How I ended up behind a automobile being pushed by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s drunken bassist Leon Wilkeson, sat subsequent to 2 speed-crazed bikers, one wielding a gun, eludes me even at this time.
It was October 1976 and my third encounter with these hell-raising southern rockers. Right here I used to be in some low-rent bar in Harmony, California, looking for solace in Leon’s firm. The truth that the larger-than-life bass participant at all times sported eccentric headgear, wore bikers’ patches and both had his face buried in a mound of narcotics or was suckling a bottle of bourbon, didn’t ring any warning bells.
I used to be simply 20 years outdated, and being invited to a pace chemist’s party at a biker clubhouse appeared essentially the most pure state of affairs in Lynyrd Skynyrdworld. Which was how we ended up hurtling the flawed method down the freeway in a automobile captained by a ferociously inebriated Leon, accompanied by a loud, dwarfish photographer by the title of Randy Bachman (no relation), a hysterical biker’s girlfriend who’d simply celebrated her twenty first birthday within the bar, and the 2 bikers in query: Joe and his amphetamine chemist pal, Pungent.
What had appeared like a good suggestion was shedding its attraction the additional we bought from our resort. Pungent and Joe now determined that they needed the woman for their very own private leisure. In the meantime, the photographer’s mouth was operating away with him: “You guys eat shit!” he screamed on the bikers. Joe’s response was swift and violent: “Shaddup, you short-chord cocksucker or I’ll throw you out of the goddamn window.”
“I’m mad, actual mad!” declared Joe, as if any of us wanted affirmation. “I ain’t frightened of utilizing this,” he frothed, waving his artillery. “What number of occasions have I used this, Pungent?”
The pair solely briefly stopped their ranting to go with me on my Motörhead T-shirt. Unusually sufficient, as my solely expertise of weapons till then had been restricted to TV and films, I bear in mind discovering the entire scenario amusing, even when the chilly gray barrel was pressed subsequent to my cranium.
The scenario descended into additional chaos till a seemingly calm Leon took management and we someway managed to lose Pungent and Joe at a gasoline station and made a determined sprint again to the resort. The bikers have been later picked up and held in a single day – lengthy sufficient for Leon and I to be escorted out of city by native police, afraid that there could be additional reprisals. “The subsequent time I’m going on stage, I’ll be pondering there could possibly be a man on the market who desires to shoot me,” mentioned Leon.
You’d suppose that will be sufficient southern rock for me, however my second project to the US was in April 1977 to do an interview with the Atlanta Rhythm Part, a soft-rock choice to Skynyrd, who have been selling their sixth album – A Rock’n’Roll Various – after I went to see them. The band comprised of session musicians from two profitable teams: Classics IV and Roy Orbison’s backing band The Candymen, and it quickly turned apparent that they have been cut up into two very completely different camps. There have been the hellraising, battle-scarred veterans of Orbison: Robert Nix (drums) and Dean Daugherty (keyboards), who have been fairly intimidating in each measurement and manner, and who turned extra unhinged because the evening progressed and the alcohol continued to stream.
Hearsay has it that no quantity of booze might entice any member of Skynyrd to struggle Nix, who throughout the course of the night provided to take Daugherty out for a ‘tussle’ after the inebriated ivory tinkler went on a glass-smashing spree. “One punch is all it could take,” he mumbled, sounding like a punch-drunk killing machine. Daugherty sensibly declined the invite.
The wild bunch have been countered by a extra subdued quartet: guitarist James Cobb, a well mannered southern gentleman who had the boldness of a reliable songwriter with a profession of chart singles below his belt; Barry Bailey (guitars), a laid again muso kind; painfully shy vocalist Ronnie Hammond, who it transpired, was battling with persistent alcoholism; and bassist Paul Goddard, a person who had a number of resentments to share.
I interviewed Goddard in his Pittsburgh motel room after a profitable present at a Pittsburgh campus. Outwardly laid-back and introverted, Goddard was a stout fellow with bottle-lens glasses who appeared extra just like the proprietor of a Video games Workshop retailer than a member of a carousing rock’n’roll outfit.
The interview began off fairly innocuously – a critical musician, he was an enormous fan of Kansas (who he ended up enjoying with a number of years later) and continually down-played his position in ARS. Because the night progressed and the drink was starting to take over, it was apparent one thing was awry. Goddard began trying stressed, uncomfortable, shuffling awkwardly in his seat like he was bursting to say one thing.
“Ahh hate that mom Robert Nix!” he blurted. “He’s made mah life hell.”
I felt the most effective tactic was to disregard this tirade as you’ll an outburst of Tourettes.
“The man’s a motherfucking bully and deserves to die!” now Goddard’s voice is wavering between tearful and fearful.
“If I had a gun I might go downstairs proper now and kill that fats, drunken motherfuckaaahhh!” screams the bassist, attempting to get his torso vertical.
Uh-oh. The place is he going with this?
“Ahm gonna get me a Saturday evening particular and shoot that piece of shit and do all people a favour!”
BRRRINGG! BRRRINGG!
Out of the blue the telephone rings and the momentum of this insane state of affairs momentarily subsides. Goddard picks up the telephone.
Who’s it? Is it a seller providing substances that may make him even crazier? One other band member who additionally hates Nix and affords to supply a weapon? Or is it Nix, able to take up the problem of the duel?
Goddard listens intently, sometimes muttering, “Ah perceive” and “You’re proper”. With a face like a chastised schoolboy, he continues to hear and miraculously calms down.
He then passes the telephone over to me: “It’s Ronnie Van Zant,” he says. “He desires to talk to you.” I take the telephone. On the opposite finish of the road all I can hear is hysterical cackling from the Skynyrd frontman.
“What the hell is happening?” exclaims Van Zant, nearly crying with laughter. “Final yr you nearly put an finish to Leon [Wilkeson]’s profession and now you’re attempting to get one other southern bass participant killed!”
It transpires {that a} member of ARS had heard Goddard’s outburst (apparently they have been an everyday prevalence) and referred to as Van Zant (who was again house in Jacksonville, fishing), asking him to defuse the scenario. I defined the chaos round me, setting off one other bout of hysterical cackling.
“Welcome to America, boy!” mentioned Van Zant, after which hung up.
Welcome certainly.
This function initially appeared in Basic Rock 151, in November 2010.
