Lynyrd Skynyrd legend talks Ronnie Van Zant’s genius, remembers ‘77 plane crash

There are no original members left, but Lynyrd Skynyrd will never die. The Jacksonville, Florida-founded band’s ‘70s discography is among the best not just in Southern rock, the subgenre Skynyrd’s filed under, but the entirety of classic rock and well beyond.

Skynyrd’s influence extends into places you wouldn’t expect. For example, country icon Dolly Parton just covered classic Skynyrd power-ballad “Free Bird” on her new and first ever rock album, “Rockstar.” Through studio magic, Parton’s version includes vocals from legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant, who died in the tragic 1977 plane crash that killed several members of the band and ended Skynyrd’s meteoric first act.

Parton’s “Free Bird” also boasts some of the last recorded guitar playing by Gary Rossington, the last surviving original Skynyrd member until his death in May at age 71. The grooves on Parton’s track were supplied by Artimus Pyle, the classic-era Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer who replaced original drummer Bob Burns in 1974.

Wearing sneakers, shorts and a T-shirt with “VEGETARIAN” on the front, Pyle stood out visually from the hard-living Southern-rock toughs in Skynyrd. Decades after his Skynyrd days, in conversation Pyle comes off articulate, kind, and quick to praise the greatness of his classic-era bandmates. Like some cool hippie uncle.

I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Artimus Pyle twice. Once, for a story on the excellent 2018 Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary, “If I Leave Here Tomorrow.” The second interview occurred in 2021, pegged to the release of the live album/DVD of the band’s storied 1976 performance at Knebworth. In front of a crowd estimate in the hundreds of thousands, Skynyrd met the moment and delivered what many consider one of their most blazing sets.

As things go though occasionally in this business, the second interview was never published – until now. With Pyle and Skynyrd back in music news, it felt like a great time to finally share it.

Below are edited excerpts from my previously unpublished 2021 Artimus Pyle interview, as well as material from the 2018 interview, some of which was previously excerpted for a story on the documentary.

After Rossington’s passing, Lynyrd Skynyrd has carried on. The current version’s led by Ronnie’s brother Johnny Van Zant on vocals. There are talented musicians involved, including Alabama-born guitarist Damon Johnson, of Brother Cane, Alice Cooper and Thin Lizzy fame.

Still, it’s special to get to talk Skynyrd with a musician who was in the band during the era that’s the reason fans still care.

Pyle drummed with Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1974 to ‘77, playing on the albums “Nuthin’ Fancy,” “Gimme Back My Bullets,” “Street Survivors” and live double-LP “One More from the Road.” He was also part of the rebooted lineup from ‘87 to 1991.

In 2006, Pyle, along with Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant, Rossington, pianist Billy Powell, guitarists Allen Collins, Ed King and Steve Gains and original drummer Bob Burns, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Artimus, what are some of your most vivid memories from playing at Knebworth 1976 with Lynyrd Skynyrd? From watching the video, that crowd was ocean-sized.

Artimus Pyle: Well, it was like almost 300,000 people on an estate, you know, outside of London called Knebworth. And the lineup, you know, was Rolling Stones, Hot Tuna, 10cc, Todd Rundgren, and The Don Harrison Band, which was Creedence Clearwater without John Fogerty.

I met Paul McCartney and hung out with him and his wife, Linda Eastman. Jack Nicholson was hanging out in the backstage area. Some of the members of The Who were strolling around, it was amazing. There were simulated [airplane] dogfights with biplanes above the crowd. Hot air balloons. You know, it’s a big fair, and the estate rounds were beautiful. It’s just an extremely vivid day. I will never forget that day as long as I live because there was just so many cool people and, you know, beautiful girls everywhere.

Lynyrd Skynyrd was an amazing live band and the Knebworth performance is incredible. How was it different playing for that large of a crowd? Whether it’s what you could or couldn’t hear from your place at the drums, or just the way the band rose to the occasion …

We were a live band and probably one of the tightest bands that ever has been. And that’s because of Ronnie Van Zant. He insisted that we rehearse. And for me, as a drummer, doing a very physical thing, it was like a workout, and I enjoyed it.

But I remember the band in rehearsal, you know, we’d go over “Sweet Home Alabama” 50 times in a row. I was always kind of like bring it on, but the rest of the guys were, you know, trying to convince Ronnie that we already knew the song. And he would insist that we do the song over and over and over.

