New album is dark detour for Drive-by Truckers
So, it would seem on the surface that the group's latest release, "Brighter Than Creation's Dark," which has received rave reviews from critics across the board, was just another effortless symposium on masterful songwriting.
But DBT co-founder and frontman Patterson Hood said that's only true to a point. Once the writing for the new CD started to flow, the floodgates opened. The hard part was getting to that launch point.
"It came on the tail end of long writer's block (co-founder/guitarist/vocalist Mike) Cooley and I went through," Hood said. He said he's had periods when he writes tons of songs, but some aren't very good. " ... but that's part of my process. It was kind of unnerving (to go through that type of writer's block)."
Cooley went two years without writing anything, Hood said. But, for whatever reason, both of the Trucker's front men found their writing prowess simultaneously. The result was 17 songs in 10 days, a break for a short tour, and then back into the studio to finish the new album's 19 tracks.
Writer's block wasn't the only thing going on with Hood and the DBT's prior to the writing sessions for "Brighter Than Creation's Darkness." Internally, the band was in a period of transition, highlighted by the amicable and mutual departure of guitarist Jason Isbell in spring 2007. A big part of getting past that point, and helping Hood return to his songwriting ways, came in the form of 2007's semi-acoustic "The Dirt Underneath" tour.
"The Dirt Underneath tour was a real important thing for the future of our band and the direction of our record," he said. "Jason was a huge part of our band. There's no denying or underestimating what a huge part of the band he was for the five years he was in it. It wasn't just a matter of putting another guitar player on the stand where he used to play. That would have been kind of a worst nightmare ... a guitar player's worst nightmare, too.
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