Patterson Hood | Musician and Drive-by Trucker

Today's guest, the re release from 2021 was easily one of my favorites.

When I found out he was going to be able to do the show and he agreed to do it, I was blown away.

He's one of my heroes, you could say.

I've listened to his music tons and tons, especially this year.

His songs are fantastic, timeless, yet specific to what's going on.

He's just one of my favorite songwriters.

I think he's an original and he was so kind to do the podcast and he's kind to talk to.

As as you'll hear in this audio only version of Short Takes, it's Alabama born, Georgia and Oregon native Patterson Hood.

Patterson's written some of the most in depth songs about the south, which is really a microscopic look at the US as a whole.

But of course it's one of my favorite episodes of Short Takes.

Remember some of the references here are.

Dated from 2021, but don't let that hinder you.

It's a great talk.

Let's get to it.

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to Short Takes.

We appreciate you tuning in.

We are produced by the Alabama Take.

I'm your host.

I'm the editor in chief of the website.

My name is Blaine Duncan.

Our show is here.

It's a brief interview with our favorite people, our most revered musicians, artists, you name it.

We love to talk to the people we adore.

And here with me there's no doubt this is one of our favorites.

We've got Mr. Patterson Hood on deck.

Hey dude.

Hello man.

Good to be here.

It's so good to have you.

I have been a fan of yours since early aughts so I know you guys have been making music a lot longer than that but you came on my radar I guess around 02 maybe.

And you guys with regularity.

Yep.

Used to play the chucker.

I think we were one of the times they closed.

We were like the last or next to last band to play there.

One of the time.

I don't know if it's the last time they closed or if they had one more go round after that owner or something but we.

We played a very late Chukar show and which was a you know, killer room like a great historic punk rock venue for sure.

It really is.

Yeah, I miss it.

It's such a great venue to see guys like the Truckers back then.

Just you name it, they probably played there.

Right.

For sure.

So.

So how's it going?

I guess we'll do proper.

Hello.

How you doing man?

I'm good.

You know I made it through last year and now trying to get.

Come out of my cocoon and go back to work and play some rock shows hopefully before too very long.

And so I'm excited about all of that.

It's been a long year.

Yes, it has.

For everyone involved.

I think you this episode will air May 28th and I think.

So you've got some shows like next month in June, right?

You get some solo.

Yep, I'm playing.

I'm playing on the 28th in Vashon Island, Washington.

And it's like just, just south, just southwest of Seattle, out in the water.

You take a ferry to it.

It's beautiful, beautiful little island.

I played there a couple years ago and doing that again.

And then I'm starting a tour in Chicago on 16 June, playing two nights at City Winery and then Atlanta and then we're going to be in Alabama, going to play in Waverly at Standard Deluxe, which is just a favorite love Standard Deluxe.

And then I'm going to do a show at the Princess Theater in Decatur, Alabama.

And all of that's in June.

Then I'm going to spend visit my family for the fourth in Alabama.

And then I'm gonna spend some time in Georgia in July and do some recording.

Truckers are gonna start work on next record and I'm gonna finish working on.

I'm gonna mix a record that I started working on 15 years ago with Jim Dickinson and his sons, Luther and Cody Dickinson and my dad, David Hood, who's a bass player session one of the Muscle Shells guys.

And we started this project, kind of a fathers and sons project in 2007.

And we cut seven songs with the intention of, you know, reconvening a year or so later to cut some more and make it into a record.

And then Jim Dickinson got sick and passed away.

And.

And so it sat dormant for years.

Just, you know, none of us were really quite ready to take it on for a bit.

And right before the pandemic started, we reconvened in Muscle Shoals, the Muscle Shoal sound in Sheffield, Alabama.

3614 building where all the original like Staple Singers and all that stuff happened.

And.

And we finished, we would cut several more songs using Spooner Oldham on keyboards to take Jim's place.

Per Jim's request.

No, no less Jim, who knew he wasn't going to make it, actually passed along instructions for always the producer.

