People talk about cities like Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles as being hotbed breeding grounds for great rock & roll bands, but the hottest of them all may very well be Jacksonville, Fla.
That’s where acts like 38 Special, The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, Blackfoot, and Molly Hatchet all cut their teeth back in the day.
“Jacksonville was a navy town, so we all played the sailor’s clubs at 15 years old,” explains 38 Special lead singer/guitarist Don Barnes. “And when you can make 100 bucks a week at age 15, well… that’s big money.”
38 Special eventually catapulted from the local club scene right into the bigtime, where they dominated ’80s radio and the singles charts with hit after hit like Hold on Loosely, Rockin’ Into the Night, Fantasy Girl, Caught Up in You, Back Where You Belong, and If I’d Been the One, to name a few.
38 Special will bring all of these hits and more to Morongo Casino Resort & Spa on March 11.
While on a short tour break, Barnes (pictured below) got on the line to give us the scoop about 38 Special’s debt to Southern California radio, their Beatles influence, and what he thinks the best song in their live set is.
What were your impressions of California when you first came out here in the late-’70s?
“Oh man, the first time we were invited was to go to A&M Records on La Brea, out in L.A. [in 1977]. They sent a limousine for us at the airport. And we’re meat-and-potatoes guys from Jacksonville — it was our first time getting signed and our first record album — so that was all new to us. Seeing the palm trees, and the different terrain — it was like a different world. Since then, of course, we’ve grown accustomed to it.”
You also like coming to the Palm Springs area.
“Well, I do know Fred Waring Boulevard. (laughs) It’s beautiful there. We’re big fans of the area and its history, all of the Frank Sinatra stuff. Sinatra House — it’s still frozen in time, right? They say his ashtrays are still exactly where they were. If those walls could talk, huh?” (chuckles)
Los Angeles radio helped 38 Special break into the big leagues.
“We felt like Hold on Loosely had the best shot at radio [in 1981], so we went out to the big trendsetting radio station in L.A. back in the turntable days. We got an audience with the program director in his office. We knew that he could influence the playlists of over 200 stations all over the country. He puts the needle down on it, and listened to it quietly. I was sitting there with my manager, thinking, ‘Please, please, please like it! We need this acceptance!’ As soon as it got to the ‘Hold on Loosely’ chorus, he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll play that.’ It was as simple as that! I got goosebumps and chills, thinking, ‘Yeah, you’ll put it on? That means 200 other stations will put it on!’ That was a pivotal moment for us.”
You co-wrote Hold on Loosely with Jim Peterik, who’s probably best known for writing Eye of the Tiger when he was in Survivor.
“We wrote that at his kitchen table. I was going through a bad time in a bad marriage back then. And I said to Jim, ‘What is it about people trying to change each other — not celebrating their differences, not giving each other room to breathe?’
“Then I said to him, ‘What do you think about this title?’ I had it in my notebook. It said, ‘Hold on Loosely.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah — but don’t let go.’ That was the perfect couplet, and then we were off to the races. It said everything in that little quote there that people needed to take heed from. That’s one of those little happy accidents. Songwriting is a real insecure thing. You have little bits of things, and you just need one other person to say, ‘You know, that’s not bad.’”
I actually see a bit of a Beatles parallel with you and Jim as songwriters, similar to the way Paul [McCartney] and John [Lennon] would write together. They were able to fill in the blanks for each other, like you two do.
“No one has all the answers. You come in like Swiss cheese — you have a few holes in there, and the other guy can fill those holes. It’s possible if you have a good collaboration, and good chemistry. It’s been great writing with Jim. He’s such a giving person. He loves creating. This guy is obsessed with it, literally.”
There’s actually a very Beatlesque sense of melody and harmony in a lot of 38 Special songs.
“Growing up, we were big fans of The Beatles. Coming from the South, it’s automatically assumed you’re going to sing bluesy stuff about bad whiskey and women. (laughs) But we learned all the structures of those songs in the early days as kids, because you had to learn the hits of the day on the radio. You found out what the actual craft of building a song is. There’s an A section, and a little ramp that goes to the chorus, a bridge, and an outro — all those things. You find what the big payoff is.
“Of course, then you get cocky and you go, ‘Well, I’m going to write my own songs.’ And then you starve for 10 years.” (laughs)
photo courtesy of 38 special on facebook by mark walter
Barry Dunaway and Danny Chauncey rock out together.
To me, Chain Lightnin’ from Special Forces (1981) is the definitive statement for you guys. It’s also one of the highlights of the live set.
“That’s my favorite one to play live. It has all the production with the smoke, the lightning flashes, and the thunder — all that stuff. We save that for the encore. We say to the audience, ‘Thanks for listening! Thanks for taking the ride!’ They’re cheering, and then we walk off. And while they’re cheering, here comes the thunder, the lightning, and the smoke — they all blend together, and then we walk back out and do Chain Lightnin’.”
What else will see in the show?
“We hit the audience with all the hits. It’s nonstop hit after hit — we line ’em up and shoot ’em down. And people are just amazed, because we get comments like, ‘I didn’t realize it was you guys who did Rockin’ Into the Night!’ Yeah, we were that desperate in 1979!
“We also put a medley together of secondary songs from movies, like Teacher, Teacher (1984). We want to make sure people hear their favorite songs, like Back to Paradise, from Revenge of the Nerds II (1987). I tell people, ‘Kind of a sucky movie, but a great song.’” (laughs heartily)
38 Special is a band that has a deeper history than many might think.
“We were inducted the Georgia Music Hall of Fame [in 2012], which was real nice. I hadn’t seen [producer] Rodney Mills in 25 years, and he gave a speech where he said, ‘Can you believe those little songs we cobbled together all those years ago are still played all across the country every day?’
“You see on Twitter where these radio stations will Tweet out, ‘Coming up this hour: The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and 38 Special.’ We’re so thankful. We had no idea we’d get to that level. We were just trying to survive.”
38 Special, 9 p.m., March 11 at Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon, 800-252-4499; www.morongocasinoresort.com
Like what you're reading? Then "Like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter.