B (4:59)

So, Patterson Hood, welcome to Gone South. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

C (5:04)

Good to be here. Definitely. Good to be here.

B (5:06)

You've talked about the contradictions of growing up in Florence, Alabama. Where you're from, this is an area that is and was pretty religious, politically conservative, and yet at the same time it was home to a really vibrant community of free thinkers and idealists and musicians. Your dad, David Hood, was a session bass Player with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. He worked closely with artists like Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, the Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett and so many others. How did growing up in that environment shape your worldview?

C (5:41)

I mean, it certainly did. You know, for starters, I was born in 64, so I was born about two years after George Wallace basically took over the state and became the governor for more or less the first 20 years of my life. But I grew up in a part of the country that loved that shit. But I also was the son of somebody who thought he was, like, just pure, pure evil incarnate. And, you know, my dad was part of a group of people who were working really hard to try to show that that wasn't who we all are. And at the time when dad and them were doing those records in the 60s, I mean, it wasn't even always legal, much less safe to go out and eat dinner with some of the artists that they were recording with, you know, because, you know, it was still very much a conservative, Bible belt, segregated town. And, you know, the whole music scene there was like a secret society. I mean, you know, I learned very young not to talk about my dad at school, not to talk about what he did for a living, when people asked me what church I went to to try to change the subject, you know, And, I mean, it was. You know, there was a lot of that, so it was easier just to not talk about it. So I kind of grew up with that as the backdrop and. Or not even so much a backdrop. I was kind of grew up immersed in it because I was always interested in politics and the way things worked. And so I followed all that stuff at kind of an inappropriately young age. And it certainly informed who I grew up to be on so many levels, you know, musically and politically and socially and on and on.

B (7:26)

So you've talked about this band, Booker T and the MGs. They were the house band for Stax Records in Memphis in the 1960s. And, like the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, they worked with a huge variety of famous artists. You've written that they should be the official symbol of the south, rather than something like the Confederate flag. What did you mean by that?

C (7:46)

Well, it's something we can be proud of instead of ashamed of. Every time I see that flag, it just fills me with anger and shame that that's what people think of when they think of where I come from. They think of that and the things that that represents. And, you know. And of course, you know, right now we're living in an era where that's not necessarily just a Southern thing. It's all over. It's a rural, urban divide more than anything. I guess right now, you know, you don't have to go to Alabama to see a Confederate flag, you know, and then you look at, you know, something like Booker T. And the MGs. And I mean, they were racially diverse. They were black guys and white guys working together, creating some of the most beautiful, stunning music ever recorded in Memphis, which was, unlike Muscle Shoals, not a peaceful place to be doing it. I mean, Memphis has a very long, violent history, you know, and they somehow managed to create some of the most beautiful music ever made.

B (8:49)

I want to do a quick snapshot of the Drive By Trucker's backstory for people who aren't familiar with the band. So it seems like you bounced around Alabama and Memphis in your 20s before finally moving to Athens, Georgia in the early 90s. For aspiring alternative rock musicians, Athens in the 90s was an incredible place to be.

A (9:09)

R.E.M.

B (9:10)

had come out of there a decade

A (9:11)

earlier, and it was home to a

B (9:12)

handful of soon to be famous indie rock bands like Neutral Milk Hotel of Montreal, Apples and Stereo. Athens was where you and your friend Mike Cooley formed Drive By Truckers with the idea of writing story driven southern rock songs. Your breakout album, Southern Rock Opera, would wind up defining the band's voice and ambition. And the album wrestles with what you famously call the duality of the Southern thing. In the song Three Alabama Icons, for example, you point out that the infamous segregationist and Alabama governor George Wallace started his career as a pretty progressive judge before discovering that racism was the fastest way to win elections in Alabama. And that later in his career, Wallace publicly renounced his racist past. He won his final term as governor with 90% of the black vote. You wrote, and appointed a record number of black Alabamians to state jobs. Southern rock opera was followed by the dirty south in 2004, which deals with many of the same themes. The Buford Stick, about the famous Tennessee sheriff. Buford Pusser flips the legend on its head and portrays Buford less as a lawman than a criminal with a badge. And the song seems to have predicted the public's reassessment of Buford's Life by about 20 years. So I'm curious, how did that song come about and what was the reaction to it at the time?

