Band brings healthy dose of Southern rock, alt country to Recher Theatre Critical and popular acclaim must be getting stale in a way for the Drive-By Truckers.
If you go
Drive-By Truckers with Langhorne Slim
Where: Recher Theatre, 512 York Road, Towson
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Info: $25; ticketmaster.com
After the April 2007 departure of songwriter/guitarist Jason Isbell, many predicted the band would fade away. Few could have guessed the Southern rockers/alt-country band — depending on your perspective — would not only survive but thrive as evidenced by it’s last rockin’ album “The Big To Do.” “Add to that we’ve never played better or been more creative and it’s a good time to be in DBT,” chief trucker Patterson Hood said just before the new album’s release.
If anything, that’s changed for the better now that the band is taking its show on the road behind the new album. If there’s any downside — and it’s minor and outside the band — it’s critics’ jousting about whether the band has rock, southern rock or alt country sounds.
“You find yourself having to do that a lot,” co-founder Mike Cooley said of defining the band’s sound. “I prefer rock and roll because a lot of that sound comes from R&B and county. That’s nothing new; we didn’t invent that. We’re a fairly eclectic rock and roll band.”
If anything, some band members and their fans look at Tom Petty as a forefather to the Truckers. An upcoming tour in support of Petty seems the perfect marriage of bands.
“That Tom Petty tour, that’s very exciting and that is kind of a dream for us,” Cooley said. “Nobody really looks forward to being an opening act but if we’re going to do it, that’s who we want [to open for]. It’s a major tour and we’ll expose ourselves to larger audiences which is cool.”
And the vibe is easy, Cooley said, saying the band is so used to the road now “It is all pretty easy. You could have 10 irons in the fire that are mostly problems but we’ve had that before. Now it is all good.”
That’s proven on the new album, which Cooley said is a natural progression from past DBT recordings.
“You always evolve from record to record,” he said. “Most of it comes about after spending about two year touring; your playing changes and you learn to play together in different ways, learn to listen to each other better.
“We never go in shooting for a particular [feel]. We go with what has always been the sound of the band.”
