Drive-By Truckers, well served by a rest stop, at World Cafe Live at the Queen

When Mike Cooley had only a few songs ready for the last two Drive-By Truckers records (2010's

The Big To-Do

and 2011's

Go-Go Boots

), he began to worry. After nearly 20 years of sharing songwriting duties with the prolific Patterson Hood and with former members Jason Isbell and Shonna Tucker, maybe the well was beginning to dry up. But he's back with a vengeance on the new

English Oceans

, penning six of the album's 13 songs.

After the nonstop touring and press cycle for those two albums, the band felt burned out and needed a break, one of its first in years.

"We kind of hit a wall. That was part of taking some time off and chilling out a little bit," Cooley says from his Birmingham, Ala., home. That time off, about two years, allowed him to focus on songwriting, something Cooley does slowly.

"I'll spend a long, long time," he says. "Coming up with an idea and writing a song right then never happens. Most of the time, I'll take three or four lines and think about them for a long time before I decide where it's going to go next. It may be a couple years before there's a finished song from the initial idea."

Songs such as the easy-rolling "Primer Coat," the hard-rocking lead track with the unprintable title, and the barroom ballad "Natural Light" tell stories of disillusioned, drunken, and sometimes depraved characters. They're empathetic, sharply detailed, and unforced.

The Truckers have been one of America's most reliably excellent bands, both live and on record, going back at least as far as 2001's Southern Rock Opera. Their songs extend the tradition of bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marshall Tucker, and of the ersatz Southern rock of Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones. Both Hood and Cooley write songs peopled with vivid characters who struggle with themselves, their spouses, and the stereotypes and archetypes of the South. Over the years, the two songwriters have created a world of complex, often troubled characters redeemed by grit, humor, determination, and life-affirming rock-and-roll.

"I think some of our overlapping does come about as a result of being on the road so much and having so many of the same experiences," Cooley says, "and then conversations we happen to have about God knows what get filed away at the same time. Then we go our separate ways and write songs and come back together, and we've got these overlapping themes. That's the only explanation I can think of."

With the release of English Oceans, the band members are on the road again, coming to Wilmington's the Queen on Sunday night. This time, though, they're going to be careful not to burn themselves out by giving themselves breaks every few weeks rather than schedule another two-year hiatus. The breaks should allow Cooley some steady writing time.

"It took every bit of those years for me to write those damn songs," he says, with a laugh.