The opening page to 'A Beautiful Day in the Patterson Hood,' an article in the Spring 2025 issue of Creem magazine. It reads: Patterson Hood is good at writing pretty songs about not-so-pretty things. Drug addiction, rural desperation, postwar PTSD, blue-collar oppression, the death of music scenes, and American dreams—for more than 30 years, Hood has deftly paired everyday devastations with twangy melodies and snarling guitars. He’s expanded the compendium of Southern rock with Drive-By Truckers and as a solo artist. Often his songs present subjects naked on the fork: their sins exposed, but the context behind their actions is explained without judgment. But not always. “Occasionally,” says Hood on a call from his home in Portland, Ore., “there are songs that just call for a certain amount of moralizing." He points to 2020’s “The New OK,” a furious response to four years of alt-rights and real wrongs (“Goons with guns coming out to play/ It’s a battle for the very soul of the USA”). “I mean, if I’m going to write about a fascist, it’s going to come down pretty hard about it because fuck that shit.”
I made my debut in Creem magazine, interviewing Patterson Hood of @drivebytruckers.bsky.social about his new solo album, Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams (@atorecords.bsky.social ).
You can read it here: www.creem.com/archive/arti...