You know, he passed along instructions to Luther Cody for how he wanted that album finished when we did.

And that was his request was that Spooner be the keyboard player on anything we do further.

And so we brought Spooner in, and Lily Hyatt came down from Nashville and sang a couple songs with us.

And so we're gonna finish that thing, that album this summer and try to get it out, you know, in the next year.

As soon.

As soon as that can happen.

And so.

So I'm working on all that in July, and Cooley and I might.

Cooley, my partner in the Truckers.

You know, we do a duo called the Denver twins.

So we've got a few shows coming up in July in New York, and we're playing the Newport folk festival.

Fantastic.

Which is a big honor.

So excited about that.

That's.

Man, some of that stuff was giving me chills.

You were talking about it.

I'm stoked, too.

It's gonna be a good summer after.

After last year.

We need a good summer.

We do.

Yes.

And you guys will be great to bring it to us and help us with this summer being good.

That's.

That's really cool.

I'm stoked for all of that.

For our Alabama folks.

Probably a lot of Alabama folks will tune into this.

Your date at standard Deluxe down in Waverly's opelika area is June 25, and the Princess Theater date is June 26.

So hit up the.

Hit up the truckers website and get your tickets for those.

And you know what?

I might sneak over to Decatur.

I don't.

I live about 50 minutes away from Decatur.

So.

What?

Oh, yeah, Come on up.

It'll be fun.

Everything.

I think tickets are selling really good, so I'm expecting it all.

You know, it's there.

You know, I think it's all still kind of a limited capacity because, you know, we're trying to be careful.

We don't want anybody, you know, hopefully, you know, hopefully everybody's getting vaccinated.

I know that's, you know, for some reason, that seems to be controversial to some people, and I can't quite understand, Wrap my head around that.

I know that I was.

I was more than eager to roll up my sleeve and have them hit me, and they did.

And it was.

And so it's just a big weight off my mind.

And so, you know, get your shot and come out and let's rock.

Let's do it.

Yes, sir.

In fact, to give people a hint on when we record today, the CDC came out and said that if you're fully vaccinated and if, you know, if you waited the amount of time after your vaccine, you're good to Go.

Right.

Yeah.

So that's starting to become promising.

Yeah, it's feeling a lot better, you know, from a year ago when everything just seemed like.

I mean, it's like no one knew how long it was going to take to create a vaccine and.

And it was just running rampant, you know, and so.

So now being here a year later, it's pretty miraculous, actually, how fast things are going if everyone will just do their part and not be stupid, you know, because stupidity kills.

No doubt about that.

No doubt about it.

Well, those are the dates.

We hope that to get you some people out there.

I'm sure they'll sell like hotcakes very soon.

So get on it, people.

Don't.

Don't waste time.

You've kept busy throughout the year, though, right?

You've.

Have you done a lot of riding?

I've done a good bit in the last few months.

It's funny, a lot of last year I wasn't able to.

I was, you know, when I first came home from tour and I thought, oh, man, I might be off for two or three months.

What am I going to do?

It's like, well, I'm going to really try to ride a lot and make it count, you know, and that, and spending time with my kids, my wife, which, you know, is never enough time with them.

And then when all of a sudden we realized this was going to be a year or something, you know, and everything started feeling really bad, I just kind of shut down and I wasn't able to really do a. I kept my playing up, I kept my singing up.

I did shows up here in this room.

I did these.

These, you know, virtual shows, and I did 19 of those.

They all had a theme to them, you know, and so I. I knew that a lot of the same people be tuning in week after week.

I was doing about every two weeks on average, and I didn't want it to be, like, boring.

It's like, oh, here he goes, playing those same song, same 20 songs again, or whatever.

So I changed it to where every week was really a different.

Every time was a really different show.

And they followed themes and sometimes the theme might be the name of one of the records and it had all the songs written in that era.

Sometimes it was like more of a, you know, I did a show of protest and political protest music that kind of was timed around the, you know, Black Lives Matter protests all kicking in.

