Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Drive-By Truckers

Transcript

Drive-By Truckers · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's been nearly four years since Drive By Truckers
0:14
Speaker 1: released They're Pissed Off, politically charged album American band. That
0:19
Speaker 1: record was their rebel yell, full of songs that reflected
0:22
Speaker 1: life and injustice during the Trump era, and judging from
0:26
Speaker 1: their latest release, The Unraveling, it's clear the Drive By
0:29
Speaker 1: Truckers have moved from anger into a state of grief.
0:33
Speaker 1: The Unraveling is the Drive By Trucker's twelfth album. The
0:36
Speaker 1: band's two lead vocalists, Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, both
0:40
Speaker 1: grew up in rural Alabama. Patterson's dad, David Hood, was
0:43
Speaker 1: the basis for The Swampers, one of the most famous
0:46
Speaker 1: studio house bands of all time, who are officially known
0:48
Speaker 1: as the Muscle Shoals rhythm section the backed artist I
0:52
Speaker 1: could read the Franklin, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and
0:54
Speaker 1: Paul Simon, but Patterson explains to Bruce Headlam in this
0:58
Speaker 1: interview why he never talked about his dad's until he
1:00
Speaker 1: was in his thirties. Patterson and Mike also played songs
1:03
Speaker 1: from the new album, most of which are protest songs
1:06
Speaker 1: inspired by the current political climate and conversations they've had
1:09
Speaker 1: to have with their kids about it, and as you'll hear,
1:12
Speaker 1: they've had to rethink their live set lists after fans
1:14
Speaker 1: started waiving the Confederate flags at a festival they were
1:17
Speaker 1: playing alongside one of their favorite rappers. This is broken
1:24
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
1:33
Speaker 1: Here's Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood in conversation with Bruce
1:36
Speaker 1: had them. We're here with Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood,
1:40
Speaker 1: who for more than twenty years have been the leaders
1:44
Speaker 1: and songwriters for Drive by Truckers. Songwriters doesn't seem to
1:50
Speaker 1: quite capture it almost You guys have been so prolific,
1:56
Speaker 1: and you write with such strong themes, it's easy. You're
2:00
Speaker 1: almost to think of you as novelists with guitars. I
2:02
Speaker 1: think because you've done so much work. Uh tell me
2:06
Speaker 1: where this song came from. The song came from a
2:11
Speaker 1: stopover on an off ramp off ninety outside of Gilette, Wyoming.
2:16
Speaker 1: And uh, I don't I don't write a lot on
2:19
Speaker 1: the run. I don't write a lot of songs on
2:20
Speaker 1: the road because it tends to be hard with on
2:23
Speaker 1: a bus with you know, eleven people and and all
2:27
Speaker 1: the loud noises and music playing and stuff. But um,
2:31
Speaker 1: but we uh were on our way from Sioux Falls,
2:35
Speaker 1: South Dakota to Missoula and uh taking the required the
2:39
Speaker 1: legally required bus stop where the driver hopefully sleeps for
2:43
Speaker 1: a few hours. And those pretty good laws. We've seen
2:49
Speaker 1: the other side. We've seen the other side. Well, yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: we've seen naught abiding by them. Yeah. We we had
2:56
Speaker 1: a driver one time go for Minneapolis to Seattle non stop.
3:01
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know if he pete. I
3:02
Speaker 1: mean he just went and uh and it was a
3:04
Speaker 1: little terrifying, but uh, but so were. We were stopped
3:08
Speaker 1: at a holiday in express Us on an off ramp.
3:10
Speaker 1: I mean it could just as easily have been somewhere
3:14
Speaker 1: in Alabama or Arizona other than how cold it was.
3:18
Speaker 1: And uh, because it was wintertime. It was January, and
3:21
Speaker 1: it was it was nice and cold, and we were hungry,
3:23
Speaker 1: and we were walking to uh going to walk to
3:26
Speaker 1: this like Mexican restaurant a couple of blocks away. There
3:28
Speaker 1: was the only thing on that off ramp that wasn't
3:31
Speaker 1: a chain and uh there was like three stars on yelp,
3:34
Speaker 1: you know, sold and uh and we met in the
3:37
Speaker 1: lobby and we were walking when I walked out of
3:39
Speaker 1: the door with like patches of snow and ice. You know,
3:43
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, our buses parked under this giant
3:46
Speaker 1: billboard that said the Oasis Tanning Salon. And I don't
3:50
Speaker 1: know how that became a song, but by the time
3:51
Speaker 1: we got to the restaurant, I wrote the first verse
3:53
Speaker 1: on a napkin, and after I ate, I went back
3:56
Speaker 1: to the hotel room, in our motel room and wrote
4:00
Speaker 1: the rest of the song that afternoon, And that kind
4:02
Speaker 1: of opened the floodgates for the songs that I wrote
4:05
Speaker 1: on this album, because I, up to that point, was
4:08
Speaker 1: having a real hard time wrapping my head around how
4:12
Speaker 1: I wanted to approach writing about this crazy time that
4:16
Speaker 1: we're all trying to live through right now. You know,
4:20
Speaker 1: your last album, American Band was also written about an
4:27
Speaker 1: earlier part of the crazier time, back in the good
4:31
Speaker 1: old days when we thought it Yeah, and you know,
4:36
Speaker 1: parts of that album seem to be written more in
4:42
Speaker 1: sorrow than an anger. Um, you seem to have become
4:46
Speaker 1: a little easier with your anger in this one. It's