In live performance, that kind of discipline, it didn’t matter what was going on, how many people or how many celebrities or movie stars were onstage, we were able to focus on the delivery of those songs, and play them, you know, the way they’re supposed to be. That was just our discipline. And that was all because of Ronnie and his work ethic.

What do you think was special about you and Skynyrd bassist Leon Wilkeson live as a rhythm section? Because Skynyrd stuff rocks, but you can shake a leg to most of them.

Oh yeah, I mean, I always said that Ronnie Van Zant wrote “Sweet Home Alabama” for people to dance to, because they do. Every time that song is struck up, you can see people get to their feet. It’s just one of those songs that makes you want to move around.

And Leon and I were very tight -- bass and drums have to be that way. Ronnie spent a lot of time with other bands, 38 Special and Molly Hatchet, you know, his very precious time off, showing them how to make the bass and drums come together as he did with Leon and I.

That particular day at Knebworth, speaking of Leon and I, he pulled my pants down when we were walking offstage. Luckily, I had on underwear. But luckily, I had on my tighty-whities, and I jerked my pants up as soon as I felt him you know, making the move. But one of the last scenes you see on the [Skynyrd at Knebworth] film is me chasing Leon across the back of the stage.

I always wore gym shorts no shirt, knee socks, and Adidas tennis shoes, because that was the lightest way to play for me. No jewelry, no rings, no necklaces. Doing a Lynyrd Skynyrd set, for me it was an intense thing. I didn’t look at it as work, but it was work.

I mean, practicing at the Hell House with no air conditioning in Green Cove Springs, Florida, got us conditioned to play these outdoor stadiums. Because nowadays, of course, they cover the stage, but back in those days, you’d go play some festival or an outdoor stadium show and the stage would not be covered, so you had the sun bearing down on you and we had to be conditioned for that.

And of course all those guys they were wild. Leon and Billy and Allen, they got into a lot of mischief. But never did I get so mad at them, even Leon pulling my pants down in front of 300,000 people, I wasn’t going to hurt Leon I you know I had no feelings like that toward anybody in the band.

With Ronnie he and I grappled about three times. And that was the worst because Ronnie was kind of been drinking and taking stuff out on the rest of the band, which, the guys in the band were like his children. But I was the same age as Ronnie, he was only a little older than I, and I had just come out of the Marines, so I had no reason to be afraid of Ronnie because he couldn’t whip my ass. But he was like a father figure to the rest of the guys and sometimes abusive.

Leon was like the artful dodger, the merry prankster, and never did I ever want to hurt him. Or anybody in the band. It was mostly just wrestling, and you know, just playing kind of rough. But I mean, there were lots of fights. And there, you know, that the band and I had to defend ourselves in certain situations, and Ronnie depended on me to have his back, which I always did.

As a singer and frontman, Ronnie had this soulful, natural-sounding, workingman’s kind of vibe. Kind of like an American version of what Paul Rodgers did with his band Free. What was it like as a drummer, playing music with Ronnie? That relationship between the vocals and the groove.

Well, you know, Paul Rodgers and Ronnie were very close friends and Paul Rodgers was one of Ronnie’s favorite singers, along with Ronnie Hammond from the Atlanta Rhythm Section, as well as all the obvious choices.

What Ronnie taught me is as drummer was don’t step on the vocals. He gave me opportunities, and I took opportunities to get licks in, you know, around the vocals. But Ronnie was a prolific writer. He was a genius. He knew how to write words that touch the common man and that’s why those songs are still as popular now as they were then, to young and old. It’s amazing.

And Ronnie many times he told me, “Look, there’s nothing happening right in this little area here, so go ahead and throw a hot lick in there.” Which I was glad to do.

In Lynyrd Skynyrd, the vocals mean something. Every word has a meaning, and those words should be heard, so that people would understand the song, as in “Simple Man” and as in all the songs that I played [live] that were hits.

Bon Burns was the drummer before me, and Bob and I were very close until his death a few years ago, on a dark stormy night outside of Atlanta, where Bob had a car wreck and lost his life. And he had joined my band Bob had joined APB [Artimus Pyle Band] and of course my guys were tickled pink, to have the two real drummers of the real Lynyrd Skynyrd, both inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on the same night that we were inducted with Black Sabbath, Blondie, the Sex Pistols and Miles Davis and us, and it was an incredible night at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. And I wish Ronnie would have been there, he deserved it.

So now, I apply everything that Ronnie taught me to writing music. We just wrote a new song for the soundtrack of the movie [”Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash”] that I did about the plane crash. And in that song, I remember the same lessons that I learned from Ronnie about. And as far as I’m concerned, my band along with Warren Haynes wrote what I consider as good as any Southern rock song ever written.

