Australia! Get Ready To KickOut The Jams - Yeah!

Fri 2nd Jul, 2004 in Features

On the cusp of their new tour, I had a chance to speak with one of rock’s true survivors, Michael Davis. Bassplayer for the legendary MC5 since 1965, he’s ridden out political changes, musical trends and a spell of drug-related imprisonment. He spoke to us from his home in Los Angeles, California, just as the next stage of the band’s reunion tour prepares to kick into gear and kick out the jams.

As record label employees warn about what’ll happen if the strict timing of the interview is ignored, muzak takes over. Minutes pass, until eventually, a voice, surprisingly gentle, comes on the line. The laid-back tones of a person who has seen it all greet me from the other side of the world.

(In all quoted sections, FL denotes FasterLouder while MD denotes Michael Davis.)

FL: What time is it in your part of the world?

MD: The time just now is a little after five o’clock in the afternoon.

FL:  Well, that’s civilised.

MD: [laughs]

The Motor City 5 is a band that is usually mentioned in reverential tones. Those who saw them in their heyday still claim that their shows are amongst the most memorable they’ve witnessed. Alongside The Stooges, they’re largely considered to be the band that laid the groundwork for the rise of punk music. Beginning as a group that played covers of James Brown, The Kinks and Rolling Stones tunes in order to learn how to play their instruments, the group started experimenting with originals that eventually came to dominate their sets. Ear-bleedingly loud and unapologetically intense, their music – and the associated lifestyle – took on an increasingly political slant that earned the group a lot of police attention, and resulted in live gigs that often rode the thin line between rock and riot. Dumped by their record label, the band’s last official gig was in 1972.

FL: Welcome! Everyone’s very excited to have a chance to see you play down here in Australia. Can you give us a bit of background as to how this current tour came about?

MD: Well, we’ll start right at the beginning, about one year ago. Through some circumstances, the former artists from the ‘60s, from the Grande Ballroom in Detroit managed to make some kind of a deal with Levi’s in the UK. And Gary Grimshaw [designer of the MC5’s art] sold them some of his artwork that contained MC5 logos because they were gonna make a line of clothing called Sonic Revolution, and they were looking for a band to represent a street kinda style. And the thing that represented the late ‘60s and ‘70s? They chose our band. And he [Grimshaw] sold them our logo to put on some of their jackets and pants. When we found out about it, we were stuck between whether we should sue Levi’s and Gary for infringing on our copyright – on our trademark – or just go along with it. And they offered us a promotional gig in London. I thought that was pretty interesting – that I could get back together with Wayne [Kramer] and [Dennis] Thompson and find a couple of other guys to play with us.

FL: That was at The 100 Club, wasn’t it?

MD: Yeah, that was the 100 Club show. We had an opportunity to film it and to record, and go over there and rehearse a little bit…

The first show in the band’s reunion series occurred in London. The 100 Club already had an impressive history as a venue – artists ranging from Muddy Waters to The Sex Pistols have played sets in the Oxford St venue. And now it was MC5’s turn – a slot born out of discussions of copyright with Levi’s.

With Rob Tyner and Fred “Sonic” Smith both deceased, there was no way that the band performing would be the MC5 of old. Rather, this new version – playing a show promoted as Levi’s Vintage Clothing Celebrates Sonic Revolution with the MC5: New Energy Rising – would consist of the surviving band members with a selection of big-name ring-ins on assorted instruments and vocals.

Of course, opinion about the show’s success was divided. There were those who waxed lyrical and those who screamed of selling-out. Clearly, the years hadn’t changed some things.

MD: We played the gig and it was a smashing success. We came away with a product. So you know, we toured the states. That was a year ago. And it’s taken the better part of a year or two to arrange the business part and find a distributor and get in touch with people that set up shows. We were only gonna do half a dozen gigs in the US, and then things mushroomed and went over the top – and it turns out we’ve got a full-fledged world tour – pretty impressive.

FL: Did you handpick the singers who played that first London gig? And what was the vibe like? Some reviews seemed to indicate it was a dream gig.

MD: Did we handpick who?

FL: The singers.

MD: Oh! You mean Lemmy [Motorhead] and Dave [Vanian, The Damned]

FL: And Nicke Royale [The Hellacopters].

MD: Well, we knew Nicke because his band The Hellacopters had been pretty high on the MC5. They’d been pretty involved with the filmmakers who were making a documentary. I had some friends in Europe who sent me some Hellacopters records, so we went out and found him to play with us. He was really eager to do it. You know, we had several people that we were talking to to bring to London, but it turned out that all the people we were talking to, if they weren’t already in London, it just wouldn’t work out, you know? So it turned out to be that whoever was there at the time – and we were lucky enough to get Lemmy Kilmister, and he was down with it. I mean, he was ready to go! And Dave Vanian from The Damned – they were just getting ready to tour, and they’d done covers of MC5 songs. We asked a lot of people and there were a lot of names thrown around, so that when we got there, I really just didn’t know who was gonna sing. People just showed up at the rehearsal, and the people who did show up were just great, you know?

FL: Wow! Did you have to turn anyone away? [laughs]

MD: No, we don’t turn anyone away. Everybody’s welcome.

Now, of course, the revivalist touring behemoth that is the DKT/MC5 has Australia in its sights. Not that it’s an entirely unfamiliar place to the band…

FL: So this is your first time in Australia?

