Lynyrd Skynyrd members discuss band's past and future in new episode of AXS TV's “The Big Interview”

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News & Guts/AXS TVCore Lynyrd Skynyrd members Gary Rossington, Johnny Van Zant and Rickey Medlocke are featured on the latest episode of the AXS TV series The Big Interview, which premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. The veteran Southern rockers chat with host Dan Rather about the group’s late original frontman Ronnie Van Zant, their current farewell tour and more.

In a preview clip from the show, Rossington — the band’s last surviving founding member — talks about Ronnie’s talent for writing memorable songs.

“He came out with stuff because he felt it so much from his heart, and it just came through him…through God or through whatever spirit it is that makes people write songs,” says Gary.  “[T]hey would come to him, and they were magical. You know, if he couldn’t…remember ’em, he wouldn’t write it. It…had to be good enough to remember, and most of ’em are.”

In another segment from the program, Rossington reveals that the band’s “Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour,” which launched in May and currently is scheduled through a December 8 show in Biloxi, Mississippi, might take a few years to complete.

“It takes a long time to finish a farewell tour when you’re like us, ’cause we’ve played everywhere and there’s thousands of venues,” Gary maintains. “So I keep jokin’ it’d take 10 years to do the farewell tour.”

Rossington also reports that the band is planning to record a new album after the tour ends.

Other topics covered in the episode include Johnny Van Zant taking over as the group’s lead singer when it re-formed about 10 years after his brother’s death in the infamous 1977 plane crash, and the band’s commitment to continue on event though nearly all of its founding members have passed away.

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