38 Special will release their first album in more than 20 years later this summer.
Milestone arrives on Sept. 19 and marks the Jacksonville, Florida-based Southern rock band’s first studio LP since 2004’s Drivetrain.
The band celebrated its 50th anniversary last year; cofounder Don Barnes said the upcoming album is both an extension of the music they started playing in 1974 and a step into the future.
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“This is a fresh, updated approach to the sound we’ve been making together for so long,” he noted in a press release announcing the album. “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.”
You can watch the video for the first single from Milestone, the midtempo “All I Haven’t Said,” below.
The album features guest performances and cowrites with Randy Bachman, Train‘s Pat Monahan and Jim Peterik, the founder of Survivor and producer of 38 Special’s new album. Peterik is a longtime collaborator of the band, having cowritten the band’s 1980 breakthrough hit, “Rockin’ Into the Night.”
What Has 38 Special Been Up To?
38 Special was formed in 1974 by Barnes and Donnie Van Zant, the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s Ronnie Van Zant. The band reached its commercial peak in 1982 with the Top 10 hit “Caught Up in You”; in 1989, they hit No. 6 with “Second Chance.”
Their 1982 album, Special Forces, made the Top 10. They released a dozen records over the years, including a holiday album, before Drivetrain arrived in 2004. (Peterik cowrote eight of that album’s 12 songs.)
Since then, 38 Special has been a busy live band, playing shows with Lynyrd Skynyrd, REO Speedwagon and Styx over the years. Van Zant left the group due to health issues in 2013, leaving Barnes as the only original member today. (Van Zant released an album with his brother, Johnny Van Zant, titled Always Look Up in November 2024.)
“Some of the ‘new’ members have been here over 30 years, and they are my brothers, too,” noted Barnes. “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.”
38 Special has recently been on the road as part of a joint tour with Kansas and Jefferson Starship.
“We’ve had people say, ‘Oh, those guys are still around?'” Barnes said. “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.”
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
