Drive-By Truckers has always been outspoken, telling the American story through the band's music, character and social conscience.
Founded in 1996 by singer-songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, the band released "American Band" last September, a powerful, provocative work speaking on subjects that matter to them.
Hood and Cooley explored race, income inequality, the NRA, police brutality, Islamophobia and the plague of suicides and opioid abuse. As a result, songs like "What It Means" and the tub-thumping "Kinky Hypocrites" are intensely human music from a rock 'n' roll band yearning for collective action.
If you go
› What: Drive-by Truckers› Where: Track 29, 1400 Market St.› When: 9 p.m. today, May 4› Tickets: $25› For more information: 423-521-2929
"I don't want there to be any doubt as to which side of this discussion we fall on," Hood says.
Fans can join that discussion when DBT plays Track 29 at 9 tonight, May 4.
"American Band's" force can, in part, be credited to the musical strength of the current lineup, with Hood and Cooley joined by bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan - the longest-lasting lineup in the band's two-decade history.
"This is the longest period of stability in our band's history," says Hood. "I think we finally hit the magic formula. It's made everything more fun than it's ever been, making records and playing shows."
DBT was determined to get their record out at the height of the 2016 election season. By their very nature, the band has always been an inherently political act, "but this is the first time it's been out there on the surface," Cooley says. "No bones about it."
"I'm sure there will be people saying 'I wish they'd keep the politics out of it,'" Cooley says of fans listening to "American Band."
"But one of the characteristics among the people and institutions we are taking to task in these songs is their self-appointed status as the exclusive authority on what American is. What is American enough and who the real Americans are.
"Putting 'American Band' right out front is our way of reclaiming the right to define our American identity on our own terms, and show that it's out of love of country that we draw our inspiration."