And it was shortly after, you know, the murder of George Floyd and did something and donated proceeds to a local charity that it was for The.

And then I did, you know, a Pizza Deliverance show, which was like songs from like, the very beginning of the band, basically.

The.

Basically about the 25 songs I started the band with and back in 25 years ago.

This month or next month?

Next month.

And.

And then, you know, and all that, you know, and so that kept me busy and it kept my chops up.

It had a little money coming in to kind of help us not lose the house, which was a real danger with the way everything happened.

And so I was thankful for all of that.

At the same time, I'm ready to go play in front of real people, you know, in front of an audience and in person.

You can only do so much up here in this room, which.

Yeah, yeah.

And we made a record last summer too.

We.

And we put it out in the fall, which was kind of weird because we had just put out a record, like days before everything shut down.

We had just released the Unraveling and we were really proud of it.

Had the entire year booked solid for touring behind it.

And all of that got canceled.

All but the first leg got canceled.

But I wrote some songs.

I did write a few songs last summer, kind of in the midst of all the protests that were going on in Portland because it got a little out of hand around here, particularly with the response when they sent in federal troops and treated it on the news like my whole city was going up in flames, which it wasn't, by the way.

And it was like a.

About a three square block area where everything was happening and.

And even that got really blown out of proportion.

But I think.

I think they wanted to make an example out of us, basically, and sending in the troops.

And it was ridiculous.

But so I wrote a couple songs and recorded them up here and then sent the tracks to.

To my bandmates in Georgia and Alabama and Mississ.

And they added their parts and David put it all together and compiled it and mixed it.

And we had some songs that we had already recorded in Memphis also.

So we combined it all and put out a second album for the year, last year, called the New okay, that came out in the fall.

Both of those works are complementary of each other.

I think.

You can't have for me put them on vinyl.

I like to listen one back to back.

I think they kind of fit really well in sequence.

They do.

I think if you take our last three records together, it's kind of a trilogy because they are kind of interconnected, you know, the, you know, American band, you know, I'd like to thank each of them standalone too, but, but there is an interconnectedness about them because they all three have a lot of similar subject matter.

They're, you know, our band's always been political.

There's always been that aspect to what we do, but it was definitely put kind of in the forefront on those three record.

And so, you know, I think, I think they, I think they go well together and kind of taken as a whole, they kind of document this, this last, you know, kind of this last decade of life in America and what's, what all's happened here and, you know, and it's been a, it's been a brutal, rough, you know, bunch of years and, you know, leading up to the, the election in 2016 and then everything that happened after that for, you know, and so it was a pretty brutal time.

But, but, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be optimistic as we move forward out of this and we're kind of, you know, there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of problems need to be addressed.

And, you know, as, as became all too clear in the news today, the infrastructure stuff is in.

Vital.

I don't know, I guess you've heard about what's going on in Memphis, but.

Yes, with the bridge there.

I've been across that bridge more times than I can count.

And it's frightening.

It's terrifying.

I mean, the.

When I actually saw the plan and when I heard it, oh, they shut down the bridge, they found a crack.

That's scary.

But then they showed the pictures and it's like, holy crap, man.

That's, you know, I mean, it wasn't a crack.

It's.

It's, you know, it was, it was about to go and you know, the engineer that found that was literally on the phone.

It's like, close the bridge.

So scary.

Yeah, terrifying.

So that's what.

Let's jump into our four questions because that is actually part of my first question for you.

As our viewers probably know, we ask.

I don't know if it's off kilter, but maybe more philosophical style questions.

And so my first one for you is what frightens you?

You know, we're talking about that being so scary, but.

And you can answer it however you wish.

But what, what is it that frightens Patterson Hood?

I mean, ignorance frightens me.

You know, my grandmama used to say that that was the most dangerous thing in the world was ignorance.

And, and she's.

I think she's right.

You know, I mean, you can so Much of our other problems stems from that.

You know, I mean, I think prejudice is a big.

