Drive-By Truckers Documentary Screened

With a new album en route in a little over a week, the Truckers also have a revealing film about them that the word's getting out on, too.

By Fred Mills / Photos By Kevin Ruppenthal

March 16 is just around the corner, which means the new Drive-By Truckers album, The Big To-Do, is also just around the corner. We've been listening to it pretty much nonstop and trust us, the motherfucker smokes; watch for a review as well as an in-depth interview with the band to coincide with the release, which will be the band's first for the ATO label.

As we mentioned not long ago the band is also cooking up a very special DBTs goodie for Record Store Day, April 17 (read our report and comments from bandmembers Mike "Stroker Ace" Cooley and Patterson Hood here).

In the meantime, the Barr Weissman-directed DBTs documentary The Secret to a Happy Ending recently had its unveiling at a pair of screenings in Silver Spring, Maryland. The film is still looking for distribution, so here's hoping that the buzz generated in the DBTs community will find its way to the proper individuals so everyone can get a look at it this year.

Our correspondent and blogger pal Kevin Ruppenthal was on hand at one of those screenings in Silver Spring and he posted a lengthy review of the film at his most excellent blog "Playmixt = Playlist + Mix Tape," additionally posting subsequent comments about the Q&A session that took place after the screening with the director and bandmembers Hood, Cooley and Brad Morgan. Ruppenthal's been kind enough to let us publish some extracts, below, along with his photos, but make sure you follow those links to read his full account.

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Text by Kevin Ruppenthal:

On the origins of the film:

In Barr Weissman's 2010 documentary, The Secret to a Happy Ending, there's great balance between live performance and revealing interview. The subject this time is not a blockbuster band that's topping the charts or selling out arenas and stadiums on their mammoth concert tour. The band is called Drive-by Truckers, and they've most likely played a blistering live show within a reasonable driving distance of wherever you are right now. This film about them is without a doubt a new addition to the pantheon of great rock and roll films. Six years in the making, the film documents a band that has slogged its way out of Alabama in the late 1990s out to clubs across the globe, finally breaking into the Billboard Top 40 Album charts in the late 2000s. What's great about the way the film is organized, though, is it's not just a travelogue or chronicle. It's divided into sections that let you get to know the people on stage, where they've come from both in terms of upbringing and family, as well as the stories behind a great catalog of songs. Drive-by Truckers tunes tend to be story songs.

On the film's content:

Rooted in the story songs of the DBT catalog are a whole lot of real-life people and adventures. You get to meet Patterson's great-uncle, George A., for whom they wrote the song The Sands of Iwo Jima: "I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima," as the song goes, when George talks about his actual experiences there. A lot of Patterson's family is in the film including briefly his mother, the subject of the song 18 Wheels of Love. There are stories about Gregory Dean Smalley, for whom the song The Living Bubba was written - a guitarist dying of AIDS, pushing himself to keep going: "I can't die now, ‘cause I got another show to do." Mike Cooley's tune Uncle Frank and Jason Isbell's song TVA are discussed with the background of a brief history of the Tennessee Valley Authority bringing electricity to some of the poorest parts of the south. These may seem unusual subjects for rock songs that have the power of Neil Young and Crazy Horse going at full tilt, but they make for great narrative songs.... It's not all rock and roll, though. There's the usual discussion about the tedium of the road, which - while a staple of rockumentaries - has got to be fair game for a band like this doing hundreds of dates a year. They're not doing it in airplanes or under giant stage sets or in glamorous accommodations either. The film shows how hard this band works doing so during the kick-ass, stomping live footage shot at various venues across the U.S. These guys and gal bust their asses getting it done, and there's some sense of what it's like to be an album-oriented band in the post-FM radio and post-CD age.

On the post-screening Q&A:

After the screening there was Q&A with director Barr Weissman, band members Brad Morgan, Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, and some of the other folks who appear in the film. Some of the highlights:

-Barr indicated he was introduced to the band by a friend who'd told him to "RUN, DO NOT WALK" to go listen to this band now around the time Southern Rock Opera came out.

-While qualifying a comment, an audience member started their question by saying, "I didn't like your music the first time I heard it..." which made Patterson quip, "Nobody ever likes us the first time they hear us!"

-Another audience member commented that the band makes "album rock like I remember." Patterson said he still likes to go to record stores. Cooley talked about needing to find a way to get people to listen to an entire album, in this era of 1 or 2-track attention spans.

-In a discussion about album cover artwork, Patterson said he thought that London Calling was the greatest album cover ever and that you knew that whatever was inside was gonna be great.