker 1: trying to make, maybe clumsily, was that if you ask
Speaker 1: ten Southern people what you know, people always refer to
Speaker 1: this like the Southern thing. If you ask ten different
Speaker 1: Southerners what that is, you get ten very different answers,
Speaker 1: often that conflict with each other. Sometimes from the same person,
Speaker 1: you'll get different answers that conflict with each other. And
Speaker 1: what time of the day you ask them. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so that song has a lot of has a lot
Speaker 1: of statements that people state as fact themselves personally in
Speaker 1: describing being a Southerner that and over the course of
Speaker 1: the song, there's all these other contradictory statements to that,
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, I think I really maybe underestimated
Speaker 1: the how easily that could get misconstrued as as the
Speaker 1: song actually making those statements. You know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't view it that way when I wrote it, and
Speaker 1: when I realized that kind of the hard way. You know,
Speaker 1: it was specifically a show we were playing at this festival,
Speaker 1: this outdoor festival in Georgia in Atlanta, and uh, We're
Speaker 1: actually on the same bill with Big Boy from from
Speaker 1: Outcasts too. I'm a huge Outcast fan and uh and um,
Speaker 1: and there were people waving that record was still pretty
Speaker 1: new then. There were people you know, with with rebel
Speaker 1: flags and uh, that like pull him out when that
Speaker 1: song comes on, and I was, I was mortified, and
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, people think that's what I'm saying and
Speaker 1: that's not you know. So so it's made me question
Speaker 1: the actual writing of the song. Oh interesting, but you
Speaker 1: are part of the song is in it's in a character, sure,
Speaker 1: and you guys, you guys write a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot about kind of desperate characters, like characters serve in
Speaker 1: the edge, and people tend to not get that really right.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't want anybody, does it, you know? Yeah, you know, well,
Speaker 1: speaking of Randy Newman, sail Away is not a song
Speaker 1: I think he'd be really comfortable about paying right now.
Speaker 1: It's an it's an amazing song, yeah, or or you know,
Speaker 1: or Rednecks, which is also an amazing song, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, but it's also you know, a song that
Speaker 1: you know it it's polarizing even to people who do
Speaker 1: get it, you know. And I mean when we were
Speaker 1: writing what the record that came to Southern Knock Opera,
Speaker 1: we were We've spent a lot of time listening to
Speaker 1: the Good Old Boys album by Randy Newman. To me,
Speaker 1: that was that was always the original Southern Nock opera,
Speaker 1: you know, And uh, it's just you know, I've always
Speaker 1: loved him doing that, his writing of how he can
Speaker 1: write from a point of view of a character who
Speaker 1: might be at times a pretty dislikable character. And uh,
Speaker 1: I think that's a valid I think that's a valid
Speaker 1: art form. But it is something, particularly in these times,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a risk and uh and sort of
Speaker 1: you know, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm still grappling with all
Speaker 1: of that. Is it is that a particular burden of
Speaker 1: Southern writers. I remember um Flannery O'Connor at one point
Speaker 1: talked about Uh. She was always asked why Southern writers
Speaker 1: always write about freaks, and her answer, and I'm again
Speaker 1: hair phrasing, was something the fact that, well, there are
Speaker 1: freaks everywhere, we're just better at recognizing them. And you
Speaker 1: guys write about people, you know, who are very some
Speaker 1: edgy characters. Do you feel an extra duty to somehow
Speaker 1: make them sympathetic to not necessarily? I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: What I don't ever want to be is condescending to them,
Speaker 1: even if I disagree with them, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be condescending to them. I don't want to be. I
Speaker 1: want to at least try to write about it fairly
Speaker 1: and then let the listener make up their own mind
Speaker 1: as to where they land about that, which right now,
Speaker 1: in this damn current climate in itself, that is even
Speaker 1: the risk, you know, And maybe it always was. Maybe
Speaker 1: I always naive to it, you know, because that certainly
Speaker 1: could be possible too. But I want to be. I
Speaker 1: want to I want to be true to what I'm
Speaker 1: writing about, though, whether whether whether I personally agree or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I had a had a very
Speaker 1: different upbringing than most of the people I know from
Speaker 1: where I'm from, you know. But but I don't necessarily,
Speaker 1: you know, need to impose that on all the characters
Speaker 1: are right about. When we come back, we'll pick back
Speaker 1: up with Bruce's discussion with Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley,
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear more about Randy Newman's
Speaker 1: Good Old Boys album, check out episode four, Season four
Speaker 1: of Malcolm Gladwell's other podcast, Revisionist History. More. After this,
Speaker 1: we're back with Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood. Before playing
Speaker 1: The Trucker's new song Thoughts and Prayers, Patterson talks about
Speaker 1: what inspired him to write this song. This one's not
Speaker 1: really in a character I don't guess, but it's uh,
Speaker 1: I mean again, it was inspired by, you know, the
Speaker 1: stuff going on, you know, the shootings and and and
Speaker 1: all of that, you know, and again talking to my
Speaker 1: kids about it and everything. But hum, the song is
Speaker 1: called Thoughts and Prayers. Thank you. You told you explained
Speaker 1: a little bit where the song came from. But I
Speaker 1: need to ask you where one particular part of that
Speaker 1: song came from. Which is the just beautiful image of
Speaker 1: the flat earth earthest I guess right, realizing he's the
Speaker 1: earth is around just before he hits the ground. Remember
Speaker 1: where did that come? Years ago? When uh, like some
Speaker 1: guy like went way up? It was like some kind
Speaker 1: of a flatter thing a guy like like launched himself
Speaker 1: and really didn't know it was like it was. It
Speaker 1: was in the news right around the time that I
Speaker 1: wrote the song. And and just at that perfect moment
Speaker 1: when I came to that part of the it was
Speaker 1: time to like write a bridge for the song, it
Speaker 1: popped in my head. Then Uh, it just kind of, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I got lucky, You get very lucky. That's uh,
Speaker 1: that must be the Nassa influencing Yeah, northern Alabama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: putting people on the moon, but it weirdly, which you've
Speaker 1: also written about, it makes it a strangely optimistic song.
