In their family’s Jacksonville home, growing up Johnny Van Zant shared a bedroom and bunkbeds with his older brother Ronnie Van Zant. When Ronnie’s band, which became the Southern rock juggernaut Lynyrd Skynyrd, rehearsed early on in Ronnie and Johnny’s parents’ living room, “I was just a little kid running around getting in the way,” Johnny recalls now with a warm laugh.

“I never thought I’d be in Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Johnny tells me over the phone on a recent morning. “I never wanted to be in Lynyrd Skynyrd – you know, I was just a fan of Skynyrd.”

Johnny may not have sought out this role, but it’s one he was destined to play.

Ronnie, a charismatic frontman and brilliantly unpretentious lyricist, and other members of Lynyrd Skynyrd died in the tragic 1977 plane crash that killed several members of the band, known for hits like “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Ten years later, when surviving members of Skynyrd reunited for a highly successful tour, it was with Johnny at the mic.

Ronnie’s boots are impossible to fill. Period. But Johnny, a swaggering and talented rock singer in his own right, has done his brother proud. And he continues to do that.

On New Year’s Eve, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s current lineup – Johnny, guitarists Rickey Medlocke, Damon Johnson and Mark “Sparky” Matjka, drummer Michael Cartellone, keyboardist Peter Keys and bassist Keith Christopher – performed live on CBS’s NYE telecast. With a big crowd there in Nashville and millions of TV viewers watching, the band crushed it.

Gary Rossington, the guitar hero and last of the band’s classic era members, died in May 2023 at age 71. Still, the current version of the band sure feels and sounds like Skynyrd. Or at least damn close to it.

Johnny attributes this lineup’s faithful powerful sound to chemistry and bonds beyond music.

“We’ve kept it to people that love the music and cherish the music,” he says. “It’s not just players that you hire on, and they’re just playing it to be playing it. This is family, and we’ve always kept it that way.

“When Gary got sick and he couldn’t perform, me and Rickey both said, ‘Hey, how about Damon Johnson?’ He’s an Alabama boy, and we’ve known Damon for years, with Brother Cane his own band and he had worked with Alice Cooper and Thin Lizzy. Just a fantastic guy, a great human being and a hell of a player. Damon really did his homework.”

For Johnson, who first began playing with Skynyrd in 2021 as a fill-in for Rossington, the gig is literally a dream come true.

Johnson says, “For a kid from DeKalb County, Alabama, to grow up on that music as if it were gospel music, to be playing those songs and playing with these great musicians, it’s kind of hard to describe.”

Actually, it’s a dream come true twice. Johnson’s all-time favorite bands are Lynyrd Skynyrd and Thin Lizzy. He’s now been a member of both.

One of the most talented hard-rock guitarists to emerge in the ‘90s, as heard on Brother Cane hits like “Got No Shame” and “And Fools Shine On,” Johnson’s a perfect fit for Skynyrd. The guy has feel, taste and chops for days. Plus, he’s a total pro with the humility and experience (see the Cooper and Lizzy stints) crucial to inhabiting classic songs on big stages.

“And you know, the heaviest thing of all is just having Gary’s blessing,” Johnson says, checking in via phone from his Nashville area home. “Having Gary say, ‘I’m totally comfortable with him standing in that spot and playing my parts.’”

Lynyrd Skynyrd had witnessed Johnson’s ability up-close plenty of time. Between ‘93 and ‘94, Brother Cane opened around 40 shows for Skynyrd.

“We played a ton of amphitheaters, handful of arenas and it was great experience for us, obviously,” Johnson says. “That was how I got to know Johnny and Gary. Two years after that, Medlocke [who prior to joining Lynyrd Skynyrd, excelled with his own Southern rock band, Blackfoot] came into Skynyrd. Ironically, I remember Rickey calling me the week Gary and Johnny invited him to join the band.”

In 2021, Rossington, who’d dealt with heart health issues for years, was dealing with those challenges again. But he wanted the rest of the band to continue touring.

It was Medlocke who called Johnson on the phone to first broach the subject of him filling-in. They shortly after that, Johnny got on the call too. The three of them spoke for about an hour.

“I kind of just came straight-in and started playing because Gary was at home recovering,” Johnson says. “And then he got his strength back enough he came out on the road, and he’d play the last three songs [of the set each concert], which was so special.”

