{"id":693596,"date":"2016-09-21T11:28:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T15:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/?p=693596"},"modified":"2016-09-21T11:28:27","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T15:28:27","slug":"a-qa-with-38-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2016\/09\/21\/a-qa-with-38-special\/","title":{"rendered":"A Q&amp;A With .38 Special"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1170\" height=\"878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vJtf7R_oVaw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">With a career spanning more than 40 years, 38 Special has sold more than 20 million records thanks to hits like \u201cSecond Chance,\u201d \u201cRockin\u2019 Into The Night\u201d and \u201cHold On Loosely.\u201d That\u2019s why, when pop artist Rachel Platten canceled on this year\u2019s Great Frederick Fair festivities, the minds responsible for bringing music to the event looked no further than the Jacksonville-based rock act.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">We recently caught up with singer\/guitarist Don Barnes by the phone to talk about breaking into the mainstream, the status of his band\u2019s former singer Donnie Van Zant, and how the group keeps its concerts exciting after all these years.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>You\u2019re celebrating 41 years this year. How did you decide that you wanted to give your life to music?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">My dad was a music director at church years ago. So, I had the influence of some of the chord changes of that music, and then Jacksonville, Florida, is a Navy town \u2014 there\u2019s four naval bases there. All of us kids \u2014 Gregg Allman, Ronnie Van Zant \u2014 we played sailor\u2019s clubs at about 14, 15 years old. A hundred dollars a week is big money for a 15-year-old. We learned all the songs of the day, the hits. Santana. Three Dog Night. Beatles stuff. You learn songs\u2019 structures, what works on radio, the payoff, the chorus. Then you get cocky and you start thinking you can write your own songs and that\u2019s when you go starve for 10 years. You get the bug and you have to strongly believe in yourself to go professional. You fall on your face many times and you gotta pick yourself up and try it again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>It took you guys a few records before you received mainstream success. Was there a turning point? I know you started working with Jim Peterik from Survivor. He started co-writing some of the songs. Was that something that really helped you guys break through?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It was. He had a hit song at 17 years old, so he\u2019s one of these guys who\u2019s just obsessed with writing. He still does it all day, every day. None of us were that obsessed. He\u2019d go to an anniversary dinner with his wife and take his notebook and his tape recorder. He doesn\u2019t want to miss one thing. One thing he said was, \u2018You gotta pay attention to the radio in your head. Just let it flow, even when you\u2019re at sleep at night. Just hear how it\u2019s supposed to go.\u2019 We learned a lot from him. Great, old friend. We wrote \u201cHold On Loosely\u201d at his kitchen table. We would always sit and talk about relationships. I was having problems with an old marriage way back then and I said, \u201cWhat about the people who can\u2019t let each other be themselves and grow? It\u2019s hard to breathe? What do you think about this title, \u2018Hold On Loosely?\u2019\u201d And he said, \u201cOh yeah, but don\u2019t let go.\u201d It was the perfect couplet. We never really claimed to be good songwriters, but we\u2019re great collaborators.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>2004 was the last studio record you guys did. It was \u201cDrive Train,\u201d I believe. That featured Donnie Van Zant and I know he\u2019s had to leave with health issues. Do you envision you guys trying to do another record someday?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Yeah, we have our own studio in Atlanta. We\u2019ve done some things, we have some good new songs, some basic tracks. We\u2019ve kind of turned into a live business \u2014 we do 100 cities a year, so trying to get studio time is a little hard. We\u2019ve done some writing with Donnie, but he had some inner ear nerve damage. He couldn\u2019t be around tractor-trailers or generators or snare drums blasting or guitars. Years ago, he would want us to aim the amps at him so he could hear the guitars and I guess it might have taken its toll after all these years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Would he be able to play in the studio with you guys?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Yeah, we would do it at a low volume in the headphones for him. But he even talked about coming out on the road and doing an acoustic set or something and the doctors told him, \u201cNo, because you\u2019re going to be around volume.\u201d One thing he loves to do is get on a riding lawn mower and mow his acreage out there, and he can\u2019t do that because it\u2019s sustained volume. He needs ear plugs and aircraft headphones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>You\u2019re coming up to Frederick. I took a look at some recent setlists and noticed you\u2019ve been covering The East Beats song \u201cGood Times.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Yeah! We love that song.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>How did you come up with the idea to cover that song? That\u2019s sort of an obscure song to do and it\u2019s a neat choice.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It is. First of all, we revamped the whole show. It\u2019s a whole new show now. We take the crowd for a ride. We do some little snippets of a Bad Company song or a ZZ Top song \u2014 it\u2019s all about the energy level. We put that in there because I always liked that song. I heard it back in the \u201880s and it was a one-listen song. It was everything in your face and I was like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to do that because nobody else has even thought of doing that.\u201d People, it slays them. We look at a live show like a graph. Start real big and you keep going. Then somewhere around the middle, you give the audience a break with \u201cSecond Chance,\u201d the big popular ballad. Then we just keep climbing until an exhausted finish. An hour and forty minutes later, we\u2019re exhausted. The crowd is exhausted with us. And it\u2019s more bang for the buck, I guess.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Are there touring partners you\u2019ve had through your career who you\u2019ve enjoyed touring with more than others?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There\u2019s been so many. Styx. REO Speedwagon. Bad Company \u2014 we did a lot of shows in the \u201880s with them. AC\/DC, they opened for us. Bon Jovi, they opened for us. We always joke that all these guys who opened for us went on to be huge rock gods. Years ago, everybody was trying to kick each other\u2019s ass, being competitive. Now, they\u2019re all our friends. We feel like we\u2019re survivors. There\u2019s mutual respect. We hang out, jam, sit in with those guys. It\u2019s all a good time now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>What do you hope the legacy of the band will be to your fans when it\u2019s all said and done?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">We\u2019ve always tried to keep our standards really high. We were painfully honest with each other when we made records and we tried to bring the best to people. We\u2019re still striving to do the best we can. At some point, all the shows, the buses and planes take a toll, but it\u2019s a great job. I can\u2019t complain. It\u2019s a great time bringing happiness to people. That\u2019s really what we\u2019re all about.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a career spanning more than 40 years, 38 Special has sold more than 20 million records thanks to hits like \u201cSecond Chance,\u201d \u201cRockin\u2019 Into The Night\u201d and \u201cHold On&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-693596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}