MC5 |
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Mon. August 23.2004 12:00 AM EDT |
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MC5: Sonic Revolution 2004After their first tour in over 30 years, the surviving members of MC5 sat down to discuss reunion, rebellion and their role as the "it" band of the '60s revolution. by Jack Lefelt |
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(WEA International) |
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Name-checked as an inspiration by everyone from Motorhead to the White Stripes, the MC5 made a massive mark in the '60s, challenging peace, love and flower power by creating an assault that fused elements of hard rock, blues and avant-garde jazz.
Only three years elapsed between the MC5's controversial debut, 1968's Kick Out the Jams and their final implosion in 1972; yet their music, which rocked their home base of Detroit to its core, laid a blueprint for everything from punk to metal to grunge. Created by lead singer Rob Tyner, the MC5 name was a sarcastic spin on each band members' birthright and Detroit destiny: a serial number on a spare part in an auto plant. As time marched on, "MC5" came to mean many things: Motor City Five, Many Cocked Five, Mongolian Clusterf**k Five, etc. Guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson, were all about politics. Taking their message music to the streets, they ultimately wound up helping establish the youthful revolt of the White Panther party - a Caucasian counterpart to the infamous Black Panthers. One of the most electrifying bands to ever hijack a stage, the 5 was routinely harassed by the police as they provided a thunderous soundtrack for riots and demonstrations. Commercial censorship, record label bumblings, severe drug habits and extensive run-ins with the law contributed to the band's demise, but over the last three decades their reputation has grown. The visceral sound of their early days has turned them into revered influences. Within the last year, two separate documentaries have chronicled the soar and crash of the MC5. Hailed as the last great untold story of the 1960s, the feature length 'MC5: A True Testimonial' has been unanimously lauded by critics as a defining testament to the band's power, yet it remains undistributed for legal reasons. 'Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5' is available now on DVD and features U.S. Dept. of Defense footage taken from the government's investigation of the band and a legendary reunion show at London's 100 Club. Although two band members have died, the survivors are confident the public will finally get a true taste of the passion that was the 5's calling card. VH1 sat down with Davis, Thompson and Kramer to discuss their recent tour, youth culture, politics, music, MC5-memories and the probability of a new DKT-MC5 album. VH1: Prior to the first show at London's 100 Club last year, how long has it been since you guys played together? Wayne Kramer: In 1991 we played together at a performance to celebrate the passing and the work and the life of Rob Tyner. Before that we hadn't played music together in 20 years, since 1972. VH1: What's it like being on stage together? Michael Davis: It's awesome man. The power is still there and we just play to have fun and enjoy it. Dennis Thompson: Utterly fantastic. Over the top. Exciting. Exhilarating. Satisfying and glowing. Nuts and bolts being tightened, lock it in...it's really fun. VH1: What brought about the reunion? What was the motivation to do this? Wayne: Opportunity. It wasn't like we had a plan or a scheme or anything. Opportunity presented itself for us to get together and play and we took it. We seized the moment and thought, "Let's give this a shot...let's see if we can come back together today as grown-ups and celebrate the work that we did so long ago. And play these songs and this MC5 music...and do it today and do it with spirit." 'Cause the music holds up. The fundamentals, the bedrock of it, it still works today. It worked at last night's gig. It was pretty cool. VH1: How did you pick this rotating cast of special guest musicians? Wayne: These guys understood that this is a golden opportunity to celebrate this music. The music is where we all meet. Mudhoney has a connection to MC5. Evan Dando has a connection to the MC5. There are musicians all over the world that share this music. They just presented themselves when the opportunity came up. VH1: Any other guest musicians you'd love to have on stage with you? Michael: John Kerry would be a good one. I'd like him to jump onstage. Wayne: Britney Spears. What the hell? Yeah, sure. VH1: What is your ultimate memory of the original MC5 days? Dennis: Recording the album Kick out the Jams at the Grande Ballroom in 1968. Those two nights had to be a highlight for me. It was nothing but extraordinary...totally in synch. Everything was right. The crowd was jam-packed, and it was sweat and rock and roll at its hardest and grittiest. That's my favorite memory to date. There will be some new ones created right along the road here. Michael: For me it was meeting everybody and realizing that I wasn't alone in the world and that other people had a similar mission to me and we could form a group and be a force and have brothers, comrades and bring our inspiration to the people and to the planet and to spread the message of peace, love, power, self-determination and self-expression at a time when it was needed--like it is now--and have a good time. VH1: Wayne, what's your ultimate memory? Wayne: The hang. You know, finish the gig, get in the car and drive to the hotel or to the next gig...the atmosphere, the camaraderie and mutual respect. The humor. When you get a group of people together who are all on the same wave length, it's very powerful. You really feel you're part of something and that everything has meaning. VH1: What made MC5 different from any other band at that time? Wayne: We had cooler clothes. We really looked good. We had good hair too. Still do. There really were no bands like the MC5 because our influences were so much broader than rock bands had. We came from a unique time and place: Detroit, industrial city with Motown influences and rock, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, and then the first wave of English bands, you know, the Who and the Yardbirds. The guys that were really experimenting with electric guitars had a big influence. The free jazz movement...Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, and Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Sunny Murray and this whole new way of thinking about music. Sun Ra was as important to me as Chuck Berry and still is. Rock bands' influences generally aren't that broad. And we worked extraordinarily hard on performance and putting on a great show. We put a lot of hours in getting the set list right and what song follows what song, and segue tunes. The idea was to destroy the audience. VH1: At what point did that attitude break down and other things begin to take the focus? Was there a time when fine-tuning your craft stopped being the primary motivation? Wayne: It's interesting because anytime you get a group together for common purpose, whether its filmmakers or dancers, poets or actors, and you combine your resources together to achieve something--generally you'll achieve it. If you work hard you'll achieve it. After that it has to fall apart. And the MC5 achieved everything it set out to do before we started making records. We could draw 3,000 people in Detroit. We were hugely popular in our own community. We had all the sex we could handle. We were just having a ball. We could pay our rent being professional musicians. That's what we wanted to do. We were carrying our message. We were having fun. And then we got into the record business... Dennis: Da-da-da-dum. Wayne: [laughs] Needless to say we had a great many conflicts with record companies. In the end, we weren't good soldiers and we didn't do everything they told us to do and we didn't act the way they wanted us to act. We were the people we represented ourselves to be and they found us to be too much trouble. You can't imagine it today because there are such different standards...I mean, we never killed anyone... Dennis: When Elektra records signed us, they bought the MC5 as we were. Then when we actually did sign with them they were like "Well jeez, we hadn't bargained for this." VH1: You said they got you as you were? How were you? Michael: We were the band of the revolution, but they didn't know how to market the revolution because the revolution by definition is gonna clear the way and get everything the hell out of there. We were unique in the music business. There wasn't anyone else like us. We didn't fit into any particular formula for the business or even for ourselves. We just got bombarded by a lot of people wondering what the hell we're talking about. VH1: The MC5 are frequently cited as influence by artists, but you never achieved much mainstream success...There's definitely something cool about that, in an underground way, but does it bother you as well? Wayne: It's always nice to be recognized for your work. As an artist you want people to know what it is you're doing and hear what you have to say. You have to have some ego to say "I have something to talk about," so it's nice to be recognized by other people. I would make myself crazy if I sat around thinking about how they make more money than I did...[laughs] crazier than I already am. Dennis: We never had any money. We never had a big payday. We never sold a lot of records and over 30-something odd years, a lot of resentment built up in me in the very beginning because all these other bands were doing what we were doing and making millions of dollars. I was very resentful for many, many years and I went into a dark faraway place to escape from that. I've since come back out of the woods from those types of feelings. As time went on, I could see our influence. I could hear the influence in a lot of music and deep in my heart, I'm very grateful that they recognize us as a powerful influence. To be able to come out and do what we're doing today to go out to a couple of new generations and the people that wanted to see us for so many years. To be able to do this is a gift to me really. It's a miracle. Nothing short of a miracle. Wayne: We basically play for other musicians. They're a tribe and if the other musicians like what were doing then I figure that's the main thing. Then people, generally just average people, they'll catch up, but musicians really play for each other. We try to um... Michael: Smoke 'em. All: [laugh] VH1: You talked about the brotherhood and camaraderie of the early days. What's it like to be a surviving member of a band and playing their music when some of them aren't here? Wayne: Well they are here though. The music that we play every night, they're there. That's Rob Tyner's work that we perform every night and Fred Smith's work. So they're there even if they might not be here physically, but they're there. Their presence is every time we hit the verse on "Over and Over" Fred Smith is there. That's his genius. Michael: They gave their work and their inspiration and that lives forever. VH1: What is the goal of the tour? Wayne: The idea of this tour is to play music for people. We don't have a product. We don't have a new album, we're not part of VH1 or MTV. We're not part of the music business. We play music that people wanna hear and it really all functions outside of the sphere of pop bands and music videos and all that kind of stuff. It's fairly subversive in that sense that we just play music for people. There's nothing wrong with VH1 and MTV and all of that, but it's not what we're doing. We're celebrating the work of this band that we were members of and getting the opportunity to expose this music to a whole new generation of music fans. The MC5 really only existed in a mythological sense, you know like an oral history, bands talking about "Well did you ever hear this band?" or friends will say "oh but do you know about this band?" So now they get to hear it. They get to see what the fuss was all about and what it was that caused such a commotion. And really it's a fulfillment of Rob Tyner's prophecy. He always talked about people of the future, talking to people of the future, and that's what he does now. His work goes straight through us every night and reaches a whole audience of people that would have never known. Pretty humbling. It's cool. VH1: You've all put out solo albums? Any plans for a DKT-MC5 album? Dennis: What do you think, Mike? Michael: Hell yeah. I'm all for it. Dennis: What do you think Wayne? Wayne: Well, it's part of what you do for a living. You play gigs and make records, but right now we have our hands full with a world tour and recording is a whole other work to engage in and I don't wanna get too far ahead of myself. If I start making plans and schemes, that's when I get in trouble. So let's get through this part and see where we're at. Dennis: Yeah this is like the serendipity tour. Just a day at a time, we just see where it takes us. As Wayne said, we just go one step at a time, and if we get through this world tour, which is a massive undertaking, all the way to September... Wayne: Especially for men our age [laughs]. Dennis: I was just gonna say that, especially at my age, that'd be fine. Then recording might present itself and that would be the next phase. Within the realm of possibility...definitely. |
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