Origin and Making of The Album
The idea for Southern Rock Opera pre-dates the band's formation in 1996. Southern Rock Opera began in a long discussion between, Drive-By Truckers' frontman, Patterson Hood, and former Truckers' bassist and producer, Earl Hicks, during a road trip. The pair discussed writing a semi-autobiographical screenplay about growing up in the South and about the plane crash that almost ended the career of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, taking singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and Gaines' back-up singer sister, Cassie Gaines, to their graves.
Soon after this discussion, Patterson Hood formed Drive-By Truckers. The Truckers recorded two studio albums and one live album during the four years between their formation and the actual recording of Southern Rock Opera. During these years, Drive-By's principal songwriters Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Rob Malone continued to contribute songs to "The Rock Opera", as they'd come to calling it.
After the release of their live album, Alabama Ass Whuppin', Drive-By Truckers began recording what they hoped to be their magnum opus: Southern Rock Opera. According to Patterson Hood, "(the album) was recorded in Birmingham, upstairs in a uniform shop during an early September heat wave, with no air-conditioning. We had to turn the fans off when we were recording, and we worked from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So Southern Rock Opera was fun to write, but we had a miserable time making it."
After the album was finished, however, the troubles continued for The Truckers when they ran out of funding for the immense project. To resolve the problem, and to avoid "any fine print crap", as Hood put it, the band took a very non-traditional approach. The Truckers made a prospectus, and solicited investors, with a promise of 15% interest, to pay for the manufacturing and distribution of Southern Rock Opera. The approach worked. Through their fan-based online news group and by sheer word of mouth, The Truckers were able to raise $23,000. This allowed them to print about 5,000 copies of the album, and buy a new, used, van for touring. Most notably included in the group, dubbed "The DBT Investors", was Widespread Panic bassist, and fellow Athenian, Dave Schools.
Southern Rock Opera was finally released on September 12, 2001 on Soul Dump Records.
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