The Faith of Southern Rock Legends w/Johnny & Donnie Van Zant

[00:00:00] Gattin' Among the Outlaws, he said, Come, Follow Me.

[00:00:05] People from all walks of life since have been becoming Outlaws.

[00:00:31] The duo Van Zant have reunited after a couple decades of being apart.

[00:00:37] And they have a new single, even if that's not your taste of music, stick around because

[00:00:42] I'm going to play a brand new release and you're going to love this song.

[00:00:44] It's called Jesus Christ.

[00:00:46] The Van Zant musical dynasty was built around three brothers.

[00:00:50] Donnie Van Zant, he was a co-founder of the band 38 Special, and brother Johnny Van

[00:00:55] Zant, who's been the lead singer for many years of Leonard Skinner.

[00:00:59] And of course that band is synonymous with Southern Rock and in the Rock and Roll Hall

[00:01:04] of Fame.

[00:01:05] And Johnny Van Zant became the lead singer some years after the passing of their brother,

[00:01:10] Johnny Van Zant.

[00:01:12] You know, in talking about you guys, it's Van Zant's reunited after a couple decades,

[00:01:17] but that's music.

[00:01:18] I mean, you guys are close.

[00:01:20] Reunited doesn't mean that you guys have been apart for years and years.

[00:01:23] And no, hey, we're neighbors, man.

[00:01:29] I saw Donnie.

[00:01:30] I had some land years ago here and where we live at.

[00:01:34] Heaven is why for looking for land.

[00:01:37] And you know what?

[00:01:39] I couldn't think of a better guy to sell it to and have as my neighbor.

[00:01:44] You know, he's being nice.

[00:01:47] I brought in 345 loads of dirt.

[00:01:52] In this small land.

[00:01:55] Well, is that kind of how the new album came about?

[00:01:58] You guys are close.

[00:01:59] You hang out.

[00:02:00] Did it happen during COVID and you just started thinking about life and writing

[00:02:04] what's on your heart and it produced?

[00:02:07] Is that what happened here?

[00:02:09] You want me to speak up here?

[00:02:10] Yeah, you know what, brother, for us, we've had this on our bucket list

[00:02:15] for many, many years.

[00:02:17] And with the COVID and all that happening, it gave us the opportunity

[00:02:21] because Johnny was always on the road.

[00:02:24] You know, I'm a retired guy, so I can work it in.

[00:02:28] But with Johnny's always on the road.

[00:02:31] So with the pandemic happening,

[00:02:33] it gave us a chance to really get together, you know, and we wrote

[00:02:38] a bunch of songs.

[00:02:40] Yeah, yeah, you know, we had started even before that.

[00:02:44] And there's a song on this album called There You Are.

[00:02:47] And I remember I was telling Donnie, I said, you know, I remember

[00:02:50] being in Oklahoma and I was in a hotel room and God just puts it on.

[00:02:55] Because people ask me all the time, how do you write a song?

[00:02:57] How do you come up with that?

[00:02:59] I don't know.

[00:03:00] That's it's a God divine thing.

[00:03:03] You know, so I was just starting singing these lines.

[00:03:06] I was walking on the mountainside looking over the edge.

[00:03:10] And I think I had like those two lines when I called him.

[00:03:13] Some reason this is hitting me after the show, I called him and he was like,

[00:03:18] hey, check this out. There you are.

[00:03:20] You're the highest of my yes, you know.

[00:03:23] And it just kind of clicked.

[00:03:25] And I think really that was the first

[00:03:27] the very first song that we wrote, which is really cool

[00:03:31] because we just did a video for it and had a great time

[00:03:35] and can't wait for the people to hear this album.

[00:03:39] It's it really has been an inspiration to both of us.

[00:03:44] You know what?

[00:03:44] People always say that rock and roll music is the devil's work.

[00:03:48] Well, if you go back and you listen to our work before this particular project

[00:03:53] here or gifts, should I say,

[00:03:59] we've always had, hey, there's a every time, you know, Lord, help me.

[00:04:04] Or something, you know, in our songs, you know.

[00:04:06] So we've always tried to try to bring people the song in a lot of different ways.

[00:04:11] We've even done that in the country.

[00:04:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:14] Well, we I mean, help somebody listen to it.

