Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Johnny Van Zant joins Ken Dashow for a very special edition of Live at 5 on Q104.3.
Johnny joins the segment to share a cut of "Tuesday's Gone" from the band's 50th anniversary concert from the Ryman Auditorium, the last concert to feature cofounder Gary Rossington before his death a few months later.
"If I could live it 100 more times I'd do it," Johnny says.
Celebrating 50 Years - Live at the Ryman is due out later this April.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of Ken Dashow's Beatles Revolution!
Johnny joins the segment to share a cut of "Tuesday's Gone" from the band's 50th anniversary concert from the Ryman Auditorium, the last concert to feature cofounder Gary Rossington before his death a few months later.
"If I could live it 100 more times I'd do it," Johnny says.
Celebrating 50 Years - Live at the Ryman is due out later this April.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of Ken Dashow's Beatles Revolution!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ken dash out Q one four point three, New York's
classic rock. Old friend, the man who has kept the
flame burning all these years Johnny Vanzan of Leonard Skinnard.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Always great to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Same here, man, same here. You've been doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, thank god.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You know, the next generation of people have found their
music and have fallen in love with it because it's
real music. The most heartbreaking part, and I share this
with everybody, is I've had kids come up to me
after a concert or a show and go, man, I
could I think he was actually singing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I was looking at his mouth and.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
It's my heart freezes, like because they're so used to
just this and lip syncing. The way they hear you,
it's like, yes, that's called real music. That's called a
bunch of people getting together and playing as one.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
That's why it's magical.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
You know Gary Rosington before he passed away, his thing was, man,
we're a real deal.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And you know, for me personally, because I grew up
in that time.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
If I hear a singer having a hard time singing,
I go, way, probably got a cold or something.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You know, it's probably not perfect.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
And that was the cool thing about going and you know,
the mix may not be great, but you go to
shows sometimes these days and you're like, wow, that really
sounds like the record, and.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It turns out it's the record. The record.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
That took my daughter years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
There was a big festival here in Jacksonville and she
was like twelve.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was all these bands that I didn't know Bone.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I think one of them was called Bone Walk the Moon,
which Walked the Moon was really good, and they did
play a lot of it live, but some of it
I was just like, well, hell, we could have set
it home and.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Listen to the record.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That is not what you get with Leonards. Get it
fifty anniversary. And if there's a band in rock and
roll that has more adversary and kept ongoing, it's this band,
Leonard Skinner to me, to just survive the car, the
plane crash, much less prosper and keep going. Next man up,
(02:13):
you know, Ricky Medlock comes back, you take over for
your brother. It's it's remarkable, But that to me is
rock and roll, you know, is next man up.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Let's keep going, you keep going, you keep going.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
You know, the music that those guys wrote years ago,
just it never ceases to amaze me because we get
a lot of young kids at our shows. It's not
just that some kid you know, will say, man, you
know we uh, we love the song that we just heard.
We just experienced it for the first time, you know,
(02:48):
and they're playing it and not always tell people.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I say, well, today's Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
There's some kids skipping school and learn in the beginning,
we'd Home Alabama on the guitar.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Today and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, nothing
at all, Gary Rossington. Last time, this is going back
many years, Gary Many Rest in Peace was up with
Ricky Medlock. We were talking about something and I said,
you know, you know how you put out a song
and then the song becomes it has twenty thousand different
(03:17):
meanings to everybody you know in the venue and for me,
for here in New York nine to eleven and that
devastating thing. And you know, the people said, how are
you on the air that week and like next week?
I said, well that was easy. It was just information.
We weren't playing music. We were just giving people information,
listening to them sharing their pain. And my program director said, okay,
(03:37):
I want to go back to music on Monday. What
are you going to play? And I said, you know,
give me, give me a minute, give me a day.
And I came back the next day. I said, they
wrote the song for me. It happened Tuesday, on September eleventh.
