Patterson Hood

Singer, guitarist and songwriter with the band Drive-By Truckers since 1996, Patterson Hood has also embarked on a solo career in alternative country. Born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on March 24, 1964, the son of David Hood, bassist of the famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, grew up in an atmosphere conducive to music, and formed his first band, Adam's House Cat, with high-school classmate Mike Cooley in 1985. Having gone their separate ways, Hood and Cooley reunited in Athens in 1996 to form a successful new band, Drive-By Truckers. After recording four albums, and with the band yet to break into the charts, Patterson Hood felt the need to launch his own career in parallel, and worked on two recordings in parallel: Drive-By Truckers' The Dirty South and his first collection, the conceptual Killers and Stars, released in May 2004. Inspired by stories of serial killers and other dark themes, Hood followed this up in 2009 with the self-produced Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs). In between solo and group tours, and collaborations with Booker T. Jones and Alice Cooper, the songwriter drew inspiration from an unfinished novel for the songs on his third album, Heat Lightning Rumble in the Distance (2012). For the duration of a tour, he joined forces with a band called The Downtown Rumblers, then The Downtown 13, which included Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Todd Nance (Widespread Panic) and musicians from Drive-By Truckers and his own circle. Several years passed before he was reunited for a concert with Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell, released as Live at the Shoals Theatre, June 15, 2014. February 2025 saw the release of his fifth album, Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams, produced by Chris Funk of The Decemberists.

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