Skynyrd's Rickey Medlocke Flips Bird to Rock Hall Over Exclusion

Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke had a choice gesture for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for excluding him from the band's 2006 induction.

Medlocke first played drums and sang with Skynyrd from 1971 to 1972 before returning to his former band, Blackfoot. He rejoined Skynyrd as a guitarist in 1996 and has performed with them ever since. Medlocke's drumming and vocals appeared on 1977's Street Survivors via the original 1971 demo of "One More Time," as well as on the 1978 compilation album Skynyrd's First and ... Last, released after singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and vocalist Cassie Gaines were killed in a plane crash.

Despite these contributions, the Rock Hall did not consider Medlocke a classic-era member and thus did not induct him. "The thing that was kind of a blow to me was that I didn't get invited or I didn't get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the band," Medlocke recently told Iridium Rock and Metal Reviews.

"The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame stated that I have not had any link or that I wasn't significant to the career, and it didn't want me being inducted with them," he continued. Medlocke then extended a middle finger and proclaimed, "Here's what I say to them."

The Honor That Matters More to Medlocke than the Rock Hall

Despite being excluded from his band's Rock Hall induction, Medlocke finds validation elsewhere. "I mean, I'm watching them induct people that I go, 'What? Are you kidding me?' But you know what? That's OK. It is what it is," he said. "My Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is the fans out there and the music that I play and the band that I play in, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and my own stuff."

Medlocke, who claims Lakota Sioux and Cherokee ancestry, also reflected on being inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame in 2008. "You know, I got inducted to the Native American Music Hall of Fame, and my speech was, I stood up at the podium, and I looked around, and I went, 'Wow. This is way better than any damn Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction could be.'"