Drive By Truckers are quickly becoming a household name, even topping Taylor Swift in album sales this last week!
My sincere congratulations go out to Drive By Truckers, who just a couple short years ago I saw perform a live show in an itty bitty venue in Phoenix Arizona to a half-drunk, crowd that mostly showed up on a friend’s begging. This week they left Taylor Swift in the dust in overall record sales, making themselves the top-selling country act for the first week of September (according to StreetPulse). Everywhere I go friends here in Oklahoma are telling me “Hey,have you heard that new band “Drive By Truckers?” and I just smile.
I smile because we’ve been featuring Drive By Truckers for YEARS! You see, this is WHY I do what I do! I push press for artists I love as a born and raised country music fan because I want to share all of their hard work, trials and successes with other music lovers. I celebrate the achievements of struggling artists and DIY touring bands because someday I hope I can help make their dreams come true. Sure, I may not know these guys personally, only through their music, but music can change lives.It’s the only thing I know that can hurt, heal, lift, or bring down a person in 3 minutes or less. It drives people to dream, inspires people to look at themselves in new light, even teaches how to handle struggles we all face.
Of course now I’m way off track and you’re wondering what this has to do with Drive By Truckers right? Well, when you see a band like this playing in a dive bar in a strange town for little more than gas money and a love of the music, you get humbled by the shared commitment to and importance of that music. And to see even ONE band go from that dive bar scene to beating the biggest sales pitch in Nashville is a success that I think ALL music fans can celebrate with me.Country Music Photo Gallery
Drive By Truckers is performing live the weekend of August 14th in Denver, at the Mile High Music Festival. If you can’t make it to Denver, you can watch the live concert feed for free at http://www.mycricket.com/mile-high-music-festival
Cool interview with Patterson Hood with David Lowery of RadioVA.
http://radio-va.com/2010/11/01/david-lowery-interviews-patterson-hood/