Drive-By Truckers Mark Election Day With New Song 'The Perilous Night'
By: Caryn Robbins Nov. 07, 2017
This Election Day, Drive-By Truckers return with a timely 7" that picks up where their critically acclaimed, politically charged 2016 album, American Band, left off. The group also announced its first live shows of 2018. The limited edition 7", to be released by ATO Records on December 15 and available for pre-order HERE, contains "The Perilous Night" - a hard-hitting new song that takes an unflinching look back at the events that have unfolded since the 2016 Presidential election. Listen to it HERE. The 7" also includes "What It Means (Live At Newport Folk Festival(®))." To be released on December 15, portions of the record's sales will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"'The Perilous Night' is a sort of nightmarish epilogue to the themes we addressed onAmerican Band," said Drive-By Truckers singer and songwriter Patterson Hood. "I began writing it on the day the Electoral College met in December 2016 and completed it in the wake of the horrific events in Charlottesville, VA last summer. We recorded it in Athens, GA during a break in our fall tour and mixed it on the day Tom Petty passed away. It may be the darkest song I've ever written, but it's also a dance song. Turn it up!"
The song's propulsive pace echoes the theme of a country careening off course, culminating with Hood singing:
The Klan and the Nazis are taking up the fight
against their own salvation in the savior's light
We're moving into the perilous night, Amen
Flags of oppression are blocking out the light
dismantling The Greatest Generation's fight
We're moving into the perilous night, Amen
Rolling Stone premiered "What It Means (Live At Newport Folk Festival(®))," hailing it as "a meditative Black Lives Matter-era commentary on race and police brutality that appears on their excellent new album American Band." The performance takes its place among the history of the festival and protest music past. In an impassioned four-minute introduction, Hood speaks about the tragedies that grow out of our "fear of the other" and shares the experience of a neighbor whose unarmed, unclothed son was shot and killed by police in Athens, GA.
Drive-By Truckers will kick off 2018 with a U.S. tour, kicking off on January 26 at The Truman in Kansas City, MO. The headline run will include two nights at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall (February 7 & 8) and a concert at the El Rey in Los Angeles (February 9). It will wrap up with a three-night stand at 40 Watt in Athens, GA. See below for itinerary.
American Band has found Drive-By Truckers performing on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and "Conan," being interviewed by CNN and drawing some of its biggest crowds to date at live shows. Rolling Stone named American Band as one of the best albums of 2016 and said, "[it] sinks its hooks all the way in with crunching riffs, Hood and Cooley's defiant lyricism and the reassurance that someone today actually gives a damn." NPR praised it as "a righteous work of protest and a profound act of self-examination; it sounds like the Stones and the Boss, but with a unique sense of mission." Aquarium Drunkard observed, "American Band is absolutely the record America needed in 2016 and it is still the one we need going forward."
2018 DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS TOUR DATES
1/26 - Kansas City, MO - The Truman#
1/27 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue#
1/28 - Sioux Falls, SD - Orpheum Theatre#
1/31 - Missoula, MT - The Wilma#
2/1 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater#
2/2 - Vancouver, BC - Imperial#
2/3 - Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre#
2/5 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory#
2/7 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall#
2/8 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall#
2/9 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey#
2/10 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren#
2/15 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt with T. Hardy Morris
2/16 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt with David Barbe and Inward Dream Ebb / Camp Amped
2/17 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt#
# - with Lilly Hiatt
MIKE COOLEY SOLO
11/29 - Athens, GA - The Foundry
11/30 - Atlanta, GA - City Winery Atlanta
12/1 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn
12/2 - Pensacola, FL - Pensacola State University
12/6 - San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall
12/7 - Mill Valley, CA - Sweetwater Music Hall
12/8 - Los Angeles, CA - Moroccan Lounge
12/9 - Los Angeles, CA - Moroccan Lounge
12/21 - Florence, AL - 116 Mobile
PATTERSON HOOD SOLO
11/30 - Sellersville, PA - Sellersville Theater
12/1 - New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2
12/2 - Washington DC - Pearl Street Warehouse
12/3 - Washington DC - Pearl Street Warehouse
12/4 - Richmond, VA - The Broadberry
12/8 - Vancouver, BC - The Fox Cabaret
12/9 - Seattle, WA - Sunset Tavern - EARLY SHOW
12/9 - Seattle, WA - Sunset Tavern - LATE SHOW
12/10 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
12/13 - Atlanta, GA - Eddie's Attic
12/14 - Huntsville, AL - Tangled String Studios - EARLY SHOW
12/14 - Huntsville, AL - Tangled String Studios - LATE SHOW
12/15 - Birmingham, AL - WorkPlay Theater
JAY GONZALEZ SOLO (Jay & The Guilty Pleasures w/ Eyelids)
11/15 - Jersey City, NJ - WFMU Monty Hall
11/16 - Boston, MA - Once Somerville
11/17 - Brooklyn, NY - Cape House
11/18 - Philadelphia, PA - Kung Fu Necktie
11/19 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
Pre-Order 7" HERE
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