Intervju med Gary Rossington och Rickey Medlocke i Lynyrd Skynyrd

Where they are is touring for the eleventh consecutive summer, in support of Twenty, their fifteenth album of new material. Few would have predicted such an outcome a decade ago when the surviving members of Skynyrd reunited for a "Tribute Tour," marking the tenth anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines and cut the band's career short just as it had reached a stellar apex. The 1987 outing was intended to be a one-time, summer-long event.

"At the end of the Tribute tour, we had a big farewell party and everyone said good-bye and went home," says Rossington. "I thought it was over and started mulling over what I was gonna do next when our manager called and said that promoters were flooding him with offers. We figured there was some more life left in the band yet, so we went back out and basically haven't stopped since."

In the ensuing decade, several people have passed through the group, including two original members, drummer Artimus Pyle and guitarist Ed King, who is currently on medical leave. But the core of Rossington, bassist Leon Wilkeson, pianist Billy Powell and singer Johnny Van Zant (Ronnie's kid brother) has remained constant. On Twenty they are joined by two new guitarists, Rickey Medlocke, formerly of Blackfoot, and ex-Outlaws leader Hughie Thomasson.

"I guess we're becoming the Southern Rock All-Stars or something," Rossington says with a laugh. "But it's worked out great. Rickey played drums with us in the very early days of Skynyrd, and we played a million gigs with the Outlaws, which often ended up in us jamming together, so our guitar parts just fell right together, which is how it's always worked in this band. I feel lucky to have landed such veteran pickers who really know what they're doing. Hiring them is the best move that I've made in a long time."

Rossington says that he is particularly excited about the new material that the group is writing with Medlocke and Thomasson. After leaning heavily on timeless classics like "Sweet Home Alabama," "Gimme Three Steps," "That Smell" and, of course, "Free Bird," in concert, Rossington says that he hopes that the band will now play 50 percent newer material.

"This is our fourth album since we've been back together, so we're starting to have a lot of material to choose from, and thankfully, people respond real well to it. We're proud of our past, but we're not living there. We're moving on. It was one band with Ronnie, Steve and Allen [Collins, founding guitarist who survived the crash but died of pneumonia in 1990], and it's something else now.

"You know, not too many bands seem to stick together for real long these days, so I'm proud as shit to have been around for 25 years. People tell me all the time that they grew up on Skynyrd or learned to play guitar by copying our riffs, and that's very humbling. We're just simple Southern people who make music, and it's as exciting as ever. In fact, I recently quit drinking and smoking and everything else after a lifetime of doing it all, so it's almost like everything's new again. To be honest, after all these years it's pretty damned scary to walk out on stage without having a few drinks, but it's real thrilling.

I hope to keep picking forever. As long as the people still want us to be around, we're gonna be there."

Intervju med Rickey Medlocke.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD is literally the band that would not die. Despite plane crashes, car wrecks,
members coming and going and millions of miles logged on every conveyance known to man,
the spirit and music of LYNYRD SKYNYRD has never suffered and for proof of this one need not
look any further than the bands latest disc, "EDGE OF FOREVER." In addition to their long
established reputation as "The workingman's band," LYNYRD SKYNYRD may just have
succeeded in formulating a kind of blue-collar national anthem.

In the song "Workin'" Johnny Van Zant sings, "I make my livin' by the sweat of my brow. . ."
and anyone who has ever seen the band live in concert knows that this is no empty boast.
Audience/artist bonding has never sounded, looked or felt so honest.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD is that rare collection of musicians who are fully justified in thinking that the
quality of their work will ensure their success and, perhaps, that is why they are here thirty
years and twenty-two albums later.
When Rickey Medlocke got the call to join his Southern rock brothers full time,
(he had previously made contributions to several SKYNYRD albums as well as fronting the
legendary BLACKFOOT), he was more than up for the challenge.

DL: When everybody in America is ready to hit the road for the last vacation of the summer you guys chose to
work the weekend?
RICKEY MEDLOCKE: Yeah, I am out in California right now and we have got a show tonight.

DL With SKYNYRD or BLACKFOOT?
RM No, I haven't done BLACKFOOT in over four year's man. I am full time LYNYRD SKYNYRD right now.

DL Huh. When I was covering the band last year someone sent me a BLACKFOOT bio so I thought that you might be keeping that going on the side but I guess not.
RM Really? That is strange.

DL Well, I guess SKYNYRD would be a full time job then eh? Is this the third record that you have done with them now?
RM Yeah, I actually was a part of the "TWENTY" record which was about three, almost four years ago now, and then I did the "LYVE FROM STEEL TOWN" a couple of years back and now we have "EDGE OF FOREVER."