4:48
Speaker 1: a tough, tough album. It's it's funny because I because
4:52
Speaker 1: I almost almost if taken the opposite thought on I
4:57
Speaker 1: love hearing that, hearing it. I love here how different
5:00
Speaker 1: people gauge it and react to it, you know, because
5:03
Speaker 1: because from my point of view, I thought of the
5:05
Speaker 1: last record is more the angry one, and this is
5:08
Speaker 1: more just the sad one. It's just like, now, now,
5:12
Speaker 1: what what do we do now? You know? And uh,
5:15
Speaker 1: so so much of the so many of the songs
5:18
Speaker 1: I wrote on this record were directly inspired by conversations
5:22
Speaker 1: with my kids and uh, trying to raise your family,
5:25
Speaker 1: and you know, in all of this and uh and
5:30
Speaker 1: and you know, the questions they had about different things,
5:33
Speaker 1: you know, talking to you know, my kids about the
5:37
Speaker 1: lockdown drill they had in school, you know, and and
5:40
Speaker 1: uh and my son had all these questions about, you know,
5:44
Speaker 1: if if someone was going to take him away from
5:47
Speaker 1: his mommy and I and put him in a cage
5:49
Speaker 1: and a holding. I mean, he was literally he was
5:51
Speaker 1: worried about that, you know. And and you know, first
5:55
Speaker 1: I comforted him and told him that that wasn't going
5:57
Speaker 1: to happen, which led to the real uncomfortable, unpleasant conversation
6:03
Speaker 1: about why you know, and and you know the fact
6:06
Speaker 1: that you know they aren't taking little white kids away
6:09
Speaker 1: from their parents and doing that, and uh and and
6:13
Speaker 1: the look on his face as you could see him
6:15
Speaker 1: trying to wrap his head around that concept, and uh,
6:19
Speaker 1: it was just heartbreaking to me, you know, and that
6:22
Speaker 1: that directly led to you know, at least one if
6:25
Speaker 1: not more, of the songs on the record, and some
6:27
Speaker 1: of the songs and what you just played is not
6:29
Speaker 1: an example of that, but a lot of the songs
6:32
Speaker 1: take the form of really protest songs. Yeah, in a
6:35
Speaker 1: very old fashioned way, which is something of the departure
6:39
Speaker 1: for you guys. Yeah, I guess you know, we've always
6:43
Speaker 1: I've always thought of our band as political, and and
6:45
Speaker 1: my songs is is political. But you know, so often
6:50
Speaker 1: it was like done in the form of telling a story,
6:54
Speaker 1: often a story said in a different time and place,
6:57
Speaker 1: you know, almost like the Chinatown, you know, the way
7:00
Speaker 1: the movie Chinatown used the thirties noir you know, format
7:05
Speaker 1: to to tell to talk about, you know, what was
7:09
Speaker 1: going on at that time in the seventies, you know.
7:11
Speaker 1: And uh so, uh so I always kind of took
7:14
Speaker 1: that approach, you know. I mean I considered Southern rock
7:16
Speaker 1: opera to be a very very political record, you know,
7:20
Speaker 1: with all of the George Wallace stuff and all that
7:23
Speaker 1: and uh, but but starting with American Band, we've been
7:28
Speaker 1: we made a kind of very conscious decision that that
7:33
Speaker 1: record in this last one are set right now, and
7:36
Speaker 1: there isn't there isn't some story to you know, necessarily,
7:40
Speaker 1: you know, he's the he's the he's you into it. Um,
7:46
Speaker 1: we are going to get back to politics, but I
7:48
Speaker 1: do want to ask you just a bit about the
7:50
Speaker 1: making of the album itself. Uh, you went to Memphis
7:54
Speaker 1: for this, yes, so tell me a little bit about that.
7:58
Speaker 1: We went to Sam Phillips Recording Service, uh studio that went. Um,
8:03
Speaker 1: you know, of course Sam. Sam's actually from our hometown.
8:06
Speaker 1: He grew up. He grew up two farms over from
8:09
Speaker 1: my grandmother. They're the same age, and they went to
8:12
Speaker 1: elementary school together even and uh, you know, of course
8:15
Speaker 1: he moved to Memphis and you know, basically discovered rock
8:18
Speaker 1: and roll and and Sun Studios and Elvis and Carl
8:23
Speaker 1: Perkins and all of that. And and around nineteen sixty
8:26
Speaker 1: or so when he sold Sun Records and the Sun Studios,
8:30
Speaker 1: he took his money and he built like his dream studio.
8:34
Speaker 1: And so that's the place where we recorded our record.
8:36
Speaker 1: It's like a time capsule from like nineteen sixty two basically, uh,
8:41
Speaker 1: with with some early seventies updates here or there, and
8:45
Speaker 1: uh some amazing old tube gear and just and those
8:51
Speaker 1: echo chambers. He designed and built three different echo chambers
8:55
Speaker 1: of different sizes into the actual building. And so we're
8:58
Speaker 1: like running our stuff through though echo chambers and really
9:03
Speaker 1: digging the way it sounded and kind of being inspired
9:06
Speaker 1: by did it changed to the sound of this album
9:09
Speaker 1: from other albums? I think it did. I think I
9:12
Speaker 1: think a combination of that and just you know, how
9:15
Speaker 1: the band's evolved too, because uh, you know, because uh,
9:20
Speaker 1: we've been you know, we we've we haven't had any
9:23
Speaker 1: kind of a personnel lineup change or anything for about
9:26
Speaker 1: eight years now. And uh, and so this this incarnation
9:31
Speaker 1: of the band is just really really jailed in a
9:33
Speaker 1: way that I don't think we were ever able to
9:35
Speaker 1: quite achieve before because in our more tumultuous earlier days. Uh.