When Skynyrd got together in Nashville for rehearsals in 2022, Rossington was there. Initially the plan for that year’s tour was for Johnson to play the first half of the set, and then Rossington would take over for second half.

The band ran through the entire set onstage. During a break, Johnson was walking over to the catering table to get a sandwich when Rossington walked over.

“And he said,” Johnson recalls, “‘Listen, you’re a part of this thing now. I want you to stay up there with us, even when I come up.’ Just crazy cool.”

A three-guitar attack is a signature part of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s sound. Johnson thought four electric guitarists wailing onstage might be pushing it though. He suggested during the part of set Rossington was onstage that Johnson play acoustic guitar, since many Skynyrd recordings have an acoustic in the mix as a bed track, holding down a percussive rhythm.

“And he loved it,” Johnson says.

Even as a lifelong fan, going back to being a teenager listening to Skynyrd albums on vinyl and moving the turntable needle back again and again to learn the songs, Johnson didn’t fully realize Rossington’s greatness until he stepped inside all those parts in detail.

On songs like the sidewinding “Workin’ For MCA,” which Skynyrd opens each show with. Then there’s Rossington’s lyrical slide-guitar playing, on tracks like “The Ballad of Curtis Lowe,” “Free Bird” and “Tuesday’s Gone.”

“Gary was a great foil for Ronnie’s love of country music and blues music,” Johnson says. “There is this bluesy, almost gospel-tinged component to his melodies and the simplicity of some of the parts he would create. You sing that solo at the beginning of ‘Tuesday’s Gone.’ You can sing that beautiful melody at the start of ‘Free Bird.’ It’s iconic.

“And Gary just sat in a room and came up with that, man. He pulled that out of thin air. He could turn up the fire and dig in and get aggressive and have fun and play what some people later called Southern rock boogie. He epitomized that as well. But you’d be hard pressed to name any single guitar player that was more melodic and soulful in their note choice and in their phrasing than what Gary was.”

One of Rossington’s biggest guitar influences was Paul Kossoff of the British band Free, known for their 1970 hit “All Right Now.” Free’s singer, Paul Rodgers, later of hit-makers Bad Company, was one of Ronnie Van Zant’s primary touchstones. Rodgers is also a huge influence on Johnny Van Zant, who’s also been inspired by singers ranging from Foreigner’s Lou Gramm to R&B genius Ray Charles to Southern rock deity Gregg Allman.

Guitar-wise with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnson brought some of his personal talismans on the road.

There’s his vintage wine-red Les Paul, nicknamed “Gertrude,” that he used on many now-classic Brother Cane recordings. A friend who’s an airline pilot lent Johnson a reproduction of Rossington’s vintage Gibson SG guitar to use with Skynyrd.

Onstage, Johnson is using Rossington’s former amplifier rig, which includes a Peavey and a Magnatone, the latter of which ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons introduced Rossington to.

Of course, this being the social media age, not everyone appreciates the love, skill and oomph Skynyrd’s current lineup puts into the band’s classic songs.

Johnson says, “You know, you’re never going to stop the naysayers and keyboard cowboys from just popping off. But they’re so busy being negative that they’re not listening. They haven’t come to the see the band. And for people that are real fans — and there are millions of diehard Lynyrd Skynyrd fans — most of those people are so thrilled, appreciative, grateful that the music carries on.

“That was essentially the last thing Gary Rossington ever said to me. Gary said to me on the phone, ‘Damon, these songs are bigger than me. They’re bigger than Ronnie. I’ve just been so fortunate to get to play the songs my entire life. And now this group of musicians who are family are going to carry it forward.’ What’s heavier than that, man?”

As Johnny Van Zant puts it, “There’s not a time that I go onstage and don’t go, ‘OK, brother, be with me — and let’s go out and kick some butt.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top will perform at Von Braun Center’s Propst Arena in Huntsville on Saturday. The show starts at 7 p.m. and tickets start at $36 plus applicable fees via ticketmaster.com and the VBC Box Office, address 700 Monroe St. And yes, for University of Alabama basketball fans, the Tide’s Final Four game versus the University of Connecticut will be show on screens in the VBC’s concourse, and, during intermission, the big screen inside the arena.

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