ATHENS, Georgia’s next most famous musical sons, Drive-By Truckers, have shared a lo-fi video for their cover of Ramones’ classic “The KKK Took My Baby Away”. Have a watch below.
The cracking cover, in which they take Noo Yoik punk out for a spin way, waaaay past city limits and down south, is the knockabout closer to the band’s most recent album, The New OK, has been out digitally since October, but finally arrives in a format you can hold tomorrow; yep, CD and red vinyl.
The New OK followed quickly on the heels of The Unraveling and was originally conceived of as being a lockdown release, collating other material from the same Memphis studio sessions; but quickly fleshed out in a fuller, standalone work, including new tunes written over what Patterson Hood calls “this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors.”
Sketches were swapped between the distanced five members result, Patterson says, in “a full album that hopefully balances out the darkness of our current situation with a hope for better days and nights ahead.”
“To call these past few months trying would be a dramatic understatement,” he continues. And so say all of us.
“Our lives are intertwined with our work in ways that give us our best songs and performances. It is a life that has often rewarded us beyond our wildest dreams.
“Speaking for myself, I don’t have hobbies, I have this thing I do. To be sidelined with a brand-new album and have to sit idly while so much that I love and hold dear falls apart before my very eyes has been intense, heartbreaking, anger-provoking and very depressing. It has gone to the very heart of our livelihoods and threatened near everything that we have spent our lives trying to build.
“Here’s to the hope that we can make 2021 a better year than this one has been. In the meantime, here’s to The New OK!”
Drive-By Truckers’ The New OK is out now on digital stream and download, but gains its physical release on CD and cherry-red vinyl by ATO Records this Friday, December 18th. You can order yours direct from the label or your neighbourhood record store.
Connect with Drive-By Truckers at their website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and on YouTube.