DL The "TWENTY" record, you were involved with that one from the writing point, weren't you?
RM Well, I did some of the writing on it. I was, basically, part writer on about sixty-five or seventy percent of the
record, this time I am part writer on everything except one. To me this is much more of a rock album than the first one. The first one, in a way, it was a feeling out period and we had got together and we were writing the stuff and right when we were starting to hit a good stride the record company said "Hey, we need a record and you guys need to go into the studio." and so forth and so on and it sounded like that, kind of hurried and, you know, we didn't get a chance to hit our full stride and hit a groove. It also came out sounding very slick to me, not a very raw album. This time we went and started writing material very early on and took our time and demo-ed the stuff a lot and it all just kinda fell together real naturally. I think that this is a much more raw and rock record.

DL It is a great record and does, as you say, have that raw rock and roll sound.
RM Thanks; I wish that they were playing it in Detroit because I think that people would just love it.

DL Yeah. Since your compadre Ted Nugent left the radio there has been woefully little SKYNYRD music on
the Detroit airwaves.
RM Yeah, I know.

DL But, I suppose, when you do swing through town things will start to pick up again. Yeah, that is something there.
You will be coming with ZZ TOP this time through, what a show that should be!
RM Right! It is going to be a great combination. What a tour! We have been looking forward to this. We have been wanting to see this go down for quite some time and now that it is almost here, man, it is just like, I can't believe it!
It is going to be a lot of fun.

DL A good ole' Southern boogie explosion!
RM Boy, you are not kidding!

DL Are you both going to be playing full sets or are there going to be other acts on the bill as well?
RM From what I understand there is going to be one opening act in certain cases. It is mainly us and TOP.

DL Well, I mean, you are not going to be stuck with only forty minutes of stage time or anything like that, right?
RM Oh, my God no. We are doing an hour and a half. See, it is a co-headlining bill to where you get equal time and
you share the billing and get equal production and everything.

DL Was there any rhyme or reason behind taking the tour out in the fall as opposed to taking it into stadiums in the summer?
RM I believe, to me, this is a long time in coming and I have wanted to see this combination of bands for a while because it is like the ultimate. What a way to end the century with two of the biggest Southern bands that ever was.
It is definitely going to do that because we end up on New Years Eve in Houston at the Summit so it is going to be great.

DL Still, I can't help but think that a tour like this, had it been done in the summer, could have packed out some really big places.
RM For us, we are always going out in the summer time and doing all the big amphitheaters like Pine Knob and things like that but this year we found out that we were going to be going out in September through the end of fall or into early winter with TOP so we had to kinda redo our situation. We are playing a lot of the backwoods markets and playing a lot of those secondary and third city things to stay out of the major markets while we wait for this major tour to come around and now that it has come around. . .

DL You can come back and play the arenas and be sure to sell them out in advance.
RM Personally, I love arenas that hold anywhere from twelve to fifteen thousand people.
I love the whole vibe about it and when you start playing festivals and we have done this
quite a bit, festivals where you are playing to 40-50,000 people, it is like you almost lose
touch with the people so, I am just looking forward to this arena tour.

DL As time has gone on has the amount of LYNYRD SKYNYRD material that you were in on
from the beginning increased at all?
RM Basically, what people are going to get with this ZZ TOP tour is we are dong about three
or four new songs and then the rest of the time will allow us to do all of the classic tunes.
We are actually even going to put together a medley of three or four of the older songs so
I think it will be very cool.

DL Are we going to be able to hear you sing again?
RM Well, I am sharing the singing on "You Got That Right" and some of the other stuff on the new material I am singing the stuff with Johnny and stuff so that is kinda fun. One of these days I might do something on my own again but right now it is 110% for LYNYRD SKYNYRD.

DL You had a bit more time to put this record together because you had the live record and though that took some
work at least you didn't have to write new material for it, are some of these songs older or did you all just go in and
say "Let's write a whole record?"
RM Last year we finished up November 1st on the road and we took a couple of weeks off and when we got back together we started writing this record. We had some material that we had already laid demos on, in fact the first
single, "Workin,'" we had already cut a demo on that in Nashville and was sitting on it for a while.
"Tomorrow's Goodbye" we had already cut a demo for and was sittin' on it for a while and so, you know, the rest of the stuff we started writing and came up with it down in, I have a studio down in Ft Myers FL, and basically we took the stuff in and demo-ed it and got it to the way where we were happy with it. Ron Nevison came in and started listening to stuff and got together working on stuff with us and the next thing you know we were in Nashville doing pre-production and production on the record.

DL I was going to ask you about Ron Nevison, most of the stuff in my meager record collection that he produced is harder, heavier stuff. . .
RM Well, have you listened to the CD?

