o What: Drive-By Truckers, in concert.
o When: 8 p.m. March 10.
o Where: Wonder Ballroom, 128 N.E. Russell St., Portland.
o Cost: $28.60 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://ticketmaster.com.
o Information: 503-284-8686 or http://wonderballroom.com.
When the Drive-By Truckers went into the studio a couple years ago, the songs came out fast and furious. And there were a lot of them.
“We knew pretty early we definitely had two records shaping up,” songwriter and guitarist Mike Cooley said.
So after the band finished making the 2010 album “The Big To-Do,” the Drive-By Truckers cut a few more songs and finished making a second CD.
“Go-Go Boots,” that second album, was released in mid-February to the strong reviews that accompany nearly every release by the band out of Athens, Ga.
o What: Drive-By Truckers, in concert.
o When: 8 p.m. March 10.
o Where: Wonder Ballroom, 128 N.E. Russell St., Portland.
o Cost: $28.60 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://ticketmaster.com.
o Information: 503-284-8686 or http://wonderballroom.com.
“Go-Go Boots” is being called the band’s country-soul album, while “The Big To-Do” was its power-pop-rock turn. But Cooley doesn’t look at the CDs that way.
“I don’t really see those categories anymore,” he said. “I think what Loretta Lynn did was as much soul music as what Aretha Franklin did. It was soul music from a different place. I don’t see what rock ’n’ roll artists are doing as much different from what country artists do. It’s all the same, I think.”
That said, he acknowledges that “Go-Go Boots” was influenced by the band’s 2007 collaboration with soul singer Bettye LaVette on her album “Scene of the Crime,” and by its backing of legendary keyboardist Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the MGs on his 2009 album “Potato Head” and subsequent tour.
“What’s different here is more sonically than the songs themselves,” Cooley said. “The songs take a little different twist because of the way you’re playing them. But it’s more of a sonic thing. The way we’re playing together definitely came about doing the Booker record and touring with him some.”
Patterson Hood, Cooley’s partner in leading the Truckers, contributes murder ballads and tales of fired cops, family Thanksgivings and very Southern characters to “Go-Go Boots,” while bassist Shonna Tucker adds a very soulful vocal on a cover of an Eddie Hinton song.
Cooley’s contributions to “Go-Go Boots” are a trio of country shuffles, the bar-room weeper “Cartoon Gold,” the woeful “The Weakest Man” and “Pulaski,” a story song about a Tennessee girl who moves to California.
His vocals are classic, tear-in-my-beer twang — but not because of any effort to sound “country.”
“It’s what I sound like. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got,” Cooley said. “I just let my voice do what it does, which, apparently, is country.”
Last year was the 25th anniversary of the partnership between Cooley and Hood that is at the core of the Truckers.
The Truckers came to national attention with 2001’s “Southern Rock Opera,” a record that told the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd within the band’s usual meditations on the contemporary South. Since then, the band has released six studio albums, a live disc and a rarities package.
“The Big To-Do” was the band’s highest-charting album, and “Go-Go Boots” appears to be headed in the same upward direction. That’s an indicator that these are good times for the veteran band.
“It seems to be kind of on an upswing,” Cooley said. “You have your ups and downs with audiences and ticket sales. That’s just the business of doing business. You have little plateaus where you don’t seem to be going anywhere, then the wind blows a different direction and things pick up. We’re in a pretty good place now.”
As is their standard, the Truckers are out on the road for an extensive tour. Songs from “Go-Go Boots” will play a prominent role in the shows. But Cooley said there’s no telling what the band might play on any given night.
“We don’t do any set lists or anything, so I’m trying to stay one step ahead, to think what would be good for this audience,” he said. “And when I remember songs, I think, ‘Did we play that at sound check or last night or have we already played it tonight?’ There are times that I have to walk over to Patterson and ask if we’d played a song already. No set list, no teleprompters, no nothing.”
Don’t expect to see a new Truckers record early next year. There’s not another disc in the can from the “To-Do” sessions. After touring for most of 2011, the band will need to recharge its batteries before it is ready to go back into the studio, Cooley said.
“We’ll take a breather, back off some,” Cooley said. “We’ll take some time until we’re ready to write again, and then we’ll want to tour.”
