New Video / Patterson Hood / "The Forks of Cypress"

From his forthcoming album Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams

Patterson Hood Mulls Temporary Peach State Return

By Kevin Broughton 

 Portland, Ore. -- After a chaotic and tumultuous four years – and an otherworldly 2020 – it’s only fitting that unbounded bliss can turn to crushing morosity in an instant. Such is the roller coaster existence of Patterson Hood, the Portland-based activist and political commentator who moonlights as the front man for the Drive By Truckers. 

Saturday, Nov. 7 was a joyous day by all accounts in the City of Roses. First CNN, then Fox News, and then all the other networks and wire services followed in turn: Joe Biden, they reported, would be the 46th President of the United States. Mostly peaceful celebrants rushed into the streets.

“It was beautiful, man,” Hood says. “Four years of fascism, finally over.” The Oregonian thought himself alone in his bliss, until that perfect moment when he found a kindred – and musical – spirit. “Kasey Anderson and I ran into each other. It turns out we were both throwing acid at the same Portland so-called ‘firefighters,’” he says. “Those dudes were f*cking with freedom-fighters who had mostly peacefully torched an Apple Store in celebration of Biden’s big win. I got the whole thing on my iPhone 12.” 

Jubilation became concern on multiple levels, to Hood’s chagrin. “Turns out Kasey’s on Federal paper and has an ankle bracelet,” Hood says. “Well, he said he had an ankle bracelet. I think it was a baby monitor, to tell you the truth. Anyway, he hauled ass when they made a curfew announcement on the loudspeakers.” 

Hood was undeterred, if now alone. And yet… 

“I joined up with some other freedom fighters, at the last Taco Bell before it peacefully went up in flames…” Hood trails off here, caught up in the memory of a poignant moment in Portland social justice history. He is a little weepy. 

“I got in line,” Hood says, choking up a bit before recovering his composure. “And person after person, be it he/she/xi/xxyx/cis, every one of us HUMAN PEOPLE said to Juan – so his corporate name tag said – YES, MY ORDER IS FOR A LIVING WAGE FOR ALL LETTUCE PICKERS IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY.” 

Hood isn’t shy admitting he enjoyed the sick burn. “I mean face it, what are corporatists gonna say in the face of that kind of truth?” Sadly, the euphoric social triumph would give way to realpolitik. Such is the duality of the Southern thing – Patterson Hood-style. 

“What totally freaked me out was that there was a whole other set of elections going on at the same time or whatever,” said Hood, who attended some college courses in Northern Alabama in the 1980s. “There are senate elections that happen, too. And there are some elections that happen in Georgia or whatever. And in January!” 

Hood – after reading the same story in The Daily Kos three times – grew tense. When he learned that two Senate runoffs in Georgia could drastically impact President-elect Biden’s agenda, he was at first cynical. “Typical redneck Georgia, man,” Hood said. “It’s just the same Jim Crow stuff: they make a Democrat win twice, just because he’s a black guy. This kind of racist shit is why I left Georgia after living there for like 20 years or something.” 

Yet rather than curse the darkness, Hood turned to a literary light. 

“Somebody turned me on to this guy Tom Friedman? He writes for the New York Times and magazines, too,” he said. “He’s like an expert, but still can deal with the common man. He’s interviewed taxi drivers from Athens to Rome. Which is perfect, since those are my two favorite cities in Georgia!” 

 It was a national television interview of Friedman that grabbed the fifty-something poet’s attention.    

 

“I mean, dude, that takes it up a notch,” Hood said. “This is serious activism! I thought my friend Topher in L.A. was owning the MAGA’s with his radical phone-banking.”

“I mean, I love the way my boy mimics that cis-white woman’s stupid accent, but you gotta give the nod to the writer guy,” he said. “Which is why I’m headed back to Georgia so I can vote for Rafael Warnock…and that one cis-white guy too, since he’s also a Democrat.” Asked if he had voted in Oregon, and if that might pose legal problems in the Peach State, Hood grew indignant. 

 “So f*cking what, man? I mean, you gonna buy into this Jim Crow myth of “voter fraud?” Hood snapped. “You’re telling me it’s against the law to go to Georgia to vote for a black man? It’s the most anti-racist thing to do, ever. Check your patriarchy and your white privilege, bro. Seriously. Besides, Gov. Abrams will pardon us all.” 