DL Yeah.
RM I tell you what, I think that this is a pretty heavy rock record for LYNYRD SKYNYRD. I think it is a heavier rock record than LYNYRD SKYNYRD has done in quite some time. If you listen to things like "Preacher Man" and "Edge of Forever" and stuff like that, those are some pretty heavy rock songs. Ron Nevison had been involved with LED ZEPPELIN and BAD COMPANY and HEART and different people like that and he came in and actually gave us what we really needed to get this record to be up to today's rock status. He did a phenomenal job. We had Kenny Arnoff playing drums on all the stuff which you know he is from John Fogerty, John Mellencamp and SMASHING PUMPKINS fame and he did a phenomenal job and so it inspired all of us and it really picked everything up. I think that everyone was really at the top of their playing. Johnny was really at the top of his form singing and it came out really great and we are all happy with it.

DL Well, that will probably insure that Ted Nugent will make an appearance at the Detroit gig then eh?
RM I don't know. You never know where Uncle Ted is going to go, you know.

DL Are there songs on this record that you felt so strongly about that you said, "Hey, this has to go in the set."
RM On this new one we are doing "Workin'," "Preacher Man" and "Edge of Forever" live. There are some songs on there, the ballad "Tomorrows Goodbye," is really kind of a personal thing to me because it talks about the situation with the world today and stuff like that. I really think that it is something that people really need to take notice of and wake up to.
Some of the honky-tonk stuff, "Money Back Guaranty," I really like playing but overall the whole record was enjoyable to me and I wouldn't mind playing any one of them live.

DL Have you acclimated to being a member of LYNYRD SKYNYRD as a guitar player after all of those years as the
frontman of your own band?
RM You know something man, I was with the band in the early years for about three years and when I came back to this band it didn't bother me just being the guitar player and not being a singer/guitar player. My dad, Shorty, always used to tell me, " You know if you can't ride in the back seat as a passenger you are never going to be the driver." So, it doesn't bother me in the least and my role on stage, man, the guys really don't stymmy me at all from doing a show and doing what I normally do. I am a pretty high-energy person and was always very high energy with BLACKFOOT and so with SKYNYRD it is like high octane for me. Johnny likes to say that they keep me locked up 'till 'bout five minutes before show time and then they let me loose!(laughs)

DL Though you have had the long history with the band have you had any trouble living up to the legend that has surrounded this band?
RM I think that when you are in a band like LYNRYD SKYNYRD of course people look at you with a standard that you have got to be a certain way and when you play the old material, they like to hear the old material played as close as possible.
I think this band is probably, and Gary (Rossington) has often said this, this is a very close version of the original band.
If you think about it Gary, Leon and Billy from the original band is here, I am here and I was in the band in the early years and Johnny, the youngest brother of the original lead singer is here so if you really stop to think about it, it really is pretty close to being the original LYNYRD SKYNYRD band.

DL So, I would imagine that he served as a mentor to you when you were coming up and probably gave you a heads up on some of what you should be expecting in all this music business?
RM Right.

DL Now that you are in a similar position to give advice and direction to young players, how do you handle that?
RM Actually, Shorty was probably one of the biggest influences in my life and I give him full credit for getting me started in music and teaching me the heart and soul of what music really is. Ronnie, Gary and Alan, when I was in the band the first time, they used to come over and sit on my parents porch and listen to my old man play and Ronnie later on dedicated the "NOTHIN' FANCY" album to him and wrote a song for him called, "Made in the Shade" because my old man used to say, "You know guys if you keep going and believe in yourselves, one day you will have it made in the shade." Ronnie wrote that song for him and later on he modeled Kurtis Low after my old man so, you know, Shorty was really a major influence to me. Today, if I am that kind of influence on some young musicians, I hope I am not an influence like a dad would be an influence, but if I am an influence like Clapton, Beck and Hendrix was to me on somebody else, I think that is kind of cool. I take that as a great compliment when people come up to me and say "You know I just admire your playing and you have influenced me so much. . ." I find that to be a great compliment and I can't think of a better compliment than that in someone's life.

DL After having spent the last couple, three decades rocking and rolling, is it still fun for you to get up there and play every night?
RM Oh, without a doubt! If it wasn't still fun for me I wouldn't still be out on the road. The thing is that when we go out on the road we live for that hour and a half or hour forty-five minutes everynight. That has always been the way I have been and I will probably always be that way. I still have a love for music and I always will. I don't think that it is ever going to change.

DL At the end of your playing days what is it that you would want people to remember you for? A song, a lyrical phrase or even a guitar lick that you feel summed up what Ricky Medlocke was all about as a musician?
RM If people are going to remember me for anything just remember me for the songs that I have written and for sharing a part of my life entertaining people.