[Cover photo credit to Jason Thrasher]
Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood has announced his new solo album, Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams, arriving via ATO Records on Friday, February 21, 2025.
Produced by Chris Funk (The Decemberists, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks) at various studios in Hood’s current hometown of Portland, OR, Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams is supported by a cast of friends and fellow musicians including Waxahatchee, Brad and Phil Cook (Megafaun), Kevin Morby, Wednesday, Brad Morgan and Jay Gonzalez (Drive-By Truckers), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, The Blasters), David Barbe (Sugar, Mercyland), Nate Query (The Decemberists), Steve Drizos (Jerry Joseph and The Jackmormons), Daniel Hunt (Neko Case, M Ward), and Stuart Bogie (The Hold Steady, Goose).
The 10-track collection is heralded by a first single, “A Werewolf and a Girl,” featuring additional vocals from Lydia Loveless, as well as a lyric video directed by Jason Shevchuk.
Hood explains:
‘A Werewolf and A Girl’ was written in August of 2021, around 40 years after I fell for my high school sweetheart. The song juxtaposed our falling in love and our breakup a year later. Once I cut the demo, I knew I wanted a woman to sing the choruses from the girl’s point of view. And in my head, it was always going to be Lydia. I mean, I didn’t really even have a second choice. The subject matter’s kind of provocative, so I wouldn’t have wanted to ask somebody that I didn’t feel was a friend. I wouldn’t want someone to be uncomfortable and then just not want to talk to me anymore. What I didn’t count on was that when I asked Lydia if she would be interested in doing it, she actually happened to be in the studio and did it the next day. And that’s what’s on the record.
Hood’s fourth solo album and first in over 12 years, Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams sees the veteran singer, guitarist, and songwriter “exploring his youth and young manhood.” It is inspired in part by his own short story, “The Exploding Trees,” in which Hood tells the tale of a natural disaster that occurred in his North Alabama hometown just as he turned 30 and relocated to Athens, GA where Drive-By Truckers were co-founded in 1996.
The album gathers songs that have amassed over the prolific songwriter’s career, many of which provided him with distraction during lockdown, others which have resided among his notebooks for years, including the string-driven “Airplane Screams,” written over four decades ago but never successfully recorded until now.
Working together at a number of Portland studios, Hood wrote much of the album on piano in an attempt to expand in new directions. While he planned to bring in a professional pianist for the recording sessions, Funk, eager to push his friend from his comfort zone, encouraged Hood to play the parts himself. This led to textured arrangements marked by the inclusion of strings, woodwinds, and vintage analog synthesizers.
Hood comments:
You remember it one way, but when you really dip into it, when you really look back, the world was a different place. Things were accepted that wouldn’t be accepted now and things you didn’t understand then make sense now.
This record has all these kind of unintended themes. I don’t know if that was anything I set out to do as much as it just kind of worked out that way. You know, there are a lot a lot of happy accidents in this record.
PATTERSON HOOD – LIVE 2024/2025
DECEMBER
3 – South Deerfield, MA – House Theater at Tree House Brewing Company
4 – Shirley, MA – The Bull Run
6 – Rocky Mount, VA – Harvester Performance Center
7 – Asheville, NC – Asheville Music Hall
8 – Winston-Salem, NC – The Ramkat
10 – New Orleans, LA – Chickie Wah Wah
12 – Fort Worth, TX – Tulips
13 – The Woodlands, TX – Dosey Doe
14 – Austin, TX – Antone’s
16 – Salt Lake City, UT – The State Room
18 – Portland, OR – Show Bar
19 – Portland, OR – Show Bar
20 – Portland, OR – Show Bar
EXPLODING TREES & AIRPLANE SCREAMS 2025 TOUR
MARCH
19 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Made †
21 – Sellersville, PA – Sellersville Theater †
22 – Washington, DC – The Atlantis †
26 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West †
28 – Birmingham, AL – Saturn †
29 – Nashville, TN – Eastside Bowl †
30 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi †
APRIL
1 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk †
2 – Evanston, IL – SPACE †
4 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway †
5 – Louisville, KY – The Whirling Tiger
† w/ Special Guest Lydia Loveless