Is ignorance, you know, and, you know, being racist is ignorant and being, you know, just, you know, allowing yourself to be manipulated by.

By, you know, people who, People who talk a big game and, and can't back it up in any way.

You know, there's a lot, you know, so.

So many of our problems stem from those things.

And it's, It's.

It's hard thing to fight.

It's a hard thing to battle, you know, because, you know, because the, the people who are profiting from keeping people stupid, basically, they don't want people to become educated and to learn to learn better.

They want.

They want because they, they get.

They derive their power and their profit from that.

And so that's, you know, so I don't know.

I don't know the answer, you know, other than, you know, I try to.

I try not to fall into it myself.

I try to read as much as I can and, and.

And, you know, suss out, you know, filter out the stuff that's obviously this propaganda and crap and try to, you know, if I'm, you know, if I'm.

If I'm gonna post something online, I'm gonna make sure that the sources, you know, properly vetted and it isn't some, you know, somebody who's stating something to try to turn a profit off of somebody's, you know, misperceptions.

Yeah, it makes me proud to be a fan of the truckers and a fan of you, because you guys have tackled that, I guess, for as long as you've been making music, for sure.

You know, it, It.

I think.

I think it stems from.

I mean, I think some of it stems from my childhood because I grew up.

I grew up Muscle Shoals, Alabama, just as the whole Muscle Shoals music thing was kind of happening.

And, and my dad was a big part of that, you know, and my dad was this, you know, here in the.

The.

The heat of the civil rights era, Jim Crow South, George Wallace, Bull Connor era.

You know, my dad was this white guy playing bass on soul records, you know, playing with Clarence Carter and Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Bobby Womack, Staples Singers and.

And, you know, being really successful doing that at a time when it was really largely frowned upon by a lot of.

Particularly a lot of Southerners, you know, to have, you know, to have black people and white people eating dinner together and making art, creating art together and interacting together in that kind of a way.

And, you know, and so, you Know, I can have vivid memories of my dad and George Wallace coming on the tv, on the news and my dad just, you know, about frothing at the mouth, you know, being so angry and, you know, you know, to his credit, in his later years, you know, in his own way, Wallace did try to atone for a lot of that.

And did, you know, he definitely, you know, he definitely changed his, you know, I don't want to get too deep into that whole conversation because, because there's a, you know, you can, you can weigh out whether, you know, whether it was a change of heart or just the fact that there was black voters now.

I don't know, he wanted, he wanted to be reelected, you know, whatever, but for whatever reasons you did, you know, his later years in office were very different from his earlier years, I could say.

Yeah.

And yeah, I can vaguely remember him.

I was born in 76, so I vaguely remember him making that sort of transition into decency maybe.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, I mean, he did, I mean, he won his last term in office with, you know, 90% of the black vote over 90% of the black vote.

And granted, the guy he was running against was pretty terrible.

And you know, and so, you know, it, it's, you know, we have a long way to go.

But, but, but I'm, I'm still holding out hope that I'll live to see a better day from all of this stuff because there's just, you know, we're, I think that the sins of racism is probably the darkest stain on our history as a people in this country and probably the world over.

You know, look what's going on right now, you know, between in Israel with the Palestinians and stuff.

I mean, it basically, it basically comes down to racism and it's, it's really sad and scary.

Yeah, I do like how you, you've said it maybe in a nutshell better than others.

I've heard how it's, it boils down to ignorance.

My grandfather told me, get all the education you can, nobody will take, take that away from you in the end.

And you know, he meant any kind of education, you know.

Sure, that's fantastic.

We'll lighten it up with our second question.

We got a. I feel like I've known you to be a cinephile just from following you.

What do you think your favorite movies say about you or maybe even your favorite movie?

You know, I guess my all time favorite, I generally, when I just have to pick one off the top is Treasure of the Sierra madre, John Huston 1949, I believe.

And he won best director and his father won best supporting Actor for it.

And it's my favorite Humphrey Bogart performance, too.

It's just a.

That's an incredible movie.

