Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing brand Day. Now, I know you get the chance now.
Speaker 1: When Mark Farner took the stage with his rock band
Speaker 1: Grand Funk Railroad at the Atlanta Pop Festival in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, he was virtually unknown, but reaction was swift.
Speaker 1: Within weeks, Grand Funk would be signed by Capitol Records,
Speaker 1: and less than two years later selling out shea stadium
Speaker 1: faster than the Beatles. For decades after his first performance,
Speaker 1: the self coined cussing Christian is still touring, but before
Speaker 1: going solo, it was his time with Grand Funk that
Speaker 1: taught him how to rock. Our first manager, Terry Knight,
Speaker 1: would tell me. He says, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people there. The people in the back row can't
Speaker 1: see your antics. If you're doing, you know, little things,
Speaker 1: you got to exaggerate everything. So I went into this
Speaker 1: exaggeration and it really worked playing to the back row. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you started out your parents were musical, yes, and
Speaker 1: your dad who passed away when you were very young.
Speaker 1: You're like nine years old and your dad, what do
Speaker 1: you play? The sacks? He played sacks and guitar. Was
Speaker 1: he in bands and played in bands. Nab that every
Speaker 1: Sunday he was playing guitar with. My mother's people came
Speaker 1: from Leechville, Arkansas, and they moved up when she was
Speaker 1: sixteen years old and she met my dad, you know,
Speaker 1: marrying uh North meet South. And I believe that's what
Speaker 1: happened to You know. Why all that music came out
Speaker 1: of Michigan was a lot of people came from the
Speaker 1: Southern States to get the high pay and auto factory jobs.
Speaker 1: And so we had a lot of Southerners and they
Speaker 1: brought their guitars and their banjos, and they were picking
Speaker 1: every culture. Yes, and it mixed with Flint. It mixed
Speaker 1: real good and and we got a lot of good
Speaker 1: music to prove it out of Michigan. Now you're dead.
Speaker 1: What kind of work did he do for a living?
Speaker 1: He was a fireman World War Two VETT. He was
Speaker 1: a tank driver. He returned home with four bronze medals.
Speaker 1: Most tank drivers didn't get to see their second battle.
Speaker 1: He went through four of them. Brother. Yeah, and my
Speaker 1: mother was the first woman in the United States to
Speaker 1: weld on Sherman tanks at Fisher Body in Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: So there's auto blood in your family too. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we call it Assembly Lion rock and roll. Give for
Speaker 1: people who don't know the etymology of Grand Funk Railroad,
Speaker 1: what was there was? There's a meaning to that. It's
Speaker 1: an actual railway system that runs through Ontario, Canada, Michigan
Speaker 1: and Ohio called Grand Trunk and Western. And our first manager,
Speaker 1: Terry Knight, had a song that he had written, Grand
Speaker 1: Funk Railroad. He says, why don't you name your band
Speaker 1: the name of my song, Grand Funk Railroad. We went, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. That works. He was in a band himself, Yes,
Speaker 1: and you were in that, Yes, Terry Knight in the
Speaker 1: pack and I played bass and sang and Don the drummer,
Speaker 1: and I one day said, you know he doesn't sing.
Speaker 1: We're singing better than uh Don. So Don went to
Speaker 1: Terry and said, we're going to do this without you. Terry. Well,
Speaker 1: he was all pissed and went off and had the
Speaker 1: Terry Knight Review, had horns and all this stuff. But
Speaker 1: Don kept in contact with him, and Terry had some
Speaker 1: contacts in New York City and they ended up being
Speaker 1: the attorneys that did the legal work for the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Pop Festival. In nineteen sixty nine, So that's how we
Speaker 1: got there and mel shocker shocker. Yeah, at this point
Speaker 1: in time, we didn't know what a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: thousand people look like. We were only yeah, we were
Speaker 1: only looking at the front rows, you know, looking out
Speaker 1: through the fence and why there's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And then when we're fifteen feet in the air up
Speaker 1: above their head, I would holy, I just meant I
Speaker 1: had to piss so bad. But whatever, what But what
Speaker 1: do you do? You know? You you go, you're not
Speaker 1: a big headlining act, and do you say to yourself,
Speaker 1: hey man, this is my shot. Like when you get
Speaker 1: up from perform in front of people and you because
Speaker 1: you because you come across on stage like the consummate
Speaker 1: pro you're not wasted or whatever, as you don't see
Speaker 1: a cure you might have. I don't know. No, I
Speaker 1: was never wasted. That's amazing. You were never wasted. And
Speaker 1: you get up there and describe what the set was like.