Tuesday's gone. And that's where that was opening the door
back up and saying, let's listen to music again.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was crying. I know that the audience was crying.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
But it took that song from something that I've loved
to something so spiritual. You can't believe what that felt
like in New York City.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, now, you know that was a hard, hard time
for all of us. A buddy of mine called me
on nine to eleven said, man, you're not well. You
answered the phone, you're not flying, And of course I
had some gentlemen at my house working and I just
he said, man, turn on the news and I've seen
all that go down. And come to find out, one
(04:31):
of my good friends his names well we call him J.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
J RJ.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Buka, who was a New York police officer at the time.
His brother was a chief on the Fire Department. Ron
Buka ended up passing that horrible day and just some
amazing time.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You know, I'll never.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Forget it, and I hope that they will teach it
in school. You know the thing about whenever I was
in school. I don't know about you, but they tall
US American versus communism and socialism.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, they don't really teach.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
That in school, and that, you know, I think I
think we need to remember that day and a lot
of other ones and go back to square root one.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Say amen.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know, when I think about Gary Rossington, maybe the
most famous countoff in all of rock and roll. I've
been doing this forty seven years. Somebody just asked me
last night a concert, and when I think of you
know one two that I've played that count off, turn
it up. Turn I mean just simply the silliest thing,
(05:36):
just saying to the engineer, turn up the headphones, you know,
give me more money, turn it up. And that's become
this iconic that's the start of the song.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah. Sure, I've been doing it for the last thirty
eight years.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Hell absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Getting to this this amazing show Leonard Skinner fiftieth anniversary
at the Ryman, which is perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Look Ringo at the Ryman. We've got me a huge
Beatles fan.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
We had Ringo with the Rymand skinnered at the Ryman
Live album and DVD coming out June twenty seventh, and
I've gotten some samples and some clips of guest stars
Brent Smith from Shinedown, Your Brother, Donny Van's right, I
think from thirty eight specials there and Marcus King who
(06:21):
oh my god?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right? What else is there to say that he kid's amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, And John Osborne man from Brothers Osborne the Country
band Man.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That guy can play a guitar. You know what.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We did a rehearsal with the other guys the day before.
John came in and was like, Okay, let's rip it. Boom,
there's MCA and I'll just kind of stand there. Were going,
what a phenomenal guitar player. But he was raised on Skinner.
He's a big, huge Skinner fan. And of course we
had jelly Roll.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I was just going to say, the biggest you just
skidder fan in the world, Jelly Roll seeing Tuesdays Gone
and I saw the video of it and I was howling.
He is holding on to you, Johnny. He looks like
a little kid. This gigantic mountain of a man is
an eight year old boy shaking like a leaf. It's
the most exciting things. There's no t ways about. It
(07:14):
wasn't any stage act. I could tell he was freaking
out that he was singing with you.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I really didn't know his music at the time. And
our manager, Ross Schilling called me. I was in a
hotel room, you know what we do do in the day,
waiting on the show, and we were looking for guests
and we were thinking who would we want to be
a part of this. And he called up. He said, man,
have you listened to this guy Jelly Roll? And I no,
not really.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I said who is he? And so he said google
the song?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
And I googled a song and I called him right
back and I said, I want this guy.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He's oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It become really good friends. He is the most I mean,
he's had his bounce like all of us. You know,
I'm wearing my Vans AANDT always look up hat and
we've all downed with the d Man over the years
and come out above it and those of us who
are here to talk about it. And Jelly Roll is
(08:08):
one of those guys and just just a phenomenal guy.