It's dark and cynical and, you know, it's about greedy and it's about how.

How greed poisons the human spirit and, and that's just a.

You know, probably if I made a top 10 list of favorite movies, there's probably.

They probably all are dark and cynical and they all have that kind of black sense of humor.

Because, Because Treasure, Sierra Madre, you know, it's.

It's not a comedy, but it is funny.

It's.

It's genuinely funny and.

But it's also genuinely horrific and, and, and kind of terrifying.

And, you know, it's got, you know, you watch the lead, the Bogart character, kind of go off the rails and become unhinged in a way that's not all that different from the, you know, Jack Nicholson and the Shining kind of thing.

I mean, he, he definitely, you know, loses his mind and goes mad.

And so that, that.

That's always the one.

My.

Go to Chinatown's right up there with it.

The Godfather Part 2 Network.

I tend to really love those gritty 70s movies.

Probably eight of my top 10 films are from the 70s.

Yeah.

Does Serpico crack your.

It's way up there.

I tell you what, what's higher than Serpico is the same director a couple years later made Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino.

And that one.

That one's probably in my top 10.

That's.

That's an amazing film.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Good choice, man.

Our third question is, what does self doubt look look like for you, and when do you combat it?

You're looking at it, buddy.

Right here.

Yeah.

You know, there.

I don't think any level of success kills some of this stuff.

And so I'm just curious, do you have a.

A way of knocking it down or hushing it up?

It's a daily battle, and I generally do okay.

I mean, I've.

I have no shortage of self doubt.

And last year, being locked down like that, you know, made it worse because you just sit there, you have time to think too much and you have time to look at everything too closely, you know, and, you know, I'd wake up every day and my hair was falling out because I was so stressed out.

And that didn't help, you know, and what was hanging in there was turning gray quickly.

And I was like, man, I'M you know, by the time I get back on the road, if I ever get back on the road, I'm gonna be an old man, you know, but, but, you know, I'm lucky because I've got.

I've got a wonderful family that's very supportive, and I've got my, I've got my songwriting, which has always been sort of my go to thing to keep my sanity somewhat intact.

And, you know, even that was kind of at times frustrating me last year.

But it sort of came back together as it always has in my life whenever I thought, oh, man, I may have written my last good one, you know, then another good one happens.

At some point you go, okay, I can still at least do that.

And so that helps.

And, you know, I've never, you know, I've never thought of myself as like a, you know, a masterful guitar player.

I have a weird voice, so my singing is probably an acquired taste to a lot of people.

But I've, but I work really hard.

I work really hard at getting better.

You know, I'm still trying to improve.

I'm still trying to be a better guitar player and a better singer.

And my songwriting has always been the thing that I most kind of knew I could count on because I'm, you know, I've been doing it a long time, so I'm, I, I'm usually pretty decent at that, so.

I agree.

You really are, man.

You're.

You're one of the greats.

So we have a saying around our site, which in our crew, we say it to one another online especially, we'll say when something's done up real good.

So it actually stems from my mom years and years and years ago.

So tell us what's done up real good for you of late.

What's done up real good?

I mean, I'm not 100% clear on your question.

Okay, sure, yeah.

A little bit more.

You mean?

Yeah.

So the, the impetus of the phrase.

My mom used to iron my clothes before school, and she would say, oh, this shirt's going to be done up real good.

And we, we, we transitioned that phrase over the years with our website and stuff just to mean it's just making us, it's just tickling us.

It's making us happy.

It's getting us through the day.

So it could be a book, a painting, a show, a movie.

What a lot of people say, particularly restaurant.

A lot of guests talk about how they have a tickler.

So food's always done up real good for us here.

Yeah, I've you know, it's, it's weird.

I don't really have any, like, hobbies.

Like, I don't play golf.

You know, I don't, I don't.

I've never been into sports, I guess, obviously.

And I've, you know, my hobbies have always been the things that I do kind of for a living.

You know, my hobbies are, you know, playing music, going to rock shows.