Speaker 1: At Atlanta, we did our first album, all original music,
Speaker 1: your first original material, you do, how did it come time?
Speaker 1: How did it go over? What were they like? Dude?
Speaker 1: They loved it, they loved it. I had purchased this
Speaker 1: Paisley print kind of see through nylon or something. Wasn't cotton,
Speaker 1: just wild colors and everything. And I had to think
Speaker 1: long sleeve. And I'm out there, it's a hundred and
Speaker 1: ten degrees out in the shade, and I'm just sweating.
Speaker 1: I worked up a ladder between my legs. You could
Speaker 1: shave a buffalo. You know, I'm serious. You gotta And
Speaker 1: we come to the end of the set and I
Speaker 1: told Brewer, I said, were not we gotta throw in
Speaker 1: Land of a Thousand Dances because we used to do
Speaker 1: Wilson Pickett version of Land of a Thousand Dances and
Speaker 1: I would take my axe off and just prance around
Speaker 1: a dance and you know, And at this point, I
Speaker 1: was so stuck with this shirt all over my wet body.
Speaker 1: I'm I was pissed, and I just I ripped it.
Speaker 1: They went and I learned right at that point, man,
Speaker 1: that they liked the skim. They like this, So I
Speaker 1: went there, were you look an athlete because you're very fit,
Speaker 1: You're like a super fit. You look like an underwear model.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, but I was an you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Yeah, man, you don't take your shirt off
Speaker 1: unless you got you ready to. There's a nice surprise
Speaker 1: in that you played football, didn't you in high school? Yes?
Speaker 1: And the shirt comes off and that's that's the new you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, it was my sign? Here is your sign?
Speaker 1: What year was Atlanta? And we recorded in sixty nine?
Speaker 1: Had on time released in September of sixty nine and
Speaker 1: it went gold. I mean it was just like the
Speaker 1: word from the Atlanta Pop Festival. You know, we opened
Speaker 1: noon the first day. They liked us so well they
Speaker 1: moved us to seven o'clock the second day, and then
Speaker 1: the third day we were on at eleven o'clock under
Speaker 1: the lights. Are the people that they're waiting for? Now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So you did three nights there, Yes, Now at that
Speaker 1: time in sixty nine, you do Atlanta and you start recording.
Speaker 1: Are you married to your first wife at the time? Now?
Speaker 1: And without I mean, I know you're a Christian, yes,
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about these things appropriately. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get to you know, kind of still
Speaker 1: talk about anything you want. But you know what, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that that's very sweet of you. But but it's
Speaker 1: like you, I mean, you must have had women jumping
Speaker 1: out of the trees on top of you. But you
Speaker 1: got married when what year? And nineteen seventy two, So
Speaker 1: it wasn't that long after that you got married. Was
Speaker 1: that something you always wanted? You always wanted a family? No?
Speaker 1: I mean it was like what you do, you grow up,
Speaker 1: you get married, you have kids. I mean it was like,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I wish you. Yeah, it's down home right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you did that and had a couple of kids
Speaker 1: while not with her. I didn't my first wife, I
Speaker 1: had no children with We were married for four years
Speaker 1: and divorced. This is when you're making it's a lot
Speaker 1: of work back, a lot of work, and so it
Speaker 1: was tough to be married. What you do it again?
