Photo of Patterson Hood taken by Holley St. Germain from July 2007 at 9:30 Club.
I am delighted to present an interview with Drive By Truckers front man Patterson Hood. The questions were formulated by my attorney (a devoted DBT fan) and myself. The Drive By Truckers will be playing the 9:30 Club May 9 and 10th. I highly recommend you get tickets before they sell out. In case you are not familiar with the Drive By Truckers, they are the greatest band on the face of the earth.
Prince of Petworth: Any idea why you have such a fanatical following in our nation’s capital? Your shows always seem to sell out and are among the most lively I have ever attended? What do you think makes residents of DC such big fans of your music.
Patterson Hood: Politicians and lobbyists make for about as debaucherous a crowd as any you would find. We play LA and DC and middle America would never believe how much harder the DC crowd parties. I think Hunter S. Thompson wrote about that once upon a time. We were doing well in DC as far back as 99 or so and it was one of the first towns that SRO took off when we released it in 01. The DC crowds seem to pick up on and embrace our political undercurrents and of course that tends to be accepted there (even by folks on the other side of the aisle) My favorite review of SRO came from a guy at National Review and he and I probably wouldn’t agree on much else.
PoP: I think every review I’ve read about you guys or your albums has tried to tag some bullshit label on the music and the band, lazily trying to package it all up in some pre-conceived definition. So to hell with that: if we were all sitting around and well into a stretch of whiskey-fied philosophizing how would you all describe your music — particularly to someone like me who has no musical abilities or aptitude whatsoever, but who is a proud music addict?
Patterson Hood: I always prefer Rock and Roll. It’s so all-encompassing (which is why no one ever wants to use it anyway). In it’s historical context (and Lord knows history is a big part of what we do) Rock and Roll includes elements of country (old style), the blues, rebelliousness, etc. All the old original rockers would have been considered punk a couple of decades later and punk is big (often overlooked) part of what we do too. Lyrically there is always some sort of storytelling aspect in what we do. The industry wants everything easy to label in 2-3 word sound bites, which is the last thing on earth any of us would want. That is a big reason why the labels have never quite known what to do with us or how to market what we do. [Interview continues after the jump.] (more…)
