It was, if nothing else, quite a ballsy move. Or crazy.
In 2000, the Drive-By Truckers had two small label studio and one live record under their belts. But the Athens, Georgia-based Southern/country rockers were not well-known outside the immediate region.
So, they decided their next effort would be something that had been percolating in the back of their minds, but usually attempted by more seasoned and popular acts: Record a concept record. Oh, and a double one at that.
And to even be able to put it out, the had to raise money from family and friends, who were promised a 15 percent return on their investment with a prospectus. It was crowdsourcing, Go Fund Me and Bandcamp before those things existed.
“If we had come up with a catchy name and patented that way of raising funds, we would have made a lot more money from that then being in a band!” Truckers’ co-founding singer/guitarist Patterson Hood says from his Portland home via Zoom.
Fellow co-founding singer/guitarist Mike Cooley, on the same video call, agrees. “We were sitting on the greatest idea we ever had. We should have done something with it! We could have been Tech Bros!”
Fortunately for their legions of fans, the duo who call themselves “The Dimmer Twins” (a play on the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards “Glimmer Twins” moniker), they kept with the music.
Southern Rock Opera was recorded in the upstairs of a uniform shop in downtown Birmingham, Alabama and initially released via their own Soul Dump label on…September 11, 2001. It was sprawling meditation that melded the band’s own journey, the tragic trajectory of Lynyrd Skynyrd (and a fictionalized counterpart, Betamax Guillotine), and the icons/history/harshness of the South, with cameos from politician George Wallace, football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and Satan himself. It was a hit.
Critical hosannas followed so much that the band couldn’t keep up with demand, so it was re-released the next year on Lost Highway Records. Since then, the Drive-By Truckers have released many amazing albums and gone through lineup changes, but SRO is still their “magnum opus.”
The band celebrates its legacy and meaning on the current Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 tour in which they’ll play the record in its (almost) entirety, followed by a second set of other career-spanning material. It comes to Houston’s House of Blues on June 19.
A deluxe box set in multiple versions with remixed songs and a historical book that includes more of the band’s trademark bizarro art from the late, great Wes Freed and unreleased material comes out in late July.
Befitting the pair’s sometimes askew and often hilarious look at things, the celebration is not tied to a convenient release date number ending in a zero or five.
“It’s 23 years, baby! The 23rd anniversary!” Hood crows.
“We wanted to do it because we’re not dead yet,” Cooley deadpans, while looking into the camera. “So…this is not Pornhub?”
Of the lineup that recorded Southern Rock Opera, Hood and Cooley, along with longtime member Brad Morgan (drums) are in the current band. Bassist Earl Hicks left in 2003.
In a story famous in DBT lore, guitarist/singer Rob Malone did not show up for an important private gig in 2001 and was replaced—that very night—by a kid named Jason Isbell. He would turn into a powerhouse creative force as a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter until 2007 when he was fired. He sobered up and began a solo career that has simply skyrocketed since.
“We’ve become super close friends again in recent years, and I couldn’t be prouder of what Jason is doing,” Hood says. “When I hear recordings of live performances from that time he was in the band, it’s super cool and I can see how people love it.”
The current DBT set list won’t include Rob Malone’s two SRO sung songs, “Moved” and “Cassie’s Brother” (recorded with Kelly Hogan) in the upcoming tour. But Hood says if either departed Trucker or Hogan shows up at a stop, he’d love to have them onstage. Hood says they “never” work up a set list, so each evening’s show will likely be different.
As for boning up on some of the album’s lesser-played tunes, Cooley says “it’s on my to do list”—two weeks before the tour is set to kick off. “I was going to start that today, but I’ve done six loads of laundry instead,” he says. “If procrastinating was an Olympic sport, I’d be Caitlyn Jenner.”
Still, with over 3,000 total shows under their belt, Hood says they don’t have to rehearse much. The current lineup (Hood, Cooley, Morgan, guitarist/keyboardist Jay Gonzalez and bassist Matt Patton) has been in place since 2012.
One SRO tune they’ve played less often is “The Southern Thing,” Hood’s famous rumination trying to account for the duality of the good things about Southern people and their history and the less savory aspects of racism and clinging to the Civil War.
Hood recalls playing the tune at a Festival in Atlanta in 2002 and getting a big audience reaction—but not the one he’d hoped for.
“People tend to misunderstand it. All these people were waving rebels flags and shit and we were like ‘Fuck that!’ This is not what it’s about at all,” Hood offers. “Everybody pretty well knows by now that’s not who we are or what [the record] is about.”
Still, Southern Rock Opera is the record most cited by fans as their point of entry to the group and its music.
“People still like it, and 23 years later there’s still a market for us to go out and do this. We’ve never been a band that has looked back very much, but this seemed like a good time for it since we don’t have a new record coming out,” he says. “And we just want to get together. We kind of like each other. And I get to play in my favorite band!”
As for how they feel about Southern Rock Opera more than two decades down the line, some of their thoughts have evolved.
“We were kind of being assholes then. Making fun of the whole idea of a rock opera while doing a rock opera. My opinion of it has probably evolved more in the last six months than past 20 years working on the reissue. It’s made me appreciate it more,” Hood says.
“Spending all that time writing it, the nightmare of recording it with no money and crazy ambitions ideas and several of us going through divorces at the same time. Then we spent two years touring it. So, when that was done, I was done. It’s not even my favorite Drive-By Truckers record. Not even in the top five.”
And Hood and Cooley may not be done yet with the Southern Rock Opera. In these days of multi-media efforts where a record could also be a musical, a play, a book, a film or TV show, and even a graphic novel, there’s one unexplored adaptation that they have their eye on.
“We’re holding on to the dream. Southern Rock Opera on Ice! It has to happen!” Hood laughs. “We’re going to get hockey players and figures skaters to play George Wallace and Satan. We’ve just got to figure out a way to crash the plane on the ice!”
Finally, while the band’s last studio effort was 2022’s Welcome to Club XIII, the trilogy that preceded it, American Band (2016), The Unraveling and The New OK (both 2020) are of particular note.
For while the band has always written songs about social and political issues throughout their career, these three had a ripped-from-the-headlines feel with songs about Black Lives Matter, immigration detainees, school/church shootings, the Trump presidency, online rage, religious extremism, the pandemic, climate change, and celebrity suicides.
With no dearth of similar material to write about in 2024, Hood and Cooley aren’t sure if they’ll continue down that thematic path for their next record.
“I have no idea what we’re doing next,” Cooley says, though noting his concern about the recent rise in book banning. “To think that we’re having that conversation, about banning books in 2024, and it’s not even a joke.”
“I don’t know what we’re doing either!” Hood adds.
“Three albums [on current topics] seemed like enough. But what happens later this year…we’ll probably know more what we’re thinking about. I wish I was more optimistic about everything. To see so many things that we grew up hating in the South become a more national thing is really discouraging and sad.”
The Drive-By Truckers present Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19, at the House of Blues, 1204 Caroline. For more information, call 888-402-5837 or visit HouseofBlues.com/Houston. $39.50-$59.50.
For more on the Drive-By Truckers, visit DriveByTruckers.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