And and Brett Smith from Shine Down, what a wonderful singer,
great singer, great guy.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You know they did a simple man themselves, Shine Down
did and recorded it and just just a phenomenal night.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Man.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's it's a night that if I if I do
one hundred million more things, that will be on the
top of the number one.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm so glad to hear that because it was.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
It's wonderful for the fans, but I'm thrilled that it
meant as much to you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
That was special.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He By the way, one of the funniest quotes anybody
ever said, I saw these got me a little quote
from Jelly Roll said, I'm from Tennessee, and in order
of importance in Tennessee is Jesus Christ, Leonard Skinnard, and football.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
And then all the other stuff. I thought. You can't
really say any bitter.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You know, we had a great time. Just to let
your listeners listen.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You know what the best part about that show, of course,
I mean the playing was great and getting out on
stage and doing that. But if you've ever been to
the Rhyman Auditorium, their dressing rooms are like I'm sure
back then there were big dressing rooms for the artists,
but they are super small, and we had four or
five suitcases. It was me, Donnie, my brother Donnie, Gary
(09:30):
and Ricky all in this one little dressing room each other,
and we were telling and of course that went to
the bar gigs. You know, well, well remember the bar
days when dressing room you were lucky to get a bilet,
you know. And so but we had such a great,
great night. They're just reminiscing and who was to know
(09:51):
that that was going to be Gary's last show with us,
you know, I mean I really didn't think that night
that would be his last show with us, And and
we just laughed, and they brought us cold pizza like
and you know, like they used to be on our rider.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right as it should be for any bar gig that
you've got, right.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And we just had a blast, man, and all the
guests were wonderful. And you know, when you're doing something
like that, you don't I guess you're caught up in
the moment where you don't realize exactly how special it
is until after math. You know. It's kind of you know,
for me, I look back on and I go, what
(10:32):
a night, What a night. If I could live at
a hundred more times, I'd do it.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You know absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Listen, so many of our bands are hating that magic
number fiftieth. My buddy George Thurgood, Blue Oyster Cult and
we're friends in They asked me, can you got to
bring a song fiftieth anniversary? You would do a special
show and backstage and Johnny was just what you said,
we got to get the video, right. Did we get
the song last night?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Okay, well if not, let's stay afterwards when the crowd leaves,
will redo this. And the merchant dies and I said, hey, guys,
I love you guys, so stop for a minute. It's
your fiftieth anniversary show. A couple of changes in personnel
along the way, but you too, Eric Bloom, Buck Dhorma,
you've been there all the way. Take a minute and
take this in. You know that ball went over the fence.
(11:17):
Take him minute, drop the bat and watch it. Take
enjoy the moment. And everybody stopped, and the Buck hugged
me and said, you know, we've been so caught up
with the business that we haven't really stopped yet. It's
a fiftieth anniversary. We will sell stuff and whatever, but
thank you, because we haven't done that, we haven't taken
it in.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
You know, there's a part in here, and it's not
I don't think we're adding it to the thing. But
we started out freebird and it was a tuning problem.
Gary used to always use you know, the old stirs
that you put in your drink.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
He would run it down the neck of his guitar
and that's how he would get that somehow.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I don't know, I've never saw that before.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, but he would get that, I'm freebird.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
And we went into it and uh, all of a sudden,
I go, well, where's Gary.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
We made it through the whole verse, and finally I went,
you know what, you're our fans. You love us. We're
stopping right now, We're.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Let's do this again, do us again.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
And it was a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I mean it really was, because now you made the
audience part of it. Now, now you're all one, right,
we're all rooting for it to go well. So I
want to ask a favor. I want to share this
with the Q one or four point three fans. He
gave me a sneak of Tuesday's Gone, of you guys
playing with Jelly Roll, singing with you, Johnny Fan Samp
mind if I play it on the air and show
them what's coming.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'd love it. That'd be awesome, man, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Oh man, Johnny, this was so much fun. I loved it.
You're well. Everybody good, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Everybody's good. Everybody's pretty good. We're headed to Europe this year.
We have been over there. You know.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
We were gonna call it quits back in twenty twenty
and just do like charity things. Made do a few shows,
but we had all these shows on the books, and
of course COVID came along knocked it out, and so
we were home for fifteen months, and after Gary. After
fifteen months, Gary kept calling me doing the whole time
going on. We can't retire, We can't retire.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I don't have anything else to do.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
This is what I do, you know, Johnny, every single musician,
Oh so nice to be off the road. It's so
nice to relax. And they call me ken. If I
don't get out of here in a month, I'm gonna
kill my family and jump off. Oh it's so nice
to be home, see my friends. I gotta get out
of the road. I gotta get on.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
You know what, I figured it out. Musicians don't retire,
they do less shows.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Hey, can I share one favorite moment with the Blue
Oyster cold fit?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I said, don't think too hard.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Well give me your favorite moment looking back, and my
buddy Eric Bloom left. He gause, oh, I got it.
