Longtime Alabama Drummer Mark Herndon Takes ‘The High Road’ In New Book

One read of Mark Herndon’s new autobiography The High Road: Memories from a Long Trip, and one thing that you will immediately decipher from his long and illustrious career is that the Country Music Hall of Fame member has come across his share of characters over the years. From the female criminal that was one of his first flirtations to a club owner named “Big Daddy” that never paid his musical acts to a valium-taking bus driver, Herndon’s path has always been interesting.

“Let’s just say that I know a lot of colorful folks,” the longtime drummer for Alabama tells Sounds Like Nashville. “Due to the nature of my contractual obligation to the band, I never lived the life of the millionaire. I wasn’t compensated that way, and it kept my feet on the ground. My friends were the crew guys and the working people. I could relate to them more. I didn’t run around with the jet set. I was exposed to them a lot, but didn’t run around with them. I remained a blue-collar guy, which is who I am anyway. I think if I had wound up wealthy, I would still have been the guy in the old pickup who wore a pair of ratty jeans.”

While Herndon appeared on stage with the band, and also on thirteen of their album covers over the years, he was a contractual player for Alabama – and not a full-fledged partner of the band. He was dismissed from the group a few years ago, and was even sued for overpayment. But, if you’re looking for him to sling mud at his former tour-mates, this is not the book for you. Herndon takes fans on a trip of his years with Alabama, but actually takes time in the acknowledgements portion of the book to thank Randy Owen, Jeff Cook, and Teddy Gentry for giving him his break. He says he was trying to live up to the title of the book.

“The title of the book is The High Road,” he stresses. “I was raised very much in an old-school way. Nobody held a gun to my head to make me play for them. Granted, there were some things that weren’t fair. I could look at it on one hand and feel that I was done dirty, but on the other hand, I could say that I chose to continue. Alabama is kind of a trickle-up screw job. You could say that they screwed me, but I could say that they got screwed too. So, trickle up, trickle down, it’s the nature of the business. Everyone gets screwed. It’s just the way it is. You sacrifice and bargain to get what you think is your dream, but you pay the piper along the way, whether you’re an artist, a musician, or whatever. There’s not a virgin in the music business, I can tell you that.”

When asked what some of the more memorable parts of his almost three-decade run as drummer of the group were, Herndon cited their 2005 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as being selected to the Alabama Music Hall Of Fame. He says that to have that pedigree is something nobody can take away. “Just to be in the history books, to be considered a part of the group, whether I was or not – those are highlights. There are those in the group that say I was never a part of the group, and technically or contractually, they might be correct, but I think the court of public opinion will be the judge of that.”

The High Road details Herndon’s life from the beginning, growing up as a military brat who liked to have fun – sometimes, perhaps a little too much so. “I don’t know what I was trying to prove. I got to looking back at some of that stuff, and I thought ‘What was the matter with me?’ I guess that’s why I don’t have much of an ego or people don’t really consider me arrogant these days is because I got that out of my system when I was a kid. I thought I could do no wrong. I was so little and meek growing up, and not very good at sports except a little bit in basketball. I guess I thought I had a lot to prove, so I tried to be a punk for awhile,” he says with a laugh.

For his “efforts,” Herndon wound up in military school. However, that experience paid off well, as he was able to develop his passion of aviation – which serves as his full-time job today. His imagery in the book of his time in the skies equals his passion for his stories concerning his music career. Flying was in his blood first. “From the time I was a toddler, it was all I can remember. I was so immersed into it with my dad being a Marine fighter pilot. I guess I just breathed enough jet fuel being burned down the flight line as a little kid that I got it in my blood. It’s been a passion of mine all my life. I am so blessed to be working in it full time. I have a wonderful job flying for a great company. I passionately love it as much as I did when I first soloed at sixteen.”

Herndon also goes into detail about the evolution of his relationship with his parents. “It was a growing and getting to know you relationship until the day they died. They were very distant in their own ways when I was a kid, but the older they got, not only the smarter they got, but the closer we all got. It was a wonderful thing. They died too soon, both of them. That’s a big regret of mine that they never got to know my daughter.”

It was actually for Katie, his daughter, that he initially decided to put down his life story to paper. “I wish to this day that I had convinced my dad to write some of his memoirs down,” he related. “He had a fascinating life at a fascinating time in history. I got to thinking that perhaps my daughter might view my lifespan as such someday. It would be very cool if she had some connections to me like I wished I had of my dad. That’s how the genesis of this book got started. I wanted her to have something for the scrapbook one day – maybe to show her kids and grandkids. Time marches on, and I’m going to be ancient history someday, but it’s fascinating to look back on the times that have come before us – especially when our family members had a significant role in that time. I wanted to give her that. It morphed into something more because the desire to write kept flowing. I wanted to give something back to the fans. I’m not trying to get sappy with it, but I really was trying to write to the fans those nights when I was sitting at the keyboard, remembering the unique relationship the band had with the fans. I’m not sure if it’s like that anymore, but it was very special for us.”

Herndon – now a full time pilot for a company in northern Alabama – also still performs. He is currently in the studio working on an album with talented vocalist Leah Seawright.

The High Road: Memories from a Long Trip will be available in paperback starting April 1, 2016. You can pre-order your copy HERE.