C (10:33)

Right, yeah, I got a little flack about that one when I first wrote it, including from his daughter. His daughter wrote me a very, very nasty letter calling Me names and, you know, and I felt bad on a personal level about. I've talked about this person's dead father, you know, enough to where she's calling me out on it. But at the same time, I've always stood by the viewpoints in that song. The crime syndicate that he was supposedly fighting against in the movie Walking Tall had some pretty deep roots in my hometown, because my hometown's really close to there. And there were definitely a lot of people in my hometown that didn't necessarily think he was quite all he was cracked up to be as far as the way the movie portrayed him and stuff. And, you know, the more I kind of researched it myself when I was writing that stuff, the more I would hear that and see that. And just knowing how that stuff goes, you know, knowing how small towns and small town law enforcement can be, it was not a big stretch to think that, you know, he was just fighting against the people who weren't paying him off, basically, you know, and then, of course, all the stuff with his wife, you know, which is just a horrible story. It's terrible. It's a tragedy. But I wasn't particularly surprised when all of that happened, except I was surprised that something was being done about it. I wasn't surprised what they found out, but I was kind of surprised that they bothered to try to find out at this point.

B (12:06)

Did you hear from people after the news came out?

C (12:09)

Oh, yeah, I still do. Yeah. And it's funny because when that record came out, I caught a certain amount of flack kind of from fans and maybe from some critics and stuff. You know, it's like, you know, why are you writing about that? You know, why is there multiple songs on this record about some dead cop from the early 1970s and the 60s? You know, that's kind of a forgotten thing except for some movie they made back in the 70s. But, you know, even that it was such a cultural phenomenon where I grew up, because there were literally three movie theaters in my hometown growing up, and Walking Tall played at one of them for way over a year, like 16 months or something. Walking Tall dominated one of our three movie theaters because it was such a hit.

A (13:06)

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B (16:40)

So I just want to talk about your accent for a second. A lot of people try to minimize their Southern accents because of the baggage that's attached to it. People think it makes them sound stupid or they're troubled by the racist associations with the Southern accent. But to me, it seems like you're not ashamed of your accent. You've said that you use it as a kind of vehicle to get points across in your songwriting and that it's important for you as a middle aged white guy from Alabama to say Black Lives Matter or to show support for progressive causes. Could you say more about that?

C (17:12)

Sure. You know, I'm proud of how I talk. It's fine. It probably isn't what I would have chosen if I had had a choice in the matter, but I didn't. You know, I grew up talking this way and I would rather show other Southerners it's okay to speak out and talk about this stuff and to not be like that, you know, and, and to show other people that, you know, we're not all like that. Like I said, I come from a long line of people who really have spent their life not being like George Wallace and Bull Connor and trying to be more progressive minded about things. And, you know, I think it is important for a bunch of middle aged white guys to say that, you know, we're not all maga and, you know, some of us are very, very much not maga. And if that shows somebody who's not really super informed but hadn't really even thought to question those type of things, another side of it, man, that's even better. That's great. I hope so.

B (18:17)

So in 2015, you and your family moved from Athens, Georgia to Portland, Oregon. It was the first time you'd lived outside the South. And the following year, Drive By Truckers released an album titled American Band. Unlike Southern rock opera and Dirty South American Band focused on things that were happening in the present. And it felt to me like you'd made a shift from historian to journalist. So I'm curious, was that new direction motivated by your move out of the south or things that you were seeing around the country at the time or something else?

C (18:50)

I don't think it was motivated by the move. The move definitely may have enriched aspects of it, and there's definitely a couple of songs on that record that did come directly from the move. But that record was directly sparked by what was happening in like 2013 in Ferguson, Missouri. And also the murder of Trayvon Martin. And seeing all of that, I think, sparked something in all of us, you know, And I wrote a song called what It Means that is on the album we're talking about on American Band. And when I wrote the song, I wasn't even thinking in terms of it being a trucker song or even what I was going to do with the song. I just wrote it to try to make sense of this madness in my own head about it. And I remember the first time I played it for the band, for my bandmates, not really knowing what they were going to think about it or if they were going to be down with the idea of it becoming one of our songs. I didn't really know what was going to happen. I just wanted to play it for them. And when I played it for them, my partner, Mike Cooley, who I've now been playing with for over 40 years, his response, Instead of even answering or talking about it, he played me his brand new song that he had just written, which was Raymond Casiano, which deals with a murder that happened on the Texas Mexico border back in the 1930s. And the guy who murdered Raymond Casiano, of course, you know, nothing really happened to him. And he went on to become the leader of the nra. And he was the person who basically pushed the NRA from being an organization for hunters and gun collectors to being this like, right wing political organization. And, you know, when he played me that song after me playing him my song, it was like, oh, okay, I see where we're going. We weren't even really planning on making a record yet. And over the course of the next year, we wrote and made that record. And for years, I think I would tend to write about these political things by writing about things from other eras because I love history. And so writing about a George Wallace or a Bull Connor type figure, you know, I just assumed that people would leap in their own heads when they would hear it. To things that are happening now. And then later on, it kind of occurred to me that maybe they weren't. But with American Band, Record was the first time that we kind of took away the facade of it being a period piece and said it in the right now. You know, even though Raymond Casiano might be rooted in a murder that happened in the 30s, it definitely makes a point of bringing it up to date. And that was the lead off song on the record, and so I'm fiercely proud of that. Record, you know, and when it came out, we were told that it was gonna alienate half of our audience, it was gonna be the end of our careers, and we're like, so be it. If that's how it's gonna be, that's what it is. You know? But it honestly didn't work out that way. It was actually one of our more successful records. You know, it was kind of, in many ways, a rebirth for our band.

