Welcome 2 Club XIII

Welcome 2 Club XIII

Release Date June 3, 2022 - ATO Records
LYRICS    COMMENTARY   CREDITS
Arriving as Drive-By Truckers enters its 26 th year, Welcome 2 Club XIII marks a sharp departure from the trenchant commentary of The Unraveling and The New OK (both released in 2020). Produced by longtime Drive-By Truckers collaborator David Barbe and mainly recorded at his studio in Athens, GA, Welcome 2 Club XIII took shape over the course of three frenetic days in summer 2021 – a doubly extraordinary feat considering that the band had no prior intentions of making a new album. Featuring background vocals from the likes of Margo Price, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, and Mississippi- bred singer/songwriter Schaefer Llana, Welcome 2 Club XIII was recorded live with most songs cut in one or two takes, fully harnessing Drive-By Truckers’ freewheeling energy. Songs like the softly stunning “Wilder Days” see the band – whose lineup also includes keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez, bassist Matt Patton, and drummer Brad Morgan – looking back on their formative years with both deadpan pragmatism and profound tenderness, instilling each song with the kind of lived-in detail that invites bittersweet reminiscence of your own misspent youth.
“Cooley and I have been playing together for 37 years now,” Hood says. “That first band might have failed miserably on a commercial level, but I’m really proud of what we did back then. It had a lot to do with who we ended up becoming.”

TRACK LISTING

The Driver
Maria’s Awful Disclosures
Shake and Pine
We Will Never Wake You Up In The Morning
Welcome 2 Club XIII
Forged In Hell and Heaven Sent
Every Single Storied Flameout
Billy Ringo In The Dark
Wilder Days

LYRICS

The Driver

Used to go out driving, sometimes late into the night
Twenty-one, fucking round and wasting gas
Across the bridge to Sheffield then out into Tuscumbia
Where the main street’s a time-trip to the past
Behind the Hotel Grant there was a flaming dumpster
I saw a group of Klansmen in their robes
I circled back but they had vanished like rats
Leaving nothing behind them but some smoke

If you’d like to tell your story, by all means go tell your story
But don’t forget that you only have one side
So parlay your Innervisions with the usual suspicions
As you make your grand approach to the divide
And when you’re changing lanes and passing on the right
Check your blind spot and signal your intents
I saw that Honda full of girls go airborne into the trees
In the pouring rain on interstate ten

They were flying… They were flying… They were flying…

Used to go out driving, sometimes late into the night
Trying to make sense of the pieces of my life
Still young enough to not know how the puzzle fits together
“Nothing to fall back on but a knife” *
The bombed out looking factories on the east side of town
Blasting “Here Comes a Regular” on ten
An epiphany, a moment of clarity
Driving all alone at 4AM

Driving… Driving… Driving…

In a van full of stink, we set out upon the plains
to the black hills and Rockies and Cascades
We had never been out west, at least not further out than Texas
As our lives spread out before us like a page
An unwritten novel, our Huck Finn adventure
come to life, we were living in real time
That rare day when we just turned the music off
And let the wide open vistas fill our minds

We were already older, yet much younger than today
Pushing hard against the limits we’d arise
Ever westward, we saw sunglass reflections
Of a setting sun in vast Montana skies

Driving… Driving… Flying…

And there’s the alternate reality where everything was different
Than the world of happy endings we endure
A moments distraction, an alarm clock powered down
A blind spot not checked before a turn
That Grand Prix we saw head-on, on our way to see Replacements
When I hydroplaned but caught the road in time
That guy on I-10 driving east as we were west-bound
In Florida, 2000, April-Nine
That ten degree decline headed down Teton Pass
Cooley driving, snow on solid ice
That meteor that fell beside our bus in Idaho
As we drove on past a near flaming demise

As we drove on past a near flaming demise
As we drove on past a near flaming demise

- Patterson Hood - March 1 & 2, 2021, Portland Oregon (True stories and alternate realities).
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
*inspired by a line from “Down the Dream” by Maggie Roche
Background Vocals - Schaefer Llana