I you know I made it. We have don't fear
the reaper. I got my dad all set up as
close with the retirement thing. Old fans see money, and
he's always telling me like, oh, it's great, I love it.
So we're playing Miami. He's in Bokys. I send a
limo for him and his buddies. I take them to
(14:08):
the show. Sold out show, eighteen thousand people screaming for
he said, his son and his friends there. We are
backstage VIPs send them back and I said, Dad, I
want to see it once. Spend time with you. Thanksgiving,
I'm coming down to you. My family's okay, and they
go to a steakhouse.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And we cheer.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You know, Clint classes with Whiskey eighteen years. I've been
in the band, and my father says, so you're still
with the music thing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
You know that's funny because my kids tell me I've
always been a real stickler about Hey, you know what,
I want you to get a college degree.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I want you to be smart, I want you to
do better than me. But they're always like that.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Really, after doing all the stuff that we've done, you
really don't have a real job.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Singing a rock band?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Know? Because I have four daughters, I got girls. It
bought you a lot of shoes, a lot of water.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
That no job thing, priceless, priceless.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, you know, my mother was like that. My father
loved us being in the music business.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
We always said, you know what if he if he could,
if he could, uh, you know, play a guitar and.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Do that kind of stuff, we'd be his road crew.
But he could sing.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
But you know, but anyway, my mom used to always go,
you know, she'd get us, each of us off to
decide and get when are y'all.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Getting a real job? Of course, people think we'll make
a living doing this.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's it's amazing how universal that is. How many albums
do you have to sell before they stop asking? Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
My brother, you know, Donnie from thirty eight, he retired,
you know because he has hearing loss, and man him
doing COVID recorded an album. It's called Always Look Up.
I'm wearing a hat today. It's a gospel album. It's
something that we always wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Yeah, our dad should have been a preacher, so you
know we had to sit there and listen to it.
Whether we want it to or not. We end upwarding
that thing. And as it's been a blast and everybody's
been loving it. But uh man, thank you for your
time today.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Brother, it is.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It is my pleasure to I love sharing sharing time
with musicians, sharing your passion. And I will tell you,
of all these years, not once, not once, have I
ever seen you guys mail it in.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Not a moment, not a song.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
When you've played for us in the iHeartRadio Theater, whether
you've been playing in a stadium, it's always everything all
in foot on the gas, and that way makes for
great music. I appreciate you so hey, you know what that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Is because we all got to go to that up
place upstairs and I don't want to get there and
Ronnie kick my ass, get it.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's great. Be wealth, safe travels, my friend.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
God bless your body, Take care, God bless
Ken dash out Q one four point three, New York's
classic rock. Old friend, the man who has kept the
flame burning all these years Johnny Vanzan of Leonard Skinnard.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Always great to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Same here, man, same here. You've been doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, thank god.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You know, the next generation of people have found their
music and have fallen in love with it because it's
real music. The most heartbreaking part, and I share this
with everybody, is I've had kids come up to me
after a concert or a show and go, man, I
could I think he was actually singing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I was looking at his mouth and.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
It's my heart freezes, like because they're so used to
just this and lip syncing. The way they hear you,
it's like, yes, that's called real music. That's called a
bunch of people getting together and playing as one.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
That's why it's magical.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
You know Gary Rosington before he passed away, his thing was, man,
we're a real deal.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And you know, for me personally, because I grew up
in that time.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
If I hear a singer having a hard time singing,
I go, way, probably got a cold or something.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You know, it's probably not perfect.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
And that was the cool thing about going and you know,
the mix may not be great, but you go to
shows sometimes these days and you're like, wow, that really
sounds like the record, and.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It turns out it's the record. The record.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
That took my daughter years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
There was a big festival here in Jacksonville and she
was like twelve.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was all these bands that I didn't know Bone.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
I think one of them was called Bone Walk the Moon,
which Walked the Moon was really good, and they did
play a lot of it live, but some of it
I was just like, well, hell, we could have set
it home and.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Listen to the record.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That is not what you get with Leonards. Get it
fifty anniversary. And if there's a band in rock and
roll that has more adversary and kept ongoing, it's this band,
Leonard Skinner to me, to just survive the car, the
plane crash, much less prosper and keep going. Next man up,
(02:13):
you know, Ricky Medlock comes back, you take over for
your brother. It's it's remarkable, But that to me is
rock and roll, you know, is next man up.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Let's keep going, you keep going, you keep going.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
You know, the music that those guys wrote years ago,
just it never ceases to amaze me because we get
a lot of young kids at our shows. It's not
just that some kid you know, will say, man, you
know we uh, we love the song that we just heard.
