MC5’s Wayne Kramer Dead At 75
Mike Barich
Wayne Kramer, the guitarist best-known for his work in the massively influential Detroit hard rock band MC5, died from pancreatic cancer today. Kramer was 75.
Wayne Kramer was born Wayne Kambes. As a teenager, he and his friend Fred “Sonic” Smith formed MC5 — the name stood for Motor City 5 — in the early ’60s, though it took a while for the band to find a steady lineup. In 1967, the group became the house band at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. John Sinclair, a poet and left-wing activist, became the band’s manager, and the group adapted a political pose, aligning themselves with the White Panther Party, the anti-racist group that Sinclair co-founded. Their sound started out as wild, distorted garage rock, and it became progressively even heavier and more unhinged, as Smith and Kramer looked for ways to incorporate free jazz influences.
MC5 gained a huge reputation as a live act, playing at the protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention. They signed with Elektra and recorded their 1969 debut album Kick Out The Jams live at the Grade Ballroom, putting on a ferocious spectacle of a show. The album courted controversy, opening with the exclamation “kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” and praising the Black Panthers’ role in the 1967 Detroit riots. MC5 toured with bands like Cream and Big Brother And The Hold Company, and they served as mentors to fellow Detroit rock expressionists Iggy And The Stooges, who signed to Elektra on Wayne Kramer’s recommendation. Kick Out The Jams sold well enough to chart, and it was influential in the worlds of punk and metal.
After a public dispute with Detroit department store Hudson’s, which refused to stock the record, Elektra dropped MC5, and they signed with Atlantic. They broke with John Sinclair and released two more albums, 1970’s Back In The USA and 1971’s High Time, before playing a farewell Grade Ballroom show on December 31, 1972.
After MC5’s breakup, Fred “Sonic” Smith started a new band and married Patti Smith. He died in 1994. Wayne Kramer tried to start a new MC5 lineup, with himself as lead singer. In 1975, Kramer was arrested for selling drugs to an undercover cop, and he was sentenced to four years in prison. Upon his 1979 release, Kramer joined Was (Not Was) and briefly started a band called Gang War with Johnny Thunders. For years, Kramer did occasional session guitar work while working as a carpenter.
In 1994, Wayne Kramer signed with Epitaph as a solo artist when that label was exploding in popularity. On his 1995 solo debut The Hard Stuff, Claw Hammer served as his backing band. Kramer released three more solo albums on Epitaph in the ’90s, and he also guested on Bad Religion’s Stranger Than Fiction album. Later on, Kramer reunited the surviving members of MC5 and toured, with various rock icons that they’d inspired performing with them. He performed with Rage Against The Machine, and he helped score Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and Eastbound & Down. In 2018, Kramer published his memoir The Hard Stuff. In the final decades of his career, Kramer did tons of music-based outreach work for incarcerated people.
Below, check out some of Wayne Kramer’s work.
