Closer To Home: Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner at 75

Grand Funk Railroad was, in the early ‘70s, the most popular band of its day and, in some critical quarters, the most hated. 

The trio from Flint, Michigan was the “people’s band” – a hard rock outfit that came out of a garage. Over the years, they sold more than 25 million albums. They released two albums in 1969, On Time and Grand Funk, and two more Closer to Home and the double Grand Funk Live album in 1970. The following year they sold out Shea Stadium in 72 hours, faster than The Beatles.

It’s singer-guitarist Mark Farner’s most memorable moment. “When I was flying over Shea Stadium in a big helicopter, a big Huey, and the side door is open and I’m looking down – Humble Pie is on stage, which is set up at second base – and there are 60,000 people in the stands and it is bouncing up and down. The stadium looked like it was gonna collapse. It was bouncing so much I was thinking, ‘Wow those guys are rocking it!’ I couldn’t hear them because of the helicopter rotors, but man, visually.”

Farner and I talked about all this six years ago.

“Then, when we landed in the parking lot where the limousine is supposed to be there waiting for us, there was nothing. We’re in an empty parking lot and the guy with us who was riding along runs down to the phone booth and makes a call. Within two or three minutes we got cop cars in the parking lot with the lights and sirens going picking us up. They haul us into Shea Stadium and we get out of the back of the cop cars and the crowd loses it! Wow! What a moment!”

Grand Funk plays the concert. “And the crowd,” says Farner, “they’re singing ‘I’m your Captain’ – ‘I’m getting closer to my home’ – louder than the PA system! I got huge chills.”

AUDIO: Grand Funk “Closer To Home (I’m Your Captain)”

Still does, he says: “It’s a spiritual experience. It takes me close to who I really am and every night when I dedicate that to our troops and to our veterans because it means the most to them, it really does. I’m still in the spirit – even telling you now – because it means so much and it has carried so many dreams and hopes. It has carried love and people sing it to me when I’m on stage. And it works, because it’s love. We are spirits in a bone suit here and we get mixed up. We think we’re gonna be here forever, but no.”

I was a teenage Grand Funk Railroad fan. Pretty rabid. I got into them post “Closer to Home (I’m Your Captain),” but bought two Grand Funk albums in 1971, Grand Funk Live and Survival and was rocking out on my crappy bedroom stereo to “Feelin’ Alright” and “Gimme Shelter.” I can pretty much assure you Grand Funk’s versions were the first I’d heard of those songs. Grand Funk was my top American hard rock group; Black Sabbath my top English hard rock band. 

I loved Don Brewer’s drum solo in “T.N.U.C” on the live album – I liked drum solos a lot more back then – but it took me a little while to figure out what the letters in their 12-minute-plus jam stood for. But once I did, it brought a sly, knowing smile. It was a naughty word spelled backwards! (Hey, I was 15.)

Right around that time, Rolling Stone called them “the biggest American group in rock history,” – but in the same article asked the question: “Is this band terrible?” Implied answer: Pretty much “yes.” 

Homer Simpson, however, countered that in The Simpsons seventh season (ep. 24, Homerpalooza) calling them his favorite band of all time.  

 I stayed with them at the start of their “pop” era and Todd Rundgren-produced hit “We’re an American Band” (single and album). Brewer sang the single and has the sole songwriting credit for the gleeful, anthemic song about loving the rock life – hotel destruction and groupie adoration, immortalizing “Sweet, sweet Connie” and anonymously extolling the virtues of “four young chiquitas from Omaha.” 

The writing is something Farner – who turns 75 Sept. 29 – will address momentarily. Up until that point, Farner had been the primary songwriter, by far, but Brewer was starting to creep into the mix. On the album, Brewer sings four of the leads and Farner the other four. 

When Grand Funk broke up (for the first time) in 1976, I shed no tears. It was time to go. Punk rock was on the way. I’d left the fan base two years earlier when Shinin’ On came out. When I saw Farner on one of those mid- ‘90s Ringo’s All-Starr Band tours, it was good to see him, but also in the right proportion: One of those guys whose glory days had passed but who deserved a moment in the sun and Ringo was good at doing that thing, stoking nostalgia. 

While Black Sabbath became a foundational band for heavy metal (and even some punk rock and grunge), Grand Funk Railroad never got much respect. Grand Funk Railroad is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, will likely never be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Farner does not give a rat’s ass. 

“I believe it’s so politically oriented,” Farner says, of the Hall. “If it hadn’t shown itself to be that way [to you], I’d say put a rubber band around your head and snap out of it. It’s really about kissing ass and Grand Funk does not kiss ass. We kick ass. There is no brown ring around any of our mouths and there will not be. I could not give a shit less about them. I’m serious. Period. I care about the fans, that’s the only people I care to. The critics, they can go and have their time go write their stuff, but as long as the fans keep showing up, I’m gonna keep showing up.”