We just experienced it for the first time, you know,
(02:48):
and they're playing it and not always tell people.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I say, well, today's Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
There's some kids skipping school and learn in the beginning,
we'd Home Alabama on the guitar.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Today and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, nothing
at all, Gary Rossington. Last time, this is going back
many years, Gary Many Rest in Peace was up with
Ricky Medlock. We were talking about something and I said,
you know, you know how you put out a song
and then the song becomes it has twenty thousand different
(03:17):
meanings to everybody you know in the venue and for me,
for here in New York nine to eleven and that
devastating thing. And you know, the people said, how are
you on the air that week and like next week?
I said, well that was easy. It was just information.
We weren't playing music. We were just giving people information,
listening to them sharing their pain. And my program director said, okay,
(03:37):
I want to go back to music on Monday. What
are you going to play? And I said, you know,
give me, give me a minute, give me a day.
And I came back the next day. I said, they
wrote the song for me. It happened Tuesday, on September eleventh.
Tuesday's gone. And that's where that was opening the door
back up and saying, let's listen to music again.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was crying. I know that the audience was crying.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
But it took that song from something that I've loved
to something so spiritual. You can't believe what that felt
like in New York City.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, now, you know that was a hard, hard time
for all of us. A buddy of mine called me
on nine to eleven said, man, you're not well. You
answered the phone, you're not flying, And of course I
had some gentlemen at my house working and I just
he said, man, turn on the news and I've seen
all that go down. And come to find out, one
(04:31):
of my good friends his names well we call him J.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
J RJ.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Buka, who was a New York police officer at the time.
His brother was a chief on the Fire Department. Ron
Buka ended up passing that horrible day and just some
amazing time.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You know, I'll never.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Forget it, and I hope that they will teach it
in school. You know the thing about whenever I was
in school. I don't know about you, but they tall
US American versus communism and socialism.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, they don't really teach.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
That in school, and that, you know, I think I
think we need to remember that day and a lot
of other ones and go back to square root one.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Say amen.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know, when I think about Gary Rossington, maybe the
most famous countoff in all of rock and roll. I've
been doing this forty seven years. Somebody just asked me
last night a concert, and when I think of you
know one two that I've played that count off, turn
it up. Turn I mean just simply the silliest thing,
(05:36):
just saying to the engineer, turn up the headphones, you know,
give me more money, turn it up. And that's become
this iconic that's the start of the song.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah. Sure, I've been doing it for the last thirty
eight years.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Hell absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Getting to this this amazing show Leonard Skinner fiftieth anniversary
at the Ryman, which is perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Look Ringo at the Ryman. We've got me a huge
Beatles fan.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
We had Ringo with the Rymand skinnered at the Ryman
Live album and DVD coming out June twenty seventh, and
I've gotten some samples and some clips of guest stars
Brent Smith from Shinedown, Your Brother, Donny Van's right, I
think from thirty eight specials there and Marcus King who
(06:21):
oh my god?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right? What else is there to say that he kid's amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, And John Osborne man from Brothers Osborne the Country
band Man.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That guy can play a guitar. You know what.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We did a rehearsal with the other guys the day before.
John came in and was like, Okay, let's rip it. Boom,
there's MCA and I'll just kind of stand there. Were going,
what a phenomenal guitar player. But he was raised on Skinner.
He's a big, huge Skinner fan. And of course we
had jelly Roll.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I was just going to say, the biggest you just
skidder fan in the world, Jelly Roll seeing Tuesdays Gone
and I saw the video of it and I was howling.
