It's Just Music
Or, How the Drive-By Truckers Learned to Fly

"I grew up worshipping Rock and Roll like a religion," Patterson Hood writes in the notes to the new Drive-By Truckers album, The Big To-Do. "I know its shortcomings and strengths but have loved it unconditionally all the same since I was eight years old."

Like Hood's ruminations reflect, The Big To-Do marks some major milestones in DBT history. It's the 10th studio album the band's released since 1998. And 2010 is the 25th anniversary of the musical marriage of Hood and Truckers co-founder Mike Cooley.

Hood and Cooley first laid eyes on each other in Florence, Alabama – a town otherwise known as the birthplace of the "father of the blues," W.C. Handy, the home of the Muscle Shoals "Swampers," and the place where the Rolling Stones recorded "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses."

Hunkered-down among the ruined upholstery backstage at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA, Hood and Cooley have a laugh remembering the day they met. "It wasn't like love at first sight or nothin'," Hood says chasing away a cloud of cigarette smoke. "We were young," Cooley says, nodding and swigging a beer. "I was about to turn 19."

"I was 21," says Hood. "And neither one of us were worth-a-shit players. He was the better of the two. But he wasn't all that good at that point. We'd sit around and play and our eccentricities kind of went off on each other. We played better than the sum of our parts, I guess."

Later, rehearsing up on the legendary 40 Watt stage, Hood and Cooley show just how far they've come in 25 years. Roaring into "Daddy Learned To Fly," the opening track from The Big To-Do, they're bracketed by the current DBT lineup – Brad Morgan on drums, Shonna Tucker on bass, John Neff on guitars, and Jay Gonzalez on keyboards – and reveling in a maelstrom of raucous but nimble rock.

Below in the mostly empty room, little kids with oversized headphone ear protectors zoom around and around on Razor scooters, while their mothers look on, sipping coffee and grooving with the music.

The whole scene is emblematic of the happy state of the Drive-By Truckers, circa 2010. The band has settled into a comfort zone that allows for serious blocks of recording time and plenty of touring, but also makes room for family. And these days, especially for Hood and Cooley, that means an entourage that often includes their wives and children.

"I'm all about fun," is the way Hood laid it out during an interview last year. "I'm at a point in my life that if it's not benefiting my family or fun – and preferably both – then I just don't want to do it. All that talk about good art coming from drama. Fuck that. I've been there, I've had enough of that to draw on for the rest of my life. I don't need it in my day to day life, and I sure as hell don't need it in my band."