Drive-By Truckers
The Long Haul
In the late 1990s, on one of their earliest tours, the Drive-By Truckers nearly met a grisly fate. After a short stay in Lansing, Michigan–during which the local headliners all had the flu and spent the night puking backstage–the band had to make their way to Buffalo, and not even an hour into the drive they hit a blizzard that lasted the length of Ohio. So these Southern boys white-knuckled their way around Lake Erie, up through Cleveland, and finally into New York State. “A sane person does not get thrown off that animal and then want to get back on,” said Mike Cooley, decades later when we spoke in a previous interview. “But we couldn’t wait.” A life of near misses is the subject of their 14th album, Welcome 2 Club XIII. The weirdly wise album takes the band’s history and wonders h...
The 50 Best Rock Bands Right Now
First, let’s take care of the obvious. Despite the still-persistent narrative that such music is “dead,” there are way more than 50 excellent rock bands out there. And there’s no exact science to scooping the cream of the crop. Our list includes arena-packing veterans but also semi-obscure indie acts who’ve barely escaped their basements. There are no hard rules here. Our methodology was simple: ask our writers and staff which rock bands feel worthy of recognition right now. But we did aim for a wide scope — throughout, you’ll find flavors of psych, post-punk, hardcore, metal, even country. If it feels like rock, it’s on the table. Consider SPIN‘s 2021 roundup — just like last year’s — a thermometer, taking the temperature of modern rock in all its various mutations. Altın Gün Ho...
