Posted on May 29, 2007

Drivin' Sideways - The Band, Not the Cars

by Chris Campbell About The Author	Email   Print

NASCAR & music have been synonymous for about a decade. We now have some of the top artists singing the National Anthem each race, and some even perform concerts before and after the race. Over the past few years, record labels have even sponsored some of the cars and every fall we now have the Chevrolet Rock N Roll race at Richmond. It has evolved from being country music to being a wide variety of music associated with racing. A limited number of artists specialize in writing and performing music about racing.

One such band is Drivin’ Sideways that was formed officially in 1997. Many Dale Earnhardt fans know the song “The Intimidator”, which was actually written when Dale was alive. Dale heard the song and gave his approval to the band members. I had an opportunity to interview one of those band members awhile back. I would like to share with all the race fans my interview with Paul Abraham. I think you will find his history quite fascinating.

CC:  Paul, tell the readers whom you worked with and the positions you had?

PA:  I started in the music business as a promoter in a small college town in Mississippi. We promoted Lynyrd Skynyrd when they first hit with Sweet Home Alabama. We hired them for $3,000. Over time, we had performances from Wet Willie, Freddie King, and other various blues artists. We never did any country. I worked with Skynyrd from 1987 to 1997; during this time, I also did some one/off tours with 38 Special, Marshall Tucker Band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Outlaws, Barefoot Servants, Bad Company (studio), and Paul Rodgers.

After leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd, I worked for a country artist named Michael Peterson. He had a couple of charting hits. I only stayed with him 9 months. Good guy, though. I then was hired by Billy Ray Cyrus and stayed with him 5 years. All of the jobs I had were as the tour manager. He’s the guy that catches hell if everything isn’t right, and never receives the accolades if nothing goes wrong. Working with Billy Ray Cyrus was by far the best tour I ever was a part of. Billy was 100 times easier to deal with than the Skynyrd guys were. In addition, Billy’s band, Sly Dog, was and still is the best group of people I've ever known in the music business. We had a blast every day. There was no drama, no soap operas, no fighting, like it was in Skynyrd. Hell, with Skynyrd, I got in the middle of a "domestic" quarrel between the lead singer and his wife when we were in Paris, France. I jacked him right between the eyes and gave him an uppercut to the ribs. The quarrel ended then and there. I even got a bonus from the band. Johnny and I eventually made up.

CC: What years were you with Skynyrd and the others?

PA:  Skynyrd 87-97, Driving Sideways 1997 – now, Michael Peterson – 1998, and Billy Ray Cyrus - 1999-2004.

CC: When was Drivin' Sideways was formed? Who was in the band and songwriters?

PA:  We formed Sideways in 1997, officially. That's when the CD was released. Mike Estes and I were the principal songwriters on 6 of the tracks, since we dreamed the whole deal up, and the fact the we were and still are neighbors. His wife Debbie was a backup vocalist with Skynyrd and Mike played guitar for them and helped write some Skynyrd songs. Bird, the bass player wrote “Asphalt Angels”, which is a great song. Jim Jenness played drums and co-wrote “Nascar Diehards”. Jim was also a great vocalist and can be heard singing background on most of the Sideways songs. Point of fact, Jim is married to the widow of Ronnie Van Zant, Judy. Randy Peak, from Cincinnati, played with Mike in a band called Helen Highwater. He is a phenomenal slide guitar player as can be witnessed on “Yellow Flag Blues”. He co-wrote “Racetrack Romance” with Mike and Ed King, who is the co-writer of “Sweet Home Alabama”. Ed also co-wrote “Incense and Peppermints” and played with the 60's psychedelic band Strawberry Alarm Clock. Ed plays an excellent guitar solo on “Ballad of Jr. Johnson”.

CC:  Well since we know that racing is what Drivin’ Sideways was based upon, what are some of the tracks you performed at?

PA: Drivin' Sideways played at Charlotte outside the track on race day, in the Speedway Club, at the start/finish line, and at several clubs in the area. The band played at Atlanta for pre-race and at the Champions Breakfast when Terry Labonte won his last championship. It was a very cold morning after the Sunday race. We met a ton of folks that day, but the true highlight was meeting Franco Harris, the immaculate receiver.

The band played at an inaugural event called The Driver's Gala  at the Texas Motor Speedway. That night Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace got on the stage to talk with the guys after the show. Pretty cool stuff.

The band also played at Bristol for several race week activities, Michigan Int'l Speedway in the infield, at Talladega in the Hall of Fame building, and at a local park to celebrate the induction of Ned and Dale Jarrett to the Alabama Motorsports Hall of Fame. There were other gigs, but I'm old and can't remember them all. <laughs>

CC:  Keeping on the racing theme, whos' louder -- cars at 180+ mph or Skynyrd?

PA:  I usually stood behind the amp line with Skynyrd. Occasionally, I would have to get down in the camera pit to relieve some overzealous security dude of his duties. I don't see how they stood it even with earplugs. Forty-three cars at Bristol are absolutely deafening. You find yourself wishing for the next yellow flag. To answer your question, NASCAR is by far louder than Skynyrd at any speed.

