LYNYRD SKYNYRD – Dyin’ Breeds New Life By Martin Popoff
No band to the left side of
BADFINGER has seen more tragedy than
Jacksonville, Florida’s
LYNYRD SKYNYRD, owned by and betrothed to all of
America, on tour pretty much forever for 40 years now. If the crash and
more crashes later wasn’t enough, concurrent with the 2009 release of
the band’s last album, God & Guns, Skynyrd lost two more brothers,
bassist Ean Evans, who had not long ago replaced the deceased Leon
Wilkeson, and keyboardist Billy Powell, second to last link to the
original band, leaving only Gary Rossington.
But unlike other bands who soldier on ignoring the uproar to pack it
in, Skynyrd have managed to stay valid and vital, due to the ties of
longtime vocalist Johnny Van Zant to original singer Ronnie Van Zant,
and to the writing and performance prowess of guitarist and ex-
BLACKFOOT leader
Rickey Medlocke, who weirdly drummed for Skynyrd back in the low
‘70s before they ever even recorded.
So life rolls on, and the band are back with a tough yet
intriguingly swampy new album called Last Of A Dyin’ Breed, a fine
addition to the catalogue, textured, hard-hitting, very much in the
spirit of the early days.
“I think this one’s more old school style, more the way the original
band, the first one, played and recorded,” agrees Gary Rossington,
prone to heart problems yet tirelessly touring the Western world in
service to the Skynyrd nation. “We all got together on this one and
played together; everybody knew it was pretty cool to do it like that,
instead of piling on the way we used to do, i.e. get a drum track and
kind of add tracks. This is the way we used to do it, and it’s really
fun, like I say more of an old school style. And instead of southern
rock or country rock, it’s more rock ‘n’ roll than country, you know?”
That’s a sentiment curiously seconded by Rickey Medlocke, which had
me scurrying back to God & Guns for a comparison confirmed…
“I think the biggest thing is that the band went back to more rootsy
rock ‘n’ roll on this record. The last record has a lot of country
influence on it. We did some experimenting on the last record, dabbling
in almost the country market on three or four songs, and it just, you
know, didn’t culminate. So this record, we went back and kind of did it
old school. We got in the studio, all of us at one time, and recorded
the songs all at once. Then when we’d get a good take, we could go back.
If anybody made a mistake, we’d go back and fix it and continue on. I
think there’s a lot of gutsy, roots rock ‘n’ roll in this record, as
well as some blues stuff. I’m pretty happy with it, man; it’s really
good.”
Not so much the country versus rock thing, what I’d noticed right
away was the variety of textures, from DEEP PURPLE-ish organ to piano,
acoustic, banjo, but mainly some nice guitar blends.
Says Gary of his co-axeman Rickey, in the band since ’96, “You know
what? He was back in the original band with us for a while playing
drums. And then he went off on his own and did Blackfoot and played
guitar and sang. Ricky just brings a lot of the old school stuff. He’s a
great guy and a great guitar player, and plays all of the leads like
Allen Collins used to. And that’s really hard, to do Allen Collins’
parts – especially ‘Freebird’ – and Ricky does them note for note, and
knows them really good. He was around Allen a lot too and saw him play,
played with him, and so just all that, just old school, old memories,
everything. Skynyrd, you know, he’s part of it.”
And where does Gary think he fits in the puzzle, besides anchor and
even icon to the past? “Well, I have a lot of pride in what we play what
I play. I just try to make it good. I just try to make it melodic. It’s
just a song, you know? And then there’s a lot of guitar playing so I
try to add slide. I try to play slide on a lot of songs, so they’re
different. A guitar and a guitar and a guitar… they all can kind of
sound the same. So if somebody’s playing a slide, it puts a little bit
of color on it. So most of the songs have some kind of slide on it.
Whether it’s all the way through or not, I try to that. But in general, I
play melodically.”
“I like this one called ‘Mississippi Blood’,” continues Rossington,
asked about key tracks on the new record. “It’s kind of a cross between
an old blues, new blues and rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s just nasty.
‘Homegrown,’ that’s really cool. It’s kind of today’s rock ‘n’ roll –
with an old classic band doing it like us, it’s kind of cool. We wrote
it for the fans today, and it’s about, you know, homegrown, whatever you
want to make of that (laughs). Girls or women or guys, or whatever, in
your neighborhood. So that’s it. One song on here called ‘One Day At A
Time’ really tells a good message. There’s one we wrote called ‘Ready To
Fly’ which is about getting a call from your mother who’s sick or maybe
gonna pass on. And that’s all happened to us, when you get up to be our
age, or you lose your parents or are about to lose them. So it’s a sad
song about mama leaving; I hope people will be touched by it.”
Rickey zones in on ‘One Day At A Time’ as well. “That sounds like a
track that the original band might have written and recorded. I also
like ‘Homegrown’ – that we wrote with Blair Daly. It’s the type of
heavier rock tune I like to play. There’s a song called ‘Good Teacher’ I
like. I like some of the ballads on there, man. I mean, all of it
really, jointly together, makes up for a really good record.”
“Everybody’s got a right to their own opinion, you know?” says Gary,
asked about the subject of Skynyrd and politics, given how divided
America is right now. “I think the country is kind of on a back road
now. I would like to see some changes about certain things. But you
know, I don’t know what we can do. We’re a rock ‘n’ roll band. We’re
more music and rock ‘n’ roll than politics. I know that in my experience
and life and stuff, it looks like most of them are crooked. The ones
that are in there that are good, I don’t know, there’s not enough of
them. But I don’t know what to say about it. I’m more about conservatism
than the left wing people, you know? I just can’t see their way. But I
hate to talk about it. I don’t know much about politics. I don’t think
anybody does (laughs).”
“I agree that America, first of all, is very deeply divided,” adds
Rickey. “One thing I don’t like is how everybody is making a racial
thing out of this whole political arena that we are in. I’m Native
American, so the racial thing kind of hits home with me. To be honest
with you, man, I’m sick of the politics here. I’ve been browbeaten by it
until I’m sick of it. I’ve been slammed in my face about it. And
honestly, I don’t perceive anything getting any better. I don’t know. I
hope it does. I mean, I play in a band where all walks of life come
together for a couple of hours and enjoy music and there’s no problems.
Everybody’s laughing and singing and drinking and having a good time
together. Then when that’s over, it’s back to the same old thing, you
know what I mean? And I look at that like, wow, why can’t you just
continue with this? Why can’t it be continued?”
“But I find that America is moving toward a certain type of
government that everybody else is moving away from,” ventures Rickey, in
closing. “And I find that very upsetting to me. And I was raised… I
gotta tell you, Rickey Medlocke lived in some of the most magical years
in this world’s history. I lived in the ‘60s. I lived in the ‘70s, right
into the ‘80s. And man, it was bad to the bone. You know, every song
that could have been written was already written back then. Every song
that could be written has already been done – there’s really nothing
original anymore. Well, there’s no original politics anymore. Politics
are the same old thing. We elect people, we put them in office, and
guess what they do? They sell us out. They sell us down the river and we
pay for it. So we try to tread lightly on the politics, although we can
be very outspoken about it. We tend to be reserved, but if push comes
to shove, yeah, we can be outspoken. Personally, I’m pretty blunt. I’m
pretty brash about human rights and human dignity. When I see things not
right, people stealing from the normal average people, and the
politicians filling their pockets while everybody else goes hungry,
sure, I’m pretty blunt about it. And then we take a vote on it, and one
way or another, I either get shot down or it gets upheld, you know?
(laughs).”
Mar 3 Juil - 20:45