B (22:04)

You know, it feels to me like the duality of the Southern thing could also be seen as the duality of the American thing.

C (22:11)

Absolutely.

B (22:12)

I'm thinking of a song that also appeared on that album called Guns of Umpqua, which captures the beauty of nature in Oregon, and it's contrasted with the horrors of a school shooting that had taken place there.

C (22:25)

Yeah, right after I moved here. Right after I moved here.

B (22:29)

Wow. So to me, it's as if you're saying, this is America. These things coexist. Do you think that's true, that the duality of the Southern thing applies to the country at large? Or is the south just like a more exaggerated version? Or. How would you put it?

C (22:45)

Maybe more exaggerated version? For sure. But it definitely applies. And, you know, that was a big part of why we named that album American Band. You know, we don't consider ourself a Southern band, and we're all from there, and we're proud to be from there, regardless of, you know, how troubled where we're from may be. But the same goes for being American at this point, too. I mean, you know, what's going on with the whole Greenland. What the fuck, you know? I mean, I'm mortified. I'm mortified that people think that's who we are. But I'm also used to feeling that way because I'm from Alabama, and so I've spent my whole life being thought of as something that I'm actually 100% against.

B (23:35)

A lot of your songs, I think, could be interpreted as protest songs. And today you hear a lot of people argue that the age of protest songs, like, moving the culture in a way that, say, like a Bob Dylan song or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song could move. The culture is basically over. One reason might be because that music is not the shared mass medium that it once was. But as someone who still writes very directly about politics in American life, do you think that songs like yours can still move the needle? And if so, like, what does that impact look like now?

C (24:13)

I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, there's no denying that, you know, rock and roll music isn't the zeitgeist that it used to be. I'm not ready to say that my beloved art form is dead, but you know, it's definitely not the force of nature that it was when I was growing up. And I don't think music made the Vietnam War stop earlier, but it definitely affected change within the generation that was growing up listening to it. And it gave, you know, those people my parents age a soundtrack and a rallying cry and a point of unity in furthering their beliefs. And I think that can still exist, but I think it's definitely on a smaller type of scale, you know, and our band, we don't move the needle very far as far as we're not that type of famous, I'm afraid, you know, and despite our best efforts, you know, we're just not and probably won't do be at this point, you know, but we have a devout, hardcore beautiful following, you know, and they believe in what we say and who we are and what we try to be. And you know, they're pretty like minded in that regard. You know, our fans, they donate money to good causes and they work hard to do the right thing and be good citizens of this crazy country we're in right now.

D (25:57)

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B (27:24)

so you've done both. You've written songs that are ripped from the headlines, and you've also written songs about history in a way that sort of sneaks up on the present. When you're trying to make sense of something that's happening now in the culture, in American society. How do you decide which approach to take?

C (27:45)

It's almost more like the song decides. I just write it down. You know, I'll be thinking of something for a long time that may at some point become a part of a song. But when I actually sit down to write the song, it's not like I have a plan for it necessarily. It's almost more like when the moment happens and the antenna's up and I pick up the transmission, I just write it down and then it kind of reveals itself to me, you know, I had long wanted to write a song about gun violence, but when I actually wrote Guns of Umpqua, I wrote it really fast. I was actually on an airplane. I didn't even have a guitar. I had to learn it after I landed because I didn't have a musical instrument or anything to write it on. I just wrote it down on the plane about two weeks after the shooting that inspired it. But I had spent a night in Roseburg, Oregon, which is the town where Umpqua Community College is. And our family, when we moved west, we took this like three week road trip across country. So I had seen that town. I had kind of a mental picture of what that town looked like when the news broke two months later of that shooting. It was this beautiful, beautiful late summer, early fall day. And I'm sitting there on my front porch drinking my coffee, reading this horror story of what had just happened, you know, three and a half hours south of me. And I'm picturing that pretty town because it's very pretty and it's kind of nestled in the Cascades. And, you know, and I was new here, living in Oregon, and just trying to put together something so horrific happening on such a beautiful day in a beautiful place. You know, it's like I couldn't quite even wrap my head around it. And I think that, again, the word duality, I think, is what really informed that song. The juxtaposition of this lovely morning being shattered by something so senseless and violent. And horrific. And, you know, I think to this day, it's still the biggest mass shooting in the Northwest.

