Pyle was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of homemaker Mildred "Midge" Pyle (née Williams; 1925-2008) and Clarence "Del" Pyle (1921-1971), a construction superintendent who was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot in the leg while serving with the U.S. Marines in the South Pacific during WWII. Both his parents had roots in the Jamestown, Tennessee area, and he is a distant cousin of WWI hero Alvin York. Through his maternal grandmother, he can trace his ancestry to Claus Koger (1572-1630), a bailiff who lived in the German town of Weil am Rhein. Pyle had a younger sister, Marilyn (1953-2016). Known as Tommy throughout his childhood, Pyle graduated from Eastmoor High School in Columbus, Ohio in 1966, and studied for a year at Tennessee Technological University where classmates dubbed him "Artimus" on account of his boyish face. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1968. He was named platoon and series honorman and promoted to private first class following completion of boot camp in San Diego. Eyeing a career in civil aviation, Pyle worked as an avionics mechanic at various military bases, including Millington, Tennessee and Beaufort, South Carolina, ultimately rising to the rank of sergeant. He was honorably discharged in 1971, after his father was killed in a mid-air collision with a U.S. Air Force B-57 weather reconnaissance bomber over New Mexico.\n', '

Pyle joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1974, initially playing alongside, and then replacing, original drummer Bob Burns. He made his recording debut in August of that year on "Saturday Night Special", which became the first single from the band\'s third album, Nuthin\' Fancy. In addition to Nuthin\' Fancy, Pyle also played on the albums Gimme Back My Bullets, One More from the Road, Street Survivors, Legend, Southern by the Grace of God and Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991.\n', '

Pyle was known as "the wild man of Southern rock" for his antics. During one gig in New Jersey in 1977, he jumped into the crowd to quell a disturbance. The band\'s singer, Ronnie Van Zant, remarked, "We keep him in a cage and feed him raw meat, only let him out when it\'s time to play." During a gig in London, England, he was lowered to the stage by a trapeze rope while hallucinating on mescaline. Despite such stunts, Pyle was relatively even-keeled compared to his raucous bandmates, and spent much of his time trying to defuse chaos caused by excessive drug and alcohol intake.\n', '

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