Speaker 1: But I do it again. My wife, my second wife,
Speaker 1: my current wife, Lisa, we've been together for thirty well
Speaker 1: we've been married thirty eight years together. It's called compromise
Speaker 1: and love really true love. Yeah, I mean seriously, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's nothing that I can't talk to her about. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's nothing I wouldn't talk to her about. And and
Speaker 1: vice first, and we've got especially now that we've gone
Speaker 1: through this and we're continue to go through with my
Speaker 1: son being quadriplegic there. It takes a lot of care
Speaker 1: and and it takes a team to take care of him.
Speaker 1: But people around us know that we love each other.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's obvious when you see us together.
Speaker 1: You know, people see us together, they go, they go, wow,
Speaker 1: you guys are a match. You know what happened to
Speaker 1: your son. My son was camping out with his friends
Speaker 1: on a fourth July weekend. They were at a lake,
Speaker 1: a remote lake in northern Michigan. It was, you know,
Speaker 1: miles and miles and miles. He's twenty one at um.
Speaker 1: They were drinking, you know, but there was a lot
Speaker 1: of other kids that were out there that were under age.
Speaker 1: He was going to turn twenty one, I believe in
Speaker 1: in September. But they were doing backflips off a picnic table,
Speaker 1: and my son said, now, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that. And these guys kept, especially
Speaker 1: one guy that he told me about, kept needling him,
Speaker 1: calling him a pussy and everything, you know, and just
Speaker 1: kept at him until finally he gets up there, back
Speaker 1: flips off the picnic table, lands on his neck and
Speaker 1: he's paralyzed. They laid him in the back of a
Speaker 1: pickup truck. He was communicating. He could move his arms
Speaker 1: at this this point. Uh, they laid him in the
Speaker 1: back of a pickup truck for eleven and a half hours.
Speaker 1: He laid there and and if if they could have
Speaker 1: got him in within the first four hour window, they
Speaker 1: could have given him an injection at the point in
Speaker 1: his spine and arrested the edema. But that was long
Speaker 1: passed by the time he was in the emergency room.
Speaker 1: And when we went into the emergency there, if you
Speaker 1: know my asking, was there any explanation as to why
Speaker 1: they didn't take him to some medical care right away
Speaker 1: because of the underage kids. He didn't want to expose
Speaker 1: them to the police coming out there. He didn't want to, right,
Speaker 1: So where is your son now? He's home. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: got a power chair that he runs with his mouth.
Speaker 1: It's called a sipping puff. And Chris was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine too, God rest his soul. But Jesse his
Speaker 1: friends put a remote control for r C trucks and
Speaker 1: cars and boats. They built him this remote where everything's
Speaker 1: in one joystick and he's got an extended straw and
Speaker 1: they put it on a mic stand that's got vice
Speaker 1: grip welded to the end of it, and they clamping
Speaker 1: on his chair. And here this thing is and he
Speaker 1: runs the thing with his mouth and and he's got
Speaker 1: this boat that's a jet boat, and he runs it
Speaker 1: up our stream. We got a trout stream in front
Speaker 1: of our house. And he runs that thing up there.
Speaker 1: He takes it down to the you know, the waterfront,
Speaker 1: and there's you know, hundreds of people standing around and
Speaker 1: they're watching this boat zipping from own and they're looking
Speaker 1: for who's doing this, who's running it, And they see
Speaker 1: this kid in a power chair running this thing with
Speaker 1: his mouth. They can't believe. And my son, Jason, his
Speaker 1: older brother, who was born the same day, nine years earlier. Uh,
Speaker 1: he says, Dad, I got both my hands. I can't
Speaker 1: run as good as jess Ken with his mouth. If
Speaker 1: you don't mind my asking this question, which is this
Speaker 1: Christian faith of yours? Was that something that was a constant,
Speaker 1: Was that something that was as a result of what
Speaker 1: happened with your son? Was that something that you that
Speaker 1: you be dedicated to after what happened here? Something? Because
Speaker 1: I know that for me terrible time, I'm a Catholic
Speaker 1: and in really tough times in my life. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take the good word. I'm gonna take the good ideas
Speaker 1: from wherever I can get them. And I'm a churchgoer,
Speaker 1: probably become a more regular churchgoer when I'm in trouble.
