The event of a return to the studio of the MC5 half a century after the previous disc was transformed into a posthumous album in tribute to its chief designer Wayne Kramer. Its producer, Bob Ezrin, and Kramer's closest collaborator, Brad Brooks, comment on this necessarily separate project.
Find this interview about the new MC5 album in full in our weekly n°174, available via our online store.
How did you get involved in this adventure?
Bob Ezrin : My first meeting with Wayne Kramer dates back to 1970. MC5 and Alice Cooper, whom I already accompanied, shared the same scenes at that time on Detroit. We met again a few times afterwards, then more recently there was this Alice album, Detroit Stories, where in addition to having composed a few songs, Wayne was a bit like the leader of the group that we had brought together for the recording sessions. We said to ourselves that we needed a project to work on together again. A year later, I received a phone call, he had something that he and his wife, who was also his manager [Margaret Saadi Kramer, nda]wanted us to talk. It was a potential film score, already called Heavy Lifting [qui restera celui de l’album au final]after which he sent me the first demos.
Brad Brooks : We met Wayne in 2019 at the presentation of a graphic novel about Jeff Buckley where we were both invited. We played together that evening and we immediately hit it off as we discovered so many things in common, including this throat cancer that I had recovered from while he was starting his treatment. When COVID hit, he suggested we try writing songs together. He already had some music and I started to imagine lyrics, we merged ideas. In the end, that ended up being ten of the thirteen songs on the album, plus four or five that were left out. It was a real partnership.
He says that it was you, Bob, who convinced him that these were more MC5 songs than Wayne Kramer. What exactly is it?
Bob Ezrin : I told him in fact that because of the very political tone of certain lyrics, the very punk tone that emanated from it, it reminded me a lot of the MC5 of the time and that it seemed to me to stick more to this state of mind rather than that of film music which would not have interested me anyway. There was a resonance between the end of the 60's and the current political and social climate in the United States and around the world. All this was reflected in my opinion in what I had heard on these demos and the idea of making an MC5 album was all the more exciting.
Heavy Lifting also marks the great reconciliation between Kramer and Dennis Thompson, the drummer of MC5 at the time with whom there had been great disagreement. Were you surprised by the way their complicity immediately came back to the two titles on which Thompson collaborated?
Brad Brooks : It's in the DNA of these people! Growing up in Detroit has a lot to do with it. All the bands from that era in and around Detroit had that special thing: MC5, Stooges… These guys were so good at capturing the mood of the moment that something was bound to be left of it.
Bob Ezrin : We and Wayne would have really loved it if Dennis' health allowed him to do more. These two songs bring an additional touch of the spirit of the MC5 of the time indeed and it is a double tragedy that neither he nor Wayne, or even a triple tragedy if we think of John Sinclair, could not have know the outcome of this project [Wayne Kramer est décédé en février dernier, Dennis Thompson en mai, John Sinclair – le manager mythique du MC5 entre autres multiples activités – en avril, nda].
Xavier Bonnet
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