Wayne Kramer, MC5 Co-Founder, Guitarist, and Songwriter, Dies at 75

Wayne Kramer, co-founder of the Detroit rock band MC5, died on Friday, February 2. He was 75. His death was confirmed on his official Instagram page. No cause of death has been reported.

Born April 30, 1968, in Detroit, Michigan, Kramer co-founded MC5 in 1963 with his schoolmates at Lincoln Park High School, singer Rob Tyner, guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, and called themselves Bounty Hunters, before becoming Motor City Five and eventually sticking to their acronym MC5.

The band played anywhere they could, including school cafeterias, and released their first songs, an original called “One of the Guys” and a cover of the Irish rock band Them’s 1966 song “I Can Only Give You Everything,” in 1967.

“When you love to play music, it doesn’t matter where you play it,” said Kramer in 2018 of the band’s earlier days. “You just establish a good band and put your 10,000 hours in playing your asses off anywhere, anyway you can.”

The band released their 1969 debut live Kick Out the Jams, which peaked at number 30 on the Billboard 200 and delivered their iconic title track. Part of the harder, proto-punk Detroit scene that also bred Iggy Pop and the Stooges, MC5 released two more albums, Back in the USA in 1970, which was produced by Bruce Springsteen‘s future manager, and High Time a year later, along with a series of live albums throughout the decades.

Along with serving as guitarist of MC5 with the late Fred “Sonic” Smith, who was married to Patti Smith and died in 1994, Kramer also co-wrote the majority of the band’s songs, “Looking at You,” “Teenage Lust,” “Rocket Reducer No. 62,” “Back to Comm,” and more, along with their punk anthem “Kick Out the Jams,” which led to some controversy for the band.

Opening “Kick Out the James” with It’s time to kick out the jams, motherf–kers ultimately resulted in the band being dropped by their label. At first, record stores refused to sell the band’s debut, which was recorded live over two nights at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 1968 and featured “Kick Out the Jams.” Censored and uncensored versions of the album became available, and the band responded by taking out a full-page ad in a local newspaper with the words “F–k Hudson’s!”, a local department store that refused to sell their album. The ad also featured the logo of their label, Elektra.

“When we first started playing in the early days, none of us really had any idea about writing our own songs yet,” said Kramer in 2011. “We were struggling with how to learn our instruments and play songs to be able to perform for people. We gravitated to a certain kind of material, like the music of Chuck Berry and instrumental records and certain records that had what we’d call high energy. We later became articulate enough to define it as music that was real visceral.”

In 1975, Kramer served three years at a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky for selling cocaine. Following his release, Kramer focused on his solo career and released his debut album The Hard Stuff in 1995 and several more albums through his 2002 release Adult World.

By the mid-2000s, Kramer also launched the nonprofit Jail Guitar Doors—named after the 1977 song by The Clash that immortalized him—with his wife and manager, Margaret Saadi Kramer. The organization provides instruments and mentorship to help rehabilitate incarcerated individuals through music.

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In 2022, Kramer shared a teaser trailer for a new MC5 album—the band’s first release in more than 50 years, Heavy Lifting—and tour. Set for release by spring 2024, the album features a collection of special guests including Slash, Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Alice in Chains frontman William Duvall, and more. Produced by Bob Ezrin, the album also features two tracks with Thompson on drums.

“Some bands need a little time between records,” joked Kramer of the new MC5 release. “I needed a lot of time between records.”

In 2018, Kramer released his memoir, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities, and reunited with drummer Thompson for the MC50 50th anniversary tour, along with Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, Dug Pinnick of King’s X, Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, and others.

Thompson is now the last surviving member of the original MC5 lineup.

Kramer is survived by his wife Margaret Saadi and their son Francis.

Photo: Rebecca Sapp/WireImage for The Recording Academy