Now, Grand Funk Railroad exists – and has so since pretty much for 54 years – excepting a decade or so break from the mid- ‘80s to the mid- ‘90s – but Farner is not part of it. Max Carl has taken Farner’s slot and has been there since 2000, ex-KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick in the mix since 2000. So, when Farner’s talking about Grand Funk kicking/not kissing ass you gather he’s pretty much talking about history – the band during his tenure – and, perhaps, what he does as a solo act. 

The Grand Funk of today is co-founding Brewer and bassist Mel Schacher alongside three others who all joined in 2000: Carl, ex-KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick and keyboardist Tim Cashian. Today’s version of GFR doesn’t really come up in conversation with Farner. 

Farner has a band that’s been with him more than a decade: drummer Hubert Crawford, bassist Dennis Bellinger and keyboardist Karl Probst. 

Here’s how Grand Funk Railroad began: Farner and Brewer played in Terry Knight’s band, Terry Knight and the Pack. They had some regional success in Michigan, but nothing huge. Knight would later become their manipulative producer-manager-Svengali. It’s not something Farner looks back upon with fondness.

“Back then,” he says, “Terry Knight told us he was gonna keep us from the press to create a mystique around the band. It sounded OK with us – we didn’t know anything, we were 20-years-old when we signed with him. My mother had to sign to make it legal. But he did it and it was a way for him to tout his managerial expertise, how good he was, and how good looking he was.”

So, who were they if they were mysterious creatures of Knight?

“In the early days, we were just a garage band, basically,” says Farner. “We were actually a five piece, I was the singer, there were four other musicians, but I wasn’t playing anything in that band, The Fabulous Pack. I just stood up front and sang.  We got waylaid, we were out in Cape Cod in Sandwich in a summer beach house, a little cabin and it was winter. We had the worst snow storm in the history of the world and we got stranded there for weeks in February of 1969. We were melting down snow to have water to drink and mix with our oatmeal that didn’t have any butter or sugar and that’s all we were living on. 

“These two other players were married. When we got home [to Flint], the two guys that were married, their wives were gonna divorce them and the band broke up. We got all these gigs coming up and now we don’t have a band. I said, ‘We ought just do a three piece’ and Don said, ‘Do you think we can?’ And I said, ‘If we get the right bass player we can.’ We started looking and went out to Delta Promotions in Bay City where this company – the one that sent us out to the Boston area to do these gigs – and we were going to give them a piece of our minds. But while we were sitting in the outer office waiting to get in, there was somebody in their rehearsal hall playing. You couldn‘t hear it very good, but you could feel the bass coming through the wall and I said, ‘Ooh, listen to that bass player, that guy’s getting down under that. We gotta see who that is.’ So, they took a break and it was ? and the Mysterians and Mel Schacher was playing bass. 

“Mel and I had grown up together, road dirt bikes, hung out together and I said, ‘Mel, are you playing with him now?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, but I’m not liking it.’ I said, ‘Brewer and I were talking about putting together a three-piece, would you be interested in being the bass player?’ He said, ‘Hell, yeah, when are you gonna do it?’ and I said, ‘Next week we’re gonna start.’ We joined the Flint Federation of musicians on Avril Street and Frank Geyer – God rest his soul – came out and said, “You boys turn that stuff down!” The Union Hall wasn’t quite ready for that. That’s where a lot of that first album was written, right there in that Union Hall.”

The message in the music? 

“I tried to speak to the people through songs,” says Farner. “Stop the war, to provoke people to think and I think because of that, the obvious motivation for anything geared toward the people is love. They love me because they hang onto the hope that I’ve given them.”

Todd Rundgren entered the GFR world for “American Band,” but Farner claims there was no grand design, either to snag him or shift toward a more pop direction.

“We were discussing who would produce, who we wanted, who did we think would do a good job for us,” Farner says, “and we put a bunch of names in a hat. I’m not kidding, I drew it out and it was Todd Rundgren. He really made the album really sound more like what we were looking for the instruments individually, what the keyboards should sound like, what the guitars should sound like. 

“Terry Knight never did that for us. He never even asked, ‘Do you like that?’ or ‘Am I going in the right direction?’ He did it and that’s the way it was. Todd, he would fit right in to whatever we were doing.”

