The Fool On Every Corner

Whether battling valiantly from behind the enemy lines of his dive-bar-underground past or blowing the doors off sold-out theaters as he’s done with Drive- By Truckers for the last decade, Mike Cooley has proved his mettle time and time again. He’s rock ‘n’ roll incarnate — one impossibly cool, soul-howling, guitar rattlin’ ball of genuine unapologetic grit and swagger. At least that’s how it seems gazing up from the crowd at a packed DBT show.
So how did Cooley feel about temporarily ditching his longtime band and rolling back the volume for the unaccompanied acoustic performances, which bring him to the Pour House Thursday, June 20?
“When you don’t do it normally, it’s terrifying,” Cooleyadmits. “I try to relax, but I’ll probably never be able to sit down in a chair on stage as easily as I sit down on a toilet behind a closed door. That’s the goal — somewhere in between,” he deadpans. “I set the bar high.”
Comprised mainly of re-imagined DBT classics, these live performances as well as his first solo album The Fool On Every Corner offer fans a peek behind the curtain at what these songs might have sounded like in their most nascent state. Most of the songs Cooley has been playing at these shows were originally written on acoustic guitar. “The words just come out easier when you play an acoustic guitar,” says Cooley. “Strip it, strip it, strip it down … What’s left is the song and nothing else.”
Peppered throughout The Fool On Every Corner are Cooley’s charmingly candid asides, a few revealing admissions about the writing process, the songs and the characters who populate them, a disarmingly sweet cover of Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” and the never-before-released original, “Drinking Coke and Eating Ice.” The latter — an almost- whispered tragicomic reflection — was included, Cooley says, because he wanted to offer something new for fans. Plus, it was something he’d wanted to get off his chest. Carved from a hodgepodge of ideas he’d been scribbling down over a two-year period, the DBT guitarist sees the song as a metaphor for the last 25 years of American culture and where it’s gone. “The girl in the beginning is America,” he says. “She doesn’t look as good as she used to. She’s let herself go. For all the wrong reasons.”
Like the weathered protagonist in “Drinking Coke,” the 46-year- old Cooley has also seen his share of hard-traveled miles, though the outcome for him has been decidedly more positive. After spending much of his young life scrapping in the rock ‘n’ roll trenches, he’s become an outstanding songwriter, having amassed a catalog of songs that can go toe-to-toe with any of his contemporaries. Along the way, he and Drive- By Truckers have become an acclaimed, enduring lynchpin of American rock ‘n’ roll. And now, with The Fool on Every Corner, Cooley begins the latest chapter in his impressive career, uncompromising as always, and more thankful than ever.
“I’m lucky as hell,” he says. “No doubt about it. I’m not rich, I’m probably not gonna be, and I’m totally cool with that. But I’m making my living, and I do what Iwant—Idoitmyway,”says Cooley. “I’ve got an awesome family, a bunch of great friends, loyal fans. And I think about that every day. It just would be immoral for me not to.”
Mike Cooley plays Thursday, June 20 at The Pour House, located at 1977 Maybank Hwy. For more info and tickets, visit www.charlestonpourhouse.com