WAYNE KRAMER of MC50: The Canary In The Mine Shaft
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Wayne Kramer has never been a man to hold anything back, his influence being one of the main reasons that the MC5 have had such a monumental effect on the landscape of rock despite disbanding three years after their debut album.
Living what could easily be defined as a colourful life, Kramer a man who is politically outspoken, an ex-addict, an author and a philanthropist, isn’t ready to hang up his hat just yet. MC50, Kramer’s all-star band will soon be travelling to New Zealand to support the original shock-rocker Alice Cooper.
I sat down with Wayne Kramer to discuss not only musical history, but his outlook on the overall scene; hip-hop coming to the forefront of social commentary. More importantly we also discuss Kramer’s programme Jail Guitar Doors, an initiative to break the cradle to prison cycle through music therapy. An initiative that along with Billy Bragg, Kramer hopes to bring to Australasia…
One of the first things I wanted to ask you is that MC5 have always been cited as one of the most important American hard rock groups of their era, and yet I know that you weren’t always completely happy with the first three albums.
Is it a statement that you agree with? That MC5 were indeed one of the most important?
“I think we were important; I think we brought something to the table that nobody else was covering. You know I would zero in on it to say that the MC5 addressed the concerns of our audiences directly.
It wasn’t by inference, or around the way, or subtle, it was right in front. If a kid was out in the audience and he put his hand up in the air with the peace sign at me while I’m on stage and I throw that back to him, we have connected directly. The things he’s concerned about are the things I’m concerned about.
And I don’t think most other groups made that direct connection, I think that was one of our real strengths was that we could talk about ourselves and our community and the world that we lived in in a way that helped give voice to people’s frustrations and anxieties about the world that we lived in.”
Absolutely. Now looking at that and how you influenced people, who were the most important people to you when you were growing up and developing that love for music and connection?
“Well Chuck Berry was certainly a prime mover for me as a guitarist and as a songwriter, he told such vivid tales of teenage life and invented the world that we talk about as being rock today. Chuck Berry invented that in all those songs and all those stories about riding around in his automobile and being late for school and you know all the subject matter that he dealt with and rock n roll itself!
I mean when he wrote ‘Johnny B. Goode’ I wanted to be Johnny B. Goode, I wanted to be the guy that had his name in lights and people would come from all over to hear him play his guitar at night. That just sounded perfect to me.
He was a fundamental influence, but then as time went on, my ability to hear things in the world expanded, and then the free jazz moment became very important to me and what was happening with avant garde music. Those things started to interest me, and I think that influence shows up in the work of the MC5 and continues to show up in my work. I mean the last album I put out four or five years ago was the jazz album, Lexington.”
And when you say free jazz, any particular artists that you are referring to there?
“In the early sixties, the mid-sixties, when Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Sun Ra emerged, all those artists that were really pushing the boundaries of jazz. And I found that it was the same thing I was trying to do with rock and that we were ultimately all the same people trying to do the same thing.”
I was reading a very interesting article about you the other day. The MC5 were always known for their political statements and so forth and politically you compared Trump and Nixon as ‘same old, same old’ and you took particular offence at undeclared wars against people that are no threat…
In your eyes, as a person who grew up in America, why has society seemingly learnt nothing, we just continue to repeat the same cycles?
“Well that’s a good question. I mean we all know that expression ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’, I don’t know that we’re exactly repeating it but there is always going to be the guy who thinks he’s slick, the guy who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. Even a hundred years after Trump there will be another Donald Trump…
That just comes with the territory of being human… [chuckles] There are going to be some people with less than altruistic motivations.”
But it’s interesting too, because one of the fundamental messages of MC5 has always been about changing yourself, changing the world, changing how we think about things. And I do see that movement, it’s stronger now than it was years ago.
So if we do get another Donald Trump in a hundred years or so, do you think that people won’t be as gullible, and that people will push back and declare that they will no longer tolerate this type of behaviour?
“Well I would certainly like to think that [chuckles] I mean these things happen over millennia, they don’t happen over months or years or even decades. I would like to think that we wouldn’t put ourselves in the same kind of a situation that we’re in today with this fuseler in the Whitehouse, a guy who is clearly corrupt in his heart and can do nothing but cheat, lie and steal.
His is incapable of doing anything else.
He couldn’t do the right thing if his life depended on it.”
Sadly, I completely agree.
“You raised a really good question! Are we going to learn enough from this to not repeat it? I mean that’s really the open-ended question and the one that should be in all of our thoughts at some point.”
Here in New Zealand we at least have a Prime Minister who is an amazingly forward-thinking woman.
“Well, you’re ahead of the game to begin with with a woman so…”
[chuckles] We like to think so
“Yeah, I agree with you.”
In a slight segue to that question; you have previously spoken about the genre of punk and how it was lacking original thought, but that you were hearing more original thought in hip-hop?
I can agree with your point here, as I believe there are a lot more hip-hop artists coming through who are making political statements or challenges.