He is holding on to you, Johnny. He looks like
a little kid. This gigantic mountain of a man is
an eight year old boy shaking like a leaf. It's
the most exciting things. There's no t ways about. It
(07:14):
wasn't any stage act. I could tell he was freaking
out that he was singing with you.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I really didn't know his music at the time. And
our manager, Ross Schilling called me. I was in a
hotel room, you know what we do do in the day,
waiting on the show, and we were looking for guests
and we were thinking who would we want to be
a part of this. And he called up. He said, man,
have you listened to this guy Jelly Roll? And I no,
not really.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I said who is he? And so he said google
the song?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
And I googled a song and I called him right
back and I said, I want this guy.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He's oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It become really good friends. He is the most I mean,
he's had his bounce like all of us. You know,
I'm wearing my Vans AANDT always look up hat and
we've all downed with the d Man over the years
and come out above it and those of us who
are here to talk about it. And Jelly Roll is
(08:08):
one of those guys and just just a phenomenal guy.
And and Brett Smith from Shine Down, what a wonderful singer,
great singer, great guy.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You know they did a simple man themselves, Shine Down
did and recorded it and just just a phenomenal night.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Man.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's it's a night that if I if I do
one hundred million more things, that will be on the
top of the number one.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm so glad to hear that because it was.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
It's wonderful for the fans, but I'm thrilled that it
meant as much to you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
That was special.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He By the way, one of the funniest quotes anybody
ever said, I saw these got me a little quote
from Jelly Roll said, I'm from Tennessee, and in order
of importance in Tennessee is Jesus Christ, Leonard Skinnard, and football.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
And then all the other stuff. I thought. You can't
really say any bitter.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You know, we had a great time. Just to let
your listeners listen.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You know what the best part about that show, of course,
I mean the playing was great and getting out on
stage and doing that. But if you've ever been to
the Rhyman Auditorium, their dressing rooms are like I'm sure
back then there were big dressing rooms for the artists,
but they are super small, and we had four or
five suitcases. It was me, Donnie, my brother Donnie, Gary
(09:30):
and Ricky all in this one little dressing room each other,
and we were telling and of course that went to
the bar gigs. You know, well, well remember the bar
days when dressing room you were lucky to get a bilet,
you know. And so but we had such a great,
great night. They're just reminiscing and who was to know
(09:51):
that that was going to be Gary's last show with us,
you know, I mean I really didn't think that night
that would be his last show with us, And and
we just laughed, and they brought us cold pizza like
and you know, like they used to be on our rider.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right as it should be for any bar gig that
you've got, right.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And we just had a blast, man, and all the
guests were wonderful. And you know, when you're doing something
like that, you don't I guess you're caught up in
the moment where you don't realize exactly how special it
is until after math. You know. It's kind of you know,
for me, I look back on and I go, what
(10:32):
a night, What a night. If I could live at
a hundred more times, I'd do it.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You know absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Listen, so many of our bands are hating that magic
number fiftieth. My buddy George Thurgood, Blue Oyster Cult and
we're friends in They asked me, can you got to
bring a song fiftieth anniversary? You would do a special
show and backstage and Johnny was just what you said,
we got to get the video, right. Did we get
the song last night?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Okay, well if not, let's stay afterwards when the crowd leaves,
will redo this. And the merchant dies and I said, hey, guys,
I love you guys, so stop for a minute. It's
your fiftieth anniversary show. A couple of changes in personnel
along the way, but you too, Eric Bloom, Buck Dhorma,
you've been there all the way. Take a minute and
take this in. You know that ball went over the fence.
(11:17):
Take him minute, drop the bat and watch it. Take
enjoy the moment. And everybody stopped, and the Buck hugged
me and said, you know, we've been so caught up
with the business that we haven't really stopped yet. It's
a fiftieth anniversary. We will sell stuff and whatever, but
thank you, because we haven't done that, we haven't taken
it in.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
You know, there's a part in here, and it's not
I don't think we're adding it to the thing. But
we started out freebird and it was a tuning problem.
