Drive-By Truckers leader Patterson Hood has posted an extended message about the third leg of his groups current The Dirt Underneath tour. In a public statement, the guitarist/singer says that he originally looked at The Dirt Underneath tour as a chance to kinda reinvent ourselves to ourselves. Maybe rediscover some old overlooked songs and a way to work the kinks out of some new ones and road test some ideas before embarking on our next album. Instead, we basically worked up the meat of our next album in front of a live audience and had so much fun we added another and now another leg.

The groups next studio album, Brighter Than Creations Dark, was recorded last summer with producer David Barbe and will be available in early 2008. Everyone was so happy with the baby that no name seemed good enough, Hood jokes about the albums title. We wanted 100% agreement (this time) as nothing else had been compromised so why start with title. I personally believe that it’s actually best to start with a title and build from there. I did this with the name of the band and about half or more of the albums have had title before the songs themselves.
Drive-By Truckers will perform at Iowa City, IAs Englert Theatre this evening. Keyboardist Spooner Oldham will join the group for the majority of its fall tour.