Gary Rossington

“We started playing 'Free Bird' in clubs, and initially, it was just a slow ballad.”

“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.”

“I think we're a working man's band.”

“I'm feeling real good and trying to take care of myself and living healthy. As good as I can feel.”

“We keep our music simple, no big gimmicks. We tell stories people can relate to, not hard to understand.”

“I've had some heart problems, and I'm on the straight and narrow.”

“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 didn't have much money when I was younger, so I had to collect Coke bottles and cash them in and get a paper route to afford a guitar. That guitar from Sears came with a case and an amp and everything all in one. It was really cool.”

“I just take every day on faith.”

“We're a rock n' roll band. We're more music and rock n' roll than politics.”

“Old-school rock bands, and blues bands, too, are kind of a dying breed.”

“I think that 'God & Guns' turned out a little more 'country' than we wanted it to be.”

“The first time we ever used the Dixie flag for our backdrop was actually when we went over to Europe in 1970. It looked good, so we all liked it. We never meant any racial things by it.”

“We loved Neil Young and all the music he's given the world.”

“I've always heard that the reason you fall is to get back up and keep going. So when that happens, or life throws you bad breaks or curves or deals you the wrong hand, all I've ever known is to keep going.”

“To see fans singing our songs and loving them and dancing or crying to some of them, it feels like the first time you ever played it. It really gets to you, like day one.”

“We were kinda rebels. From the wrong side of the tracks. Down where we were raised, it was a tough town.”

“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.”

“I did get in a car wreck, but we got a good song out of it.”