Speaker 1: What was that like for you? Well, for me, it
Speaker 1: happened when my dad died. My mother, aunts and uncle's
Speaker 1: friends are all like in the dining room crying, sobbing,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at pictures. And this is just a
Speaker 1: few days after his death and the funeral. And I
Speaker 1: go into the living room and Billy Graham is on
Speaker 1: the television set and he's doing a crusade in Flint
Speaker 1: and he's at Atwood Stadium. And I see all these
Speaker 1: people down there at Atwood and I used to live
Speaker 1: next to Atwood, and I knew how big that place was.
Speaker 1: I said, man, there's a lot of people there. And
Speaker 1: so I started watching and he says to the viewing audience,
Speaker 1: if there's anybody out there that's hurting, that needs a
Speaker 1: touch from God that and he starts, you know, talking
Speaker 1: some directly to me, come on over here and put
Speaker 1: your hand on the television, said, I walk over nine
Speaker 1: years old. I put my hand on the television set
Speaker 1: and I pray with Billy Graham and I asked Jesus
Speaker 1: into my heart, you know, at nine years old. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I had my fame and went on.
Speaker 1: But I always had that The Lord is love, you know,
Speaker 1: the Lord is love, and I always had that in me.
Speaker 1: You know. When we had our Phoenix album, which was
Speaker 1: the first album after Terry Night, after the management thing
Speaker 1: we split, had Phoenix, there was a song on their calls,
Speaker 1: so you won't have to die, you know, and it
Speaker 1: talks about um, you know, the world and the overpopulation
Speaker 1: and a lot of things that we all recognize as problems.
Speaker 1: There's too many children only then more on the way
Speaker 1: if you don't start some birth control, and you won't
Speaker 1: last a much longer. It's best that would let him
Speaker 1: save us soul so we can get much stronger. You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it was he was calling on me,
Speaker 1: Love was calling on me, and I was putting it
Speaker 1: in the words, and people at that point we're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: are you a Christian now or what's going on? You know,
Speaker 1: because you said Jesus not a record. But I went
Speaker 1: through all those motions and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people do in a religious setting because they don't want
Speaker 1: to appear to be, you know, not plugged into God.
Speaker 1: So we're going along with and we're opening our mind
Speaker 1: to this. But what happens is the indebtedness that we
Speaker 1: were under in the world. Every debt that is anyone's
Speaker 1: holding against us, any financial debt that we carry, is
Speaker 1: an anchor to our soul. This indebtedness bullshit. And I
Speaker 1: am a Christian. I'm a customed Christian. You know. I
Speaker 1: have become life of Romans to win Romans. Brother, But
Speaker 1: you exchange the worldly debt for a godly debt, And
Speaker 1: I mean that's what people do because the church puts
Speaker 1: you right in debt. Now you gotta pay ten percent,
Speaker 1: you gotta tie. Now, you got to give your offerings. Nott,
Speaker 1: you got to support the missionaries. You gotta do this. No, no,
Speaker 1: because love isn't like that. There is no debt. When
Speaker 1: I had my pacemaker put in here four years ago October,
Speaker 1: I left the bone suit. I went into heaven. Brother,
Speaker 1: I know what it's like. It's debt free. But the
Speaker 1: things this procedure done twice, yes, yes, but one more
Speaker 1: than the other was that that dramatic or did you
Speaker 1: feel you left your body twice? Oh? I I knew
Speaker 1: I left it twice. It was both times you had
Speaker 1: a very, very kind of otherworldly experience. Yes, when you
Speaker 1: are absent from the bone suit, you are present with love.
