Professor Patterson Hood?

Is the End of Days upon us?

By Blurt Staff

According to the Bible, the seven signs of the Apocalypse include war, famine, disease, hatred, crime and earthquakes, but BLURT's crack team of Biblical historians have uncovered the long lost eighth sign that Judgement Day may be near:

Patterson Hood is lecturing today at Princeton University.

The always-affable frontman of the Drive-By Truckers is meeting with American Studies students to kick off "Radio Free Dixie (Or, De Dirty South Broke-down): A Symposium on New South Sounds & Culture," a free two-day event that formally begins this Friday, May 8, which will attempt to examine the influence of rock musicians, artists, scholars, politicians, spiritual figures and critics that emerged from the Southeast region of the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

We here at BLURT always enjoy any opportunity to shoot the bull with Hood. Our most recent chat with the long-time Athens, GA resident focused on Murdering Oscar (and other love songs), his new solo release due out June 23. Keep your eyes peeled for an extensive feature in our upcoming print edition hitting newsstands in June.

In the course of the interview, Hood shed some light on the upcoming Truckers album as well as a compilation of unreleased material being issued by New West Records this fall.

"I'm really excited about the next Truckers record," Hood reports. "We're off to a pretty booming start. We've cut 17 songs already and will work for the rest of this month on wrapping it up. I think we have enough for an album and maybe an EP, too. A lot of it depends on what Cooley comes in with for this next session."

According to Hood, DBT bassist Shonna Tucker has stepped up her contributions as well in recent sessions.

"Shonna's got tons of songs," he says. "We've already cut three of hers, and I know for sure we're cutting at least one more. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up cutting a couple more. Her new stuff is just a huge leap from the last record (Brighter Than Creation's Dark), and I love what she did on that one. So it's going real good."

Though no release date has been set for the new Truckers album, Hood did reveal that Truckers fans won't go hungry this year. According to Hood, New West Records has plundered the vaults and is planning to release later this year a compilation of B-sides and cutting-room floor gems from the band's four-album tenure on the label.

"They pretty much went through the vaults and found everything that didn't get released and asked us how we'd feel about us putting that out," Hood explains. "After my initial growling and grumbling, I went back and listened, and it was pretty cool. The majority of it comes from The Dirty South sessions. We had so many songs, that album could have very easily been a double LP.  Most of it is originals, but there are also a couple of covers. We did a great version of "Play It All Night Long" by Warren Zevon just for the hell of it one day in the studio. There's also a Tom T. Hall song on there that we recorded for a tribute record that never came out. It turned out to be a pretty cohesive record. I'm excited about it."

Hmmmm....a Tom T. Hall song, huh?

Might it be "Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken)" which Hood has often covered in solo shows dating back to 2004?

Could be, but we ain't telling!