Maria’s Awful Disclosures

An uncontrollable child, given to fantasy
A leaded lobotomy left Maria wild
with a mob in her head holding Magdalene’s down in asylums

Ghost-written pornography
Tailored to readers in need of a righteous excuse to indulge
Maria’s awful disclosures

Born of illicit liaisons the babies of Hôtel-Dieu convent weren’t meant to survive
Baptized then strangled then buried mass infanticide
Something worse done to something more innocent’s consistent presence
Alongside the tales of the times
The monks of the presents connection to Maria’s mind

If some know nothing, nothing’s keeping some from knowing it all
What nobody saw is anybody’s call
Predispositions turn spaces in men
Into thirsty pages for a hell bent pen

Professional victims with recycled lies
stoking satanic panic in fear addled minds
Maria’s awful disclosures

Ghost-written pornography tailored to readers
in need of a righteous excuse to indulge
Maria’s awful disclosures

Mike Cooley
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
Cheap Labor (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
Background Vocals - Mike Mills (w Patterson) / Whippany Dart - David Barbe

Shake and Pine

So you’ve gone astray in a New York minute
Nothing left to say or ways to spin it
You’ve just gone too far, unsafe within it
All spun out and swept away

You were here one day, gone by sunset
You set out that way, lest we soon forget
Blood on the sawdust, light coming in from a broken window pane

I shake and pine
You didn’t really mean to do me wrong this time
Make it up as we go along to fake and find
A reason and a rhyme, The strength to carry on

Seems the more you know the less you like it
Til you ache to go and strike out on your own
Movement becomes you until you become
So removed by the hands you show

Seems the more I know
The less I have the answers to these things I sow
That eat me like a cancer til there’s nothing left
For you to grab ahold of til I spiral out of control

You shake and pine
For a way out of this hell besides a life of crime
Standing before judgement, it’d be so sublime
to step out of your shadow and walk towards the sun

We shake and pine
Look inside for an answer to this nursery rhyme
Like a ballet dancer, we leap in the air, lost in the footlights
Lost in the footlights and the fog
Lost in the footlights and the fog

You got the hang, all you're missing, Alabama claw,
above the bangs and lashes and we saw it all,
reaching for the stars but only catching dust

Patterson Hood - Dec. 1, 2020 (Portland Oregon) - for Jimmy C.
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group

We will never wake you up in the morning

Well the times get tough and you thought you had enough
When the stall of your free fall decides to call your bluff
And all of your resolve might dissolve into your cups
We will never wake you up
We will never wake you upv
This season of our discontent has given way to torment
All the straits that you were born in disappeared without a warning
Simple evolution isn’t working as a solution
We will never wake you up in the morning

Metaphorically inclined towards crossing over state lines
You drifted down upon the destinations you were inclined
Until you lost all sight of your place in the design
Your alarm clock is ringing at your bedside

You drift into narcotic splendor of your never-ending bender
Eyes glazed but somehow smiling like a haze across the skyline
You down another glass then drift off from our grasp
We will never wake you up in the morning (X2)

The heaven that awaits you is a bar that never closes
And a line across the toilet tank for everybody’s noses
With a tab that’s as open as the arms of your hostess
As she gives a brief salvation upon you

Buenas noches, sweet prince behind the eight ball and your rent
Eviction notice on your door and all your money spent
Hearts broken by your actions but you had the best intentions
There were bottles in your bedroom and nothing in the kitchen

And the last time we ever saw you
You were clinging to the barroom
Days on end we tried to call you
Bells were ringing, tears were falling
The door was opened by the cops but you were up above the treetops
We will never wake you up in the morning (X3)

- Patterson Hood - August 24-27, 2020
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group

Welcome 2 Club XIII

Welcome 2 Club XIII.
All the usual suspects are acting weird.
The bartenders can’t be bothered but we’re all glad you’re here.