Speaker 1: And this is what I I didn't get it when
Speaker 1: I was a Christian in the church because I was
Speaker 1: indebted to all these other silly notions that don't exist
Speaker 1: except in this religious realm where even Jesus said in
Speaker 1: the end time there's gonna be many wolves in sheep's clothing.
Speaker 1: And this is what we got today. You see, some
Speaker 1: of these cats got more bling, bling than the pimps
Speaker 1: on the street. It makes me sick. They're selling Jesus,
Speaker 1: they're selling their sound. If there's any kind of money
Speaker 1: that's involved, yes, exactly, Alec. But that money ruins the
Speaker 1: prospect of the real Jesus getting in there because it's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. Really, love does not inhabit the indebtedness
Speaker 1: of a person's soul. But I would imagine also, and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this to be glib, there, there's a
Speaker 1: very independent nature to you in your work. So it's
Speaker 1: like you don't really want to do a lot of
Speaker 1: covers of other people's material. You'll do one every now
Speaker 1: and then, but you'd rather write your own songs. The
Speaker 1: same is true in all things. I'd like to do
Speaker 1: my own material, but I want to I'm gonna switch
Speaker 1: gears here. I want to talk about when you're in
Speaker 1: a band, and you're in a band and you're pretty
Speaker 1: much in charge, were you viewed as the guy that
Speaker 1: was calling the shots? It wasn't much more to describe
Speaker 1: the other two guys. It's you and the guitar and vocals,
Speaker 1: Mel Shocker on bass and Don Brewer on drums and
Speaker 1: vocals and vocals. And Don was the businessman of the band,
Speaker 1: who handled Terry, who handled Terry and handled all of
Speaker 1: the books. Uh did he handled the business after Terry
Speaker 1: was gone? It's eventually, and you didn't need another guy
Speaker 1: because Don could take care of everything. Right. Well, it
Speaker 1: was Don that came to me and and said, we
Speaker 1: all need to sign the ownership of the trademark Randfunk
Speaker 1: Railroad into the corporation where it will have this protective umbrella.
Speaker 1: And I didn't finish high school. Uh. And he had
Speaker 1: gone to law school, so I figure he knows what
Speaker 1: he's talking about I figure, he's my friend, he he
Speaker 1: wants to protect us, yes, and so I said to him, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do that, and he says, let me go to
Speaker 1: my room and get the papers. And as he left,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, why the hell didn't he just bring the
Speaker 1: papers with him. And it didn't dawn on me what
Speaker 1: was going on until I had signed those papers he
Speaker 1: brought back to my room. I signed him and then
Speaker 1: I got the call that I was no longer in
Speaker 1: the corporation. They had thrown me out of the corporation
Speaker 1: and the band was going out without me. And I
Speaker 1: got a phone call. This was a ninety eight. Oh so,
Speaker 1: so after Terry is gone, Terry leaves, Terry's with you
Speaker 1: through the Golden Ages, late late sixties, early seventies, all
Speaker 1: the platinum records, all the big tours. Terry's gone. When
Speaker 1: he's out and done, replaces him fully win in so
Speaker 1: that quickly right after shea stadium three days sell out,
Speaker 1: So you sell out quicker than the Beatles. You're smoking hot.
Speaker 1: Terry's gone, Don takes over then, and everything was fine.
Speaker 1: It was Don took over as far as the books
Speaker 1: and keeping track of you know things, but we are
Speaker 1: road manager. Andy Cavaliery took over as management at that
Speaker 1: okay point, did you do a good job? Yeah? He did, uh,
Speaker 1: you know for not being a manager. I mean, he
Speaker 1: didn't know what the heck to do, but he learned
Speaker 1: real quick. Without getting into specifics, because I I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not so much leaning on income and money as
Speaker 1: I am. That you were able to protect him income
Speaker 1: because you always hear that the business is nothing but
Speaker 1: guys getting no money for the first five or six
Speaker 1: albums that they make because they've signed some crappy deal.
