Based in Athens, Georgia, The Drive-By Truckers are simplistically regarded as a southern rock band. With their three guitar lineup and an epic double CD, Southern Rock Opera, which explored aspects of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 70s rock and the “South”, grouping the Truckers with the large, ensemble bands of the south is easy. However, a scratch below the surface shows that the Truckers are not as simplistically categorized. With sophisticated, literate songs and often brutally frank assessments of the South, the band avoids the jingoism of many of the older Southern rock bands.

Co-founded in 1996, by Patterson Hood (son of Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section player David Hood) and Mike Cooley, the band’s current line-up is Hood (guitar/vocals), Cooley (guitar/vocals), Shonna Tucker (bass/vocals), John Neff (guitar/pedal steel guitar) and Brad Morgan (drums).

Self-financing their first three albums, Gangstabilly (1998) and Pizza Deliverance (1999), plus live album, Alabama Ass-Whuppin (2000) released by Second Heaven Records and re-released in 2002 by Terminus Records. In 2001, the band creatively raised the finance to make Southern Rock Opera. Winning acclaim from fans and critics, the album was re-issued by Mercury/Lost Highway Records the next year and earned the Truckers No Depression Magazine’s ‘Band of the Year’.

New West Records has released the band’s more recent discs, including Decoration Day (2003), The Dirty South (2004), A Blessing And A Curse and in 2008, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.

The band has concluded its deal with New West Records and judging by comments in the press corresponding to the release of Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, they will not be re-signed at that label.