9:43
Speaker 1: And I heard there was a celebrity setting there. There was, Yeah, yep.
9:48
Speaker 1: Um Peter Grownick, who wrote the Sam Phillips book, came
9:51
Speaker 1: and visited us, and uh, and he had Mick Jagger
9:55
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, okay, but did you talk to Mick
9:58
Speaker 1: Jagger there or yeah, a little bit for for a second,
10:01
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, um, we knew that Peter was
10:04
Speaker 1: coming and uh and of course I'd read I'd read
10:08
Speaker 1: as Sam Phillips book. I've read probably all his books
10:10
Speaker 1: and uh, and so i knew he was coming, and
10:12
Speaker 1: I was looking forward to meeting him. And we're seeing him.
10:15
Speaker 1: I've met him before, seeing him again. But uh, and
10:19
Speaker 1: then when Mike Jagger stuck his head in, it was, uh,
10:23
Speaker 1: it was it was a bit of a trip, all bad.
10:27
Speaker 1: You know. The song you just played describes, uh, sort
10:30
Speaker 1: of how homogeneous sort of the American landscape has become.
10:37
Speaker 1: You guys grew up in a in a very particular
10:40
Speaker 1: part of Alabama. Now, when you say Alabama to most Northerners,
10:45
Speaker 1: they have a certain idea and it's probably Birmingham or
10:47
Speaker 1: Mobile or football or oil or whatever it is. My cousin, Ben,
10:52
Speaker 1: cousin Benny, was that in Alabama? Yeah? Okay, Um, they're
10:56
Speaker 1: not thinking Emmy Lou Harris or you know, any of
10:58
Speaker 1: the people who are actually from there. What was what
11:01
Speaker 1: was that part of Alabama? Let growing up. I mean
11:05
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, it was it was kind
11:07
Speaker 1: of isolated in a way because there's no major highway
11:11
Speaker 1: through our town. There's a pretty major waterway through there
11:15
Speaker 1: as far as the Tennessee River, so there's a lot
11:17
Speaker 1: of barges that floated through. But you know, the closest
11:20
Speaker 1: airport of any size, you know, was at least two
11:24
Speaker 1: hours away, and the interstate was an hour away. And
11:27
Speaker 1: and uh, we're kind of right between three cities. It's
11:30
Speaker 1: about two to three hours away. Birmingham and Nashville and
11:33
Speaker 1: Memphis were kind of right in the middle of of
11:36
Speaker 1: the you know, of that triangle. But yeah, the Shoals area,
11:39
Speaker 1: it's four cities all that border each other. But I
11:43
Speaker 1: would describe the four of them collectively as a small
11:46
Speaker 1: town with a lot more people in it than you
11:48
Speaker 1: usually see in a small town. But it's still very
11:50
Speaker 1: much a big small town, right. Yeah. And it also
11:54
Speaker 1: I mean to the rest of the world because of
11:56
Speaker 1: Muscle Shoals where your fatherhood played for years and years
12:02
Speaker 1: and some of the greatest soul records ever. Right Mick
12:05
Speaker 1: Jagger came to his studio too. Yeah, but uh, yeah,
12:09
Speaker 1: the you know, they the Stones recorded brown sugar and
12:12
Speaker 1: wild horses and you got to move there. And uh
12:17
Speaker 1: but um, and at that time, I mean it was
12:20
Speaker 1: a dry county. You know, it was when I when
12:22
Speaker 1: we were growing up, it was still a dry county.
12:24
Speaker 1: Was almost in high school before we had illegal alcohol
12:27
Speaker 1: was right there. Yeah yeah, so uh wow, so it
12:30
Speaker 1: was time. Yeah, they saw you coming. Yeah, they needed
12:38
Speaker 1: to raising taxes. Always say the best thing for you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: for a hard drinking teenagers to live in a dry
12:43
Speaker 1: county because the bootleggers don't care how old you are,
12:46
Speaker 1: you know, and if you don't and you know, if
12:49
Speaker 1: you don't have legal liquor, then you're just gonna have
12:51
Speaker 1: illegal liquor. I mean it's no, it's not like you're
12:53
Speaker 1: gonna keep anyone from doing what they want to do.
