It’s attention-grabbing that Patterson Hood has launched Exploding Timber & Airplane Screams (ATO) only a few months previous to David Lowery’s 28-song Fathers, Sons And Brothers, which is due Could 30. Each are closely autobiographical, self-depreciatingly trustworthy solo albums loaded with juicy, generally off-color anecdotes. Earlier than transferring to Portland, Ore., in 2015, the Drive-By Truckers frontman was a lecturer at College Of Georgia, the place Lowery is now a part of the school. Within the not-too-distant previous, maybe the 2 chatted about all this memoirish stuff within the trainer’s lounge sooner or later. Who is aware of?
Regardless of the case, Hood walks us via his first solo album in additional than a decade.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Exploding Timber”
“The album kicks off with a story of a pure catastrophe that occurred in my hometown of Florence, Ala., within the winter of 1994, a number of weeks earlier than I moved to Athens, Ga. Days of heavy rain had soaked all the pieces, and a sudden sharp drop in temperature brought on the timber—particularly the pine timber—to primarily explode. Throughout city, actually hundreds of timber hit vehicles, homes and folks. It was on CNN, and the world was declared a catastrophe zone. A good friend of mine was severely injured when her automotive was crushed, together with her within the driver’s seat, by an enormous fallen oak tree. It was a meteorological occasion that prefaced my transferring away to start what turned ‘the remainder of my life’—and it offers an entryway into this chronological reverse deep-dive into an album stuffed with tales and vignettes about my youth and coming of age. I completed writing the tune on piano, an instrument I’m barely satisfactory at. I’d initially deliberate to get an precise piano participant to carry out it on the album, however my good friend and producer Chris Funk knowledgeable me that he wished me to play it—and that I’d higher begin practising. He mentioned he wished me out of my consolation zone. He succeeded there.”
2) “A Werewolf And A Lady”
“My high-school girlfriend was my old flame and a really formative affect on my later life. We dated for a yr, breaking apart badly proper earlier than commencement. Years later, we turned buddies once more. This tune juxtaposes our preliminary falling in love with the breakup, a lot within the model of the movie Blue Valentine. I wrote it from each of our factors of view. Lydia Loveless sang the feminine half and knocked it out of the park. Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) performed baritone sax. I wrote the tune—lyrics first, which I hardly ever do—again in 2021. I wrote the music within the studio on the day it was recorded. Moreover Blue Valentine, the tune was influenced by the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush duet ‘Don’t Give Up,’ the Rolling Stones’ ‘Nervous About You’ and the movie An American Werewolf In London, which was an enormous favourite once I was 17.”
3) “The Forks Of Cypress”
“This an actual place a number of miles north of my hometown. A former plantation home as soon as owned by a cousin of Andrew Jackson, it was struck by a ‘lightning cluster’ in 1966—once I was two—and exploded into flames, burning to the bottom in underneath 5 minutes. All that was left had been these large columns in a rectangle on prime of a hill overlooking the meadow. It was proper by a really creepy, rickety one-lane bridge that the locals referred to as Ghost Bridge. I drove previous this—and crossed the scary bridge—each week of my childhood on my strategy to my great-uncle’s home, the place I spent each weekend. Later, as a teen, youngsters would drive dates out to the bridge, inform ghost tales and make out. The bridge was torn down a few decade in the past. I wrote the tune as pure fiction, impressed by these nice story songs Bobbie Gentry did, the place she implies a narrative with out explicitly telling it. In my head, I heard Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) singing it with me and was blessed that she was prepared to take action. She’s certainly one of my very favourite artists and such a beautiful individual. Kevin Morby put the cherry on prime with a shocking lead half.”
4) “Miss Coldiron’s Oldsmobile”
“Anne, my godmother from my childhood, lived alone throughout the road from my grandmother. She by no means married, and though she’d inherited some cash, she misplaced energy of lawyer because of some psychological points she had. Every time she requested for extra money, she was gaslit and left wanting. I spent a great little bit of my childhood using behind Anne’s big Oldsmobile Delta 88. They’d let me pan the radio to only the again audio system and take heed to rock ’n’ roll songs whereas they ran errands. I vividly keep in mind listening to ‘I’ll Take You There,’ ‘Candy Residence Alabama’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Cash’ for the primary time behind that automotive. Stuart Bogie added the layers of bass clarinet.”
5) “The Pool Home”
“I spent an evening at this creepy place—a literal pool home in an condo complicated I rented cheaply for the night time throughout a solo tour. It was low season, and the pool was darkish inexperienced and stuffed with algae. I’d had a few drinks, and my thoughts was wandering, conjuring up some macabre shit. I wrote most of it throughout lockdown and demoed it on my dwelling rig. I later recorded it with Nate Question (Decemberists) enjoying upright bass and Dan Hunt (Neko Case) on drums. I performed piano, guitar, vocals and a garbage can as percussion on the bridge. Then I had Kyleen King work her magic, including viola and layers of strings from her personal association. The good Steve Berlin performed flute, which he knocked out of the park. He’d come by the studio to place some sax components on different songs, and I discussed wanting a flute for this monitor. He requested what sort of flute half I used to be pondering of, and I mentioned, ‘One thing like what Chris Wooden would play in Site visitors.’ He simply smiled and mentioned he’d see what he may do. Frances Thrasher, who painted the album cowl, additionally created the unimaginable and creepy stop-motion animation for the super-cool video utilizing a classic dollhouse.”