CC:  Who has the more fanatic diehard fans? Rock groups or NASCAR?

PA:  NASCAR by far. Have you ever spent the night in the infield at Dega or Charlotte? It is nuts!

CC: Did Drivin' Sideways get any fan feedback on the song "The Intimidator" after his death? What were the reasons behind almost pulling the song?

PA:  Most people thanked us for writing the song BEFORE he died. I'm happy to say that Earnhardt himself gave us glowing approval for the song. I gave him a copy of the original demo. To tell the truth, the sales for the entire CD picked up immediately after he died, and I felt kind of funny about that and didn't want to cash in on his death. His death hurt me terribly. I'm a friend of Danny “Chocolate” Myers (gas man for Earnhardt), and I called his wife Caron after the 01' Daytona 500 to find out if she had heard anything after the race. She told me no, but that she would call me as soon as she knew anything. It was literally 5 minutes later, and probably 2 hours before the rest of the world knew. I was devastated.

CC:  What do you feel about music and NASCAR having more of a relationship? (Fox's montages, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and other drivers plugging more artists)

PA:  It's something we knew was coming back when we first put the band together. Moreover, we wanted to be the first band to come out exclusively with racing songs...and we were...but soon were followed by the hordes of others out there. We were approached by a producer that was putting a band together for Winston, but they wanted all of our publishing and writers rights...we declined.

CC:  I am interested in how rock stars or other music stars reactions to meeting the drivers. Do the musicians act like fans, or are they "oh it's just another famous person?"

PA: It's a pretty mutual deal. When I took Skynyrd to Atlanta to the '96 spring race, J.R. Rhodes, Earnhardt's P.R. guy, told me Dale wanted to meet them, but they were introducing the Silver Monte Carlo for The Winston that day. We left the track thinking we had been dissed by The Man, but when we walked thru the Garage Area the next morning, J.R. came running up and told us that Earnhardt wanted to see us NOW! The guys (and me) were escorted to his hauler and were given the royal treatment. Funny story...Earnhardt asked if we wanted to get a picture with him..., which of course we did. As we were walking out the side door of the hauler, our drummer, Owen Hale, said to Dale, "Why don't you come out and jam with us sometime?" His reply was...."If anybody gets in my way today, I'm gonna jam that racecar up their ass." By the way,...he did win that race. All the drivers we met that day had their own Skynyrd stories to tell...and from that day forward, the Skynyrd boys were race fans.

CC: What's your favorite track to perform at and why?

PA:  It has to be Charlotte Motor Speedway. Speedway Children's Charities was headquartered there, and the folks that ran that charity were especially kind to us. General Sadler, Debbie, Skinny Kenny, the John Boy and Billy gang, Sam Bass, even Bruton Smith and Humpy Wheeler let us know how much they appreciated us. Everyone there loved us and we loved them too.

CC:  What's your favorite memory of the late great Dale Earnhardt?

PA:  My favorite race memory was the 98 Daytona 500. My favorite personal memory was the last time I saw him in person. Billy Ray Cyrus and I had gone to the last race of the Century in Atlanta. The race was rained out on Sunday and they did an impromptu tribute to DW in the Media Center. I had BRC pose with Dale Earnhardt and I took a picture of them together. As Dale walked past me, he said, “Hey, you're Chocolate's brother.” (That’s how Chocolate introduced me to him years before). I laughed, slapped him on his back, and said Good Luck, Dale. That was the last time I ever saw him, and the memory will be there forever.

CC:  Is there a driver that is better or as good as their "on-track" persona, and which drivers, if any, are worse?

PA:  As well I as I can remember, they are all different animals on the track than when they are off. Most of the drivers are quite personable before the race, which is the only time I've ever had the opportunity to "hang out". That's a hard question.

Now if you had asked which ones are the craziest -- we were asked to attend the driver's meeting that day in Atlanta and Kyle Petty was wearing these funky looking teeth and making everybody crack up, even Mike Helton was laughing, if you can imagine that. Kenny Wallace has to be the craziest of them all. The Labonte brothers were quiet, but very friendly to us. Jeff Gordon was not sure who Lynyrd Skynyrd was. Ward Burton was totally in awe that he had met the boys.

CC:  On a personal level, you said you wanted to see Dale Jr. drive the #3. Why is that?

PA:  I think it will happen one of these days and I feel like it's the only possibility of us ever seeing that car on the track again. It would be huge. Some people say it may be too big a pair of shoes for Junior to fill, but he's already under enormous pressure to be the driver his dad was. That may never happen, but who knows?

I hope you enjoyed my interview with Paul Abraham. He has led quite a life and has many stories about his life on the road. He is now busy with his real estate business, and still goes on the road occasionally. If you are interested in hearing more of Drivin’ Sideways music, you can download the cd from iTunes or from Paul’s myspace page. Remember each cd sold a portion of the sale goes to Speedway Charities. You can visit Paul’s myspace site Drivin' Sideways and his Infield Parking site Drivin' Sideways at Infield Parking for more information.

You can contact Chris at foreverafan3n8@aol.com

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