12:56
Speaker 1: There's a certain image, you know, musically, at least of
13:01
Speaker 1: kind of racial harmony. Um, people associate with muscle shoals, right. Um,
13:07
Speaker 1: this is a place that great soul records were made by,
13:10
Speaker 1: you know, by racial bands. And well I guess the
13:13
Speaker 1: band itself was mainly white, but yeah, they were artists
13:16
Speaker 1: mainly white, at least at least Dad's group. Some of
13:19
Speaker 1: the some of the later groups, it got a little
13:21
Speaker 1: more integrated. But uh, but yeah, I mean, yeah, you know,
13:24
Speaker 1: my in the heart of the George Wallace era, my
13:27
Speaker 1: dad was making his living backing up Aretha Franklin and
13:31
Speaker 1: Wilson Pickett and Bobby Womack, Atta James and you know,
13:36
Speaker 1: all these amazing records that came out of there. And uh,
13:39
Speaker 1: and yet you know, at times, especially in the earlier days,
13:44
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think some of the you know,
13:46
Speaker 1: some of the African American artists that were recording there
13:48
Speaker 1: were particularly comfortable going out and having dinner. You know,
13:53
Speaker 1: when some of the restaurants there, I think it got
13:56
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't nearly as bad there as like
13:58
Speaker 1: what you see from like burning Ham and and you know,
14:01
Speaker 1: we didn't have Bull Connor and you know, they weren't
14:04
Speaker 1: necessarily seeking police dogs on people, but it still was
14:06
Speaker 1: a closed minded, you know, bibble Belt religious. I used
14:11
Speaker 1: to have to pass by there was a radio station
14:15
Speaker 1: pretty much from where I lived to get to anywhere. Um,
14:19
Speaker 1: it was a black owned AM radio station. So the
14:23
Speaker 1: w ZZ A the soul of the shows, and it
14:29
Speaker 1: very often it wasn't uncommon at all to pass by
14:32
Speaker 1: there and see that it had been vandalized again. Um,
14:36
Speaker 1: some kind of racist epitap spray painted on the door,
14:41
Speaker 1: you know. So yeah, you had both you right, you
14:46
Speaker 1: had you had a little of both worlds. Yeah. And
14:49
Speaker 1: is it is it changed in a way that we'd
14:52
Speaker 1: recognize from the song you just played? Is it become
14:55
Speaker 1: more commodified in big box? I mean it's it's it's
14:59
Speaker 1: kind of gotten cool in a way because they've you know,
15:02
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, like the whole music thing
15:04
Speaker 1: that was happening, there was a secret. I mean, it
15:06
Speaker 1: was almost like a secret society. I mean I learned
15:09
Speaker 1: really early on that I didn't go to school and
15:11
Speaker 1: talk about what my dad did. It was not something
15:14
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about at school because if
15:16
Speaker 1: if he were my dad, that was literally all I
15:18
Speaker 1: would talk about it. Even today. I mean it's like
15:20
Speaker 1: I was like thirty before all of a sudden, I realized, Okay,
15:23
Speaker 1: I think it's okay for me to talk about my
15:24
Speaker 1: dad now. But but it was kind of like a
15:27
Speaker 1: it was almost like they were in a secret society
15:29
Speaker 1: because they were I mean, they were afraid if they
15:31
Speaker 1: got too much attention, someone would try to stop them
15:33
Speaker 1: from doing what they were doing, you know, but they
15:36
Speaker 1: knew if they just kind of stayed under the radar
15:38
Speaker 1: and you know, and and and donated money to the
15:41
Speaker 1: Little League teams and and you know, did did did
15:45
Speaker 1: the you know, the the nice community stuff that you
15:49
Speaker 1: know that they could do. They would generally get left
15:53
Speaker 1: alone to kind of do what they were doing. And
15:56
Speaker 1: if there if there's a Little League team sponsored by
15:59
Speaker 1: the Swampers, I want that really At one point there
16:04
Speaker 1: definitely was we should explain Swampers. Who's the name for
16:06
Speaker 1: the what's also called the Muscle Shoal A lot of
16:09
Speaker 1: the realm to attract a lot of the artists there too,
16:11
Speaker 1: especially the ones who are on the more famous at
16:13
Speaker 1: the end of the spectrum at the time, because I
16:15
Speaker 1: mean Elton John could probably walk down the street there
16:18
Speaker 1: right now and not get recognized. And yeah, I mean
16:22
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know the rolling Stone State
16:25
Speaker 1: at the Holiday Inn right there, you know, right across
16:27
Speaker 1: the river from Muscle Shoals in Florence, and uh, the
16:30
Speaker 1: first time they've been able to walk around in public
16:32
Speaker 1: in years at that. Boy, Yeah, you know, Linda Linda Ronstat,
16:37
Speaker 1: legend has it Linda Ronstat was the was the first
16:40
Speaker 1: girl to go sit at the counter at the pool
16:42
Speaker 1: room in order. There's a pool room in Florence that
16:45
Speaker 1: had like good chili burgers and stuff like that. And
16:49
Speaker 1: it was it was, you know, kind of an unwritten
16:52
Speaker 1: law that it was men only. This would have been
16:54
Speaker 1: like seventy one maybe when she recorded there and uh,
16:57
Speaker 1: and she wanted to go to the pool room and
16:59
Speaker 1: shoot pool and uh sit at the counter and did
17:02
Speaker 1: because Linda Ronstad did what she wanted, you know, and
17:04
Speaker 1: she wasn't a big store yet, but she was already
17:08
Speaker 1: she was already Linda Ronstad wear her cut off wearing
17:12
Speaker 1: her cut off shorts, no less, you know, at the
17:14
Speaker 1: pool room and uh, and you know they served her
17:18
Speaker 1: and that was, you know, pretty pretty nice way to
17:21
Speaker 1: have change occur. But uh but yeah, I mean now,
17:25
Speaker 1: you know, it's in some ways unrecognizable to me because
17:28
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a kind of a cool town. Now
17:31
Speaker 1: they've embraced their musical heritage, and you know, we've got
17:34
Speaker 1: a you know, we've got hipsters and a boutique hotel
17:38
Speaker 1: and you know, a fancy barber shop, a barber shop
17:42
Speaker 1: with guys and handlebar mustaches and their jeans rolled up,
17:45
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, it's it's it's kind of crazy. So
17:49
Speaker 1: they've just turned into Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, that's Brooklyn. Kind
17:54
Speaker 1: of is a big box store. Now you just find
17:56
Speaker 1: it all over the country. We'll be back with more
17:58
Speaker 1: of Bruce's interview with Mike William Patterson Hood if the
18:01
Speaker 1: drive by Truckers. After a quick break, we're back with
18:08
Speaker 1: Mike William Patterson Hood performing Grievance Merchants from their latest album,
18:12
Speaker 1: The Unraveling Thank You. That was grievous Merchants. Yeah, can
18:18
Speaker 1: you tell me about the writing of that song. I
18:21
Speaker 1: started thinking about everything that went into it. And after
18:28
Speaker 1: that the Parkland, Florida shooting that mobilized those kids so much.
