show. Yep. I got stuff from him, too. And from those older guys, I would hear stuff like, “This is Skynyrd from Chattanooga in 1975. It’s the best live show that ever got recorded.” And my friend Billy would say stuff like, “You know that Skynyrd were really influenced by Free and Cream.” Back then, I was like, “Oh, really? Okay.” Well, I need to hear some Free and some Cream.” Then I got that and I was like, “Oh, I get it! Okay, I hear that.” So I had some good teachers, you know. Those dudes know… they saw that I was the little nerdy kid that wanted to soak it all up, and they helped me.
That is awesome. Sharing their musical knowledge was cool. I wanted to ask you to tell me a little about each of your band mates. Oh, well, we’ve been together for fifteen years or so and Paul is uh, the other guitar player, I’ve known him the longest. We met just out of high school and he is just a sweetheart of a guy, you know. Just big-hearted, happy, big smiles. We all love what we do. I think he may love it the most. But he just… he’s a happy guy.
Yeah. He has fun on stage, I can tell that. He does. He just loves every minute of it. You don’t see him in a bad mood often.
That’s good. Brandon, the piano player, he’s the newest member. Brandon’s a real sweet guy, too. He’s real happy just like Paul.He’s a real student of music. He’s a jazz guy. He loves it. I’m a bit of a jazz nerd, too. I kind of go in for the Toy Cald- well-thing sometimes, that cornbread jazz thing. Brandon really knows a lot. Like, if I write a song and it has a weird chord in it, I can say, “What’s this Brandon?” And he’ll tell me exactly.
Oh wow! Yeah. “That’s an F-non-diminished…” you know, blah, blah, blah…
17
Yeah. (Laughing) The Turner Brothers, they have always played music together, being brothers. They’re the closest brothers I’ve ever seen. They never fight, which is weird. (Laughs) Sometimes I want ‘em to. If you get in an argument with one of ‘em, you’re basically in an argument with both of ‘em which is just like, “That’s not fair! Fight with one another and get it out of your system!” (Both Laugh) But anyway, no, I love ‘em. They’re a good bunch of traveling companions. That’s necessary to be in a touring band, you gotta be able to get along. We all fight, of course, and we want to ring each other’s necks sometimes, but you know, that happens with every band. It’s like being married to four other dudes all the time.
Oh yeah. Well… that paints a picture. Yeah. It’s not a pretty one.
(Laughing) I was just gonna say, one thing I’ve always loved about bands like yours is your obvious appreciation for the road crew. Because I think that- and I’m sure you agree- that you can be a great band but without a great road crew.
Yeah.True.
I wanted to see if you would say a little bit about your guys? They’re great. They never complain. They’re obviously the hardest working bunch. They’re first in, last to leave, and we’ve got dedicated guys. We’ve had, you know, people come and go. That happens in all band. Right now we’ve got a really solid team and we appreciate all the work that they do, of course. We couldn’t do it without ‘em and we try and make ‘em as happy as we can. It’s all about trying to pay people fairly and treat ‘em fairly and take care of ‘em. Don’t let ‘em get treated like shit, you know. That’s a very important part of the business. We don’t have a large crew, we just have five
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