[00:04:18] You know, we had to have somebody if you can.

[00:04:20] Yeah, we had a couple of albums

[00:04:22] a couple of years ago doing country and one of the albums was Get Right with the Man.

[00:04:28] And it kind of leaned this in this really did.

[00:04:31] Well, it was easy.

[00:04:32] It was easy for us talking about there.

[00:04:35] You know, we've told them about there.

[00:04:37] You are matter of fact, just to let people know it's going to be released.

[00:04:41] The video September 10th, September, the left people.

[00:04:44] Donny knows more about it than I do.

[00:04:46] Well, I'm excited to see it.

[00:04:50] You know what?

[00:04:51] We just for Jesus Christ on YouTube, but just hit 300,000 people.

[00:04:58] Which is an amazing because when we started this, we said, hey,

[00:05:02] if we can touch one person.

[00:05:04] Bring one person to Christ.

[00:05:06] Our job, our mission is complete.

[00:05:09] We feel like we've done it now.

[00:05:10] Hopefully out of 300,000 people watching the video for Jesus Christ, the Lyria video.

[00:05:16] Hopefully there's those 300 are there with us, you know?

[00:05:20] So yeah, but all this you were asking all this came about.

[00:05:24] Our dad should have been a preacher.

[00:05:26] I was a boy when he read that Bible up and down myself.

[00:05:31] I, you know, and I saw a thing the other day that said how difficult the Bible is to understand.

[00:05:38] And the guy made a point.

[00:05:40] He said, you know what?

[00:05:41] God made it that way because we keep coming back to it to try to understand it.

[00:05:45] Most of the time when you read a book, if you read it all the way through,

[00:05:49] you put it away and you probably never go back to it.

[00:05:51] But God made that.

[00:05:52] But our dad knew that Bible and he knew how to understand those words.

[00:05:56] And he would send preached us.

[00:05:58] And if we had to use the bathroom, we were in serious trouble because you didn't get up

[00:06:03] while he was preaching to us.

[00:06:05] So he instilled that.

[00:06:06] He instilled that in us many, many years ago.

[00:06:09] And we've always been believers in Christ.

[00:06:11] Have we been good, faithful servants of Christ?

[00:06:14] No, I would never say that.

[00:06:17] We've made plenty of mistakes and we got a lot to be forgiven.

[00:06:20] But he says, hey, come to him and accept him and you're forgiven of all your sins.

[00:06:24] So, you know what?

[00:06:26] I go to him every day.

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:28] Well, brother, he I don't know how many levels there were in the house,

[00:06:34] but everyone you picked up, you could see is, you know,

[00:06:37] where you had his little pen there underlining a verse.

[00:06:41] Right.

[00:06:42] He was he was really into it and and I know where he's at.

[00:06:49] As a life deep in your faith.

[00:06:53] Life experiences, tragedies, you know, has it brought it more home as you get older

[00:06:59] and you reflect and, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:07:01] You know, for me, I had a fellow I was working with and we were in the studio

[00:07:08] and, you know, I'm all the time saying something, you know, like, hey, God bless

[00:07:13] you or hope you have a great day.

[00:07:15] And he's like, oh, this God stuff, you know, and I found out that he was

[00:07:19] pretty much an atheist, didn't believe in Jesus.

[00:07:22] But I'm not going to hold that against you.

[00:07:24] What you do in your life is your choice.

[00:07:26] We have a song called It's Up to You on this new album and everybody,

[00:07:32] it's up to everybody.

[00:07:33] You can go to church.

[00:07:34] You can do this, but it's your relationship with Jesus Christ.

[00:07:38] You know, you have to accept him or, you know, it's not going to happen.

[00:07:43] And but I would say, hey, God bless you at the end of each day.

[00:07:48] And he got.

[00:07:51] But the very last day we were staying at a residence in in Brunwood,

[00:07:56] and he turned around to walk off and I had forgotten to say, God bless you.

[00:08:00] And he started walking off and I went, hey, I ain't going to mention his name

[00:08:04] because I don't want to bring it up.

[00:08:06] But I said, hey, I bless you.

[00:08:08] And he turned around.

[00:08:09] He goes, hey, thank you, Johnny.

[00:08:11] And I said, oh, I'm getting to.