18:34
Speaker 1: I was pretty moved by what they were up to,
18:35
Speaker 1: you know, but the predictable reaction they got, being accused
18:44
Speaker 1: of being less than sincere. They were called crisis actors.
18:48
Speaker 1: They were discredited, insulted and made fun of. And I
18:55
Speaker 1: don't know if that particular shooter or not was one.
18:57
Speaker 1: I think you may have been. But there was a pattern,
19:00
Speaker 1: um of all these young men that were committing these acts,
19:03
Speaker 1: you know, um every twenever it was over and you'd
19:09
Speaker 1: get a look at their uh, at their laptops, their phones,
19:14
Speaker 1: what they'd been looking at, what they've been posting, liking
19:19
Speaker 1: on social media. It was kind of a who's who
19:21
Speaker 1: are the usual suspects? Um, maybe not the same names,
19:25
Speaker 1: but definitely the same message. Um. And that was that
19:30
Speaker 1: was what it all boiled down to me. Was this
19:32
Speaker 1: this cottage industry whose product was grievance and victimhood. Um
19:38
Speaker 1: too mostly young white guys now maybe sometimes not so young.
19:42
Speaker 1: And at that time, you know that the that Alex
19:48
Speaker 1: Jones guys probably the most household name of all of them. Um.
19:51
Speaker 1: I never went far enough down that rabbit hole to
19:54
Speaker 1: even know who most of the rest of the names
19:55
Speaker 1: are because I just don't want, you know, I don't
19:58
Speaker 1: want that stuff to start popping up on my phone
20:00
Speaker 1: when I'm in public. Um uh. But yeah, it was
20:06
Speaker 1: that they all seem to uh have some kind of
20:08
Speaker 1: problem with women. They had ex girl friends x wise
20:13
Speaker 1: with restraining orders, that they had been arrested for stalking.
20:15
Speaker 1: They couldn't get the kind of attention from women they
20:18
Speaker 1: thought they deserved. Um that they were honestly that they were.
20:23
Speaker 1: Their whiteness was losing its value was the message that
20:26
Speaker 1: was constantly being pumped at them. And it's not your fault.
20:31
Speaker 1: They're kind, you know, sending them that message that you know,
20:34
Speaker 1: it's not because you're socially awkward, or because you inevitably
20:38
Speaker 1: open your mouth and say the wrong thing, or because
20:41
Speaker 1: you're you know, it's got to be this, it's got
20:44
Speaker 1: to be this thing or that thing, this is m
20:46
Speaker 1: or that ism that's turning these people against you. And uh,
20:50
Speaker 1: and you know you go far enough down it and uh,
20:53
Speaker 1: you're you know, you've you've completely self radicalized, which a
20:57
Speaker 1: lot of these guys have, and you know, you I
21:00
Speaker 1: I just don't want to you know, I can't draw
21:01
Speaker 1: a line to people on the internet or the TV
21:05
Speaker 1: or the radio saying something and somebody doing something. Of
21:09
Speaker 1: course not. But I'm not going to let them off
21:10
Speaker 1: the hook either. Um. Some of them are true believers
21:14
Speaker 1: in what they're peddling, and they're pure evil, and some
21:18
Speaker 1: are just con jobs who are in it for the attention,
21:21
Speaker 1: the money and the ratings, and they're more than pure evil.
21:25
Speaker 1: Is there there's a wonderful line in that song conspiracy
21:28
Speaker 1: to dilute their blood. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's that's a Yeah,
21:33
Speaker 1: it's a great line. But it connects to that idea
21:35
Speaker 1: of lost hand manhood emasculation, which is very much needing
21:41
Speaker 1: to see um, non white men as sexual predators. Um.
21:47
Speaker 1: And and how it's in some grand conspiracy to get
21:52
Speaker 1: white women to have fewer white babies. Yeah, I mean
21:55
Speaker 1: they really do. That's really out there. That's literally what
21:58
Speaker 1: these people are feeding up. Do you think that connects
22:00
Speaker 1: to a bigger sense in the South of being looked
22:04
Speaker 1: down upon, um by the elites, and and you know
22:09
Speaker 1: that's always been part of it. I mean yeah, definitely
22:11
Speaker 1: anti eliteism, anti intellectualism. UM. Growing up around you know,
22:18
Speaker 1: working class southern white men, there was all at men
22:23
Speaker 1: or who were more educated or more successful. Um, there
22:29
Speaker 1: was always that sense that he thinks he's better than
22:31
Speaker 1: I am. And maybe some of them did, but he
22:34
Speaker 1: got above his raisin. Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe some of
22:37
Speaker 1: them did. I'm sure some of them, you know, or
22:39
Speaker 1: they look at academics and uh they don't they think
22:43
Speaker 1: they're so smart. Well they kind of are, um, but
22:46
Speaker 1: you know, whether they are or not, it's not why
22:49
Speaker 1: that person thinks that. They're going to think that no
22:51
Speaker 1: matter what. And it's just there's definitely a blue collar
22:56
Speaker 1: chip on the shoulder. Well it's all, you know, fear
22:59
Speaker 1: of the other is such a you know, which has
23:02
Speaker 1: been a prevalent thing that our band has written about
23:05
Speaker 1: for years and years. It's been that's been kind of
23:08
Speaker 1: an ongoing theme, you know. And and and our records
23:12
Speaker 1: kind of from that day one. But uh and and
23:17
Speaker 1: it's like there's always somebody to blame, some other that's
23:21
Speaker 1: that's taking what's rightfully mine or whatever, you know, And
23:25
Speaker 1: you know, and I mean, you know, our current president,
23:29
Speaker 1: I mean that's what that's how he got elected was
23:31
Speaker 1: capitalizing on that over and over and over and over.
