If the descriptor "first album in over 50 years" has ever been used before, it certainly hasn't been often.
It can legitimately be applied to the MC5's "Heavy Lifting," the first album from the Detroit proto-punk band since its third album, "High Time," in 1971.
Guitarist Wayne Kramer is the lone original member carrying on the name of the provocative leftist band that was on stage (for eight hours) during the riotous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and redefined hard rock with the 1969 classic "Kick Out the Jams." MC5, which incorporated blues, garage-rock, psychedelia and free jazz, enjoyed limited commercial success and was beset by drug, production and label problems before signing off on Dec. 31, 1972.
Rob Tyner, the explosive frontman, died of a heart attack in 1991, guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith (husband of Patti Smith) died of cancer in 1994, and bassist Michael Davis succumbed to liver failure in 2012. The various reunions ended with Davis' death, until Kramer reconstituted the band in 2018 for the MC50 celebration of "Kick Out the Jams." The current touring lineup also includes singer Brad Brooks, drummer Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction), bassist Vicki Randle (Mavis Staples) and guitarist Stevie Salas (David Bowie).
The forthcoming album, produced by the legendary Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Kiss), is a star-studded affair that includes contributions from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Don Was and drummer Abraham Laboriel, Jr., with lyrical touches from Kesha, Alejandro Escovedo, Jill Sobule and Tim McIlrath (Rise Against). Original MC5 drummer Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson plays percussion on two songs.
Of this 51-year gap between albums, Kramer says, in a phone interview, "I've seen reports of bands doing their first album in, you know, five years or 10 years or even 20 years, but nobody's made the half-century mark. Leave it to the MC5 to do something that nobody's ever done, for sure."
Inspiration came, in part, from the exploits of our most recent former president, according to Kramer, who brings the band to the Thunderbird Music Hall on Friday.
"It's the MC5 of today hewing to the legacy message that MC5 has carried all these decades — of action, of taking action. We kick out the jams, we don't hand out the jams. We're in a time now that's very dangerous for our nation. The forces of authoritarianism and fascism are not joking. The white nationalist movement, the religious right, the Republican Party, these people are serious and they want to restrict communication, they want to restrict activities, they want everyone to be armed to the teeth, and if one looks at the history, that's all you need to see that our democracy is at risk."
In terms of the musical forces at play, it began when he started writing songs with Brooks, an Oakland, Calif., singer who was in the '90s bands Reckonball and Dolorosa and went solo in 2000. Once they had a few songs demoed, Kramer played them for Ezrin, with whom he worked on the most recent Alice Cooper album, "Detroit Stories."
"Bob said, 'Man, this stuff is great. Let's make an album,'" Kramer says. "Then, my wife brought in a record label, and the idea emerged that this is an MC5 album, and the creativity grew exponentially. We brought in more musicians and writers and the idea that 'We Are All MC5' began to take shape."
Of Ezrin, who is 73, Kramer says, "He's as creative and imaginative as you could imagine. You know, music is not something that's actually tied to being young. If you're in sports, it takes a young body to do that. In the arts, you can continue to develop your ideas and your passion can grow deeper and your techniques can become stronger over time. Great jazz and blues and classical musicians, they get better and better as time went on, and they work on their instruments and their composing right to the end. Musicians don't retire."
Is that something he anticipated as a 17-year-old playing with the MC5?
"To be honest," he says. "I never gave it much thought. I was so in the moment I was in, and I still do that. I try to live in the day I'm in, and the moment I'm in."
Times have certainly changed in terms of political music making an impact on people the way that rock and hip-hop did in the latter half of the last century, but he was not going to be dissuaded by that.
"Music has always had a role to play in social change," he says. "It cannot do it by itself. You can't write one song that's going to make a difference. But what we do in music and in art, in general, is if we're honest and have the courage to write about the things that we feel passionately about, other people feel that way too, and when you hear the songs, your minds connect, your hearts connect, your aspirations connect, and you build community. So, if you love a Bob Dylan song and I love the same Bob Dylan song, we meet in that song. That's what music has always done for creating and supporting a non-violent mass movement of people to effect political change. If we're protesting a war or we're protesting the Supreme Court's abortion decision, then we meet in that song and we have an agreement in our origin story."
In February, the MC5 was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the sixth time, so Kramer and Thompson have been through the wringer in terms of legacy.
"The MC5," Kramer says, "has been nominated so many times now that I've walked through all the criticisms I can think of and all the cynicism that I can think of, and at this point, I would just say 'Gee, it would be nice.' It would be nice for the fans, the people that have supported the MC5 all these decades to have a confirmation that their tastes matter, that their favorite bands matter. It would be a good thing. Do I think it's going to happen? Hell no. The MC5 was never a hit band. 'Kick Out the Jams' was banned from the radio, and the albums we made back in the day, they were all banned from the radio. Maybe we'll have better luck with the new 'Heavy Lifting' album."
A date for the album has not been announced.
