Gary Rossington

Nothing in the past is as important as the future.

Buffalo Springfield had three guitar players, and we thought they were so cool. So we started doing the three-guitar thing, and people started calling us the 'guitar army' and all this stuff.

We travel all over the world, and it seems like the South is the place where the people are nicest and they think of the fellow man more.

If Marilyn Manson would write a song that says, 'Do your damn homework,' it would make the world a better place, and it wouldn't hurt him at all. And if he doesn't like it, to hell with him. He can come fight us - by the bicycle racks.

We know what the Dixie flag represents and its heritage; the Civil War was fought over States rights.

Jacksonville back in the 1960s was kind of a redneck town. There were only two or three places where you could play our kind of hard rock - or 'hippie music' as it was called back then. You had to go to Georgia or some place else.

Our redneck reputation back then was originally just because we had long hair. Back in the '60s and the early '70s, in the South that was kind of a no-no. At all the Army and Navy bases we'd play, we would get into fights with the soldiers over our hair. But I think our music overshadowed everything else.

We used to travel through Alabama a lot and get onto back roads and just marvel at how pretty it was and how nice the people were.

It's really weird when we're out of the country, whether we're in Brazil or Greece or some crazy place like France or Germany. When you hear your song on the radio or in a store, and you're in a different country, it's really freaky and surreal.

Everybody's got a right to their own opinion, you know?

I could write a dozen different songs with the same three or four chords, but they'd all be entirely different.

Our parents helped us, or we wouldn't be here. Lacy Van Zant and my mother used to sign for amps or loan us money to get to the gig or take us in their car. It's just like little sports guys - Little League and football players - whose parents help them. That's why they get good.