Drive-By Truckers have announced the release of their 14th studio album, Welcome 2 Club XIII, due via ATO Records on Friday, June 3. Pre-orders are available now.
Welcome 2 Club XIII is heralded by today’s premiere of its swinging title track, “Welcome 2 Club XIII,” available for streaming and download. The track – which pays homage to the Muscle Shoals honky-tonk where founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley got their start – is joined by an official music video.
“There were no cool bars in town and Club XIII was the best we had,” says Hood, referring to the two vocalist/guitarists’ former band, Adam’s House Cat, “but it wasn’t all that good, and our band wasn’t particularly liked there. From time to time the owner would throw us a Wednesday night or let us open for a hair-metal band we were a terrible fit for, and everyone would hang out outside until we were done playing. It wasn’t very funny at the time, but it’s funny to us now.”
Arriving as Drive-By Truckers enters its 26th year, Welcome 2 Club XIII marks a sharp departure from the trenchant commentary of The Unraveling and The New OK (both released in 2020). Produced by longtime Drive-By Truckers collaborator David Barbe and mainly recorded at his studio in Athens, GA, Welcome 2 Club XIII took shape over the course of three frenetic days in summer 2021 – a doubly extraordinary feat considering that the band had no prior intentions of making a new album.
Featuring background vocals from the likes of Margo Price, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, and Mississippi-bred singer/songwriter Schaefer Llana, Welcome 2 Club XIII was recorded live with most songs cut in one or two takes, fully harnessing Drive-By Truckers’ freewheeling energy. Songs like the epic, darkly thrilling “The Driver” and the spirited, horn-blasted “Every Single Storied Flameout” see the band – whose lineup also includes keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez, bassist Matt Patton, and drummer Brad Morgan – looking back on their formative years with both deadpan pragmatism and profound tenderness, instilling each song with the kind of lived-in detail that invites bittersweet reminiscence of your own misspent youth.