Speaker 1: You made a lot of money during that period, maybe
Speaker 1: not as much as you'd like to him made You
Speaker 1: made enough money. But Terry Knight told me that I
Speaker 1: needed to publish my songs through his company because he
Speaker 1: had this worldwide affiliation. So he didn't say to me,
Speaker 1: do you want all your money or half of it? Now?
Speaker 1: If he did, if he had presented it to take
Speaker 1: his piece of your money, yeah, he took his. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he took the publishing. Yeah, get it back to you,
Speaker 1: buy it back. No, I have it now. But but
Speaker 1: all those songs on the first seven eight albums are
Speaker 1: published through Storybook, which is Terry Knights published those songs.
Speaker 1: Are I only get my song writing, I don't get
Speaker 1: any of the publishing whatsoever. Yeah, he was stabbed to
Speaker 1: death by his daughter's boyfriend, Yes, six years ago in Temple, Texas.
Speaker 1: Brother there was drugs involved. She was eighteen, the boyfriend
Speaker 1: was twenty seven. The boyfriend came in, they were high
Speaker 1: on drugs. He starts abusing the daughter. Terry tries to
Speaker 1: get between them, and the guy goes in and grabs
Speaker 1: a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer stabs Terry
Speaker 1: twenty six times sixty at the young No, but his
Speaker 1: daughter had used that time to go to a friend's
Speaker 1: apartment because it was a complex, and when the cops
Speaker 1: got there to arrest this guy, he was trying to
Speaker 1: kick down the door on this other apartment to get
Speaker 1: at her, and he had a knife and blood and everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, the cops got him in. But but oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh but now she has the publishing company she has,
Speaker 1: she don't know anything about publishing, sorry to say, God
Speaker 1: bless her. Uh and so that's still I'm now you
Speaker 1: know this this new rule, you can get your songs
Speaker 1: back no matter who published him. So that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm in the in the process, sweet Sweet. While Grand
Speaker 1: Funk was rocking its way into America's hearts, Patty Lapone,
Speaker 1: another musical legend, was winning them over on the Broadway stage.
Speaker 1: When did it start to become fun for you? Oh?
Speaker 1: Anything goes okay because of the material and because of
Speaker 1: the cast. And it was hysterical. I mean Jerry's acts.
Speaker 1: And Jerry did a great job of direction. Yes he is.
Speaker 1: And but however, these were the way musicals used to
Speaker 1: be written. Dud to have a joke coming and then
Speaker 1: a gorgeous song. The material was so ripe and so beautiful.
Speaker 1: If I was in a bad mood, all I had
Speaker 1: to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I
Speaker 1: am tonight, take a listen that. Here's the thing dot
Speaker 1: Org in the nineties seventies, Mark Farner and Grand Funk Railroad.
Speaker 1: We're selling out stadiums worldwide while pushing politically charged hits
Speaker 1: like people, Let's stop the war. The Michigan native credits
Speaker 1: prayer for his resilient is. After all, he has a
Speaker 1: heart condition that he says has killed him twice. I
Speaker 1: knew about it just because of the flutter when I
Speaker 1: was in my early twenties. So you had an arrhythmia,
Speaker 1: which I have that as well, and you had a
Speaker 1: in arrhythmia. We're gonna go down the whole list, and
Speaker 1: I have that too. I just can't write songs and sing.
Speaker 1: But other than that, other than the whole rock and
Speaker 1: roll thing. So um, But when did you like first
Speaker 1: flame out? Like, when did it really get serious? I
Speaker 1: woke up. We were at the Renaissance Center in Detroit.
