Drive-By Truckers have announced the release of their second album of 2020. The band’s new full-length second LP of this year, The New Ok, arrives via ATO Records at all DSPs and streaming services this Friday, October 2. CD and red vinyl arrive on Friday, December 18. The New OK is preceded by today’s premiere of the new title track.
The New OK marks the Drive-By Truckers’ 13th studio album and arrives mere months after the release of their highly lauded The Unraveling. Originally conceived as a quarantine EP collecting material recorded in Memphis during sessions for The Unraveling, the project expanded to include new powerful songs written and recorded over what Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood describes as “this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors.”
Tracks such as Hood’s “The New OK” and “Watching The Orange Clouds” – inspired by the protests following George Floyd’s murder – were exchanged between Hood, co-founding singer/songwriter/guitarist Mike Cooley, bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist Jay Gonzalez, drummer Brad Morgan, and then mixed by longtime DBT producer David Barbe. Bassist Patton offers vocals on The Ramones standard “The KKK Took My Baby Away.” Hood says it’s “a full album that hopefully balances out the darkness of our current situation with a hope for better days and nights ahead.”
“To call these past few months trying would be a dramatic understatement,” Hood continues. “Our lives are intertwined with our work in ways that give us our best songs and performances. It is a life that has often rewarded us beyond our wildest dreams. Speaking for myself, I don’t have hobbies, I have this thing I do. To be sidelined with a brand new album and have to sit idly while so much that I love and hold dear falls apart before my very eyes has been intense, heartbreaking, anger provoking and very depressing. It has gone to the very heart of our livelihoods and threatened near everything that we have spent our lives trying to build. Here’s to the hope that we can make 2021 a better year than this one has been. In the meantime, here’s to THE NEW OK!”
Listen to the title track.
TRACKLIST:
The New Ok
Tough To Let Go
The Unraveling
The Perilous Night
Sarah’s Flame
Sea Island Lonely
The Distance
Watching The Orange Clouds
The KKK Took My Baby Away
Hood, DBT co-founder Mike Cooley, and guitarist/keyboardist Jay Gonzalez will all be performing solo shows on NoonChorus.com through the end of the year and beyond at 6p PT/9p ET. The performances will be available for 72 hours after each live broadcast. The scheduled dates are below:
September 30 – Patterson Hood
October 7 – Mike Cooley
October 14 – Patterson Hood
October 21 – Mike Cooley
October 24 – Jay Gonzalez
October 28 – Patterson Hood
November 7 – Jay Gonzalez
November 11 – Mike Cooley
November 18 – Patterson Hood
November 25 – Thanksgiving Filter – DBT Variety Show (featuring all 5 members)
*Feature image by Jason Thrasher