6) “The Van Pelt Events”
“One other slice of my bizarre childhood. Wendy Van Pelt was my babysitter as a baby. She seems for a second within the movie Gimme Shelter because the Rolling Stones had been leaving the Vacation Inn in my hometown to go report ‘Wild Horses’ at my dad’s studio. Her and her mother and father turned shut buddies with my mother and father. Yearly, they’d an enormous social gathering on Christmas Eve. As my mother and father had been youthful than everybody else there, I used to be the one child in attendance. As I received older, I discovered methods to raid the punchbowl, offering a few of my earliest alcohol-related experiences. It’s most likely essentially the most ‘rocking’ tune on the album. Members of the band Wednesday play on it—they’re certainly one of my very favourite bands proper now. I received to see them on the 40 Watt as an early birthday current, they usually got here to the studio early the subsequent morning earlier than driving to a different present, they usually made it occur. Karly Hartzman sang concord, and MJ Lenderman and Xandy Chelmis supplied a beautiful tangle of electrical guitar and pedal metal. David Barbe had already laid down a killer bass half to the fundamental monitor I’d recorded with drummer Dan Hunt.”
7) “Final Hope”
“This was the very last thing I wrote for the album, finishing it after a lot of the album was already recorded. I wrote it on piano, and it’s based mostly loosely on an older tune with the identical title that I’d by no means been capable of make work. As I used to be writing it, I didn’t actually have an agenda or any specific deeper that means supposed, but it surely occurred to me afterward that it may very well be in regards to the Dimmer Twins, as there in some way appears to be a little bit of (Drive-By Truckers cofounder Mike) Cooley and me in it—or possibly simply the way in which that Wes Freed drew us for posters, the place we favored Butch and Sundance leaping off the cliff. It even name-drops ‘the Coug’—so there’s that. I recorded the fundamental monitor at David Barbe’s Chase Park Transduction in Athens the identical day Wednesday got here to report their components for ‘The Van Pelt Events.’ I performed David’s grand piano, which was his father’s. Brad Morgan performed the drums. Jay Gonzalez performed one thing referred to as a Crumar Performer (keyboard) on it. Chris Funk later added a Bass VI and an OP-1 (synth). Steve Berlin added baritone sax.”
8) “At Protected Distance”
“Impressed by Harper Lee, I wrote this a few weeks after our household relocated to Portland in 2015. To Kill A Mockingbird had all the time been certainly one of my all-time favourite books, with Atticus Finch’s the Aristocracy within the face of Jim Crow horrors making him an idyllic hero to an Alabama white child like myself. In 2015, not lengthy earlier than Ms. Lee’s passing, she printed her long-awaited Go Set A Watchman, a type of companion piece to her earlier masterpiece. In it, Atticus Finch is a extra difficult character. My preliminary response to the critiques of Go Set A Watchman was shock and sorrow, adopted by a extra reflective realization that this extra difficult view of him would possibly, in itself, provide a extra reasonable portrayal of our area’s (and nation’s) relationship with race and racism. I wrote ‘At Protected Distance’ throughout the identical interval I used to be writing songs for (Drive-By Truckers’ 2016 album) American Band, with its reflections on race and politics. Thematically, it match properly with these songs. However musically, it appeared to name for a unique method—one which took me the higher a part of a decade to seek out.”
9) “Airplane Screams”
“I wrote this greater than 40 years in the past, in August of 1984, once I was 20 years outdated. It was impressed by a dialog with somebody I had a few dates with on the time—a troubled good friend of nice magnificence and disappointment. It’s a tune I’ve all the time held in excessive esteem however by no means fairly had the suitable place to place it. Adam’s Home Cat labored up a model of it in 1991, shortly earlier than we ended, however we by no means performed it dwell. Almost a decade later, Drive-By Truckers recorded a model of it as a placeholder on an earlier model of Southern Rock Opera earlier than accurately deeming it not proper for that undertaking. I recorded a solo model for a profit report for the Southern Poverty Legislation Middle in 2017. I’d initially deliberate to make use of that model on the album, however the brand new tracks sounded so nice that we determined to re-record it with Chris Funk enjoying synthesizer and piano, Nate Question on bass and Dan Hunt on drums. I performed electrical and acoustic guitars and piano and sang lead and concord vocals. Kyleen King based mostly the viola half on her unique however topped it with further viola, violin and a beautiful concord vocal. It’s the third oldest tune of mine I’ve ever recorded—and it’ll most likely stay as such. I like how properly a 40-year-old tune suits into my latest album.”
10) “Pinocchio”
“As a baby, my first obsession was most likely my dad’s Beatles data, adopted carefully by a full-on deep dive into all issues having to do with Walt Disney’s 1940 movie Pinocchio, which was re-released in theaters the summer season I used to be seven, proper after first grade. In these days, earlier than video, movie leases or streaming, seeing a film a number of instances concerned convincing an grownup to take you. I used to be lucky to speak my grandmother (Sissy) and great-uncle (George A.) into taking me most likely eight to 10 instances. I memorized each line and body, and I’d act it out in my grandmother’s yard for the children in her neighborhood. They weren’t impressed. This could be essentially the most private of any tune I’ve ever written—private in ways in which have turn out to be clearer to me within the years since I wrote it. By unlocking such a private and all-consuming obsession, I’ve managed to reply a lot of my very own questions on my childhood and the numerous years that adopted. As a mother or father, one of many fringe advantages is making use of my youngsters’s numerous diagnoses to my very own signs. I used to be raised in a unique time, culturally and in any other case. ADHD, autism and sensory points weren’t extensively identified in North Alabama within the Seventies. I used to be bullied mercilessly in school and infrequently punished for my dangerous grades at dwelling. I used to be all the time an obsessive character, and my numerous untreated and undiagnosed points vastly affected my life. All three of those doable diagnoses made my life as a child a hell—however they’ve typically turn out to be considerably of a superpower in my chosen career and grownup life.”
