DBT's Hood drops "The Pool House"
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DBT's Hood drops "The Pool House"

Tuesday, January 14, 2025 – Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood released the second song, "The Pool House," from his upcoming new solo album, "Exploding Trees & Airplane Scream," out via ATO Records on Feb. 21.

"The Pool House" was originally inspired by a night I spent at a creepy rental," said Hood. "A literal pool house for an apartment complex that I rented cheap for the night during a solo tour. It was off-season, and the pool was dark green and filled with algae. The whole thing was creepy, and as I'd had a couple of drinks, my mind was definitely wandering, conjuring up some macabre shit.

"I wrote most of it during lockdown and demoed it then on my home rig."

"I later recorded it with Nate Query (The Decemberists) playing upright bass and Dan Hunt (Neko Case) on drums. I played piano, guitar, vocals and a trashcan as percussion on the bridge. Then I had Kyleen King do her magic adding viola and layers of strings (from her own arrangement) to it and the great Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) played flute, which he knocked out of the park. He had come by the studio to put some sax parts on some songs ,and I mentioned wanting a flute for this song. He asked me what kind of flute part I was thinking of and I said, "something like what Christ Wood would play in Traffic." He just smiled and said he'd see what he could do.

"It's one of the weirdest and most twisted tracks I have ever recorded, and I'm really thrilled with how it all turned out."

"Frances Thrasher (Heaven4TheYoung), who painted the album cover, also does incredible and creepy stop-motion animation and has made me a super cool video for the release using a vintage dollhouse and her own amazing skills and talents."

Produced by Chris Funk of The Decemberists at various studios in Hood's current hometown of Portland, Ore., "Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams" is Hood's fourth release and first in 12 years.

Waxahatchee, Brad and Phil Cook (Megafaun), Kevin Morby, Wednesday, Brad Morgan and Jay Gonzalez (Drive-By Truckers), David Barbe (Sugar, Mercyland), Steve Drizos (Jerry Joseph and The Jackmormons), and Stuart Bogie (The Hold Steady, Goose) play on the disc.

The 10-track was heralded late in 2024 with the first single, "A Werewolf and a Girl," featuring additional vocals from Lydia Loveless.

The disc was inspired in part by his own short story, "The Exploding Trees," in which Hood tells the tale of a natural disaster that occurred in his North Alabama hometown just as he turned 30 and relocated to Athens, Ga. where Drive-By Truckers were co-founded in 1996.

The cover art for is by Frances Thrasher, an artist from Athens, Ga. "She recently put up a show called Heaven4TheYoung that really blew me away," says Hood. "I was especially moved by one painting in the series, and she was kind enough to let me use it for the cover. I honestly didn't have a second choice."

Hood will support the album with The Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams 2025 Tour , which will feature backing from his band, The Sensurrounders, with support from special guest Lydia Loveless . The shows start March 19 at Brooklyn, NY's Brooklyn Made, with stops in Washington, D.C. , Atlanta and Nashville. Additional dates will be announced soon.

"I'm putting together a kind of stripped-down band so we can go do this record right," Hood said. "Now the challenge to see if I can pull off a few of the songs on piano live. There's nothing but good to come from it. I think good has come from each of my solo records, they each made me better at what I do in various different ways."

Tour dates are:
March 19 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Made
March 21 – Sellersville, PA – Sellersville Theater
March 22 – Washington, DC – The Atlantis
March 26 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
March 28 – Birmingham, AL – Saturn
March 29 – Nashville, TN – Eastside Bowl
March 30 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi
April 1 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk
April 2 – Evanston, IL – SPACE
April 4 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
April 5 – Louisville, KY – The Whirling Tiger (Loveless will not play this show)


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CD reviews

CD review - It's Great to Be Alive It's been roughly two decades when musicians Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley decided to tie their wagon together and form Drive-By Truckers. And through the countless tours, hundreds (oops, thousands) of shows, the band decided now was the right time for a live album. Three nights at San Francisco's Fillmore is the backdrop for this massively generous 35-song compendium. Yet while there are a few expected lulls in the marathon of music offered, Hood and Cooley's dual engine of ...
CD review - English Oceans It would be easy perhaps even tempting - to label Alabama's Drive By Truckers as simply a rowdy and rambunctious country rock outfit that goes all out to make their insurgent sound heard. Not surprisingly, it was their landmark opus, "Southern Rock Opera," an album detailing the exploits of a fictional '70s Dixie-bred outfit called "Betamax Guillotine," that helped solidify both their sound and reputation. They've more or less continued to reinforce that stoic ...
CD review - Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance For his third solo album, "Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance," singer, songwriter and Drive By Trucker Patterson Hood continues to create his own brand of American mythology, writing four minute elegies to a generation that's lost its way, one that's slowly slicing away at itself with a hard-edged blade of insecurity, confusion and loneliness. Taken on the surface, it's not a pretty picture at all. 12:01 is a creeping, crawling dirge about a clandestine trip across ...


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