Wayne Kramer

WAYNE KRAMER

Interview and photos by Gregory Ego.

What do you think the legacy of the MC5 has been?

Wayne Kramer: The legacy I see is in Rage Against the Machine, on one extreme, who are the most overtly, politically-conscious rock band, who don’t have a problem carrying a message…to Kid Rock, who illustrates another component of the MC5 personality: that Detroit, crazed-rocker dude. [laughs] So, I see it everywhere and, believe me, I’m grateful every day for it. It’s been a hell of thing. It was all so long ago, now, it sometimes feels like [I did it] in the third person. My life has gone so many different directions and I’ve done so much at this point.

I think the reason the MC5 enjoys more exposure today than at any time in its history is that the band really was about principles. It was really more than just a rock band. We represented change and we represented a new way of not only playing music, but, also, of living your life and conducting yourself. Because we didn’t just talk about it: We walked it, too. And it just seems it’s been a story that’s been handed down from band to band in like a tribal, oral tradition since the band broke up in 1972. And it’s a story of how these five knuckleheads from Detroit, who were destined to be shop rats or tool and die workers, found a way to reinvent themselves and a way to break out of what was going to be a pre-programmed existence and to, ultimately, be some sort kind of bump on the horizon, some kind of blip on the landscape, to carry a message of self-efficacy and of hope.

The expression “Kick Out the Jams!”…Would it translate simply as play good, loud music or did it have multiple meanings for you?

It was born out of a frustration with bands that we felt were doing less than their best. You know, we were the house band at a place called the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in the ‘60s and it was a wonderful time to be in a band in Detroit, because there was a confluence of music that struck only in that time in Detroit. And it was this combination of: Motown and what was happening with commercial rhythm-and-blues on the radio, and then a more hardcore version of rhythm-and-blues that was very popular on the radio; and with the electric guitar rock that we were hearing that was coming from England: the sound of Peter Townsend’s guitar, and Jeff Beck’s guitar, and the Yardbirds, and the Rolling Stones; Detroit has a great history in the blues: John Lee Hooker is from Detroit and we would all work shows together at the Grandy Ballroom; and then the influence of the free jazz movement: the music of John Coltrane and Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra. All these elements came together in the MC5, which started off as kind of an instrumental, R&B, greaser band. To me it was a logical step to go from the best Chuck Berry solo that I could muster to the sheets of sound that John Coltrane was experimenting with. It was like, if you go that far, then take another step and you’ll find you’re over here. So it made for some extraordinary music that we were producing right there in Detroit that wasn’t happening anyplace else in the world.

And then these bands would come in from, like, San Francisco or from Boston – and they were like folk musicians with electric guitars. And they were lame. The shit was weak, you know? And we were young and we were dumb and we were aggressive, and so we would stand at the side of the stage and scream at them, “Kick out the jams or get off the stage!” Or: “Get down or get out, motherfucker!” ‘Cause we wanted to see people sweat. People in Detroit work hard for their money and they want to see their bands work hard. And we had hand-trained them to know what a good show was, to know when a band was really getting down, to know when somebody was putting out maximum energy, that passion, that commitment. We weren’t interested in poseurs and three days of peace, love and music. We wanted to see sweat! We wanted dynamics! We wanted to see stage moves like James Brown and we wanted to see clothes that were sharp like The Temptations or like The Who would wear. We wanted to see sex and excitement. And all of that lame music would come out, so we’d get on ‘em about it.

And then we thought, well there’s a song in there somewhere. Kick out the jams, yeah, can’t let me be who I am, kick out the jams, yeah, yeah, yeah. So one night in the kitchen me and Rob Tyner hammered the basic thing out. There are a lot of other meanings that you could attach to it. You know, tear down anything that would keep you from being free and break all restraints. You could extrapolate that for a good while. But mostly it just meant, “Do what you’re doing -- and do it with some spirit.”

I think as a musician and a lyricist you’re a great communicator. How do you feel about yourself?

Yeah, I guess that is the job description. It’s to be a channel for whatever strength, hope and experience I have. Maybe in the songs, I know what great art, great music, great literature have always done for me: it’s reached out across the airwaves or across the page to touch me in a way that tells me I’m not alone. And, for me, that’s the great gift of art: It eliminates that space between the person that creates the art and the person that receives the art.

How would you describe your own guitar sound?

I’m a 20^th Century Guitarist. I play a particular brand of guitar: the electric guitar, which is an extension or an outgrowth of the classic, Spanish acoustic-style guitar. It incorporates electronic technology and really makes an entirely new instrument out of an old instrument, in as much as I can create sounds that weren’t here before. When I first experienced to it as a teenager, as a pre-teen at ages nine, ten, and I heard those first Chuck Berry solos, there was something in the actual sound of the instrument apart from the musical content, the notes on a scale, in the tone of the electric guitar that just rang out vibrantly, that said, “This is the sound of liberation. This is the sound of exuberance.” And it’s what I’ve come to know today as the sound of Original Joy. And that’s what we’re all trying to capture is that spirit of Original Joy, that moment of creation. It’s why I’m reluctant to do multiple takes if I’m in the studio recording. I should have a pretty good idea of form and structure before I get there or before I actually do the recording. Because when it’s time to record, I just want to be into that instant. I want to be in the middle of what I’m doing right then and right there. And if I’m lucky and if the muse visits and God smiles on me, something happens that I really didn’t make happen: I become that channel that we started off talking about.

What do you think is the most revolutionary action a person can perform in our society today?

Leave the place a little nicer than you found it. I think that [Charles] Bukowski had it right when he said that kindness was just about the best we can do.

[Unpublished 2000 interview.]