Billboard.com has a feature on ex-Trucker Jason Isbell about leaving the Drive By Truckers and working on his solo release, Sirens of the Ditch.
Isbell started writing for a solo album around four years ago. Although he didn’t initially set out with a side project in mind, he says a batch of songs came together that just didn’t feel like Drive-By Truckers material. “I was writing most of these songs on piano, which I hadn’t done for Truckers songs, and the arrangements I was hearing in my head called for different instrumentation than we had in the band.”