It’s an overwhelming process. I’m a drummer in a rock band that runs bulldozers and flies airplanes. So I had no idea what it would be to put a movie together. It’s an incredible process, I must say.
So there’s a lot of relief to have it finished, because it’s been a hard-fought battle. We had a very small budget, and when I say small, I think it was about a million-and-a-half dollars to do a movie.
It’s a movie about something that really happened, so it’s not just some frivolous flick that we put together. I feel that Lynyrd Skynyrd fans have been wanting to know what happened that fateful day and that night for a long time,
and I felt like they deserved to get that story., even though it’s tragic and even though it’s intense. Because of today’s technology and the CGI special effects, when we’re coming into those trees and we’re crashing,
it looks and feels real. I’ve seen the movie 11 times, and I cry every time. I have the full gambit of emotions, everything: I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m relieved and I’m a little mad.
We were sued by a bunch of blood-sucking weasel attorneys the entire time that we were trying to do the movie. I’m talking about $1,000-an-hour basically criminals that would sue their own mothers who were coming coming after me and Cleopatra films.
Enough credit cannot be given to Cleopatra, for hanging in there against Judy Van Zant and her ill-gotten millions that she uses to try to destroy everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd.
She never mourned Ronnie Van Zant’s death. She celebrated it, and she hit the lottery. Ronnie was going to divorce her, but the divorce papers never got served.
When Ronnie was killed, Judy became an instant billionaire. I asked them all to come to the table, but they chose to try to diminish my role in the band.
And all the money that they and their management company and their damn lawyers stick in their bank accounts? Well, that money was earned by me and the rest of the band, working hard.
So they’re living the high life and they’ve stolen everything I’ve ever worked for. But I’m not about just money, I’m about the music, I’m about my children.
My sons, they wrote music for the movie. My band, APB, wrote what I think is a bona fide Southern rock hit for the movie – the title track, “Street Survivors.
” And we play Lynyrd Skynyrd music better than any band in the world. So I’m very proud of everybody involved in this movie, especially the young actors and actresses that portrayed us on the screen.
It may sound like I’m bitter; I’m not bitter. I’d like to give all of them a piece of my mind for being so damn greedy. I love [founding Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist] Gary Rossington, and at one point Judy and I were friends.
But they chose to stab me in the back repeatedly, and it really hurt my feelings. I wanted them to come to the table and make a more broad spectrum of a movie.
But because of their frivolous, greedy lawsuits with their asshole attorneys, we ending up having to focus the movie on my story. I’m a pilot.
My father was killed in a plane crash; all of my friends have died in plane crashes. I’ve been in three airplane crashes. So I thought I was qualified to tell the story.
I had [a crash] when I was young with my uncle, and then I had one in the Marine Corps on a search-and-rescue mission for a downed pilot, an air mishap with a helicopter.
I just felt that I had a wealth of knowledge for this. Judy lied to all the estates and said that I was going to make a horrible, nasty, cheap film.
We didn’t have a big budget, but I think that Cleopatra, and all the actors and actresses, and the lawyers that defended us against Judy and her weasels, I felt like we prevailed.
And now Skynyrd fans will be able to see a story that they’ve been wondering about probably for years. Skynyrd fans – and I’m not trying to be facetious – are not getting younger,
and I wanted them to hear the story. The movie – there’s some funny parts, there’s some humor. There’s some parts in the movie that are not all that dark.
The main thing was greed. Judy Van Zant wants all the money and all the control. She never really did anything for Lynyrd Skynyrd as a band.
She did what thousands of girls would have done for Ronnie Van Zant, but she didn’t do anything for Lynyrd Skynyrd – except give us a black eye over the years and basically leave me for dead, because she wants all the control and all the money, which she does not deserve.
Three judges ruled unanimously that I had the right to tell my story. Judy lied to a judge a year ago and got this consent order, and she said that I was violating it – because I was trying to do a movie for profit.
I never asked my movie company for one single dollar. I never made a deal. All I wanted to do was get the story told. I wrote my book, which has not been released because of Judy’s lawyers, but it will be released. It will be published. I can only do one major project at a time, and this movie is a big deal.
How hands-on were you with the story?
I spent 22 hours with the the director, Jared Cohn. I laughed, I cried, I spit. I punched walls, I screamed. I jumped up and down, but I got through the two 11-hour days.
At the end of that we had a screenplay, and Jared started working on the script. Halfway through the process, I had to distance myself from Cleopatra films, in order for them to be able to win the lawsuit in the court of appeals.
When we did win, the movie was almost near finished. I wasn’t able to be in on the total process of the editing and such.
I would have liked to have been, but I didn’t want to jeopardize Cleopatra’s chances of winning the lawsuit. They had my telephone number; they would call me at four in the morning, asking questions.
I spent long periods of time on the phone with them. We were under duress the entire time, and I think Jared did an amazing job.
So this is the real story of the plane crash – not a dramatization, but the way things actually happened?
It’s exactly what happened.
There’s a lot of controversy about me getting shot. The farmer, Johnny Mote, when he was interviewed by Jake Tapper for VH1, said, “Did you have a gun?” Johnny said yeah.
He said, “Did you come out of your cabin and point it at Artimus?” He said yes. He said, “Did you pull the trigger?” Johnny said yes.
And Jake said, “Well, how can you say you didn’t shoot him?” And Johnny, I think his reaction was, “Well, it must have been a ricochet.
” My reaction to that is: I don’t give a damn what he thought it was. I was in shock from the plane crash; I was injured. I heard a gunshot.
I saw the gun. I felt something sting me, and I fell to the ground. I don’t care if it was a ricochet. That’s his problem. I got hit with something, and he just doesn’t want to admit the truth.
But he did to Jake Tapper. And Jake saw that the guy was trying to cover up. Just like when Jake Tapper interviewed Judy Van Zant and the rest of the band members, Billy Powell and Gary, he could tell that they were not telling the truth and that they were covering up.
So, at the end of that documentary, which is called Uncivil War, Jake totally sides [with me] and says, “Poor Artimus, you know the guy has saved lives and is a hard-working member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, yet they steal all of his money and don’t allow him to be a part of the band.”