{"id":7785,"date":"2011-12-01T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=7785"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:51:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T03:51:41","slug":"wayne-kramer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wayne-kramer\/","title":{"rendered":"WAYNE KRAMER"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY JASON JESSEE<\/strong>
\nINTRODUCTION BY DAN LEVY<\/strong>
\nPHOTOGRAPHY BY LENI SINCLAIR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kick out the jams and don\u2019t be afraid to be a revolutionary. In the late \u201860s when free love and a free spirit was the norm, a band called MC5 came charging onto the scene. Wayne Kramer was the lead guitarist of that band and as a unit they fought many vital, political battles through their music and their message. Wayne is an American icon and The MC5 are a band that stood up and made a difference.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWE WERE PART OF A RADICAL POLITICAL GROUP AND WE TOOK A MILITANT STANCE AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT AND MADE SOME VERY BAD DECISIONS. ONE OF THEM WAS THAT VIOLENCE COULD BE USED TO MAKE POSITIVE CHANGE. IT WAS A MISTAKE WE MADE. WE THOUGHT WE WERE DOING THE RIGHT THING, BUT AS IT TURNS OUT IT WAS AN ERROR IN OUR THINKING AND SOMEBODY BLEW UP THE CIA OFFICE. I DIDN\u2019T PLANT THE BOMB, BUT SOMEBODY DID.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hi. Is this Wayne Kramer?<\/strong>
\nIt is. Is this Jason Jessee?<\/p>\n

Yeah. I\u2019m really excited to talk to you.<\/strong>
\nWell, thanks, man.<\/p>\n

First, I really am interested in what\u2019s happening with you. You\u2019ve been touring a lot, right?<\/strong>
\nA fair amount, you know. I do my share for a man my age.<\/p>\n

Where were you born? You were born in America, right?<\/strong>
\nI was born in Detroit.<\/p>\n

Do you ever go back there?<\/strong>
\nI do from time to time.<\/p>\n

Are you kind of stoked that you don\u2019t live there anymore?<\/strong>
\nI left Detroit in 1979, right after I got out of prison. Everyone I knew in Detroit was kind of bad company and I was really committed to not going back to prison. I figured the best bet would be to move to New York where I would be safe.<\/p>\n

When your 45 came out with \u201cRamblin\u2019 Rose\u201d and \u201cGet Some,\u201d what year was that?<\/strong>
\nThat was probably \u201877. I went down in \u201875 and came up in \u201878, so it was right in the middle of all of that.<\/p>\n

You were in prison for conspiracy? Is that what they called it?<\/strong>
\nYeah.<\/p>\n

I also heard that you got in trouble for blowing up a building or something.<\/strong>
\nWell, somebody in our circle\u2026 We were part of a radical political group and we took a militant stance against the establishment and made some very bad decisions. One of them was that violence could be used to make positive change. It was a mistake we made. We thought we were doing the right thing, but as it turns out it was an error in our thinking and somebody blew up the CIA office. I didn\u2019t plant the bomb, but somebody did. Of course, once you get on the police\u2019s radar, you never really come out of it. Later on, I got into more illegitimate capitalism activities. I don\u2019t think they care much about me anymore though. I was really disappointed after 9\/11 when they listed all of those songs that were banned and they didn\u2019t even ban any of my songs. I thought, \u201cGosh, I\u2019m not even in the game anymore.\u201d I was so disappointed that I wasn\u2019t a threat. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

You fly, right?<\/strong>
\nI do, yeah. I don\u2019t have any trouble.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re stoked. Are you allowed in Canada at all?<\/strong>
\nNo.<\/p>\n

Me either. I don\u2019t know why. They said I was affiliated with somebody that wasn\u2019t allowed there, so they wouldn\u2019t let me go to Canada.<\/strong>
\nCanadians are strange. Everyone thinks of the Canadians as nice and non-violent and civilized people with good healthcare, but they\u2019re murder on immigration. I have more trouble going to Canada than I do anywhere else in the world. I can go to Turkey easier then I can go to Canada.<\/p>\n

On the record, I personally really hate Canada. I could care less about Canada.<\/strong>
\nWell, it\u2019s just that I have friends there.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even want friends there. You should just have your friends move to America. I\u2019m sorry. When you were in jail, you were in Rikers?<\/strong>
\nNo. I was in the federal prison system. I did my time at Milan, Michigan and Lexington, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

My friend was locked up in Kentucky. He played drums in a prison band.<\/strong>
\nThere are a lot of bands in prisons. I was in a prison band. We do a lot of work with prisoners in bands today with our non-profit, Jail Guitar Doors.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the coolest thing ever. My friend, Scott Manning, told me that he met you and went to your studio. He was really stoked. He said, \u201cYou won\u2019t believe it. Wayne Kramer and the Jail Guitar Doors are super rad. They get instruments in prisons and it\u2019s super positive. I was like, \u201cWait. Does that have anything to do with The Clash?\u201d He was like, \u201cI think so. Yeah.\u201d I was like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s great.\u201d It couldn\u2019t even be cooler than that.<\/strong>
\nWell, they wrote that song about me when I went to prison.<\/p>\n

