Drive-By Truckers

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Brantley Gutierrez

The band Drive-By Truckers.

Drive-By Truckers

The stomping, soulful Southern rock of Drive-By Truckers is nearly always joined to lyrics with a story to tell, sometimes mirroring the ills of modern society and sometimes with a historical focus. The band’s Southern Rock Opera is a concept album filtering post-civil rights era history through the lens of a ’70s rock band; the album (released Sept. 11, 2001) and the band’s raucous live shows catapulted DBT into a must-see touring act from coast to coast, which they remain today. The album received a deluxe release this summer and Drive-By Truckers are on the road playing the full album and more.

$45 ($39.50 adv.).

media release: Drive-By Truckers are marking the upcoming 2024 presidential election with an expanded new edition of their landmark 2016 album, American Band, arriving via ATO Records on Friday, November 1. The deluxe 2xLP set will include 7 live tracks (recorded at the band’s annual HeAthen’s Homecoming 2018 at Athens, GA’ historic 40 Watt Club), updated liner notes by Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood, additional photos, and exclusive new artwork which sees the album’s powerful original cover by photographer Danny Clinch reinterpreted by longtime visual collaborator, the late Wes Freed. "Ramon Casiano (Live at 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA)," one of the seven unreleased live tracks, is streaming at all DSPs today.

“In case you haven’t noticed, American Band has been out of print for a minute and we’re happy to announce the release of American Band Deluxe on vinyl (and digital),” says Patterson Hood. “The deluxe edition includes an album of live versions of songs that we recorded at our annual DBT HeAthen’s Homecoming show at the fabulous 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia in 2018. By this point, the songs had taken on new lives and expanded in some beautiful ways that we hadn’t imagined when we first recorded them three years earlier. It includes a raucous live version of ‘Kinky Hypocrite’ (which was originally included as a studio version on a 45 as a part of the original release), a definitive version of ‘What It Means,’ and a rare live version of ‘Ever South’ that includes an extended intro featuring a part of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ masterpiece ‘Southern Accents.’ It truly Kicks Ass!”

Drive-By Truckers have spent much of this year traveling on their Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 Tour, a wide-ranging headline run presented by Live Nation that sees the band performing their acclaimed 2001 album, Southern Rock Opera, along with fan favorites and other songs from across their classic canon. Dates resume October 16 at Washington, DC’s Warner Theatre and then travel through a very special tour finale set for November 24 at Nashville, TN’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Highlights include two-night stands at Chicago, IL’s House of Blues (November 1-2), and Asheville, NC’s The Orange Peel (November 7-8). A very special Southern Rock Opera Revisited VIP Experience is available throughout the tour, including premium tickets, an exclusive pre-show soundcheck party, limited edition items (including a commemorative concert ticket signed by the band, VIP laminate, and Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 collectible patch), and more. For complete details and ticket information, please visit www.drivebytruckers.com/shows.

First released on September 30, 2016, American Band proved a strikingly potent and legitimately provocative work, the most explicitly political album in Drive-By Truckers’ extraordinary canon. Master songwriters both, Hood and DBT co-founder Mike Cooley wisely avoid overt polemics to explore such still-pressing issues as race, income inequality, the NRA, deregulation, police brutality, Islamophobia, and the ongoing crisis of suicide and opioid abuse. As a result, hard-edged and finely honed songs like “What It Means” and “Ramon Casiano” are devastatingly timeless, fueled by a spirit of moral indignation and righteous rage. A landmark album from a truly progressive rock ‘n’ roll band that has long represented the power of community and collective action, American Band now stands proudly as an enduring work of intensely human protest music, designed to raise issues and ire as the nation once again careens towards another momentous election.

An excerpt from the Patterson Hood-penned American Band – Deluxe liner notes is below:

"In 2016, Drive-By Truckers was completing our twentieth year on a high note. American Band was our eleventh studio album. Our records have often attempted to tell some kind of story, sometimes current things veiled in some tale set in some other time. This album is pretty much all centered around contemporary issues. Tales of our time. Even a murder story from 75 years ago has an unfortunate current cultural relevance. Even in times of vast upheaval, things just don’t change enough.

"We ended up touring behind American Band for three and half years, the longest tour of our history. It ended up being one of our most successful albums and tour cycles ever.

"And as I write this, we’re deep into another horrific American political election cycle; this time one that threatens some of the foundational beliefs that stem from our nation’s creation. All I know, is the time has passed for burying our heads in the sand and not asking. So many of the problems of our time can boil down to a failure to communicate and to talk to each other, to ask the tough questions of ourselves, and to open our hearts and minds while seeking a higher calling. To summon better angels, as they say."

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Produced and mixed by longtime collaborator David Barbe, American Band was met by unanimous critical applause around the world and was named among the year’s best albums by such publications as Chicago Tribune, Paste, and Rolling Stone.

“Hood and fellow songwriter Mike Cooley rarely go in for sloganeering. Instead, they use empathy, vivid storytelling and subtle imagery to unpack brutal complexities…It’s political rock that never confuses passionate commitment with smug certainty, asking more questions than it answers on a hero’s journey into our darkest national impulses, and maybe in some small way, beyond them.”

– Rolling Stone (****)

“(American Band is) to 2016 what American Idiot represented for the Bush era – a protest album that rages against the political machine.”

– Salon

“This is a different kind of Drive-By Truckers: a band that’s more pissed-off than ever and desperate not to be misunderstood…Even if American Band is not an easy listen, it’s a crucial one: the sound of a band reawakened, seeing things clearly, and horrified by the sight.”

– American Songwriter (****)

“This superb song collection is raggedier than (Drive-By Truckers’) last superb song collection.

But in recompense, it’s more explicit and bereaved.”

– Robert Christgau, VICE (A)

“While the subject matter demands some of the arrangements are more gentle and sensitive than usual, the new balance of rockers and reflections actually works to American Band’s advantage. Thoughtful, engaging and utterly contemporary, it’s one of the albums of the year.”

– The Independent (*****)

“The most important rock'n'roll album of 2016 is also likely the most important rock'n'roll album of the past decade. American Band is not to be missed.”

– Exclaim! (10/10)