Drive-By Truckers

The Drive-By Truckers are a rock/ alt-country band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Their music is characteristic due to their “three axe attack,” or three guitars as well as bass and drums. Their lyrics often revolve around drifters and criminals trying to survive in economially-depressed small towns.

The band was co-founded by Patterson Hood, son of music producer David Hood and Mike Cooley in 1997. Together with a revolving group of musicians, they put out the first two Drive-By Trucker albums, Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance.

After two years on the road, playing close to 200 shows a year, the band solidified into a tight group. They began work on their most ambitious project, 2001's Southern Rock Opera, a double CD song cycle about the rise to stardom and deaths of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd and what both meant to people growing up in the south at the time. It won acclaim from fans and critics, being re-issued by Mercury/Lost Highway Records the next year and getting Drive-By Truckers named Band of the Year from No Depression Magazine.

The band has put out two albums since then, Decoration Day and The Dirty South, and continue to play close to 200 shows a year. The cover art of the band’s last three albums were painted by musician and artist Wes Freed.