B (29:54)

When you imagine someone listening to these songs 10 or 20 years from now, what do you hope that they hear?

C (30:02)

Well, nothing would make me happier than for it to be a snapshot of a really fucked up, troubled moment in time. And maybe a little quaint. You know, it's like, oh, man, they were writing about this awful stuff that was happening back then, so you're glad it's all better now. You know, that would be. The dream is for it to be totally obsolete. I would love for the majority of the songs I've written to be obsolete and no longer of any political or sociological value except for a photograph of a crazy moment in time. That's the dream. I'm not that optimistic about that. You know, whether we're remembered or not, who knows? Any artist would prefer to be remembered, but I would probably prefer not to be remembered for talking about something that bad that's still existing years later. I would way prefer the world my kids are being handed to be better than this. And, you know, I hope at least they can say that their old man did the best he could with what he had to work with to try to bring about some little tiny bit of change. I don't know, I may be even being too overly optimistic there, too.

B (31:22)

And when you go back to the south now on tour to visit family or friends, how do you think the south has changed since that time when you were living down in Alabama and Memphis?

C (31:32)

My hometown's changed a lot. I mean, it's kind of lovely right now. You know, there's more and more artists. They're doing really cool stuff. You know, they made the documentary about Muscle Shoals about 12 years or so ago, and it was pretty successful. And all of a sudden, there's this really great pride in my hometown for the musical history of it and what it was all about and what it meant, you know, And I still have a hard time putting that together with the fact that they still are voting the way they do in elections. So many people. But there is more and more people trying to make things better there, for sure.

B (32:12)

American Band, which was a very political album, came out just a few months before the 2016 election. The unraveling, which was a very dark album, was released just a few months before the global pandemic. And so my question is, should Americans be bracing themselves for the subject of your new album?

C (32:35)

You know, we were starting a record in a couple weeks, and I don't know where that's going to go. I don't know what the record's going to be yet. I sort of joked during 2020 about the fact that our record was called the Unraveling and then right after it came out everything really unraveled. And you know, I spent a year and a half not able to work, not able to do really any of the things that I try to do with my life and not in a particularly good place about it either. And so I think I would joke that, you know, the next record, we're gonna call it something very happy and hope that that comes true, but I don't know where it's going to land right now. This is a really crazy time to try to write about and it's a work in progress, so wish me luck.

B (33:23)

I will. Will Patterson Hood, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it and it's great to talk with you.

C (33:30)

Thank you. It's great talking to you too, and I sure appreciate it it.

A (33:40)

If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email us@gonesouthpodcastmail.com that's gone southpodcastmail.com for bonus content. You can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram at Gone south podcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski. Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Leah Rees, Dennis, Maddy Sprung Keyser and Lloyd Lockridge. Our story editor is Katie Mingle. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. Thank you for listening to Gone South.

C (34:40)

So here is what I want to understand. Yes, what made you so interested in all these ancestral lines and ancestral influences?

F (34:50)

So I've been interested in in it for so long that I can't remember when it started. But all I can tell you, like in childhood. Childhood.

C (34:57)

Did you do the DNA test?

F (34:59)

I've not done that. I wasn't all that interested in the statistical breakdown of my DNA. I'm more interested in the stories.

A (35:06)

The stories of your ancestors.

F (35:07)

My ancestors and the circumstances that moved them around the planet. Every family has its stories. Your grandparents met on a blind date or your great grandmother passed through Ellis Island. But every once in a while you'll hear something a little more unusual.

C (35:28)

I have a really vague memory of somebody saying did you know your great uncle killed somebody?

B (35:36)

I've heard my whole life. That she invented the margarita.

C (35:39)

He gets a patent one month before the Wright brothers.

A (35:43)

Oh, my God.

F (35:44)

Some of these stories are hard to believe. Others are hard to imagine. And as these tall tales get passed down through the generations, they become something more than a family story. They become family lore. My name is Lloyd Lockridge, and in this podcast, I'm going to have people on to tell stories about their families. And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true.

C (36:08)

To go into the archive and find

A (36:10)

what you think is, like, not just

C (36:12)

the secret of your family's life, but the explanatory secret of your family's life.

E (36:18)

Wow. You know, maybe this old family story that I overheard in my grandmother's kitchen is true.

F (36:27)

This is Family Lore, a new series from Odyssey Podcasts.

C (36:32)

You're always wondering why your dad is a certain way. Well, here's one answer I love when I hear somebody says I have a boring family history. I they didn't do anything. I said it's because you don't know anything about your history.

F (36:47)

Please follow and listen to family lore on any of your podcast apps.

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