You know, I love movies.

Going to movies and I love going to eat probably too much.

And so, you know, another way that last year was really brutal for me because all those things were hit so hard by 2020 and, you know, there were no shows, all the theaters closed down and some for good.

You know, some of my favorite music venues closed for good because they just couldn't hang on.

And a lot of my favorite restaurants closed for good.

You know, my, my.

Of my three favorite restaurants here where I live in Portland, Oregon now, which is a great food town of my.

Of my top five favorite restaurants, one survived last year.

Oh, that's a shame.

You know, and that's, and so that didn't help my general demeanor last year very much.

But, but you know, I do think things are coming back and, you know, some new restaurants will open where some of those used to be and I'm sure there'll be some good ones because there's a lot of good cooks that are looking for a new gig and, and the, you know, theaters are starting to open back up.

I'm actually on a date tonight with my wife.

It's our anniversary this weekend and we're gonna go to it.

We're gonna go to a movie.

Yes.

17 years and this Saturday.

So we're gonna go to a movie tonight and we're going out to dinner Saturday.

Both of which are like things we haven't gotten to do in a long time.

And so, so I guess those, those are the things.

That's great.

You've always kept a pretty good ear to, to music.

You.

Is there a band out there that may.

Our viewers won't know about that.

You can hail as being pretty good.

Oh, man.

You know, I've been in a, I've fallen into the.

They're not a new band, they're an older band, but they do have a brand new record of Bloodkin.

I've been deep in a Bloodkin wormhole this week.

You know, Danny Hudson's their lead singer, guitar player, song chief songwriter in that band.

They've been together 30, almost 40 years.

He and his partner, Eric.

Eric Carter.

But Danny passed away this weekend at 57, and we've all been really brokenhearted and they put out a brand new record like three weeks ago.

And we're about to try to get out and tour some behind it.

And hell, I was hoping we could get some shows together to get them out in front of some of our crowd because our audience tends to really like them and they're just such a fabulous band.

So I've been.

I've been going back, I've been listening to their new record, which is excellent.

And I've also been listening to a lot of their.

A lot of their older stuff, which is just phenomenal.

And.

But so that's been, you know, that's been a.

That's been a big sad thing.

Their new records called Black Market Tango, and it's, I guess came out on like, really tiny indie label.

I think it's about to be coming out on vinyl, but it's up on, you know, streaming and download right now.

And.

And their catalog is just.

I mean, this is fantastic records.

So I've been listening to that.

I'm still listening to that Waxahachie record, which she's from Alabama originally, and what a great album.

Yeah, Good God almighty, that's a great record.

And then the Kevin Morby record, which I think.

I think actually they're a couple, kind of a couple, but.

And the same person produced both of those records and his record is fantastic.

And listening to, I mean, listen to, you know, New Dinosaur junior And that Japanese Breakfast records.

Cool.

There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of cool stuff coming out always.

So.

Yeah, so.

So I try to.

I try to stay on top of it best I can.

Well, those are great, man.

I like a lot of those bands.

I need to check out the Kevin Morby stuff stuff more because.

Oh, man, that's good.

Stuff's good.

He's got a killer delivery and really, really cool stuff.

All right, that's.

That'll be something a little I can listen to.

That'll be new for me.

Good stuff.

Patterson, I appreciate your time so very much, man.

Thank you so much for having me and, you know, thanks for being a voice of, you know, some good thought and, and, you know, and.

And everything that the Alabama take is doing.

So I'm really, you know, I'm.

I'm glad, you know, doing.

Doing my home state proud.

So thank you.

Oh, man, you always make us proud.

Like I said earlier, you.

You.

So we've got those festival dates coming up with the Truckers.

Late in fall.

We've got your solo show this summer.

Solo shows this summer, everybody.

Check out the Truckers website.

You can find out a whole lot more.

And if you're just tuning in for whatever reason, the Truckers will change your life.

Tune into them.

See them live.

For sure.

We love them.

And, Patrick, thanks so much.