[00:08:13] I'm getting.

[00:08:15] But yeah, man.

[00:08:17] Yeah, no, it has, I think anytime.

[00:08:20] And that's what I was getting at is that I don't understand how people

[00:08:24] can go through this life and not have the hope of Christ in heaven.

[00:08:31] I mean, we have that.

[00:08:34] I don't know who do you go to?

[00:08:36] And I always tell people say, hey, in the end of your life,

[00:08:39] I don't care if you believe or not, you're probably going to be going,

[00:08:43] Lord, please come to me help me.

[00:08:45] And so we need to lean on the cross.

[00:08:49] You know, we need to go to him.

[00:08:51] He wants us to come down.

[00:08:53] We're none of us are perfect.

[00:08:55] Yeah.

[00:08:55] And, you know, every day I go, I go to bed every night going, Lord,

[00:09:01] thank you for the gifts that I have and thank you for everything,

[00:09:04] the health.

[00:09:06] And I lost a daughter going on six years now to the C word.

[00:09:11] I've refused to say it because that's the devil's disease.

[00:09:13] We ain't go.

[00:09:14] But it's a C word and thanks to this guy,

[00:09:19] it really brought me closer to God.

[00:09:22] You know, I needed I needed to be closer because I was thinking,

[00:09:26] why is this happening?

[00:09:27] Why is she going through the praying that it would be me, not her?

[00:09:32] I've lived my life.

[00:09:33] I've done more and went more places than she could ever dream to go going.

[00:09:40] And I was I was hoping and I was mad at God one day because she had went

[00:09:45] through a bone marrow transplant and it was we were almost,

[00:09:50] I think it's like 90 days to take.

[00:09:53] And she had went to Mayo and they gave her bad news and I was like,

[00:09:58] God, you know, I was just so frustrated.

[00:10:00] And I was checking my mail here.

[00:10:02] My neighbor came.

[00:10:05] Everybody, what's happening?

[00:10:07] I was like, I don't know.

[00:10:08] And he said, don't get mad at God.

[00:10:11] Don't get mad at God.

[00:10:13] And for some reason, at that very point, a calmness came over me.

[00:10:18] It did. A calmness came over.

[00:10:19] I could actually feel the spirit and Lord.

[00:10:21] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:22] And even the way he was talking after that.

[00:10:25] But I mean, it sort of changed him from right that moment on, you know,

[00:10:30] and now he's he's he's been saved.

[00:10:33] He's been baptized and he goes to his church regular and all that.

[00:10:38] I'm a some timers.

[00:10:40] Yes, yeah, yeah.

[00:10:42] Well, I'm my home.

[00:10:44] And you literally in a positive way, wear your faith on your sleeves.

[00:10:48] I can see it right there.

[00:10:50] Oh, yeah.

[00:10:51] Oh, yeah. You know what?

[00:10:53] People have nothing against tattoos.

[00:10:56] Matter of fact, I love them.

[00:10:57] I have them.

[00:10:58] But and I always said, I said, if I'm going to put them on me,

[00:11:03] I'm going to put them on me in God's name because I love them that much.

[00:11:08] So I got a cross here.

[00:11:10] I got Jesus here.

[00:11:12] And I got John three, 16 there.

[00:11:14] And over here, I have an angel and it has all my girl

[00:11:17] has all my girls names on it's funny you said that because

[00:11:22] I was playing this year and it was the day before Easter.

[00:11:27] And this lady was on one of my sites.

[00:11:30] I do the Sunday thing, you know, God's Day, every day is God's Day.

[00:11:34] And she put it on there.

[00:11:35] She goes, I felt really weird about the night before Easter

[00:11:38] being at a rock show, you know, a Skinner show.

[00:11:41] She goes until I saw John three, six.

[00:11:45] And they made me realize it's OK.

[00:11:52] You located that, by the way.

[00:11:54] Well, I'm in Michigan and Skinner and ZZ tops coming to town

[00:11:58] in a couple of weeks. I might just drop by there.

[00:12:01] Hey, you're talking to the right guy.

[00:12:04] Hey, I know the guy knows the guy.

[00:12:06] Yeah, I do.

[00:12:09] Yeah, get one.

[00:12:11] Let us see who you talking with, Steve.