Did Joe Strummer write it?<\/strong>
\nJoe and Mick wrote it. They were good guys. Strummer was a good guy. When Billy Bragg wanted to do something to commemorate Joe\u2019s life, after he died, a guy called him from a prison in England and said that he wanted to use music as rehabilitation but they didn\u2019t have any guitars. He asked Billy to get him some guitars and Billy did. The more he thought about it, the more he thought this was a good idea. He named it after The Clash\u2019s song, \u201cJail Guitar Doors.\u201d Years later, I had Billy Bragg come with me and Tom Morello, Gilby Clarke, Perry Farrell, Jerry Cantrell and Handsome Dick Manitoba to play a show at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Billy had Jail Guitar Doors written on his guitar and I said, \u201cThat\u2019s interesting.\u201d He said, \u201cIt\u2019s an old Clash song. Do you know it?\u201d I said, \u201cYes, of course I know it. It\u2019s about me. \u2018Let me tell you about Wayne and his sweet deals of cocaine\u2026\u2019\u201d We started talking about it and I decided that this would be a good thing for me to take on in America, so my wife, Margaret, Billy and I formed Jail Guitar Doors U.S.A. to be the partner organization to Jail Guitar Doors U.K.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s crazy all of the names you named too. Does Dick Manitoba have stuff to do with it too?<\/strong>
\nThey\u2019re just my friends. They\u2019re guys that I arm-wrestled into going into prisons with me. Musicians always have identified with people in the margins and people outside the mainstream, so my experience has been that most musicians are really happy for the opportunity to do something for those people that are the most un-liked in the social structure.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true. Were you treated pretty decently when you were locked up?<\/strong>
\nNot too bad. The worse thing is that you don\u2019t have freedom anymore. If the people that run that place don\u2019t want you to eat, you\u2019re not going to eat. If they don\u2019t want you to sleep, you\u2019re not going to sleep and you can\u2019t go home until they let you go.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t ever want to learn the codes of conduct or anything about prison. It just seems pretty lame.<\/strong>
\nNobody comes out better from it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way. I\u2019m really just blown away that I\u2019m actually talking to you, as stupid as that sounds. You definitely had a huge impact on skateboarding. I don\u2019t know if you knew it or not. In the late \u201880s, there was a group of us skateboarders that were big Wayne Kramer fans. My friend Art Godoy painted Rob Tyner and you on my helmet and we went to Australia. I skated to \u201cRamblin\u2019 Rose\u201d in \u201887 and it was a big deal. It was our idea of what you guys stood for in the \u201860s. Basically, you guys created everything cool and had the most positive impact on me and my friends and the people that I came in contact with. We made t-shirts. We made stickers at Kinko\u2019s. It was crazy. I have a couple quick questions. My friend Art told me that you guys had a spiritual adviser and he would come out and talk before your shows and stuff?<\/strong>
\nRight. He\u2019s like our Master of Ceremonies. He would come out and get the crowd pumped up.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s so great. Did you get along with everybody in the band, MC5?<\/strong>
\nWe were friends up until the point when the band imploded. We worked so hard. We all grew up in the neighborhood and we were boyhood friends and we went through so much together. By the time the band broke up, there were so many bad feelings that everyone went their separate ways for a long time. The real enduring sadness in my life is that I was never able to really re-connect with Rob and Fred as a grown-up. I didn\u2019t know them later in life. That\u2019s the way life goes sometimes. It tells me to always be straight with people. If you love somebody, tell them you love them because the next time they might be gone.<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #69 BY CLICKING HERE…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY JASON JESSEE INTRODUCTION BY DAN LEVY PHOTOGRAPHY BY LENI SINCLAIR Kick out the jams and don\u2019t be afraid to be a revolutionary. In the late \u201860s when free love and a free spirit was the norm, a band called MC5 came charging onto the scene. Wayne Kramer was the lead guitarist of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4027,4028,4034],"tags":[3593,14457,4190,3884,4193,4188,14433,4192,4189,14255,6175,4194,1967,2003,4191,2465,4186,3174,3373],"class_list":["post-7785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-interviews","category-music-2","tag-billy-bragg","tag-detroit","tag-gilby-clarke","tag-guitar","tag-handsome-dick-manitoba","tag-jail-guitar-doors","tag-jason-jessee","tag-jerry-cantrell","tag-joe-strummer","tag-juice-magazine","tag-juice-magazine-69","tag-margaret-kramer","tag-mc5","tag-mick-jones","tag-perry-farrell","tag-revolution","tag-rock","tag-tom-morello","tag-wayne-kramer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/WAYNEKRAMER1-2.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7785"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89565,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions\/89565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}