Drive By Truckers at The Troubador, Los Angeles - January 24, 2003

By Wanda

Drive By Truckers:
Patterson Hood – guitar
Mike Cooley – guitar
Jason Isbell – guitar
Earl Hicks – bass
Brad Morgan – drums

You don’t have to be a Lynrd Skynrd fan to like the Drive By Truckers, but it sure helps. Or perhaps you are too good for Southern Rock and rock in general. Really, maybe you are above that all and were never into the Allman Brothers, Black Sabbath, Molly Hatchet or any of that shit anyway. Maybe you were never into rock at all – you were born rockabilly or something – but maybe, just maybe, you can put aside your fears about image and find your way back to the music via the South’s newest rock wunderkind, Drive By Truckers. You may even find yourself, as I did, two minutes into a song on the radio before realizing that the song is “Freebird,” and damn, it’s good! This is precisely what happened to Patterson Hood, lead singer of the Drive By Truckers, and by the looks of the crowd gathered at the Troubador on Friday night, it has happened to others as well.

Some of the crowd tried hard to look like rejects from the Nashville Pussy guitar player tryouts (sorry, guys, the job’s taken), in their John Deere mesh-back baseball caps and mutton-chop sideburns (heads up – this is the new chic), but the rest of the audience just kind shuffled from foot to foot waiting for Whiskey Biscuit to finish. I had heard good things about Whiskey Biscuit, but they were simply too affected to be effective. The lead singer seemed to suffer from Keith Richards Syndrome. Moral of the story: heroin makes you skinny.

Drive By Truckers opened with a song called “Lookout Mountain” from their upcoming release “Decoration Day” (due out early June). The set was largely new material, with some favorites like “Ronnie and Neil” – a head-nodding anthem to Ronnie Van Zant and Neil Young – mixed in. Ostensibly, the band is touring in support of their most recent release, “Southern Rock Opera,” a two-cd rock opera that chronicles the rise to fame and untimely death of Ronny Van Zant and members of Lyrnd Skynrd although they did not perform the opera in it’s entirety, as I had hoped. I can’t tell you how ambitious that concept album is, how amazed I was when I heard of it, and how delighted I am not only that they got it made, but that they got it picked up by the major labels (Lost Highway, then New West). I can only tell you that Patterson Hood is a Southern storyteller in the vein of some of the great Southern storytellers (think Flannery O’Conner, think Faulkner for the literary-minded among you), and that when he tells you what it was like to grow up in the South, that football was king and rock was what was left for the unpopular kids, the story starts to wind around you like the music, and before you know it, you too are nodding your head.

Musically, the band is a five piece – four guitars and drums – with three guitars giving off an incredible depth of sound. Brad Morgan drives the drums and anchors the whole thing to the ground. Tracy Nesmith and Matt Kelly alternate on lead guitars while Patterson Hood takes vocals and rhythm guitar. Their sound has been compared to such “alt country” bands as Slobberbone (but they have more energy) and personally reminds me of the early more-punk, more-rock efforts of Uncle Tupelo. Drive By Truckers herald the return of guitar-based rock, but that description has become so hackneyed that it means nothing. Like A.C./D.C. but not metal, like KISS, but not glam. Like Z.Z. Top but not blues. How can I say this? Like everything you have ever heard before, and like nothing you have ever heard before. The last band I thought was this good, musically and lyrically and creatively was the Replacements, and that says a lot.

The new songs, while not remarkably different from earlier material, used vocal harmonies and melodic guitars to create a slightly softer mood than “Southern Rock Opera.” The title track from the upcoming cd, “Decoration Day,” is a beautiful, slow, sad ode to a holiday not even celebrated west of the Rio Grande. But there were plenty of rockers in the new stuff as well, with extended guitar solos that somehow kept from being annoying like other bands. Perhaps this is because the Drive By Truckers can really play, while other more-metal rock bands are just wanking off, or perhaps it’s the driving percussion that keeps your interest. Or perhaps it’s just that the band is having such a good time, without spinning off into self-centered “I am a rawk god – hear my solo” territory.

The highlight of the evening came during the encore, when Hood took the stage alone. “Boxful of Spiders” was never spookier, while “Bulldozers and Dirt” (a love song, according to Hood) was never sadder. The evening closed with the anthemic “Let There Be Rock.” Let there be rock, indeed, and let it be done by the Drive By Truckers. Indeed.

Drive By Truckers at the New West Party, SXSW 2003

By Jenifer Hanen