Earlier this year, Drive-By Truckers founders Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood revisited the band’s third album, 2001′s “Southern Rock Opera,” and the group hit the road for the “Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 Tour.”
But as usual, Cooley and Hood are each taking a break from their powerful band — who marry swaggering Southern rock with everything from sweet country to doomy punk in concert — for a series of solo tours in December.
Cooley will kick off his tour at Eddie’s Attic on Dec. 11 and 12. The Truckers’ guitarist-vocalist and frequent songwriter played the intimate Decatur listening room last December, as well, and the 2024 shows mark the first time he’s played the club two years in a row.
Credit: Photo by Jason Thrasher
Credit: Photo by Jason Thrasher
“I try to focus on stuff I don’t do with Drive-By Truckers, or stuff that I do really differently,” Cooley told the AJC in a recent phone call. “I try to change it up to make it interesting without the help of four other people and the excitement of a live band. It’s a pretty loose affair. I try to get in the right mood and let it flow naturally.”
During last December’s two sold-out nights at Eddie’s Attic, Cooley’s song list included quieter versions of Drive-By Truckers’ tunes “Birthday Boy,” “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” and “Gravity’s Gone.”
Playing solo is a change of pace and volume from the “Southern Rock Opera Revisited 2024 Tour,” which the Truckers paused on Sept. 17 to play a short set for the “Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song.” The extravaganza at the Fox Theatre also featured diverse acts such as the B-52s, Angélique Kidjo and Eric Church.
“That was quite an experience,” Cooley said. “I was walking around in a daze for that one. It was overwhelming. Anything with that many moving parts is not something you do all the time. It’s a former president turning a hundred. It’s a major media event. They’re filming and there’s a lot of different acts.
“Of course this was still preelection. I think everybody was maybe a little mistakenly optimistic. That helped that night. It didn’t help the election. But I think the positive vibes and optimism made it a pretty stellar night, so I’m just going to go back and remember that for the next four years.”
On a more personal note, Cooley shared an earlier Carter story.
“I was in my first year of high school band when he kicked off his 1980 campaign in Tuscumbia, Alabama,” he recalled. “It’s where I grew up, and I was in the band that greeted him. I played trombone back then, and wore one of those dorky uniforms. So, I was there for that, and in one of the bands at his 100th birthday, so I kind of got to bookend that.”
Credit: Michael A. Schwarz/The Carter Center
Credit: Michael A. Schwarz/The Carter Center
For those who caught the Drive-By Truckers’ November show at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, the experience was electric.
“We felt the same way,” Cooley agreed. “It was definitely the best show we ever played at the Tabernacle. We felt a pretty good vibe that night. It was the end of a (leg of the) tour, and we’d been doing that show for three weeks solid.”
The “Southern Rock Opera Revisited” tour cranks back up in January, with the band pausing Feb. 12-15 for the annual HeAthens Homecoming, a gathering of the Drive-By Truckers fan club. The 40 Watt Club will host the band’s ultra-loyal fans, who journey to Athens from all over the world for the musical celebration.
“It was three nights but we’ve expanded it to four over the last few years,” Cooley noted. “I think those shows are always better when we’ve been touring. Most of the time we’d finish up in November and then we don’t see each other until Homecoming weekend.”
It’s a sign of what a road warrior Cooley is that he has to pause for a minute to think when asked what he likes to do when he has some downtime.
“I’m usually kind of bored, and I watch Netflix,” he said, laughing. “There are a lot of venues that are in parts of town you get familiar with. It’s almost like another home you visit every now and then.
“You land somewhere for the day. You know a couple places where you like to eat, or somewhere you may like to walk around. What I enjoy most is having these places that are familiar and somewhere else at the same time.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Mike Cooley
7 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12. Tickets from $39.50. 515 N. McDonough St., Decatur. 404-377-4976, eddiesattic.com.
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