Drive-By Truckers

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