“Yup I do too, and I think that the process of telling your story in the contemporary form which is rap has opened the door, I think that there’s consciousness being demonstrated in the hip-hop community as rappers start to take on bigger questions than just the neighbourhood or their own personal stuff like the size of their dicks or how much money they got.
I mean nobody cares about that anymore, we wanna deal with some stuff that matters that effects everybody. And I think you’re right, the hip-hop community is stepping up, even in a lot of ways more than the rock guys and girls.”
Yes, I think again it is that cyclic nature of music and indeed the world itself, when Public Enemy and NWA first appeared on the scene, their music was challenging the way that their own people were being treated in society by authorities etc.
We then did indeed slide into that whole territory of ‘I’ve got money and bitches’, but now, once again, we have artists like Tyler the Creator and Joey Bada$$ coming forth with music that is both social commentary and political, which I believe is so important and yet another way of getting the message out to the new generation.
“Well artists are like the canary in the mine shaft [chuckles] we’re out there squawking about what’s going on; ‘Can’t you see, this guy’s a thief, this is dangerous…’
Do you guys know the legend of Paul Revere? In American history, during the revolutionary war there was a silversmith in Boston who was part of the American revolutionary fighters and his job was to ride out ahead – if they discovered that the British were bringing a patrol into a town – he would ride out ahead of them and holler out ‘The British are coming! The British are coming! Get your guns! The British are coming!’
So in a lot of ways, that’s what I do [mutual laughter] I ride through the neighbourhood and say ‘Donald Trump is coming! Get out your whipped cream pies!’” [mutual laughter]
Absolutely brilliant!
Just before we speak about your upcoming visit to New Zealand, I wanted to say how thrilled I was to hear about your involvement with Billy Bragg and the Jail Guitar Doors Music Therapy program. We were lucky enough to have Billy Bragg out here with us in 2018, wonderful, wonderful man.
“He’s the best, I adore him. He is one of my heroes, and when he told me about this initiative that he had launched in England, I thought that fit my plan perfectly and the three of us – my wife Margaret Kramer, Billy Bragg and I – launched Jail Guitar Doors USA ten years ago, and today our guitars are in over one hundred and sixty American prisons and jails across the country and we run song writing workshop programmes in dozens and dozens and dozens of facilities. From Rikers Island in New York down to Travis County Jail in Austin, Texas and all through the Californian Prison System and out into Colorado and up in Detroit, in Massachusetts.
Lately we have been moving our focus, or broadening our focus to include young people with the goal towards interrupting the cradle to prison pipeline which is a real thing…”
It is, very much indeed…
“It is in effect, for young people; they get involved in the criminal justice system, it’s already set up and ready to funnel them into American Prison for the better part of their adult life. So if we can interrupt that process and get them involved in arts and music, something besides gangbanging, we might be able to avoid having them spend their adult life in the Californian Department of Corrections.
Because they’re not joking when they give out time in this country, it’s not a laughing matter.
When they tell you, you are going to do ten or twenty years, they’re not joking.”
I completely agree, that’s why I think the work you are all doing is vitality important.
“Well, we’re working now with some local musicians to bring Jail Guitar Doors to New Zealand and to Australia. I’ve got a couple of prison visits that we’re setting up in Australia now and I’m looking for resources in the New Zealand system that would be willing to host a visit where we come in and meet some people and talk about getting some programmes going.”
That would be fantastic! New Zealand has always had a very strong connection to the guitar because of our Maori heritage, our Reggae roots and so forth, and again breaking that cycle – our sentencing structure may not be as severe as the US – but we have similar issues with that cradle to prison structure in that if people don’t find the right avenues it is hard for them to stay out of it.
“We really could use a re-think to our whole approach to people who break the social contract. You know there’s a lot of thinking going on about it and a lot of people are working on it and we’re trying to push things forward as best we can.”
I am so genuinely pleased to hear that!
Well, obviously Wayne you are coming down to New Zealand for another reason too and that is as support of course for the wonderful Mr Alice Cooper. The MC50 includes some rather impressive names [including Billy Gould of Faith No More and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden] which I understand are all – apart from Marcus Durant who you met when you were putting the band together – rather old friends of yours.
It must make a big difference when you are travelling with a group of people who you share a heart and soul with…
“It makes all the difference. At this stage you know I don’t do this because I need the money. Of course I have to pay the rent like everybody else, but I only do this because I want to enjoy the experience of it and when I have good guys, like the guys I am touring with now, it really makes it a pleasure.
They are all intellectually curious, they’re all well read, they’re sophisticated thinkers, they have great senses of humour and it just makes it a joy to be with them. I look forward to every moment of it, it’s really been fun.”
MC50 are performing two special shows alongside Airbourne in NZ (Thursday 20th February in Auckland, Saturday 22nd February in Christchurch) as support for Alice Cooper on his ‘Ol’ Black Eyes Is Back’ tour. Final tickets to both shows are available from Ticketek but get in quick as you don’t want to miss this epic lineup!
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