The door guy has an attitude
The disco light’s obscene
The crowd is sometimes rude
Welcome 2 Club XIII

Tonight we’re gonna be entertained by our favorite Foghat cover band
and Radio Tokyo playing Sweet Home Afghanistan

Welcome 2 Club XIII
Penny beer and cheap cocaine
Girls warmed up by tanning beds
Orphans left out in the rain

Sidewinder’s in spandex, The parking lot is packed
Everyone is waiting outside
Meanwhile Adam’s House Cat is the opening act
Train songs and People Who Died

Welcome 2 Club XIII
We’ll be back same time next year
To play you all our pretty songs
Til they drag us out of here
Maybe we’ll be horse farm drunk
Maybe we’ll act out obscene
Muscle Shoals just needs some Punk
Welcome 2 Club XIII

Welcome 2 Club XIII
Our glory days did kinda suck
Everybody needs a friend
Everybody needs a fuck
When we come this way again
“Notify our next of kin"
We'll smell of weed and gasoline
Welcome 2 Club XIII

- Patterson Hood - April 22, 2018, Living room, Portland Oregon
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group

Forged in Hell and Heaven Sent

It’s been so long since I’ve seen you and I’m not sure where to start
Was it yesterday or decades when we tore this town apart?
We’d start drinking in the afternoon and close the bars all down
It’s been too long since I’ve seen you, I’m so glad you’re back in town

We went through so much together, you and me and all the gang
All those crazy death defiers chasing storms and racing trains
It’s a wonder there’s a single one of us still left alive
To feast on best forgotten memories and toast the ones up in the skies

It’s been so long since I’ve seen you and I know you’ve been through hell
And it’s taken its toll on you and it’s lessons served us well
But I still can see that sparkle in your eyes and in your smile
Glad you’re back in town this evening, have a seat and stay a while

So you had a little daughter and I see she’s almost grown
And I guess she’s had to grow up pretty fast
Time went racing past us, I’ve got two kids of my own
And I’m trying to make this time that we’re in last
Not let the moments all slip past us
Answers to questions they’d never ask us
The things that kept us youngest came pounding down upon us
The whole world slipped out from under us

It’s been too long since I’ve seen you, wonder where the time all went
A whole decade before and two years since your accident
It’s a miracle you’re walking, even if a little bent
Guess the minutes we’re together are forged in hell and heaven sent

- Patterson Hood - for Kari (June 6, 2012 - office)
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
Backing Vocals - Margo Price (w/ Patterson) / Harmonica - Jeremy Ivey / Fiddle - Scott Danbom

Every Single Storied Flameout

No matter how many pens a poet drains, how full of shit he is or ain’t
well it ain’t up to him to tell you
So if burning out sounds better and leaving handsome corpses makes good sense
well then by all means crown the lizard

Every single storied flameout’s purgatory playlist
skirts the payouts anyone from his loins might collect
His is a legacy in tourist traps, conspiracies that took him out
and tattoos someone else lives to regret

All those well intentioned lies that I myself romanticized
believably enough to pass as love songs
More than one man on one knee, it never stops amazing me
how easily the heart hears what it wants to

Said the man who pissed the river
If it’s owning up you’re after
It’s no mystery how the dam inside you burst
I’d have a lot of nerve to go feigning shock and outrage
If I’d been my example I’d be worse

That part of you that feels alive is wired and can’t be severed
from the damage seeking part of you that runs it
Just don’t embrace it with a vengeance
before you’ve even shaved with a razor
that you bought with your own money

Said the man who pissed the river
If it’s owning up you’re after
There’s no mystery how the dam inside you burst
I’d have a lot of nerve to go feigning shock and outrage
If I’d been my example I’d be worse

Every single storied flameout’s purgatory playlist
skirts the payouts anyone from his loins might collect
His is a legacy in tourist traps, conspiracies that took him out
and tattoos someone else lives to regret

- Mike Cooley
©Cheap Labor (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
Tenor Sax - Randall Bramblett / Baritone Sax - Tom Ryan / Trumpet - J.R. Beckwith
Percussion - David Barbe

Billy Ringo in the Dark

When you wake up in the morning and you ask yourself
“Why does it even matter if I exist at all?
if I’m going through the motions
and my better days have passed
Should I even stick around?
Do I have the wherewithal?”