[00:12:15] Yes, Steve, we'll get you some some.

[00:12:18] Yeah, get you some tickets, man. Come out to be a pleasure.

[00:12:21] All right, cool. Thanks.

[00:12:23] Oh, speaking of faith in the rock and roll, that's what I.

[00:12:27] So I've only heard actually I've heard a few of your songs

[00:12:29] I saw on YouTube several years ago.

[00:12:31] I think you were sitting with your pastor talking

[00:12:32] and you kind of debuted to the church or something, the songs.

[00:12:37] Yeah. But as far as this release, Jesus Christ.

[00:12:41] I love it because one, it's in your face gospel.

[00:12:46] It's the passion and it's got the.

[00:12:50] It doesn't back off the southern rock.

[00:12:52] If anything, I think it leans into it.

[00:12:56] And that story deserves it because I love hymns.

[00:13:00] I love worship songs, but we really sanitize a very gritty story.

[00:13:07] And with your lyrics, you know, similar to when Mel

[00:13:11] gets into the passion and he tried to portray more of a reality.

[00:13:17] And it's shocking to culture, but it was a shocking historical event.

[00:13:22] So your lyrics are that and then the music backs it up.

[00:13:26] It's got that hard.

[00:13:28] I don't know, Thump is a southern term.

[00:13:31] Is that is that a southern rock term?

[00:13:32] It's got the thumb.

[00:13:35] It's got a little heavy metal, too.

[00:13:37] It's got some rock.

[00:13:38] It's got some guitars in there.

[00:13:40] Everything I like about southern rock and it fits the it does the lyrics justice.

[00:13:45] Thank you. Well, thank you.

[00:13:46] Thank you very much. You know what that all came about?

[00:13:49] We're back here and we call this soul for water studio

[00:13:53] because I had a young man come down to have a room upstairs

[00:13:57] and he stayed here and doing the COVID.

[00:14:00] And so we put together this little studio.

[00:14:02] It's been a dream of mine to put together a little studio at my house.

[00:14:06] And so we had two gentlemen here working and the guy comes down one morning.

[00:14:12] He says, man, those water stinks.

[00:14:16] Then I said, I said, what?

[00:14:19] He goes, water out there really stinks.

[00:14:21] And I went, oh my Lord.

[00:14:23] So I have a water filter system.

[00:14:25] We live out of land and they had not tapped into my little garage apartment.

[00:14:30] Of course, I called him right away.

[00:14:32] And we said, what a great name for the studio.

[00:14:34] So for water studio.

[00:14:36] But we were back here.

[00:14:38] We were back here and it does seem bad.

[00:14:41] Like, yeah.

[00:14:43] We were back here just trying to write and I had a picture of Jesus Christ

[00:14:47] back here and it had the blood coming down.

[00:14:51] And it was so real.

[00:14:53] It was crucifixion.

[00:14:54] Yeah. That we just started going.

[00:14:57] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, and thinking

[00:15:03] how that must have felt and how much pain that he went through.

[00:15:08] And, you know, it just had to be a horrible thing.

[00:15:15] this wasn't our first choice to come out with.

[00:15:19] We were thinking something a little lighter because we both listened to

[00:15:22] Christian radio and

[00:15:25] now I was so wrong because again, we just hit 300,000 YouTube,

[00:15:32] you know, less than two weeks out.

[00:15:34] People looking at the video.

[00:15:36] What a great, great honor for Jesus Christ.

[00:15:41] You know, I mean, again, this isn't us.

[00:15:44] This isn't about us.

[00:15:46] It's about spreading his word.

[00:15:48] And hopefully there's somebody out there because I think now more

[00:15:52] than any time in this world.

[00:15:56] Yeah, but I'm sure that there's been people from earlier generations

[00:15:59] who probably say the same thing that we need him in our life.

[00:16:03] And more now than ever.

[00:16:04] That's what I'm saying.

[00:16:05] But I think this is a crazy world we live in.

[00:16:08] Yeah, you know, I don't want to see people walk away from him.

[00:16:12] You know what?

[00:16:12] I play in Leonard Skinner and

[00:16:16] then we have been known as rowdy southern rock and rollers

[00:16:20] and our music.

[00:16:21] And, you know, I've had people say, hey, you're doing the devil's work.

