38 Special with special guest The Summit

50 years together. 20 million albums sold. More than 15 albums of guitar-driven southern rock, stacked high with hits like “Hold On Loosely,” “Caught Up In You,” “If I’d Been The One,” “Back Where You Belong,” and “Second Chance.” 38 Special is proof that there’s strength in numbers.

Formed in 1974, the band toured tirelessly from the start, sharpening the explosive live show that's been 38 Special's calling card for a half-century. Along the way, the Florida natives fine-tuned their sound too: a blend of muscle and melody, filled with the arena-rock pop hooks that would soon become staples of FM radio. Years passed… trends changed… some band members retired from the rigors… but 38 Special remained, hitting the road year after year, flying the flag for an enduring form of classic rock & roll that never dies.

As 38 Special enters its sixth decade together, the music continues with Milestone. It's the band's first studio album in more than 20 years, and it showcases a group of road warriors with plenty of miles left in the tank. Fueled up on snarling guitars, anthemic melodies, and the desire to break new ground, they update their sound for the 2020s, bridging the gap between past and present without forgetting their rock & roll roots.

"After all this time, we wanted to create a more modern 38 Special album," says frontman and co-founder Don Barnes. "This is a fresh, updated approach to the sound we've been making together for so long. Why not make a big statement after all these years? When you're reintroducing yourself to the world, 'good enough' doesn't work anymore. If you're gonna do it, you might as well go big."

Go big, indeed. Milestone opens with the larger-than-life roar of Barnes' voice, delivering a line that might as well be the band's mission statement — "Don't wanna ever slow down!" — over amplified guitars and a booming backbeat. The song itself is called "So Much So Right," and it's a kinetic, riff-heavy anthem that splits the difference between Robert Palmer's aggressive stomp and modern rock's heavy swagger.

"We've had people say, 'Oh, those guys are still around?" Barnes says. "We still hit 100 cities every year and we bring a high-energy party to the people every time we're onstage. We don't phone it in. We don’t slack up, we stack up. That song is for anyone who thinks we're too old to keep doing this. It'll completely change their perspective."

The highlights don't stop there. On the jangling lead single "All I Haven't Said," 38 Special nods to the melody-driven bands that came before them. "That's my throwback to the '60s, inspired by bands like the Searchers," says Barnes. "I've always loved that jangling guitar sound and what's old is new again. We just inject more power guitars to it. About a year ago, I was playing some chords while my wife Christine was in the kitchen. She has a musical ear and out of the clear blue she said, 'That sounds like it should be called 'All I Haven't Said.' I was floored! The most perfect title matching what the chords were conveying. She helped craft some lyrics and a storyline and has a songwriting credit on it."

On "Slightly Controversial," Barnes splits vocal duties with Train frontman Pat Monahan, a longtime fan of the band, with his own cover of "Hold On Loosely" (recording alongside Joe Bonamassa to boot). Says Barnes, “I had reached out to Pat’s manager after hearing his rendition of ‘Hold On Loosely’ and invited him to sing with me on this real banger of a song. He was so gracious to accept, and we became quick friends. He brought a great vibe to the song and we plan on co-writing in the future. Funny how things work out like that.”

Randy Bachman, co-founder of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive, shows up as a co-writer with Barnes on the socially-conscious track "Long Long Train.” 38’s drummer Gary Moffatt and lead guitarist Jerry Riggs help drive "The Main Thing" forward at highway speed. These songs were all recorded during brief breaks in 38 Special's touring schedule — an itinerary that's kept Barnes, Riggs, Moffatt, keyboardist Bobby Capps and bassist Barry Dunaway busy for decades — and you can hear the energy of those live shows bleed into the studio recordings themselves.

To revisit — and reimagine — the tightly-constructed sound that turned 38 Special into platinum-selling artists, the band turned to an old friend. Decades earlier, they'd struck up a partnership with Jim Peterik, founder of the band Survivor. Sitting around his kitchen table in 1980, Barnes and Peterik co-wrote "Hold On Loosely" with 38 Special's original guitarist Jeff Carlisi. One year later the same trio wrote "Caught Up In You." Those songs became defining songs not only of a decade, but of an entire genre, and Milestone gave the band a chance to work with Peterik once again.