With the big hit came the big party and with the big party came the kind of PG-rated hijinks the song suggested. “When we had the party for ‘We’re an American Band,’ when it went to No. 1, we had a big party with a cake in a Beverly Hills hotel in the ballroom and it was a layer cake, like somebody’s wedding cake but huge, with Uncle Sam on the top. It was kinda cool and they were gonna have a photographer moment for a photo op. We all get our hand on this knife – Don, Mel and Mark posing – and got the knife halfway through the cake, pushing down on it and somebody says, ‘Food fight!’ 

“Brewer grabs a handful of that cake and whips it out into a hundred people and they [hotel staff] did not like that. There was food was flying! After most of the cake was tore down, there was that bottom layer that had frosting on it and Brewer got on underneath that thing and threw it up to the ceiling and it stuck up there and was falling off in pieces from the chandelier. That cost us $50,000, the fine and the cleanup and they barred us from ever coming back to the Beverly Hills Hilton.”

“We’re An American Band” was the mega-hit – AM, FM, everywhere. It a party-hearty song everyone wanted to join in, they imagined they, too, were “the boys in the band.” Brewer has the songwriting credits. 

AUDIO: Grand Funk Railroad “We’re An American Band”

Farner’s take: “Don Brewer kind of did [write it] as far as the lyrics. I wrote that drum lick for the intro. I told Brewer ‘We need a cowbell in this’ and he didn’t even own a cowbell. He said, ‘I’ll pick one up’ and I said ‘No, man, pick up six and we’ll use the best one out of the six’ and that’s what he did. And that is my drum lick on the intro. I couldn’t play it, but I could tell him how to play it. I wrote the music, all the changes, the harmonies. So, Brewer comes to me when it’s all said and done and said, ‘You know Farner, I never had 100 percent writing credits on any song. Could I take it on this?’ I thought for a second and said, ‘Ah, go ahead’ because I’m a nice guy. Eh … sometimes. My heart was in the right place, but I got taken advantage of because his heart wasn’t.”

What he learned: “Deception works.” 

Bigger example: “I had no idea when Don Brewer came to my hotel room after a gig one night in 1998 I think it was and he said ‘Mark, we all need to sign our individual ownership of the trademark into the corporation, where it’ll have this protective umbrella’ or something. Now, I didn’t finish high school and he had gone to law school and I thought he was looking out for best interests of the band, I thought he was my friend and I went, ‘Uh, OK I’ll do that.’ He says, ‘I’ll go to my room and get the papers.’

“While he was gone, I thought ‘Why the hell didn’t he just bring the papers with him?’ And then it didn’t dawn on me until after I signed the papers and there was a conference call with Don and Mel and they were telling me I was no longer an officer in the corporation, that they were throwing me out. It ensued from there, the hatefulness and jealousy. 

“I am who I am. I wrote 90-some percent of that music and I’m very proud of what I wrote – not any songs Brewer wrote – and Shea Stadium sold out on Mark Farner music. Don Brewer hadn’t put his pen to any song at that point in his career.”

So, there was bitterness. There were also reunions. In ’83 Farner’s current bassist Dennis Bellinger stepped in for Schacher because, Farner says, ‘Mel told us he could no longer fly – he was afraid of flying.’’ In ’96, he says, the original trio got back together.  “We went out and did the [live] Bosnia album and did New York, L.A. and Detroit with a full orchestra, with Paul Schaffer [conducting]. He did a bang-up job, a wonderful man. He’d never been a conductor of an orchestra before and it was awesome. [Bosnia was a live album from the Detroit show, a benefit for Bosnia and Herzegovina.] You talk about highs. I’m up there singing and the violins start coming in on ‘Closer to Home’ and I’m having a hard time just trying to sing without this softball that’s in my neck getting in the way.”

The bad blood was put aside before. Might that happen again? 

“I don’t foresee it, because I go by feeling,” Farner says. “I asked Brewer because a fan said they’d read an article that said when asked if Grand Funk would get back together again he said, ‘Never say never.’ So, I said to him, in a conference call a few months ago, ‘Hey Brewer, I heard from a fan in an interview you were asked if the band might reunite and you said never say never. Was that true or was that just bullshit?’ He hemmed and hawed. No words were coming and then he finally said, ‘Never say never.’”

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Jim Sullivan

Jim Sullivan is the author of Backstage & Beyond: 45 Years of Classic Rock Chats and Rants, which came out in July, and the upcoming Backstage & Beyond: 45 Years of Modern Rock Chats and Rants, which will be published October 19 by Trouser Press Books. Based in Boston, he's written for the Boston Globe, Herald and Phoenix, and currently for WBUR's arts site, the ARTery. Past magazine credits include The Record, Trouser Press, Creem, Music-Sound Output. He's at jimullivanink on Facebook and the rarely used @jimsullivanink on X.

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