You thought you were destined to conquer anything
put yourself into the thickness and the joy the chaos brings
Swing at every fastball and knock it out the park
Explode the lights in fury Billy Ringo in the Dark

Life came down upon you with the weight of fallen worlds
The sound of screaming dogs in the silence fetal curled
til no drink or pain reliever can afford a small relief
from the night sweats of the morning after dreams in bitter sleep

You wake up in the morning
and you travel through your day
and you laugh at all the good jokes
then nonchalantly go your way
and go out for the evening
for some drinks and smokes with friends
then leave them with a smile
as you walk back home again

Light the candles slowly
for the shadows they will cast
Leave unanswered questions
for other folks to ask
Escape the burdens looming
in answers bold and stark
in the first new dawn of sunlight
Billy Ringo in the Dark

- Patterson Hood - April 17, 2018, Chase Park Transduction, Athens GA. mixing “Town Burned Down”
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group

Wilder Days

There’s a picture of you standing next to me in our wilder days
With abilities to circumvent anything that got in our way
We had a drive that fell in stark relief to the impending pain
Young and full of big beliefs that life could not sustain

Sometimes I see your face in my memories
with a look so full of glory that the gods grew weak at the knees
bounding through the doors of life’s exalting reveries
driving through the night on rain soaked streets
The way it used to be

In our wilder days there was trouble to be made
there was pie to cut and cake to throw and muddy creeks to wade
there was scarcely any thought gave to if I left or stayed
In my wilder days

Now the days are getting shorter and the years are counting down
As the sun gets dizzy watching us as we go spinning around
I find it best to laugh at the absurdity of life above the ground
There’s no comfort in survival but it’s still the best option that I’ve found

In our wilder days we were invincible and unafraid
of cracks in the concrete and steel that we were made of
gravity defied, we had the gods on our side
death to cheat below our feet and yet we seldom died

In our wilder days we were invincible and unafraid
of cracks in the concrete and steel that we were made of
gravity defied, we had the gods on our side
death to cheat below our feet and yet we seldom died

In our wilder days we were invincible and unafraid
of cracks in the concrete and steel that we were made of
gravity defied, we had the gods on our side
death to cheat below our feet and yet we seldom died

We could so delight in the burning candle light that would not fade
In our wilder days

- Patterson Hood © 2018 Portland OR.
©Mt St Helen Keller Music (BMI), administered by Hipgnosis Songs Group
Backing Vocals - Schaefer Llana



COMMENTARY

Welcome 2 Club XIII

In the 1970’s when the Shoals area was all dry counties, if you wanted to drink, there were bootleggers and the Tennessee state line. These are the days of the mythical State Line Gang (which some say didn’t exist) and the Walking Tall movies. Getting legal beer meant driving a windy two-lane road from North Alabama to a row of beat up package stores and honky-tonks at “The Line”. There were shootings and fights and a death toll from drunks driving the fifteen miles back to The Shoals on those treacherous roads.

“The Line” was like a B-movie border town (without the town). Honky-tonks with cold beer and concrete floors and fights that sometimes ended in shootings, including the death of one club-owner who was shot to death in the doorway of his establishment. There were bands playing country and western or top 40 covers. Some bands played both. The nicest of those clubs was Club XIII. They were ‘members only’ (for a dollar a year) and had roman numerals on their sign because they were classy.

The 80’s saw a small progress back home. They voted liquor in, first in Colbert County and then eventually across the river in Florence. That’s also around the time they closed the Ford plant and my hometown’s economy crashed and burned. Also around that time, the local recording scene (which was sort of a secret society back then) collapsed and many of the musicians moved north to Nashville. My dad was one of the hard-cores who refused to leave.

In the 80’s, the girls back home poofed up their hair, teasing it upward, then spraying it in place for all eternity with ozone-killing amounts of hairspray. We called it the Alabama Claw (above the bangs and lashes). For all of its downsides, at least everyone could agree that Prince was King. We spelt two with a 2.

During this backdrop, I came of age, meeting Mike Cooley and starting our first band together, Adam’s House Cat. We were convinced we would be the next R.E.M. We were more than a little delusional, but such is the folly of youth. We at least had our grand ambitions to fuel our journey through the daily disappointment of our 20’s.

