Is there a happy medium with a Drive-By Truckers’ record?
PH: Oh god. We’re such a horrible happy medium band. I would love for the records to clock in somewhere in the middle. Thematically, I love the 43-minute record. But with three writers, and the way our process runs, I don’t think the short record is necessarily in our cards. The last record, I went in with 50 songs ready to record. And Cooley, who’s just a two songs a year guy, came in with nine. Shonna had two that were ready, and a third she wrote while we were there. It was also our last record with that record company, so anything we didn’t use was probably going to be lost. So, whatever can fit on a disc—because we were contractually obligated to deliver it as a single record—we gotta make it fit. Two years later, I have no regrets about that record. It’s the only record in our catalog that I can listen to and say that about. Most of them, something is going to make me cringe. A Blessing And A Curse, it’s a short record, but there’s at least two, maybe three things I wish we’d lef