Speaker 1: As angry as that song may sound to people, you know,
Speaker 1: after that, I'm not sure if it's a course or reverse.
Speaker 1: You actually talk about people finding a solution to all this?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you actually optimistic at this point. I'm
Speaker 1: trying on that particular issue, or on any particular issue.
Speaker 1: I'm trying. It's a work in progress. I'm trying, you know.
Speaker 1: I do. I do get a lot of optimism from
Speaker 1: the young people i'm around and uh, because I'm I'm
Speaker 1: getting old and uh, but I'm around a lot of
Speaker 1: young people, probably a lot more than people my age
Speaker 1: normally are, because because I've I've got still have small kids,
Speaker 1: I'm around a lot of their friends. You know. Our
Speaker 1: house is kind of that house that a lot of
Speaker 1: the it's friends feel happy congregating at. And uh, and
Speaker 1: our bands on the road we meet people all over
Speaker 1: the country, but we also our crew as all these
Speaker 1: you know, guys in their twenties who are amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh and um, and I get so I get
Speaker 1: I get a lot of optimism out of out of
Speaker 1: that and uh, or what optimism I can hang on to?
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, you know, I I'm I've always thought
Speaker 1: of myself as a as an optimistic person, even if
Speaker 1: I was kind of cynical and and maybe sometimes pragmatic
Speaker 1: about it. I've I've always, I've always, I've always felt
Speaker 1: like I had an undercurrent of that, and that was
Speaker 1: that's been a that's been a real issue the last
Speaker 1: few years because it's taken a real hard beaten after,
Speaker 1: you know, with everything that's been going on, and hanging
Speaker 1: onto that it's been Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging
Speaker 1: onto it for dear life, like like a life raft
Speaker 1: Steven and uh and um, but I'm I'm still hanging
Speaker 1: onto it. Is it important to you that your music
Speaker 1: and your shows reflect that. I would like it too,
Speaker 1: But I don't want again, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: dishonest about it, you know. And so I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's definitely an underlying theme I think, and in this
Speaker 1: record is the trying to hang on to that, and uh,
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, I think that I think the
Speaker 1: act of going to a rock show is a cathartic,
Speaker 1: can be a really cathartic, uplifting, wonderful thing. You know.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think I get from going
Speaker 1: to rock shows probably what some people would get would
Speaker 1: get from going to church or whatever. You know, It's
Speaker 1: always been sort of that that thing for me, like that,
Speaker 1: and and I would love for it to be have
Speaker 1: that experience for the people who come to see us play,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I want it to be on
Speaker 1: and and there'd be some some bit of uplift to it.
Speaker 1: But you know, at the same time, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: these are tough times, which makes us need it more
Speaker 1: than ever in a lot of ways. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This songs are just beautiful. It was just it was
Speaker 1: lovely hearing them just with two guitars. Please don't say
Speaker 1: that to the rest of the band. It was great.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thanks to Mike Coolliam Patterson Hood
Speaker 1: from the Drive By Truckers for talking to Bruce and
Speaker 1: for playing songs from the new album been Rattling. The
Speaker 1: album's out now, so be sure to check it out
Speaker 1: along with the rest of their catalog, and if your
Speaker 1: need for a Drive by Trucker's primer, check out our
Speaker 1: favorite songs and a playlist we made on Broken Record
Speaker 1: podcast dot Com. Broken Record is produced help from Jason Gambrel, Melabelle,
Speaker 1: Leah Rose, Matt Leboza, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Four