Drive-By Truckers - American Band

New album from the alt-country-rock Southern singer-songwriters

Includes a 7" and album download, subject to expiration

"One of the nation's best bands has made what very well might be its greatest album." — NPR Music

Founded in 1996 by singer/songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers have long held a progressive fire in their belly but with American Band, they have made the most explicitly political album in their extraordinary canon.

A powerful and legitimately provocative work, hard edged and finely honed, American Band is the sound of a truly American Band — a Southern American band — speaking on matters that matter. Master songwriters both, Hood and Cooley wisely avoid overt polemics to explore such pressing issues as race, income inequality, the NRA, deregulation, police brutality, Islamophobia, and the plague of suicides and opioid abuse. As a result, songs such as "What It Means" and the tub-thumping "Kinky Hypocrites" are intensely human music from a rock ‘n' roll band yearning for community and collective action. Fueled by a just spirit of moral indignation and righteous rage, American Band is protest music fit for the stadiums, designed to raise issues and ire as the nation careens towards its most momentous election in a generation.

Never ones to screw around in the studio, DBT cranked out nine new songs in just three 14-hour shifts, as ever with producer/engineer David Barbe at the helm. Coming in directly from the road put a head of steam behind the band, allowing them to lay it all out live on the floor, tracking songs like "Once They Banned Imagine" in little more than a single take.

"We realized we had most of the record," Hood says, "so we went back after the holidays for four more days, but ended up finishing it in three. We tend to usually take about two weeks to make a record so this was really quick."

"I don't want there to be any doubt as to which side of this discussion we fall on," Hood says. "I don't want there to be any misunderstanding of where we stand. If you don't like it, you can leave. It's okay. We're not trying to be everybody's favorite band, we're going to be who we are and do what we do and anyone who's with us, we'd love to have them join in."

Mike Cooley is somewhat more direct. "I wanted this to be a no bones about it, in your face political album," he says. "I wanted to piss off the assholes."