During a recent appearance on Ted Nugent’s Spirit Campfire, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Rickey Medlocke commented on the state of the live music industry, specifically sharing that he believes fewer and fewer bands and artists are actually playing their instruments during live performances.
“You [Ted Nugent], and I, and a select few others are probably the only ones that go out there every night and actually play our instruments,” Medlocke told Nugent. “We use no pre-recorded stuff, and I know that it’s necessary sometimes for a lot of reasons for some people.
“But for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and for Ted Nugent, and a select few of others, we go out there and we actually play our instruments. We live and breathe what we do.”
Medlocke’s comments come amid a growing debate within the rock music community about the authenticity of live performances and the use of backing tracks.
Recently, Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson slammed the use of pre-recorded instrumentation.
“That’s the day I quit,” Dickinson said of using backing tracks in a recent interview with Classic Rock. “Or the day we stop. If it’s not real, it’s not Maiden. The idea that you can turn it into the Disneyland Maiden, by using backing tracks, a few tricks…. No! Maiden has to be one hundred per cent real — and f*cking fierce!”
“We still play all the songs in the original key. We don’t detune. We don’t do anything like that on any of the songs,” Dickinson told the ‘Rich Roll’ podcast in a separate interview earlier this year. “We’re not gonna [use backing tracks] because it’s not authentic. It’s not real… If I can’t do it the way I should be doing it, I shouldn’t be doing it at all.”