Every few years there would be a Wet/Dry referendum and the clubs and package stores at “The Line” would donate tons of money to local churches to keep the evil scourge of legal booze out of our hometown. The bootleggers donated too. My dad had a bumper sticker that said “Hypocrisy is our Number One Problem.”

Upon voting in liquor, I was convinced that soon there would be super-cool clubs and bands playing original post-punk music. The Shoals would surely be the next Athens Georgia. Stardom was just around the corner.

Instead, the honky-tonks from “The Line” closed and re-opened in town. DJ’s spun the dance songs of the day for college kids, drunk on penny beer. There was no love in sight for our raggedy band that thought it would be cool to make a four-track album of train songs. We further pissed everyone off by writing “Buttholeville”. One of the only cover songs we would play was Jim Carroll Band’s immortal “People Who Died”, which I had been singing live in bands since I was 16 (in 1980, the year the original version was released).

The owner of the latter day Club XIII was a good guy and he actually kinda liked our band (or at least didn’t actively hate us). Sometimes he would throw us a bone and let us open for some hair-metal cover band on a Wednesday night for $200. The crowd would basically wait outside until we finished our set, then pack the dance floor. Cooley would sometimes wear a dress. He looked a lot like Cher.

Sometimes late at night, I would just get in my car and go out driving. Back roads, county roads, the roads that wound past the closed down factories and bad side of town. I’d play music loud, drink beer and think. Sometimes I’d have moments of clarity and see a pathway forward. Many of my life’s defining moments came from some of these late night drives.

The 80’s became the 90’s. Adam’s House Cat broke up. Cooley and I kept going, playing in lesser bands, sometimes with terrible names. In time we broke up too and I moved to Athens Georgia. Eventually we reunited with our fourth band and DBT was born. The late night drives to nowhere were replaced with long journeys to distant towns. We grew up (a little) and at some point we found some level of success and our crazy dreams began to come true.

It’s 2022. Our kids are approaching the age where Cooley and I met. DBT is pushing 26 and somehow, against all odds, probably better than it’s ever been. We’re definitely having more fun. This album was written against a backdrop of pandemic and loss. We went into the studio last summer hoping to demo a few new songs and emerged three and a half days later having tracked this sucker. The band took the darkness of our compositions and rocked the fuck out of them. We added a few overdubs and a few guest appearances from some talented friends.

We can’t wait to play it for you when we come to your town. Welcome 2 Club XIII. (Classy).

- Patterson Hood (DBT HQ, nearly winter 2021)


CREDITS

Produced by David Barbe
DBT 2022: Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood, Brad Morgan, Jay Gonzalez and Matt Patton

With special guests: Schaefer Llana, Mike Mills, Margo Price, Jeremy Ivey, Scott Danbom and David Barbe
Horns on Every Single Storied Flameout: Randall Bramblett - tenor sax, Tom Ryan - baritone sax, J.R. Beckwith - trumpet

Recorded, Engineered and Mixed by David Barbe at Chase Park Transduction, Athens Georgia, summer and fall 2021 (W2CXIII, Billy Ringo and Wilder Days recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service fall 2018, mixed at CPT winter 2019 by David Barbe and Matt Ross-Spang)

Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, Edgewater New Jersey, fall 2021

Artwork by Wes Freed
Photos by David Kaufman and Andy Tennille
Art Direction and Layout by Lilla Hood (Hood Design)

MERCY BUCKETS:

Ansley, Ross, Lucas and Delilah Cooley; Rebecca, Ava and Emmett Hood; Ruby Morgan; Sibby and Louise Morgan; Katey and Billy Gonzalez; Megan and Hazel Sue Patton.

Lilla, Chris, Reed and Duncan Smith; Jenn Bryant and Matt Ginter; Wes Freed and Jackie Folkes; Jason Wilson; Amy, Annabelle, Winston and Henry Barbe. David Barbe is grateful for the collective excellence of the entire DBT Family, and the patience of Amy Barbe.

