Barbe on bass with Patterson Hood & The Downtown 13
BR: Nice segue to the Truckers – you’re good at this. (laughter) I’m guessing you might have crossed paths with some of the Truckers themselves before you got into their music.
DB: Well, yes – sort of. I knew Patterson as a soundman in a club here in town called the High Hat. The guys at the bar told me, “You ought to come and check out Patterson sometime when he’s playing – he’s really good.”
And I thought, “Well, sure – he seems like a cool guy; I’m sure his songs are good.” When I heard him play, I was immediately impressed.
BR: Do you remember anything in particular that Patterson played that first time you saw him?
DB: No, but I’m sure there were some Truckers’ songs in there. This would’ve been in ’96 or so, and Patterson was always talking about his band. Even before he had the band together, he still had a vision – a really clear idea of what it was that he wanted to start.
The first time that I saw the Truckers, it was Patterson and Mike Cooley on guitars; Barry Sell on mandolin; Adam Howell on the bass; and Matt Lane playing the drums. Cooley had on a white t-shirt that was, like, two sizes too big for any person he’s related to and had a fresh, super short buzz cut. I remember watching him play and thinking, “This guy looks like he either just escaped from prison or the lunatic asylum.” That was my first impression of Mike Cooley – and at the same time, he was really, really good.
We finally got to know each other about the time that they were getting the band together.
BR: How did that evolve into you doing production work for the Truckers?
DB: Well, they recorded their first album – Gangstabilly – at Chase Park, but with Andy Baker and Andy LeMaster producing. Patterson hung drywall when they were building Chase Park to earn credit for studio time to make the record.
The next album was Pizza Deliverance – and that was another case where Patterson had a clear vision of what it was going to be and talked about as if it were done before they ever recorded it. They recorded Pizza Deliverance themselves at Patterson’s house and then Andy LeMaster, who’s still my studio partner, mixed it at Chase Park.
In the case of both of those records, I was around some while they were doing them, but I didn’t actually work on the records myself. I would kind of listen and tell them what I thought about things if they wanted to know, but the Truckers just happened to be working with those guys at the time, and I was busy with other bands.
When they recorded Southern Rock Opera, the Truckers went over to Alabama and tracked the music in a building owned by … I think it was Cooley’s wife’s family, maybe? While they were doing that, Patterson would play tracks to me here and there. In the meanwhile, they had recorded a live album, Alabama Ass Whuppin’, and they asked me, “Hey, how would you feel about mixing this?”
I loved the band and loved those guys, so I said, “Sure – of course!”
I did the mix and they really liked it a lot. I remember they stopped by the studio one night when they were about to leave on tour and it was one of the first times I can ever remember having much of an individual conversation with Cooley. I mean, we knew each other, but I knew Patterson a lot better.
I remember we played to the album for a little bit and Cooley said, “I’ve been listening and you made the guitars sound really good.”
And I was like, “All right – great! I really appreciate that.”
Mixing that live album is what I think convinced them that they could really use somebody outside to make and mix their records for them. That’s when they asked me to get involved mixing Southern Rock Opera. That’s the album that got them signed to their first proper record deal and as a result of that, they then had a budget to make a full-blown record in a real live studio. That’s when we did Decoration Day pillar-to-post at Chase Park.
The Dirty South came next: we started at Chase Park, went down to Muscle Shoals and did part of it at FAME, then came back to Chase Park to finish. We had John Agnello come in to help mix with a set of fresh ears. A Blessing And A Curse was done the same way: we started tracking at Chase Park; did the bulk of the record at Fidelitorium in Kernersville, NC; then came back to Athens and finished it at Chase Park.
By the time we were starting Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, we realized that we really loved the way that Decoration Day sounded with just me and them at Chase Park, the whole way. And that’s how we’ve done everything since then.
That’s the not-so-brief history of my recording history with the Drive-By Truckers. (laughter)
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