Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ began to come into its own with the release of Mystery Road in 1989. That summer the band opened for R.E.M. on its Green tour. That’s also when Buck and Kinney decided to team up to record MacDougal Blues and road-tripped together on a small venue acoustic tour.
“He played mandolin and electric guitar and drove the van,” Kinney remembers. “And we would do a couple of R.E.M. songs every night. We learned ‘Driver Eight’, but we had to buy the record because we couldn’t remember it all, and then he had to call Michael to ask him what the words were.”
Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ seemed on the verge of rock stardom after Fly Me Courageous came out in 1991. The album spawned hit MTV videos for the title track and “To Build A Fire”, and the band toured with Neil Young and Sonic Youth. But by the time Smoke came out in 1993, things had taken a turn toward all-out stadium crunch, as they opened for the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company in a last-ditch attempt to reach the broadest audience possible.
“Then we rocked,” says Kinney of that surreal period. “I was primed and dressed for a photo shoot for about three years. It seemed like I worked every day of the week then. And it almost killed me. Smoke was a fuckin’ nightmare, because I was so burned out. Everything collapsed in my personal life, because I hadn’t been watering the flowers. I wanted to call it Fuck You — that’s how I felt. I quit the band three times during that record.”
Originally, Down Out Law was going to be titled When The Smoke Clears, because, Kinney says, making it made him feel so much better. And though he continued to play and record with Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ for the next five years, you get the impression his heart wasn’t quite in it after that. He’d moved to Athens.
Back in the quiet of his kitchen, Kinney struggles to explain how he comes up with songs. Some have been written in an hour, he allows, and some have been hanging around for a decade. “Can I play you a new one?” he asks, moving toward the bedroom. He returns with a beat-up Gibson J-200 and fishes around in the lint filter of the dryer for a pick.
“I’m writing all the time,” he says, tuning his guitar. “I’m writing music, and then melody, and then when push comes to shove, and I actually have to perform, I fill in the blanks. I’m like a fill-in-the-blanks guy. My filter is if it’s not good enough to memorize, it’s not good enough to perform. I don’t write anything clever, or at least so clever that I can’t remember it, because that means I’m trying to impress somebody. I don’t allow myself to do that.”
The song he wrote one morning a few weeks back after listening to a lot of Buddy Holly is called “Wishes, Wishes, Wishes”. Like so many Kinney compositions, it’s bright and wistful at the same time, with a buoyant traveling tempo. It’s about a musician who’s on the road and longing to be back home.
“All of these miles that I’m driving,” he sings, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. “I wish I was driving with you. All of these songs that I’m singing, I wish I could sing one to you.”
After a careful search, Bob Townsend has determined that the soul of Atlanta currently resides at 488 Flat Shoals Ave.