Speaker 1: We're down doing some radio and stayed tonight and my
Speaker 1: my wife is in the bathroom. She she told me
Speaker 1: as she came out of the bathroom and looked at me,
Speaker 1: I'm laying in a bit. My arm, my left arm
Speaker 1: shoots up in the air, and she said, my body
Speaker 1: started going into these contortions and and I started having
Speaker 1: this foam coming out of my mouth. And she's on
Speaker 1: the phone. She's got the paramedics there, and like stat
Speaker 1: they were right there. They had me on oxygen. They
Speaker 1: having a seizure. Yes, I was having a seizure, but
Speaker 1: I didn't realize what was going on. My problem was electrical.
Speaker 1: I had what they call bundle branch block, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't receiving the signal to squeeze and send the blood
Speaker 1: to the top part. And that's what happened to me.
Speaker 1: But on the way to the hospital and the ambulance,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy is talking to me and I
Speaker 1: could feel my heart doing some crazy stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like whopping around in there. I go in
Speaker 1: to in the emergency room on a gurney. They've got
Speaker 1: me on an external pacemaker. There's three doctors ten ft
Speaker 1: from me in the corner looking at a screen and
Speaker 1: they're dialing hitting switches instead. There's three of them over there,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, wham, I'm hit like it
Speaker 1: feels like I'm hit with four forty volts or something.
Speaker 1: They hit me hard and it hurts so bad. I
Speaker 1: hollered out. My wife Lisa comes over, what's the matter?
Speaker 1: What's the man? I said, Do you hit me with
Speaker 1: so much electricity? They're trying to kill me? And she
Speaker 1: starts telling to the top of her lungs, Hey, hey,
Speaker 1: she's screaming. These guys are not turning around. Doctors are
Speaker 1: coming in from out in the hallway, Uh, what's going
Speaker 1: on in here? Because they hear the commotion and her
Speaker 1: hollering and she's saying, they're trying to kill and and
Speaker 1: wham they hit me again, and I'm gone, I'm in
Speaker 1: heaven now, I'm in heaven. Now I'm digging it because
Speaker 1: heaven is you understand, and you know all things immediately,
Speaker 1: immediately you know everything, and the peace that passes understanding
Speaker 1: takes over your consciousness. I thought you were going to
Speaker 1: see you're in heaven, and you know you're in heaven
Speaker 1: because Elvis Presley wokes up, just says Mark Farner. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of or Love music. I think I
Speaker 1: love local. You're covering on the way you think, Alec,
Speaker 1: that's happened to me. But good continue. I'm sorry. I'm there,
Speaker 1: and I hear you know. We got him back twice.
Speaker 1: I be there twice. I died. They paddled me back.
Speaker 1: I die again, and they paddled me back. And the
Speaker 1: doctor says to Lisa, we got him back twice. There
Speaker 1: is no guarantee we're going to get him a third time.
Speaker 1: We have to get him to o R right this second,
Speaker 1: and I mean stat. And when he said stat, things
Speaker 1: were like Mash four oh seven seven. People were just
Speaker 1: hauling ashes every direction. And I got down there had
Speaker 1: this pacemaker put in. The following morning, the doctor who
Speaker 1: did the catholization came in. Thirty two year old guy,
Speaker 1: and he says, Mr Farner, I've done thousands of these,
Speaker 1: I mean literally thousands of these catholizations. He says, I
Speaker 1: did a twelve year old kid yesterday. And I want
Speaker 1: to tell you something. Your cardiovascular system is in better
Speaker 1: shape than this twelve year old. I want to know
Speaker 1: what you're doing. He says, you don't have any plaque?
Speaker 1: What's that in that back row? Now, let's go back,
Speaker 1: you know, back in that time or in and around
Speaker 1: that time. Seventies. I mean this is I mean the
Speaker 1: seventies are just this blazing the business blazing thing. It's
Speaker 1: does It's Zeppelin and the Who and yeah and you
Speaker 1: guys and uh, you know you had three guys? Why
Speaker 1: is it three guys? Who makes it? Did you ever
Speaker 1: think we need more guys? Did you bring on more guys?