 As he gathered his things to prepare for his cross-country political odyssey, he took a moment to address a music-industry rumor about his band’s most recent political album. “It is nobody’s business whether President Xi and the Peoples’ Cultural Collective sent us a small donation to support our art,” Hood said. “Besides, you can’t prove it, and it’s a totally racist and sinophobic thing to say. Only a fear-mongering redneck from Texas would say such a thing. 

-- fake news

Hood Announces Drive-by Truckers Follow-up Record

DBT’s Hood announces follow-up record plans, possible relocation to Caribbean 

 

 By Kevin Broughton

Portland, Ore. – Patterson Hood is jittery, and not just from the third vegan latte at Habas Frescas, a hip coffee shop nestled on a busy intersection here in the City of Roses. He’s flustered, too. “I mean, you pour your soul into making music that really means something, just to see it all flushed away on a Tuesday in November,” laments Hood, longtime front man of the Drive By Truckers. “And just a couple weeks later, we lose a universally beloved and adored human rights icon? Makes you wonder what it all means, or if any of this means anything at all.”

The fifty-something musician can be forgiven for waxing philosophical. DBT’s eleventh studio album, American Band, was hastily written and released just two months before the most contentious U.S. election in memory – and all, it would seem, for naught. Hood and 30-year collaborator Mike Cooley set out to make an exclusively, overtly political record, and proceeded brashly to air their election-year grievances. He is genuinely stunned at the notion his band’s ideology failed to carry the day.

“We hit all the bases, and hit them hard, man,” Hood says, spittle collecting on his lower lip as he grows progressively agitated. “Gun ownership, sovereign borders, Mexicans, blacks, gays and women. Police brutality, for [expletive]’s sake! How could people listen to this album and still vote [expletive] Trump into the White House?”

A record label official familiar with internal market-charting metrics described sales as “less than brisk, to put it kindly.”

But the Truckers have never been driven or defined by record sales, and pride themselves on expanding their fervent grassroots audience one show at a time. “And we’re gonna keep branching out, too. You have to keep plowing new ground to stay organic, musically,” Hood says. “Geographically, politically, whatever. And especially right now…” Here the singer trails off momentarily, a slight quiver in his jaw muscles. “What’s happened in the universe when America elects a tyrant capitalist and a true progressive leader dies, in a matter of weeks?

“Everybody in Cuba can read, man. Think about that,” Hood continues. “And who’s the only democratically elected leader in the Western Hemisphere who guaranteed free health care? Fidel [expletive] Castro, that’s who!” The native (yet reluctant) Alabamian gathers himself and continues. “They’ve achieved close to 100% gun control down there, with zero white cops riding around in Cuba shooting young black kids for sport.”

Which is why the singer – who relocated here from Athens, Ga. just one year ago – is moving his musical base of operations yet again. “The Wednesday after the election, I was already writing songs for a follow-up record, lots of Woody Guthrie-type, anti-capitalist stuff. Hang on,” Hood says, scanning a text message on his iPhone 7. “When Commandante passed, I knew we had to get in the studio like, now, and do it in [expletive] Havana.”

Not only did he book a week in the prestigious and state-run Muerte a America recording studios; Hood, his wife and two young children will also take up residence in the romantic Caribbean capital. “She found us a 1 ½ bedroom flat a quarter mile walk from the bread store,” he says. “Eight bucks a week! And I’ve shipped a couple pallets of bottled water, and we’re all taking Cipro, so we’re set. Hang on. Gotta take this.”

He takes a moment to clarify a quote with a music critic from The Daily Kos. “Yeah, I said ‘Latin feel.’ That’s all I can say. No more hints. Can’t get into content right now, bro.” He winks and ends the call.

Hood is at first mum about how much of his plan he’s told his band mates. When pressed, he ‘fesses up. “Look, I haven’t told Cooley yet, okay? Marlboro Reds are $80 a pack there,” Hood says. “That’s almost double what they are here in Portland. It’s the cost of living in a free country, I guess.” 

**fake news**