Thanks to our beloved Road Crew: Jason Tobias, Henry Barbe (again), Ben Hackett, McKendrick Bearden, Winston Barbe (again), Jim Wilson and Conner Ostrowski

The Greatest Management / Agency / Label / Legal & Biz Team on Earth: Kevin Morris, Christine Stauder and everyone at Red Light Management; Matt Hickey, Frank Riley and everyone at High Road Touring; Jon Salter, Mike Quinn, Robin Hendrickson and everyone at ATO Records and PIAS Cooperative; Ken Weinstein, Zack Kraimer and everyone at Big Hassle Media; J. Reid Hunter and everyone at Serling Rooks Hunter McKoy Worob & Averill LLP; Dwight Wiles, Samantha Rose, Halle Winstead and everyone at Wiles+Taylor & Co., P.C.

Love to The Heathens who travel far and wide, spreading the word and supporting our band.

Chase Park Transduction; Dial Back Sound; Wendy, Sadie Jane and Stella Rose Morris; Graham Hickey; Bronson Tew; Schaefer Llana; Jason Thrasher and Family; Chris Funk; Adam Lee; Aaron Draplin; Matt Ross-Spang; Jerry Joseph and Family; Traci Thomas and Alan Daigre; Jason Isbell and Family; Stephen Deusner; Cody Dickinson; Luther Dickinson; Andrea and Patrick Kerr and Family; Will Johnson and Family; Chuck Reece; The Dexateens; Robert and Cynthia Patton; Bill Kingery; Toni and Walter Gonzalez; Greg Chow; George Davidson; Milton Chapman; Marc Tissenbaum; Chris Grehan; Jeff Soilaeu; Dr. John Contovasilis; Mark Lynn; Beth Dickson and Dean Gavney; Luke and Sarah; Beth and Jeffery Schneider; Big Tom; The Three Dimes Down Family; Bertis Downs; Peter Buck; Danny Clinch; Andy McCulla; Scott McCaughey and Mary Winzig; Lilly Hiatt; Lydia Loveless; John Britt; Shayne and Todd McBride; Lance Bangs and Corin Tucker; T. Cole Taylor; Paul McHugh; Kimberly and Kevin York; Matt McGibney; Bennett Moon; David and Judy Hood; Jim and Linda Wright; Jan Patterson; Jay Leavitt and Deep Groove Records; Barrie Buck, Velena and all the fine folks at The Fabulous 40 Watt Club; Jerry Phillips and The wonderful staff at Sam Phillips Recording Service and Chase Park Transduction; Bob Sleppy and all at Nuci’s Space; Ken Zankel and Anna Veyna; Andy LeMaster; Don Chambers; William Gibson; Nan and Booker T. Jones; Uncle Josh; Jared Hasmuk; Jenn Pool, Erik Golts and Charlie; Dave Fulton; Motrik Band; Sarah and Lee Henderson; Mariah Parker; Craig Finn; Chuck Tremblay; Amy and Brandon Haynie and Family; Charlie Mustard and Jittery Joes Coffee; and of course our beloved families and friends.

Patterson and Cooley both play several Baxendale Guitars hand built by Scott Baxendale www.baxendaleguitar.com in Athens GA.

Brad plays Ludwig Drums and Meinl Cymbals, special thanks to Chris Brewer at Meinl Cymbals for all his help. Jay uses Nord Keyboards (as well as a vintage 1958 Hammond B-3 with Leslie); McGibney Guitars and Greer Guitar Pedals. DBT Proudly Uses: Rapco Cables, Seymore Duncan Pickups, D’Addario Strings, Fender Amps, Sommatone Amps, Shure Microphones and Steve Amps: Steve Hunter at Thee Electric Church Tube Amp Repair.

Loving Memoriam: Jimmy Coogan, Danny Hutchins, Justin Townes Earle, Patty Willrett, Brandon “Smitty” Smith, John Prine, Roger Hawkins, and Matt Denham.

This album is dedicated to the loving memory of Linda Phillips who founded Nuçi’s Space in Athens Georgia and was a tireless supporter of the health and mental well-being of the Athens music scene including our band. One of the absolute most incredible people we have ever had the gift of knowing.

DBT Proudly Supports Nuçi’s Space Artist Resource Center. Please read all about this great organization at www.nuci.org.