23:35
Speaker 1: They're coming across the border to get your jobs and
23:38
Speaker 1: you know, probably take your women to you know, as
23:40
Speaker 1: that whole. Now they've now they've morphed into these magic
23:43
Speaker 1: immigrants that can take your job and still not work. Yeah,
23:49
Speaker 1: never thought of it that way. Yeah. It's interesting because
23:52
Speaker 1: you're from the South. You've written quite a few songs where,
23:57
Speaker 1: for example, George Wallace appears you guys grew up. I mean,
24:01
Speaker 1: Wallace was still probably governor at something you probably remember
24:04
Speaker 1: misc into the eighties. Yeah, yeah, I mean he got
24:08
Speaker 1: elected his fourth term my freshman year in college. Okay, yeah,
24:13
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I mean you and I don't remember the song,
24:15
Speaker 1: but I think you had a line something to the
24:17
Speaker 1: effect that, um, there's racism everywhere, but George Wallace gave
24:23
Speaker 1: it a Southern accent. I'm not remembering the phrase exactly
24:25
Speaker 1: from then, if you're going to have a racist in
24:27
Speaker 1: a movie, you're going to give him a Southern accent
24:29
Speaker 1: flat out. It's just it's like, uh, that's one of
24:32
Speaker 1: the ways that you established the character of of of
24:35
Speaker 1: being a racist as you give him that accent. You know,
24:38
Speaker 1: there's a James Bond movie, you know, Live and Let Die,
24:41
Speaker 1: you know the the you know, they they made sure
24:45
Speaker 1: to set set a Louisiana so that the so that
24:49
Speaker 1: the cop could be a redneck cop. You know, they
24:52
Speaker 1: said it so. But as the flip side of that
24:55
Speaker 1: that if somebody has a Southern accent, people then assume
24:57
Speaker 1: he's a racist. I mean some do, I'm sure, you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean I'm you know, I'm sure that
25:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's been people who've never listened to our
25:11
Speaker 1: music that would just assume we're something that we probably aren't.
25:16
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's racist or just you know, whatever
25:19
Speaker 1: whatever you want to whatever presumptions you want to make
25:22
Speaker 1: about Southerners in the South, you know, And and you know,
25:27
Speaker 1: it's like I tell people a lot. You know, It's
25:28
Speaker 1: like Trump won Alabama by sixty percent, which is horrific,
25:34
Speaker 1: but that's still forty percent that voted against him. That's
25:37
Speaker 1: still you know, over a million people who feel as
25:40
Speaker 1: strongly opposed to this as as I do, you know,
25:45
Speaker 1: or as you know, as someone in a different state does.
25:49
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a matter of how the demographics
25:52
Speaker 1: of the population, how it how it all settles. But
25:57
Speaker 1: given how polarized the times are now, uh, there is
26:02
Speaker 1: probably not the same audience for a sophisticated, nuanced take
26:08
Speaker 1: on certain kinds of characters. And I'm wondering. Another example
26:12
Speaker 1: is you had a song, I think it was Southern
26:15
Speaker 1: thing where and you wrote about this in the Times,
26:19
Speaker 1: which is that people were bringing out Confederate flags. Yeah,
26:22
Speaker 1: and it made you uncomfortable. It was hard, it was horrified. Yeah,
26:26
Speaker 1: So you stopped playing the song largely, Yeah, and sell
26:30
Speaker 1: them will occasionally play it, and even then it's it's
26:34
Speaker 1: only in an environment where I feel comfortable with no
26:38
Speaker 1: one that the people I'm playing it for, no, they
26:43
Speaker 1: get it. They get where I'm coming from with it,
26:45
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, that songs very very rarely played.
26:48
Speaker 1: Are there other songs that have that are now in
26:52
Speaker 1: that category in the last few years because of changing politics?
26:55
Speaker 1: Things that you may have felt your intentions were right,
26:58
Speaker 1: but it just is not going to be heard in
27:01
Speaker 1: the same way. Probably. I can't think of any examples offhand,
27:06
Speaker 1: but but but probably, I mean, you know, and the
27:11
Speaker 1: case of that song, you know, I mean, I'm not
27:13
Speaker 1: sure I did it. I'm not sure I did my
27:15
Speaker 1: job adequately in writing that song. I mean, it's got
27:19
Speaker 1: a you know, it's got a really cool guitar lick,
27:23
Speaker 1: and it was always a crowd pleaser, you know, because
27:28
Speaker 1: it's a good rock song as far as musically on
27:33
Speaker 1: all of that, maybe, but the point I was trying
27:36
Speaker 1: to make in writing it, I'm not sure if I
27:39
Speaker 1: adequately made it. The mere fact that it was so
27:42
Speaker 1: misunderstood always kind of made me question the actual writing
27:46
Speaker 1: of the song itself. You know. The point I was
27:49
Speaker 1: trying to make, maybe clumsily, was that if you ask
27:54
Speaker 1: ten Southern people what you know, people always refer to
27:58
Speaker 1: this like the Southern thing. If you ask ten different
28:01
Speaker 1: Southerners what that is, you get ten very different answers,
28:04
Speaker 1: often that conflict with each other. Sometimes from the same person,
28:07
Speaker 1: you'll get different answers that conflict with each other. And
28:10
Speaker 1: what time of the day you ask them. Yeah, And
28:12
Speaker 1: so that song has a lot of has a lot
28:15
Speaker 1: of statements that people state as fact themselves personally in
28:20
Speaker 1: describing being a Southerner that and over the course of
28:25
Speaker 1: the song, there's all these other contradictory statements to that,
28:29
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, I think I really maybe underestimated
28:34
Speaker 1: the how easily that could get misconstrued as as the
28:39
Speaker 1: song actually making those statements. You know, I didn't. I
28:42
Speaker 1: didn't view it that way when I wrote it, and
28:43
Speaker 1: when I realized that kind of the hard way. You know,
28:47
Speaker 1: it was specifically a show we were playing at this festival,
28:50
Speaker 1: this outdoor festival in Georgia in Atlanta, and uh, We're
28:54
Speaker 1: actually on the same bill with Big Boy from from
28:57
Speaker 1: Outcasts too. I'm a huge Outcast fan and uh and um,
29:01
Speaker 1: and there were people waving that record was still pretty
29:04
Speaker 1: new then. There were people you know, with with rebel
29:07
Speaker 1: flags and uh, that like pull him out when that
29:10
Speaker 1: song comes on, and I was, I was mortified, and
29:13
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, people think that's what I'm saying and
29:15
Speaker 1: that's not you know. So so it's made me question
29:19
Speaker 1: the actual writing of the song. Oh interesting, but you
29:21
Speaker 1: are part of the song is in it's in a character, sure,
29:25
Speaker 1: and you guys, you guys write a lot of a
29:27
Speaker 1: lot about kind of desperate characters, like characters serve in
29:30
Speaker 1: the edge, and people tend to not get that really right.
