{"id":31847,"date":"2026-11-05T05:30:53","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T10:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31847"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:30:24","slug":"lynyrd-skynyrd-once-more-on-the-road-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/05\/lynyrd-skynyrd-once-more-on-the-road-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lynyrd Skynyrd: Once More on the Road (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

In recent years, the band has toured in tandem with some of your peers, fellow major acts like ZZ Top and Foreigner. What are the advantages of that kind of a tour? <\/b><\/p>\n

Johnny Van Zant:<\/b> There\u2019s a lot of advantages when you bring two iconic bands together. I think it\u2019s great, because ticket prices are so high these days. You\u2019re getting a lot of music and a lot of hit songs whenever you team up with somebody like that. We\u2019ve been doing it for a while \u2013 on and off over the years \u2013 with ZZ Top, and they\u2019re just like family.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re hooking up with Foreigner this year. Years ago, we did a Canadian run when Lou Gramm was in their band, and it was a great time. And people were wondering, how do Foreigner\u2019s \u201cUrgent\u201d and \u201cI Want to Know What Love Is\u201d go with \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d and \u201cFree Bird\u201d? But it worked out so good that when this opportunity came, I was like, \u201cYeah! Let\u2019s go out and do some shows with those guys this year.\u201d And I\u2019m looking forward to it. The crowds are going to have a night of hits.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Looking back across your many years with the band, can you recall a favorite or most memorable gig?<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s two of them. The first time I played with Skynyrd was for Charlie Daniels\u2019 Volunteer Jam, and it was broadcast on the Jerry Lewis Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. That was a big one.<\/p>\n

The other was when we did a show for PBS, live from the Ryman Auditorium. That was Gary\u2019s last show before he passed on. And what a memorable night that was. We had Brent Smith from Shinedown, Jelly Roll, Marcus King and a bunch of people; my brother Donnie was there. Gary wasn\u2019t feeling well; he told me, \u201cBubba, I may have to sit down.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, if you sit down, we all<\/i> sit down. Our fans would understand that because they love us, love the music, love the people who\u2019ve been in and out of the band and those who have gone on to Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it was a wonderful night. Me, Gary, Donnie and Rickey Medlocke shared the stage at the Ryman Auditorium. To think that Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard and George Jones had stood right there, right where I was singing! We all had our suitcases in this tiny room; we were stepping over each other and laughing and carrying on and eating cold pizza. We all said that it reminded us of when we played clubs. Again, I\u2019m very spiritual, so I believe God works in mysterious ways. And he gave all four of us that night.<\/p>\n

With so many classic songs in the band\u2019s history and repertoire, is there any room in the set list for deep cuts?<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah! We just got back from Brazil; what a crazy bunch of people they are. They love Lynyrd Skynyrd. We played there with Guns and Roses on the Monsters of Rock tour, and did about four shows on our own. And we added some cool stuff. Even the deep Skynyrd cuts are really good: songs like \u201cThings Goin\u2019 On\u201d and \u201cMississippi Kid,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Ask Me No Questions,\u201d \u201cWhiskey Rock-a-Roller,\u201d \u201cDouble Trouble.\u201d So every other show we do throw in some obscure song. We\u2019ve put in \u201cStill Unbroken\u201d from [2009\u2019s] God & Guns<\/i>, which is a monster song.<\/p>\n

If we didn\u2019t play \u201cFree Bird\u201d and \u201cSweet Home Alabama,\u201d you\u2019d never come to see us. But people do ask, \u201cWhy don\u2019t y\u2019all play more of the new stuff? that you\u2019ve recorded? And my theory is that I got into this band in \u201886 to play Ronnie and Gary and Allen\u2019s songs, and Ed King songs. And it really wasn\u2019t to write my own stuff and try to make a big thing out of anything new. I really like concentrating on the old stuff, but I\u2019m throwing in some new stuff this year.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd for nearly 40 years now. What keeps it interesting for you?<\/b><\/p>\n

The love of the people who made the music, and the love of the fans. There\u2019s not a night that I go out on stage and I\u2019m not excited. Some people would call it anxiety, but I call it excitement. I never phone it in; we\u2019re all giving it 110, 120%. Whenever we go into a song like \u201cSimple Man\u201d and see the audience\u2019s response, it\u2019s an amazing thing. And that keeps me coming back.<\/p>\n

Lynyrd Skynyrd has been a household name for more than a half century. What are people going to say about Lynyrd Skynyrd 50, 100 years from now? <\/b><\/p>\n

Real songs, real people. My brother Ronnie was as down to earth as you could get, but when he hit the stage, he was a badass. And whenever he wrote a song, he wrote for real, hard-working people. I would hope that people would appreciate all the stuff that the band did \u2013 from the beginning until the very end, whenever it ends. There\u2019s been a lot of heartache, and I think people love an underdog. When the band started, there was no American Idol<\/i>. There was nothing for bands except for honkytonks and hard knocks. But you know what? That created the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… In recent years, the band has toured in tandem with some of your peers, fellow major acts like ZZ Top and Foreigner. What are the advantages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[4313],"class_list":["post-31847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-lynyrd-skynyrd","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31849,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31847\/revisions\/31849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}