COME HOME AGAIN: The Drive-By Truckers return to Athens for three nights for charity

By CORY JASIN
The Truckers are coming home.
“It feels good to get to come back now and sell the [40 Watt Club] out, raise money for a good cause and give a little back to this town that’s done so much for me and this band,” said Patterson Hood, lead singer and founder of the Drive-By Truckers.
The Truckers make a point to play Athens only occasionally, so as to not oversaturate the market, Hood said.

But when the band does play, it usually plays the 40 Watt. Indeed, the venue and its staff hold a special place in Hood’s heart.
“When we were starting out as a band, we would tour and then come home broke,” he said. “They would give me shifts and I’d have work there to help pay off the debt from touring so I could get back out and do it again.”
But now it’s Hood and his band who have a chance to do the giving: A portion of the proceeds from each show will benefit Nuçi’s Space, a rehearsal space and haven for local musicians.
“I think Nuçi’s Space is one of the most vital and important things this town has,” Hood said. “Beside offering all kinds of services that help musicians with practical day-to-day things, they also save lives.”
Hood and his band have been advocates of Nuçi’s Space since its foundation.
“When we started the band, they weren’t here yet,” he said. “We actually got involved in raising money for them before they even opened their doors.”
Nuçi’s Space and Hood are also involved with Camp Amped, a music camp for young Athenians. A band of the aforementioned youngsters, called the Camp Amped Band, will have the extreme privilege of opening up for Hood and company on Saturday night, the last of their homecoming shows.
“It’s always really amazing to see young people who are in that stage of their development as artists really learning how to get up in front of a packed club … of 750 screaming people and rock,” Hood said. “It’s a great experience.”
When playing the same town a few nights in a row, bands often adjust their set lists to have a different show each night, or play entire albums all the way through to create variation. The boys in DBT don’t have to worry about that.
“We don’t do a set list,” Hood said. “We decide the first song right before we walk up on stage, and then it’s ‘anything goes.’”
If anything, the crowd serves as musical directors throughout the night.
“Once we get up there, it gets decided as much by the audience and where they lead us as much [as] anything,” he said. “We definitely are a band that plays off the crowd; if the crowd’s giving a lot back, we give a lot back.”
As excited as the guys are to be playing their homecoming concert, they are also looking forward to the much-needed down time that they can enjoy once the weekend is through.
“We’ve essentially been on the road 400 plus days the last two years,” Hood said. “This year hopefully we’re going to not tour too much; we’re going to do a few tours and a little bit of playing, but we’re going to be home a lot more.”
After two albums and the two touring cycles that go along with them in the last two years, the Truckers can’t wait to be around the people and the hometown that they love.
“I love Athens,” Hood said. “I love this town, I love the 40 Watt.”