Gary used to always use you know, the old stirs
that you put in your drink.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
He would run it down the neck of his guitar
and that's how he would get that somehow.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I don't know, I've never saw that before.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, but he would get that, I'm freebird.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
And we went into it and uh, all of a sudden,
I go, well, where's Gary.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
We made it through the whole verse, and finally I went,
you know what, you're our fans. You love us. We're
stopping right now, We're.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Let's do this again, do us again.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
And it was a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I mean it really was, because now you made the
audience part of it. Now, now you're all one, right,
we're all rooting for it to go well. So I
want to ask a favor. I want to share this
with the Q one or four point three fans. He
gave me a sneak of Tuesday's Gone, of you guys
playing with Jelly Roll, singing with you, Johnny Fan Samp
mind if I play it on the air and show
them what's coming.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'd love it. That'd be awesome, man, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Oh man, Johnny, this was so much fun. I loved it.
You're well. Everybody good, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Everybody's good. Everybody's pretty good. We're headed to Europe this year.
We have been over there. You know.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
We were gonna call it quits back in twenty twenty
and just do like charity things. Made do a few shows,
but we had all these shows on the books, and
of course COVID came along knocked it out, and so
we were home for fifteen months, and after Gary. After
fifteen months, Gary kept calling me doing the whole time
going on. We can't retire, We can't retire.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I don't have anything else to do.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
This is what I do, you know, Johnny, every single musician,
Oh so nice to be off the road. It's so
nice to relax. And they call me ken. If I
don't get out of here in a month, I'm gonna
kill my family and jump off. Oh it's so nice
to be home, see my friends. I gotta get out
of the road. I gotta get on.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
You know what, I figured it out. Musicians don't retire,
they do less shows.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Hey, can I share one favorite moment with the Blue
Oyster cold fit?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I said, don't think too hard.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Well give me your favorite moment looking back, and my
buddy Eric Bloom left. He gause, oh, I got it.
I you know I made it. We have don't fear
the reaper. I got my dad all set up as
close with the retirement thing. Old fans see money, and
he's always telling me like, oh, it's great, I love it.
So we're playing Miami. He's in Bokys. I send a
limo for him and his buddies. I take them to
(14:08):
the show. Sold out show, eighteen thousand people screaming for
he said, his son and his friends there. We are
backstage VIPs send them back and I said, Dad, I
want to see it once. Spend time with you. Thanksgiving,
I'm coming down to you. My family's okay, and they
go to a steakhouse.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And we cheer.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You know, Clint classes with Whiskey eighteen years. I've been
in the band, and my father says, so you're still
with the music thing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
You know that's funny because my kids tell me I've
always been a real stickler about Hey, you know what,
I want you to get a college degree.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I want you to be smart, I want you to
do better than me. But they're always like that.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Really, after doing all the stuff that we've done, you
really don't have a real job.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Singing a rock band?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Know? Because I have four daughters, I got girls. It
bought you a lot of shoes, a lot of water.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
That no job thing, priceless, priceless.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, you know, my mother was like that. My father
loved us being in the music business.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
We always said, you know what if he if he could,
if he could, uh, you know, play a guitar and.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Do that kind of stuff, we'd be his road crew.
But he could sing.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
But you know, but anyway, my mom used to always go,
you know, she'd get us, each of us off to
decide and get when are y'all.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Getting a real job? Of course, people think we'll make
a living doing this.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's it's amazing how universal that is. How many albums
do you have to sell before they stop asking? Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
My brother, you know, Donnie from thirty eight, he retired,
you know because he has hearing loss, and man him
doing COVID recorded an album. It's called Always Look Up.
I'm wearing a hat today. It's a gospel album. It's
something that we always wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Yeah, our dad should have been a preacher, so you
know we had to sit there and listen to it.
Whether we want it to or not. We end upwarding
that thing. And as it's been a blast and everybody's
been loving it. But uh man, thank you for your
time today.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Brother, it is.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It is my pleasure to I love sharing sharing time
with musicians, sharing your passion. And I will tell you,
of all these years, not once, not once, have I
ever seen you guys mail it in.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Not a moment, not a song.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
When you've played for us in the iHeartRadio Theater, whether
you've been playing in a stadium, it's always everything all
in foot on the gas, and that way makes for
great music. I appreciate you so hey, you know what that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Is because we all got to go to that up
place upstairs and I don't want to get there and
Ronnie kick my ass, get it.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's great. Be wealth, safe travels, my friend.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
God bless your body, Take care, God bless
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