MD: This’ll be my first time. I’ve never been there before. I guess Wayne has, and I know Dennis has, but this’ll be my first time. I’m really, really excited to come to Australia. I moved to Tucson, Arizona about 16 years before I moved to Los Angeles, and I met the Hard-Ons there. They were touring and they came and played the little club I was hanging out at, and I met the guys and was shocked that they were big fans of the MC5…

FL: There are a lot of people that are, down here.

MD: Right. They must’ve gone home and told this other band that they had met me. That band was called Bored, and one of the guys sent me their record, Negative Waves. So I’m really high on going to Australia. I know Deniz Tek, he had his whole crew with Radio Birdman, and they’re pretty famous and successful. So I know the atmosphere is pretty hot, that it’ll like our style.

FL: Absolutely. Can you tell your fans what they can look forward to at the show?

MD: Well, I know there Deniz Tek is gonna be singing. I dunno if you know that as well. We’re gonna be playing stuff all through the MC5 records, and we’ll probably do a few extra covers and things. It’s just gonna be great. I think Nicke Royale is on deck for Australia, too, but I’m not sure who’s on guitar.

FL: We’ve been told that it’s Mark Arm from Mudhoney. [Editor’s note: In Australia, Mark Arm and Evan Dando are the guest vocalists; with Deniz Tek as guest guitarist.]

MD: OK, then it’s Mark Arm. I know that in the States, touring with us it’s Marshall Crenshaw on guitar. So Mark Arm’s playing guitar in Australia? It’s gonna be awesome to get together with these guys. I jammed with Deniz Tek 20 years ago in Ann Arbor, in somebody’s basement. I reckon it’s gonna be great. We’ve got a band that I produced here in Los Angeles at the beginning of the year, they’re from Sweden. Their name is Dollhouse...they are great. I produced the record here in LA. And double-crossing my hands that that’ll be out, and they’ll be opening for us. That will be just great.

FL: And Young Heart Attack are playing as well.

MD: Are they? Really? No kidding! That’s great, ‘cause they sent us their CD with the Over And Over cover on it. That’s awesome, man. So you’ve got a band from Texas and a band from Sweden and a band from what – from Detroit, Los Angeles… 

FL: It seem like there’s a thriving scene in Scandinavia at the moment. With The Hellacopters and Dollhouse…

MD: Yeah, yeah. I dunno why that is. Because of the cold weather up there or something? I dunno. I think that the whole style of music is coming around full-circle. It’s back to the source of high-energy rock-and-roll. The myriads of fads and styles are all coming around, and it seems like we’re back to the beginning.

FL: A lot of it’s the merging of the high energy and the garage sound – which you founded, you started playing first. That being the case, what do you think about the state of music today?

MD:  I listen to a lot of jazz and classical. I like the rap stuff, you know – that’s not really my style, but I like it because I like the rhythms. I like Eminem, I like that hard-edged rockabilly, that guitar thing. I like going back to the roots, you know, to Duane Eddy. You know what? I just like it all. I try not to get too much into one particular kind of music or another too much. I like to keep open. I stay open. But I’ve always liked classical music – baroque. I don’t really have, you know, an opinion about music today. It’s all music.

Of course, the MC5 aren’t a band that was just about the music. The group were known just as much for their political leanings as they are for the music they left behind. The two, some would argue, are inseparable.

Politics and the MC5 came together when the band came under the influence of John Sinclair, a svengali-style figure who became the band’s manager and moved them in a more revolutionary direction – as well as moving them in with him. A key member in the outspoken White Panther party, Sinclair highlighted the importance of drugs, rock and sex as countercultural devices, and is perhaps best-known for his call for “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock & roll, dope, and fucking in the streets.”

Such an attitude was hardly going to win the band any friends in the halls of power. Increasingly, their gigs were visited by the law, as the band’s notoriety grew – to the extent that at an outdoor gig in Chicago in 1968, a riot broke out, bringing masses of police (some in helicopters) to the show. The establishment had paid attention to the band’s stance.

It seems that old habits die hard. Politics are still a pressing concern for Davis today who spies in today’s geopolitics similarities with the glory days of the band.

FL: Do you think it’s a valid comment saying the political situation’s quite similar to the late ‘60s, now that Bush is in power in America?

MD: I think it’s valid because nothing much has really changed. It never changed back then, so it’s really kinda the same. The situation seems to be parallel, with an unpopular war. It’s the same kind of war unfolding. And it’s always coming back to the kind of same situation as the 1960s. Things did change – attitudes towards civil rights – but still, there’s a lot of racism, which is a problem for the world. Yeah, it is similar. It’s almost too easy to draw the same [conclusions] as back then. But I can’t decide whether it is or not. It looks like it is, on the surface.

FL: Do you think there’s a lot of apathy today?

MD:  Apathy? That could be. Maybe there is more apathy because of the technology that we have today that makes people a lot more dependent on technology itself. 20 or 30 years ago, people came together to communicate. Press was more present than it is [now]. Nowadays with the Internet, people seem to be a little more isolated, even though we’re in closer touch. We’re in closer touch with email and electronic media, but people don’t get into face-to-face… it’s a lot more escapist.

With that, the interview draws to a close. Davis explains that he’s looking forward to getting to Sydney – he saw it on television during the Olympic Games and can’t wait to experience it firsthand. I warn him that it’ll be the middle of winter, and with surprise in his voice he assures me that he’ll be packing an old standby – a leather jacket.

Some things in rock never change.

DKT/MC5 play Australia on the following dates:

Friday 23 July – The Palace, Melbourne
Friday 30 July – Coogee Bay Live, Sydney

All shows will be supported by Dollhouse and Young Heart Attack.

Remember – get along. And kick out the jams… motherfuckers!