The Drive-By Truckers aren't exactly known for bright and cheery songs about rainbows and butterflies and happy shit like that. The alt-country/southern rock/swamp stomp band that co-frontmen Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley founded in Athens, Georgia some 15 years back like their tunes raw and real and rough around the edges, and they always have, from their edgy 1998 debut Gangstabilly right on up until their last two releases, which they recorded concurrently, last year's The Big To-Do and Go-Go Boots, which drops February 15. And they make no bones about their penchant for pernicious subject matter.
"There's always been a pretty huge death toll on our records," Hood admits in his interview with us for this week's issue, leading up to their Culture Room gig tonight.
He's not kidding. Nor is he dolling out lip service when he says,
"there's a couple of other songs that have some menacing undercurrents
about them."
A prime example is "Used To Be a Cop," off the
upcoming Go-Go Boots, a tune that Hood says is based on a composite
sketch of a pair of less than shining protectors of the peace he was
acquainted with. You don't have to wait for the album to release to get
the track though. We'll give it to you for free (via Spinner).
Drive-By Truckers. 8 p.m. Thursday, January 20, at Culture Room, 3045 N.
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Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $29.99. Call
800-745-3000, or click here.
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