Van Zant - Dueling Microphones! Page 3
by Martin Popoff

Lead single off the album is energetic blues scorcher Get What You Got Comin', but lead track Oklahoma has a particularly warm place in Donnie's heart. "Man, I just keep my eyes and ears open to what's happening around the world. Oklahoma is basically about the devastation the Oklahoma people have been through, with tornadoes, the bombing, everything, and it just amazed us the strength people had, and the way they pulled together to help each other out. It wasn't about being heroes, it was just about helping each other. It was just brothers and sisters."

I asked Johnny to imagine that this was his album alone. How would it differ?

"I don't know, without really doing it. The last solo project I did was Brickyard Road. If you listen to songs like 'Is It For Real' on this one, I don't think I would have brought something like that to the party. And I sung 'Heart Of An Angel', but hell, it felt like I wrote that. That is something I would have written. The only problem is, I didn't (laughs). I wrote 'Alive', which is really different. If you go back and listen to 'Brickyard Road', I like those moody kinds of things and things that I think can touch people's hearts. That's what I really like getting involved with. Then again, we just had such a great time doing it, we don't really think about it. We've kind of got the luxury of not thinking about a style. I mean, if you listen to 'Wildside', I'm sure people are going to go, 'what the hell are you guys doing?!' But then if you listen to 'Get What You Got Comin'' you go, 'OK, that's them.' Generally, it has a little Skynyrd to it, a little 38 Special to it, but with some outside writers as well."

Van Zant - Dueling Microphones! Page 4