29:33
Speaker 1: Wouldn't want anybody, does it, you know? Yeah, you know, well,
29:37
Speaker 1: speaking of Randy Newman, sail Away is not a song
29:39
Speaker 1: I think he'd be really comfortable about paying right now.
29:43
Speaker 1: It's an it's an amazing song, yeah, or or you know,
29:46
Speaker 1: or Rednecks, which is also an amazing song, you know,
29:49
Speaker 1: and uh, but it's also you know, a song that
29:53
Speaker 1: you know it it's polarizing even to people who do
29:56
Speaker 1: get it, you know. And I mean when we were
29:59
Speaker 1: writing what the record that came to Southern Knock Opera,
30:03
Speaker 1: we were We've spent a lot of time listening to
30:05
Speaker 1: the Good Old Boys album by Randy Newman. To me,
30:08
Speaker 1: that was that was always the original Southern Nock opera,
30:10
Speaker 1: you know, And uh, it's just you know, I've always
30:15
Speaker 1: loved him doing that, his writing of how he can
30:18
Speaker 1: write from a point of view of a character who
30:21
Speaker 1: might be at times a pretty dislikable character. And uh,
30:26
Speaker 1: I think that's a valid I think that's a valid
30:29
Speaker 1: art form. But it is something, particularly in these times,
30:34
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a risk and uh and sort of
30:38
Speaker 1: you know, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm still grappling with all
30:42
Speaker 1: of that. Is it is that a particular burden of
30:45
Speaker 1: Southern writers. I remember um Flannery O'Connor at one point
30:50
Speaker 1: talked about Uh. She was always asked why Southern writers
30:55
Speaker 1: always write about freaks, and her answer, and I'm again
31:00
Speaker 1: hair phrasing, was something the fact that, well, there are
31:01
Speaker 1: freaks everywhere, we're just better at recognizing them. And you
31:06
Speaker 1: guys write about people, you know, who are very some
31:08
Speaker 1: edgy characters. Do you feel an extra duty to somehow
31:14
Speaker 1: make them sympathetic to not necessarily? I think I don't know.
31:20
Speaker 1: What I don't ever want to be is condescending to them,
31:22
Speaker 1: even if I disagree with them, I don't want to
31:24
Speaker 1: be condescending to them. I don't want to be. I
31:27
Speaker 1: want to at least try to write about it fairly
31:32
Speaker 1: and then let the listener make up their own mind
31:35
Speaker 1: as to where they land about that, which right now,
31:40
Speaker 1: in this damn current climate in itself, that is even
31:44
Speaker 1: the risk, you know, And maybe it always was. Maybe
31:47
Speaker 1: I always naive to it, you know, because that certainly
31:50
Speaker 1: could be possible too. But I want to be. I
31:55
Speaker 1: want to I want to be true to what I'm
31:56
Speaker 1: writing about, though, whether whether whether I personally agree or not.