I really happy to get back playing Lynyrd Skynyrd music because it brings smiles to everyone’s faces. It brings smiles to white people, it brings smiles to African American people, Mexican American people, Native American people. The songs that Ronnie Van Zant wrote, those words, it brings joy to a lot of people. It makes me so happy to look out into an audience and see a diverse crowd of people enjoying the music.

I’m very lucky for Lynyrd Skynyrd music to be part of my life because there’s a lot of bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s, many bands, and they had good hits. They had big hits. But every song that Ronnie wrote was a hit. The people out in the audience know the words to every song and sings along with us, and stands up and fist bumps, and that’s from young people to old people.

And music, if it it’s good it’s good forever. And Ronnie’s songs are good forever. You know, Led Zeppelin was great back then. Are they great now? Hell, yes. And Ronnie’s songs and the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, that music is still great, and it will last for many, many, many centuries to come.

Something I’ve always wanted to ask a member of classic Skynyrd: The band’s lineup had three guitarists, which was one or two more than most rock bands had. What difference musically do you think having three guitarists made? And how different would Lynyrd Skynyrd have been if they’ve only had one guitar player or two, like most of the big rock bands did back then?

Again, that goes back to Ronnie. Gary and Allen were his guitarists, but he wanted to bring Ed King in. And Ronnie’s genius, just like when he chose The Honkettes, the three [backing singer] girls. Ed King had a completely different style than Gary. Gary had a completely different style than Allen, and Allen had a completely different style than Ed. And so they complemented each other and played their parts, and it was amazing.

I played with that band, I felt the power, and I played with the band after Ed left with Steve Gaines and Allen and Gary. And I can tell you, man, it’s an awesome feeling to look out and see those three guitar players weaving in and out and making it sound like one person.

And then you look over and you see one of the greatest pianists of all time, which was the great Billy Powell, on a gigantic 1928 Steinway grand piano, and as a drummer I couldn’t help but think, wow, you know, this is awesome. And it was.

And then the way Ronnie picked the girls: Leslie Hawkins was like a mezzo soprano. She had a really incredible range. Cassie Gaines ad more like a Broadway voice, and JoJo Billingsley had kind of a whiskey voice that you would hear in a bar band. So Ronnie combined those three girls. His genius was that he saw it, he heard it, and they were incredible together – just like the three guitar players.

After we lost Ed King, we did one album with just Gary and Allen, and Gary and Allen are great guitar players. But Ronnie wanted that third, you know, and then Cassie Gaines kept telling Ronnie, “I have a brother in Oklahoma that plays guitar really good.”

And I’m sure you’ve heard it before that musicians hear that all the time. Somebody says, “Hey, my cousin, man, plays really good.” Well, in this case, Cassie, was 100 percent [right]. She knew. And when Steve came and jammed with us, everybody’s jaw fell open, and Allen was the first one to say, “He’s the one, he’s the guy.”

Because we had auditioned a lot of different … We auditioned Leslie West [singer/guitarist with the band Mountain, of “Mississippi Queen” fame] to be the third guitar player. But that wasn’t, that would never have worked because Leslie was too big [famous].

We auditioned the guitar player for Minnie Riperton [soul singer best known for her hit “Loving You”]. He was an African American gentleman, and he was really good, and Ronnie liked the guy. But Steve came along in that interim and it’s like opening the door and the sun shines, you know? Steve was the one.

And I often think about the fact that Ronnie left a huge legacy and had a chance to establish himself in the world of music, Steve didn’t have as much of an opportunity, although he did leave a huge legacy.

I can only say, you know, why would Ronnie Van Zan, in front of hundreds of thousands of people walk off stage and let a new guy sing a song with his band? It showed me the confidence that Ronnie had in himself, and the confidence that he had in Steve.

Because we do that song “Ain’t No Good Life” that Steve wrote, and Ronnie would leave the stage and maybe have a smoke, towel off, have a glass of water – or a glass or something -- and he would stay off stage until Steve had sung that song.

And I just I thought, man, I’m in one of the greatest bands of all time, seeing Ronnie do that kind of stuff. With the girls, and all of our guitar player complement, we were a 10-piece band, and there weren’t many rock and roll bands that did that.

From watching the excellent 2018 Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary, “If I Leave Here Tomorrow,” it was apparent how different the members of the band were as people and personalities. What did you all have in common? What kept you together?

