38 Special: Rockin’ Into the Future (Part 1 of 2)

38 Special started out like many other bands in and around Jacksonville, Florida in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, with a Southern rock sound and attitude to match. But over time, the more nuanced and melody-leaning characteristics of the band came to the fore, giving them a hit single just in time to save them from being dropped by their label. And from there, working with a world-class songwriting collaborator, things only got bigger. 38 Special became a hit attraction, with blockbuster-selling albums and singles, MTV videos and high-profile tours.

But the band co-founded by Don Barnes never forgot where they came from, and Barnes is still rocking today, fronting the band’s current lineup. As 38 Special celebrates its 50^th anniversary, the group is currently on a North American tour. Don Barnes gets into conversation with me about the band’s early days, its biggest successes, and what the future holds. – bk

When you and Donnie Van Zant started the band, his brother Ronnie was in the process of finding massive success with Lynyrd Skynyrd. How much of an influence were they upon what 38 Special was doing?

Greatly influenced. We were all from the same city. Jacksonville is a Navy town, so a lot of these groups – Molly Hatchet, Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers Band – everybody came from that same area because of the Navy bases that we all played as young guys. We all played sailors’ clubs; at 15 and 16 years old, you’d make $100 a week. So all of those guys – Ronnie Van Zant, Duane Allman – everybody played the enlisted men’s clubs because there was a venue there for young guys to put a little band together and actually go make a little money. It’s kind of like the Liverpool thing, a port city.

And then, of course, they had the proms, teen clubs and dances. Ronnie and all those guys were the best band in Jacksonville; they were called The One Percent. They would win the Battle of the Bands. And, of course, when they changed their name, we thought, “Oh, you gotta be kidding! Lynyrd Skynyrd?’” But we looked up to those guys and we saw them improve every day, every week. You’d see Allen [Collins] and Gary [Rossington] and just watch them develop. And we were influenced by them.

Tell me how 38 Special’s sound developed.

Donnie and myself, we had played in about eight other bands before 38 Special. Ronnie was about five years older than us, so he was kind of a mentor for the band. He would come by and hear us rehearse; we were pretty much copying what was going on at the time: styles of Southern rock, whether it was Marshall Tucker or the Charlie Daniels band or Outlaws.

But Ronnie gave us a good piece of advice back then. He said, “Stop trying to be a clone of what’s happened already. Try to find your own originality, find your own sound and do what makes your heart sing, because you’re not going to get anywhere being the same as what’s already been out there.”

So we realized that we were kind of introspective. We were British Invasion and Beatles fans with more melody, more song structure. A lot of those [other] guys were blues oriented in their approach. And of course, at the end of the ‘70s, Southern rock was kind of waning. [Popular music] was heading into arena rock with Boston and Foreigner, and we liked all that stuff.

The thing is – back to the enlisted clubs, the sailors’ clubs – by learning all those cover songs, you learn the structures of all the chord patterns and things like that. And you see there’s actually a real craft, a little map that goes through songwriting. So you get educated at an early age on the foundational beginnings.

And then you get a little cocky and you start thinking, “Well, I can write my own songs.” And that’s when you go starve for the next ten years, because no one’s ever heard of you and they don’t care whether you live or die! But you have a lot to prove at that point. And everybody thinks that you’re shooting toward a record deal, and when you get a record contract, people think you’ve made it.
Well, actually, they just opened the door for you. And if you can deliver, you’re going up in the major leagues. If you can deliver and win at this game, then they’ll keep you on. But if you can’t deliver, they’re going to cancel your contract; you’re going to be back in the clubs.

That almost happened to 38 Special; the band took awhile to find major success. You changed your sound after a few albums in a Southern rock style. How did that come about?

We were really behind the eight ball there. We had three albums that basically went straight over the cliff. Today people think that “Hold On Loosely” was on our first album. That was our fourth album! But, you know, it just shows you conviction and fortitude to keep yourself together. And a band is like a marriage: you’re a support group there, and you’re kind of married to five other guys. There are some guys who would get a little down and think, “This is not working out. I’ve got to get a regular job. I’ve got a family.” But we would always be holding each other up and saying, “It might be right around the corner; we don’t know. We got a few steps forward here, so let’s keep at it.”

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