32:00
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I had a had a very
32:04
Speaker 1: different upbringing than most of the people I know from
32:07
Speaker 1: where I'm from, you know. But but I don't necessarily,
32:11
Speaker 1: you know, need to impose that on all the characters
32:14
Speaker 1: are right about. When we come back, we'll pick back
32:17
Speaker 1: up with Bruce's discussion with Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley,
32:20
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear more about Randy Newman's
32:22
Speaker 1: Good Old Boys album, check out episode four, Season four
32:25
Speaker 1: of Malcolm Gladwell's other podcast, Revisionist History. More. After this,
32:34
Speaker 1: we're back with Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood. Before playing
32:38
Speaker 1: The Trucker's new song Thoughts and Prayers, Patterson talks about
32:41
Speaker 1: what inspired him to write this song. This one's not
32:44
Speaker 1: really in a character I don't guess, but it's uh,
32:47
Speaker 1: I mean again, it was inspired by, you know, the
32:52
Speaker 1: stuff going on, you know, the shootings and and and
32:54
Speaker 1: all of that, you know, and again talking to my
32:58
Speaker 1: kids about it and everything. But hum, the song is
33:02
Speaker 1: called Thoughts and Prayers. Thank you. You told you explained
33:08
Speaker 1: a little bit where the song came from. But I
33:10
Speaker 1: need to ask you where one particular part of that
33:13
Speaker 1: song came from. Which is the just beautiful image of
33:17
Speaker 1: the flat earth earthest I guess right, realizing he's the
33:23
Speaker 1: earth is around just before he hits the ground. Remember
33:26
Speaker 1: where did that come? Years ago? When uh, like some
33:29
Speaker 1: guy like went way up? It was like some kind
33:33
Speaker 1: of a flatter thing a guy like like launched himself
33:37
Speaker 1: and really didn't know it was like it was. It
33:41
Speaker 1: was in the news right around the time that I
33:43
Speaker 1: wrote the song. And and just at that perfect moment
33:48
Speaker 1: when I came to that part of the it was
33:50
Speaker 1: time to like write a bridge for the song, it
33:53
Speaker 1: popped in my head. Then Uh, it just kind of, um,
33:58
Speaker 1: you know, I got lucky, You get very lucky. That's uh,
34:03
Speaker 1: that must be the Nassa influencing Yeah, northern Alabama. Yeah,
34:06
Speaker 1: putting people on the moon, but it weirdly, which you've
34:09
Speaker 1: also written about, it makes it a strangely optimistic song.
34:14
Speaker 1: As angry as that song may sound to people, you know,
34:16
Speaker 1: after that, I'm not sure if it's a course or reverse.
34:19
Speaker 1: You actually talk about people finding a solution to all this?
34:23
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you actually optimistic at this point. I'm
34:29
Speaker 1: trying on that particular issue, or on any particular issue.
34:32
Speaker 1: I'm trying. It's a work in progress. I'm trying, you know.
34:36
Speaker 1: I do. I do get a lot of optimism from
34:41
Speaker 1: the young people i'm around and uh, because I'm I'm
34:44
Speaker 1: getting old and uh, but I'm around a lot of
34:46
Speaker 1: young people, probably a lot more than people my age
34:49
Speaker 1: normally are, because because I've I've got still have small kids,
34:53
Speaker 1: I'm around a lot of their friends. You know. Our
34:56
Speaker 1: house is kind of that house that a lot of
34:58
Speaker 1: the it's friends feel happy congregating at. And uh, and
35:04
Speaker 1: our bands on the road we meet people all over
35:07
Speaker 1: the country, but we also our crew as all these
35:10
Speaker 1: you know, guys in their twenties who are amazing, you know,
35:15
Speaker 1: and uh and um, and I get so I get
35:18
Speaker 1: I get a lot of optimism out of out of
35:20
Speaker 1: that and uh, or what optimism I can hang on to?
35:25
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, you know, I I'm I've always thought
35:29
Speaker 1: of myself as a as an optimistic person, even if
35:33
Speaker 1: I was kind of cynical and and maybe sometimes pragmatic
35:37
Speaker 1: about it. I've I've always, I've always, I've always felt
35:40
Speaker 1: like I had an undercurrent of that, and that was
35:43
Speaker 1: that's been a that's been a real issue the last
35:46
Speaker 1: few years because it's taken a real hard beaten after,
35:50
Speaker 1: you know, with everything that's been going on, and hanging
35:54
Speaker 1: onto that it's been Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging
35:57
Speaker 1: onto it for dear life, like like a life raft
36:00
Speaker 1: Steven and uh and um, but I'm I'm still hanging
36:04
Speaker 1: onto it. Is it important to you that your music
36:07
Speaker 1: and your shows reflect that. I would like it too,
36:11
Speaker 1: But I don't want again, I don't want to be
36:13
Speaker 1: dishonest about it, you know. And so I mean, you know,
36:16
Speaker 1: it's definitely an underlying theme I think, and in this
36:20
Speaker 1: record is the trying to hang on to that, and uh,
36:27
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, I think that I think the
36:30
Speaker 1: act of going to a rock show is a cathartic,
36:33
Speaker 1: can be a really cathartic, uplifting, wonderful thing. You know.
36:37
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think I get from going
36:41
Speaker 1: to rock shows probably what some people would get would
36:46
Speaker 1: get from going to church or whatever. You know, It's
36:48
Speaker 1: always been sort of that that thing for me, like that,
36:51
Speaker 1: and and I would love for it to be have
36:54
Speaker 1: that experience for the people who come to see us play,
36:57
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I want it to be on
37:00
Speaker 1: and and there'd be some some bit of uplift to it.
37:06
Speaker 1: But you know, at the same time, I'm you know,
37:11
Speaker 1: these are tough times, which makes us need it more
37:13
Speaker 1: than ever in a lot of ways. Thank you so much.
37:16
Speaker 1: This songs are just beautiful. It was just it was
37:18
Speaker 1: lovely hearing them just with two guitars. Please don't say
37:21
Speaker 1: that to the rest of the band. It was great.
37:24
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thanks to Mike Coolliam Patterson Hood
37:29
Speaker 1: from the Drive By Truckers for talking to Bruce and
37:32
Speaker 1: for playing songs from the new album been Rattling. The
37:35
Speaker 1: album's out now, so be sure to check it out
37:36
Speaker 1: along with the rest of their catalog, and if your
37:39
Speaker 1: need for a Drive by Trucker's primer, check out our
37:41
Speaker 1: favorite songs and a playlist we made on Broken Record
37:44
Speaker 1: podcast dot Com. Broken Record is produced help from Jason Gambrel, Melabelle,
37:50
Speaker 1: Leah Rose, Matt Leboza, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries.
37:55
Speaker 1: Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
37:58
Speaker 1: for listening. Four