I guess I subscribed to a DBT yahoo news group at some point cause I get these updates periodically.
Here's one written by Patterson.
The best part:
This month we will be playing a few dates in the southeast and finishing the tracking of our new album. I think it's a good one. Possibly our best yet. No make that definitely our best yet.
It's gonna be big and mean as shit.
I look forward to discussing it further soon, but for now I don't want to jinx it, I just want to ROCK IT.
*************
Full text:
GREETINGS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR:
I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2003 and look ahead into this new year we've just started.
Wheeewww, 03 was a bumpy one.
I could almost break it down with a listing of the controversy of the month, at least twelve of them, with sometimes a fierce competition.
Don't want to dwell on old news and scab picking, we'll just leave it with a label change (Lost Hwy. to New West), a management change (as
we moved to an in-house self management team led by former road manager Scott Munn and our beloved producer / mentor even David
Barbe) and at the very end of the year a new bass player as we bid farewell and nothing but the best to very long term associate and
partner in crime Earl Hicks and face the new year with long time friend, and sometimes collaborator Shonna Tucker (who's also an
Isbell).
Somewhere amid all that hellfire we managed to play a shitload of Rock Shows, most I'm fiercely proud of, a few I cringe at the thought
of, although time may make those the most memorable.
The Cooleys had a baby (John Ross, the first DBT baby, and as beautiful a child as I've ever seen in my life).
Jason married Shonna (on my birthday) and threw a big Bar-B-Q Hoe Down.
Brad married Kimberly (on a show day in Athens GA.) and changed his name from EZB to The EZB.
We also released "Decoration Day".
We had recorded DD back in the spring of 2002, mostly while we were negotiating our deal with Lost Hwy.
It was the album we had always dreamed of making. A sprawling look back on where all we'd been, forward to where we wanted to go, and an
examination of all we had sacrificed to get there.
Lyrically dark and often sad, but played with an optimistic exuberance and excitement that one gets from finally realizing one's
dreams in the end.
If the lyrics themselves offered no happy endings (the gun staying in the closet is about as close to that as it got) the playing and
performance, the fact that it clanged and clattered like some deranged party record was the payoff.
And that is what I hear when I listen to it nearly two years later.
We made that record just after emerging from a three year hell of broken marriages, broken promises, and personal and professional
bullshit that nearly tore the band (and our individual lives) apart.
By the time David Barbe pressed record, we had come out the other side and that was the catharsis we needed.
If I live to be a hundred, I'll smile every time I think of that album and the making of it.
Before we signed with Lost Highway, I had a one on one conversation with president / founder Luke Lewis, in which he basically looked me
in the eye and promised not to fuck us over.
You can take a contract and wipe your ass on it, but an agreement between gentlemen is still sacred in my book.
In the end, Mr. Lewis lived up to that agreement and I (We) will always hold him in the highest esteem for it.
DD wasn't the record they hoped for and they weren't quite sure what to do with it, but rather than enter in to some prolonged contractual bullshit like what Wilco went through (and came out on top of, I might add), Lost Hwy. simply let us go. They let us buy our record back and take it to someone who did know what to do with it.
I begin 2004 with a toast to you for that. In my book, you're one of the good guys and I'm proud to know you.
In New West we found a new home and one I hope to thrive in for some time to come.
They have worked their asses off to nurture and promote our album and they have always lived up to their word.
When we did things that seemed on the surface a little crazy, they've (carefully) supported us and allowed us the room and space to prove
our instincts right (at least so far).
Plus the company is run by folks I could sit in a bar and have a drink with and feel among friends.
What more can a man (or woman) ask for in this crazy time we live in.
As for everything else, I have no intention of ever spelling out our personal business to anyone who doesn't spend 200+ days a year riding
around the world with us in cramped and sometimes miserable conditions.
There's no lack of love between all of us, but when the magic ceases to be there, it's time to move on.
On the day the band ceases to feel like magic for us, we will walk away and most likely never look back.
That's how we live our lives and how we run our band. We've never made any money at all from this and it's been the magic that's
sustained us so far.
Onward into 2004 and beyond.
This month we will be playing a few dates in the southeast and finishing the tracking of our new album.
I think it's a good one. Possibly our best yet. No make that definitely our best yet.
It's gonna be big and mean as shit.
I look forward to discussing it further soon, but for now I don't want to jinx it, I just want to ROCK IT.
Over the next few months, we're playing cross country and spending some time on the west coast in Feb.
Back to Europe in April. I'm getting married in May. Putting out the new album mid-summer and no doubt touring extensively throughout the
year.
We're also trying to get some of our back catalog reissued and distributed.
I think my solo record "Killers and Stars" will be finally getting released this spring. We'll keep you posted on the details as they
emerge.
Jason has a solo album too and it's one of the finest things I've heard ever. I'll admit to all the bias in the world on that, but still would bank the farm on you agreeing in the end. It will be out in the not too distant and we'll keep you posted as that all gets
sorted out.
In the end, I want to say THANKS to all of our cast and crew, our family (blood and extended), our label, agents, publicist, management, web-mistress, producer, attorney, and all the other folks who have made it possible for us to keep doing what we've been trying to do. And THANKS to all of you for your support, love and
encouragement.
Let's have a great 2004 and See You at The ROCK SHOW!
Sincerely,
Patterson Hood
Drive-By Truckers
(or maybe just DBT)