"Jim is such a brilliant musician," Barnes says. "He wrote 'Eye Of The Tiger,’ 'Heavy Metal' for Sammy Hagar, and all of the Survivor hits. He literally wrote the book on songwriting; it's called Songwriting For Dummies. He’s been my co-writer brother for decades and is a lifelong friend.”

In April 2024, while finishing a handful of new songs in celebration of 38 Special's fiftieth anniversary, Barnes found himself riding an unexpected wave of inspiration. "The ideas just kept coming," he remembers. "I started flying up to Jim's house in Chicago, bringing him these half-finished songs that I'd sketched out. We'd finish them together, record a rough version on a micro-cassette and then I'd fly home to Atlanta for a few days. Then I'd go back on the road with the band. Trying to spread all of that work into a touring schedule of 100 cities was a daunting task. It's been 50 years, though, and we're still vibrant. We had a whole new stage set designed during that time as well. We continue to play sold-out shows everywhere and we still leave them breathless. It was tough going but given that this was a big anniversary for the band, I knew that I needed to meet the moment."

Between their cross-country tour dates, 38 Special began recording Milestone at the Atlanta-area studio of Will Turpin, longtime bassist for Collective Soul. They worked quickly, all five musicians playing together in real time, capturing each song in a series of live-in-the-studio performances. Overdubs took place at Peterik's home studio — "I'd be singing final harmonies in the vocal booth with a car and driver outside waiting to take me to the airport so I could fly to another show," Barnes remembers — and mixing was completed by Johnny K, the hard-rock legend behind albums by Disturbed, Plain White T's, and Megadeth.

Milestone's on-the-fly recording schedule was a new experience for 38 Special. "The process used to be you'd go into the recording studio, punch the clock, record songs for 12 hours, play some ping pong, then go back to the hotel around the corner," says Barnes. "You'd do that every day for a month or two, then the album would be finished and you'd go home.”

“This was a whole different experience because I had to plan it out in phases — probably 10 different phases of recording while roadwork continued all over the country. But as the process began to move along, we realized that we could really make a statement with this album and it grew more exciting, so we wanted to put in the work.”

Barnes has been putting in the work ever since he formed 38 Special in Jacksonville, Florida, joining forces with co-founder Donnie Van Zant — the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant — as well a talented vocalist who left 38 special's lineup in 2013 due to inner-ear nerve damage. The group had dedicated themselves to the long, steady climb from small clubs to big arenas. "We had rehearsals every night, working for four hours after our day jobs were done," he recalls. "We sacrificed everything: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. We felt like we had to be five steps ahead of ourselves. We were fiercely committed." Years later that dedicated spirit is alive and well on Milestone, but Barnes isn't looking to repeat himself. Instead, he's turning a page.

“I’ll always respect and revere the original guys in this band,” he says. “We went through hell together. We suffered, starved and ultimately triumphed. We risked it all, rolled the dice with nothing to fall back on and ended up rocking arenas around the world. Through the bleakest of times, all we had was each other. We were our own support group. Let me tell you, those guys are the finest people I could’ve gone through my youth with and we’re still friends. In my mind, they are legends and kings. We love each other and stay in touch. And we all can’t believe that it’s been 50 years!”

“Now, I have to say…some of the ‘new’ members have been here over 30 years and they are my brothers, too. We've built our mission out of sheer stamina and fortitude — and after all this time together, we've learned that if we're gonna do something, we should fiercely go at it and do it the best we possibly can. That's why we worked so hard on Milestone. It’s paying respect to that history. Every song is diverse. We have in-your-face rockers and introspective moments. We go back and forth, over and over. It's a great ride."

Can you blame 38 Special for taking a quick look behind them, reflecting upon 50 years of hits, highways, and battle-tested brotherhood? If anyone's earned the right to reflect, it's them. With Milestone, though, Barnes and company keep their eyes glued to the horizon ahead of them. The ride isn't over.