RIP Wayne Kramer

“Y’know, bands aren’t designed to last. The natural cycle is that, anytime artists come together for a mutual purpose, whether it’s a dance company, a theater group or a band, and they apply themselves, they will almost always achieve their stated goal. After that it has to change, it has to go some other way. The bands that didn’t change and didn’t go a different way, you can count on one hand. How many tens of thousands of bands have come and gone since the Rolling Stones came out. But there’s still the Rolling Stones. The Who as well. That’s about it. So the forces that were in play in the MC5 . . . we would have these group therapy sessions in a motel somewhere on the road. We’d all fishbowl out. After the first or second year, I said that I wouldn’t participate in this anymore.”

Regarding his solo career, Kramer said: “I never didn’t enjoy the band dynamic. I liked collaborating and with the MC5, we were tight. I never felt frustrated in the MC5, musically or artistically. I felt that anything I wanted to try, these guys were gonna help me try doing it. I never felt competitive with Fred about who wrote more songs, who played what solos. That’s really never been my experience. I’ve had that experience after the MC5; I’ve been in bands with guys who would bust your balls and tell you that you ain’t playing shit right. Just pickup bands in Detroit. I’d start bands, hire guys, they’d come in and be ballbusters. If you’re not playing it exactly like the record, you need to go and practice some more. Musicians are as flawed as anyone else, maybe more so.”

And of the DKT/MC5 reunion, he said: “I’d been out of the MC5 for a long time. I’d had a wonderful creative life and career going, a dozen solo albums, I worked as a producer. What did I need it for? It was a great legend, but let’s leave it. It wasn’t a compromise. I didn’t have a good reason not to do it. It didn’t mean that I was gonna stop being Wayne Kramer, it didn’t mean that I was gonna stop doing music for film. Like I said, none of these things are nine-to-five, forty-hour a week careers. Dennis and Mike were open-minded. We had the advantage of growing up a little bit in the meantime. I tried to bring in as much content as I could with Charles Moore and Buzzy Jones being from the era of the MC5 and still active players, and very forward-leaning players. Still on the cutting edge of music. Guys like Nicke [Royale, of the Hellacopters], Lemmy [Motörhead] and Ian Astbury [of the Cult], I’ve known them from around the community. So I thought, We could do this, and I think in the end that we did a credible job.”