Members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Beach Boys, Chicago explain why they still tour
Plenty of rock bands from the 1960s and 1970s remain viable on streaming and radio. Many also soldier on live, even as original members get sick or pass on.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Johnny Van Zant, Mike Love of the Beach Boys and trumpeter Lee Loughnane of Chicago about what keeps them on the road.
All are visiting Atlanta in mid-July: Chicago with Styx at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre on July 17, the Beach Boys at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre the same night and Lynyrd Skynyrd at Ameris with Foreigner on July 23. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction: 2006
Spotify monthly listeners: 24.4 million
Three most-played songs on Spotify: “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Simple Man,” “Free Bird”
Number of original members: None, but Johnny Van Zant has been lead singer since 1987, 10 years after his older brother, Ronnie, died in a tragic plane crash with two other members of the band.
On his brother’s power: “He was a master at putting words together. Listening to a Lynyrd Skynyrd song is like someone talking to you, not preaching to you. He was just a poet, a Southern poet.”
On keeping his brother’s legacy alive: “Next year will be 40 years for me in Skynyrd. People may say it ain’t Skynyrd, but this is my brother’s band. This is family. Young kids come up to me to thank me for carrying on the music of Ronnie. Our records are great, but seeing us live is what it’s all about. As Ricky Nelson said (in the song ‘Garden Party’), ‘You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.’”
What original guitarist Gary Rossington told Johnny before Rossington died in 2023: “The Allman Brothers, you don’t hear much from them. Charlie Daniels is gone. Whenever I’m gone, I want this band to go on. I can’t fathom the band not being around.’”
Being himself: “I don’t sing like Ronnie. I don’t wear a hat the way he did or walk barefoot. I just came on and was myself. I couldn’t live with myself pretending to be him. He was one of a kind. Forty years later, I guess I did OK, knock on wood. We’ll see if we pack the house there in Georgia!”
A Jacksonville, Florida, boy through and through: “We’re a close family. My brother Donnie and I are next-door neighbors. I can throw my trash on his land if I want to. And whenever the good Lord comes to get me, there will be seashells, sand or clay put on top of me.”
If Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t play “Free Bird” in concert: “We’d get stoned! Every show will end with that song. What do you do after that?”
Surprising Lynyrd Skynyrd fanbase: “We do great in Brazil. They are fanatics. South America loves us!”
Ticket prices: $35 and up
Chicago
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction: 2016
Spotify monthly listeners: 12.8 million
Three most-played songs on Spotify: “If You Leave Me Now,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”
Number of original touring members: One
What keeps OG trumpeter Loughnane going: “It’s simple. We enjoy playing these songs that put us on the map and created our legacy. They don’t get any easier to play. People just love listening to them from different generations. They can pick out their specific place they were for a particular song. We’ve created millions of memories.”
At age 79, how he keeps himself healthy: “I try to get enough rest and do what the doctors tell me as opposed to when I used to not listen to them. I’m also blessed genetically.”
Building his musical craft: “I practice every day. I work at it. You can’t blow loud, willy nilly. There’s a rhyme and reason to everything I do.”
On his two OG colleagues, singer-keyboardist Robert Lamm and trombone player James Pankow, stopping touring last year because of health issues: “They still want to come back. If they can get themselves healthy, they’ll be back. I’m carrying the torch for the boys.”
On the band’s ’80s pop sound vs. the ’70s jazzier hits: Producer David Foster “even admitted in a documentary that he overproduced us. He softened our sound too much. But regardless, those songs work every night. We created a new audience.”
A true team effort: “The music speaks for itself. When you see us live, you’ll see we share the spotlight. Even with the guys now who replaced the original members, we share.”
Last concert before the COVID-19 shutdown: “We played in Vegas until March of 2020. I think we may have been the last band on stage on Earth before everything shut down. (Chicago played the Venetian on Saturday, March 14, 2020, three days after the NBA shut down.) We pulled out of town, and it was like a ghost town!”
Ticket prices: $26 and up
The Beach Boys
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction: 1988
Spotify monthly listeners: 14 million
Three most-played songs on Spotify: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Kokomo,” “Good Vibrations”
Number of original members: One
Why Love keeps touring at age 85: “It makes you feel like your efforts are appreciated, not just by your original fans but their kids and grandkids. It’s a pretty amazing thing.”
How he keeps going: “I have an online vocal coach. And more importantly, I learned transcendental meditation in 1967 in Paris from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It gives me deep rest and relaxation. The mind settles and I sleep better.”
Love outliving his cousins: “It’s good to be hanging in there so many years later, but it’s rough knowing my three cousins, Brian, Dennis and Carl (Wilson), are not here anymore. It’s a drag. Mortality gets all of us. I’m blessed to be in good shape, and I have some great musicians with me. My son Christian is with me.”
On Bruce Johnston stepping away from touring: “He does still come out for special occasions and is still working on music. It’s all positive. We have Chris Cron taking over, and we sound better than ever.”
On his split with Al Jardine, who tours separately: “He has his own thing. We’ll still do some stuff together like when we have something new coming out or reissues, but we don’t tour together.”
On how documentarians didn’t always portray Love positively in the 2024 Disney+ “The Beach Boys” doc: “I was portrayed as how I was portrayed. None of that stuff bothers me at all. My favorite part was when we all got together at the Paradise Cove reminiscing and singing. It was the same place we shot our first album cover in 1962. I was able to harmonize with Brian one more time before he passed away. It still sounded great.”
On the 2025 death of Brian Wilson, considered the creative genius of the band: “The thing is, he is with us every night. He’s in the music. It’s indelible. I still find ‘Pet Sounds’ unbelievable 60 years later. You listen to those tracks and, oh my gosh, they are perfect. Brian was a taskmaster in the studio, but that is why it came out the way it did. I’d do it all over again. I remember doing one section of ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ 25 times.”
On suing Wilson for songwriting credit and royalties in the 1990s: “That was a drag that it had to come to that. That was no fun.””
How the set list will play out: “I like to start retro with the surfing songs, then the car songs. Then ‘Pet Sounds.’ We’ll do two sets with an intermission. We cover all eras of the Beach Boys. We don’t want to disappoint anyone.”
Ticket prices: $76 and up
IF YOU GO
Chicago with Styx. 7 p.m. July 17. Tickets starting at $26. Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. ticketmaster.com
The Beach Boys. 8 p.m. July 17. Tickets starting at $76. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. ticketmaster.com
Lynyrd Skynyrd with Foreigner. 6:30 p.m. July 23. Tickets starting at $35. Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. ticketmaster.com