Well, the music. Because it was great seeing the movie and seeing the footage and seeing all my old friends that I haven’t seen in a long time that are gone. What really kept us together was the music. And it still works for me. That’s what keeps me alive. I go out with my band every week. We go somewhere far, far away and we play Lynyrd Skynyrd music and so that music has been part of my life and is part of my life and will always be part of my life.

I can’t imagine how hard it was in the documentary for you to recount the events of the 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash.

I think about it every day. But there’s time I’m thinking about it, and I can get through it and then there’s times when I’m thinking about it, and I tear up. It just wells up inside of me and I can’t really help it and sometimes I can fight it back and sometimes I can’t and it’s with me every day. It’s something that just goes through my mind.

They kept going back to the drone shots [in the documentary] over that stretch of Earth in Mississippi and there’s still a scar on planet Earth from where we hit 40 years ago. And I’d lock up a little when I’d see those drone shots. And then the old farmers pulling pieces of our airplane out of the ground with the rivets, that wasn’t easy for me, but it’s just a little jolt and everything’s going to be OK, you know?

I wrote a film about it [2020′s “Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash”]. I did a screenplay and it’s about the day of, the day before and they day after the airplane crash and there’s only one person in the world that knows that story and that’s me. I was a pilot, my father was killed in a plane crash, all my friends were killed in plane crashes, so I’m qualified. I was on that plane, I went down on that plane.

And so I told the story to a director and a screenwriter, and we came up with a script and I think there’s a lot of Skynyrd fans who would like to know what happened that fateful night, that fateful day. And the [2020 film’s] story does that.

I once saw an interview with you talking about the Knebworth show, saying Lynyrd Skynyrd blew The Stones off the stage or kicked their ass or something to that effect. Do you still stand by that those words?

We did. That day, the London Times Mirror had a quote that Lynyrd Skynyrd held the energy of the day. And see, I know something that most people don’t know. Mick Jagger -- who I’ve met, hung out with -- Mick and the band they were two hours late coming out. They had been drinking all day. They were drunk off their ass, and the songs were sloppy, and the endings were sloppy. And I guess that’s why the London Times Mirror, you know, made the statement that Lynyrd Skynyrd held the energy of the day. And when I read that, and I thought about how sloppy The Stones were …

Believe me, I love the Rolling Stones. I love Mick Jagger. I love all those guys, and they are amazing. And they can be sloppy, they can come out two hours late because, by golly, they’re still the Rolling Stones, and people are gonna love them. But that particular day, I feel like we gave them a run for their money. And, and you know, to put it in Southern terms, we kicked their ass.

There are so many iconic Skynyrd hits. But what did you feel are the band’s greatest deep cuts? I love “Every Mother’s Son.”

Well, you’re right. And in my band, we try to do some of those more obscure songs, of course you’re going to have to do “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird” because people want to hear it, but we love to do the deeper cuts for sure. And one of my favorite tracks is “Every Mother’s Son” and I like “All I Can Do About It Is Write About It.”

I like the song that Ronnie actually wrote about for Bob Burns, because Ronnie really missed Bob, and he wrote “Am I Losin’” for Bob.” I played drums on that track, and I always think about Bob. Bob was actually in my band. I have a band called APB, Artimus Pyle Band, and we’ve been together for years and we play the [Skynyrd] music better than anybody on the planet. We play it with respect and accuracy and honor.

I like that song “Was I Right Or Wrong,” which was kind of an obscure hit about Ronnie leaving home to make it big and when he came home to show how big he’d made it both his parents were in the graveyard. So there’s so many deep tracks. There’s not a bad Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

Meeting the people [fans], hearing their stories, knowing that the music means so much to them, I just feel like Ronnie would be so proud. Allen and Steve and Cassie and JoJo and Leon and Billy would be so proud. I know Billy and Leon pretty much knew it since they lived a little bit longer, but even to see that the music’s as strong … I mean it was in “Forrest Gump.” Ronnie, he would’ve been extremely surprised and proud. I always think about things like, what would Ronnie think about cell phones? [Laughs] What would he think about computers?

I have to say at this part of my life, all the evil things that have been done -- lawsuits [among some Skynyrd musicians and heirs over the years] and all this crap -- I love life, I love playing Lynyrd Skynyrd music for people that love it. I’ve got a motorcycle. It’s my freedom machine. I go out on the Blueridge Parkway, low speed, enjoying the views, being careful, but ever since I’ve turned 70-years-old I’m leaving my left-turn signal on all the time now.

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