Drive-By Truckers to Release Career-Spanning Live Album
Drive-By Truckers will release a comprehensive live album this fall, just before celebrating 20 years together as a band. Titled It’s Great to Be Alive, the project will be available in both deluxe and single-record versions, on CD, vinyl and digital.
The full deluxe record will feature an expansive, 35 song tracklist that spans the band’s career, from fan favorites such as “Zip City” to obscure deep tracks including “Girls Who Smoke.” One song even precedes the band. “Runaway Train” is an early Nineties lost gem from Truckers’ lead singers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley’s previous band called Adam’s House Cat.
It’s Great to Be Alive was recorded during the group’s three-night stand at the Fillmore in San Francisco in November of 2014. More so than any of their previous three live releases, It’s Great to Be Alive perfectly captures the country-rockers’ freewheeling, marathon live shows, with Hood and Cooley taking turns at lead vocals. “It’s so much more rewarding and fun to do it this way,” Hood once told Rolling Stone of his band’s insistence on keeping live shows spontaneous. “When you go by a strict set list, you’ll start playing the same one every night whether you want to or not. We don’t have any one or two songs that we’re known for. It’s just this sprawling catalog that we can pick and choose from.”
Due for release October 30th, It’s Great to Be Alive captures the band’s current, slightly scaled-down lineup of members who’ve been playing together since 2012, with Matt Patton on bass, Brad Morgan on drums and Jay Gonzalez on keyboards/guitars — in addition to guitarist/singers Hood and Cooley. Drive-By Truckers will be touring all over the U.S. this fall.