[00:16:26] Now, I don't agree with that.

[00:16:28] I think, you know, Jesus Jesus went into the lion's den.

[00:16:32] You know, I mean, he was there with the not so

[00:16:36] upstanding people and we as Christians need to be in that same spot

[00:16:45] and spread his word.

[00:16:48] I so respect your guy.

[00:16:51] You guys for doing that.

[00:16:53] Everyone who's doing that where you have Charlie Daniels was that way.

[00:16:56] Alice Cooper, he's in his own world doing.

[00:17:01] You know, not that I can wrap my head around that one.

[00:17:04] But, you know, you guys, you're standing in front of people.

[00:17:10] You're able to stand in front of people that would never.

[00:17:13] You that maybe would never go into a church.

[00:17:15] You could be the closest thing to it, you know?

[00:17:18] And I think it's great.

[00:17:21] You mentioned seeing that about our church.

[00:17:24] When we were doing this, we'd made some demos.

[00:17:27] And the first song I played, my pastor's name is Mike.

[00:17:31] Mike, Pastor Mike, we call him P Mike.

[00:17:33] That's his rap name.

[00:17:37] But just a wonderful man.

[00:17:40] And I went over to the church one day.

[00:17:42] I don't even know why I was over there, but I say, Pastor P.

[00:17:45] Mike, do you want to hear one of my N'Donnie songs?

[00:17:48] And the first song I played him was Jesus Christ.

[00:17:51] And I said, would you be in letting the congregation hear this?

[00:17:56] And of course, he jumped on it and my little church

[00:18:01] listened to every one of these songs.

[00:18:04] And they gave us the inspiration because we didn't know, you know what?

[00:18:07] We're like, OK, we think we think this is pretty good.

[00:18:11] But we hope that it would touch somebody.

[00:18:14] But we wanted to see what a church, a congregation who has

[00:18:18] nothing to do except for give us an honest opinion.

[00:18:23] And their opinion helped us carry on, should I say.

[00:18:28] So my hands off to them.

[00:18:30] I'm sure the rest of the album is great.

[00:18:33] But for sure that was a good one because that's an attention getter.

[00:18:36] And it was a good one to put out front for sure.

[00:18:39] Oh, I blew his ears out when I saw it.

[00:18:42] He's still rejuvenating from.

[00:18:44] Yeah, you have a lot of a lot of variety on this record.

[00:18:49] You'll see that as time goes on.

[00:18:52] Yeah, good.

[00:18:54] All right. Well, hey, man, it's really an honor to talk to both of you guys.

[00:18:59] You both are great human beings and as a Southern rock fan,

[00:19:05] it's an honor to talk to both of you for sure.

[00:19:08] And I'm going to play that thing through the whole song

[00:19:11] and ask the people who listen to this program to forward it on,

[00:19:15] like it and forward it on, see how many people can listen to it.

[00:19:18] Oh, that's what it's all about.

[00:19:20] God bless you, brother. We appreciate it.

[00:19:21] Hey, thank you so much.

[00:19:22] You want to come out?

[00:19:24] Get with Steve, man. We'll be glad.

[00:19:25] I love to shake your hand.

[00:20:08] What they do is I see.

[00:20:24] He was they did not.

[00:20:30] He is our savior.

[00:20:33] The holy one Jesus Christ.

[00:20:42] Order to come down from the cross.

[00:20:48] They ran this body in pure white.

[00:20:56] The men sacrificed.

[00:20:58] So we could all have eternal life before the sins of all mankind.

[00:21:07] But there were tears running down his face.

[00:21:23] They did not.

[00:21:26] He is our savior.

[00:21:42] He is the savior.

[00:21:58] He is our savior.

[00:22:00] He is our savior.

[00:22:16] He is our savior.

[00:22:19] They didn't understand.

[00:22:53] He is our savior.

[00:22:56] He is our savior.

[00:23:02] Son of God.

[00:23:07] Jesus Christ.

[00:23:29] The son of God.

[00:23:33] The whole life.

[00:23:41] The son of God.

[00:23:46] The holy one.

[00:23:58] The son of God.

[00:25:18] He said come follow me.

[00:25:21] If more walks alive since,

[00:25:24] the men are coming out.