Speaker 1: Why was it just? It was a bassist, a drummer
Speaker 1: and the lead guitars only or a keyboardist. Right? We
Speaker 1: had just I say we the band, the Fabulous Pack,
Speaker 1: had gone to Boston to do some gigs. Now, this
Speaker 1: agency from Michigan told us, we're gonna send you out there.
Speaker 1: We'll put you up, they're gonna feed you. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna get paid, but if you do good, if they
Speaker 1: like you, we'll go back and we'll actually make some money.
Speaker 1: That we were making money from the get go. They
Speaker 1: just lied to us. Right. So we're staying on Cape
Speaker 1: Cod in summer cottages and the worst snowstorm in the
Speaker 1: history of the world hits and we are stranded in
Speaker 1: Cape Cod, East Sandwich, Massachusetts. We're melting down snow because
Speaker 1: the pipes are frozen. We have a little gas heater
Speaker 1: or in the living room. No insulation in these I mean,
Speaker 1: just a little you know, space heater deal, and we're stuck.
Speaker 1: We go to the grocery store. He would give us
Speaker 1: oatmeal and that's all we had. We didn't have sugar,
Speaker 1: we didn't have butter, we didn't have We just had
Speaker 1: the oatmeal. We'd melt down the snow make this olden. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it was. It was unbelievable. And dude, we had to
Speaker 1: take a crap in a paper bag that we got
Speaker 1: from the guy at the store, and then you know,
Speaker 1: we take the bag and go stick it in the
Speaker 1: snow bag. I would hate to bend the people cleaning
Speaker 1: that message tall you kidding. But we were there two weeks,
Speaker 1: I mean it was, and with two of the guys
Speaker 1: in the band were married. So by the time we'd
Speaker 1: hitch hiked up the coast and one of the one
Speaker 1: of the guys, I don't know how they did it,
Speaker 1: but they had contracted the crabs, so he was in
Speaker 1: one house by hisself, and all the rest of us
Speaker 1: was us out there exactly. Yes, when we got back home,
Speaker 1: the two that were married, their wives were threatening divorce
Speaker 1: and we just I mean it was a big blowout, right,
Speaker 1: And so I said to Brewer, you know, we should
Speaker 1: just do three piece and forget, forget the keyboards, forget
Speaker 1: getting anybody in the band that has anything to do
Speaker 1: with a woman. But you know, because this is gonna
Speaker 1: screw us. Yeah, so we go up and we're gonna
Speaker 1: give these guys in Bay City a piece of our
Speaker 1: mind because we one way after we found out we
Speaker 1: were paid three fifty dollars a night for doing these
Speaker 1: shows and we never saw a penny of it. We
Speaker 1: were going to chew their ass out real good for him.
Speaker 1: And we're setting in the waiting room to waiting to
Speaker 1: get into the office, and it was also a rehearsal facility.
Speaker 1: And there's a band in their rehearsal and I'm listening
Speaker 1: to this base through the wall. I'm going Brewer, let
Speaker 1: into this bass player. Dude, who is this? And so
Speaker 1: they're rehearsal blah blah blah. We can just hear kind
Speaker 1: of the throbs. They get done with their little rehearsal.
Speaker 1: Mel Shocker walks out and he's playing with question marking
Speaker 1: the mysterious, you know, and we say to him, dude,
Speaker 1: we're going to start a three piece band. Would you
Speaker 1: like to be in the band? Man? He says, I am,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to leave this band. You couldn't have picked
Speaker 1: a better time for me, because when do we start
Speaker 1: with a Monday at the at the Flint Federation of
Speaker 1: the Musicians Union Hall. And you know him, Yes, I
Speaker 1: went to school with Melvin. He was a year under me.
Speaker 1: When he kept tabs in his career, you knew he
Speaker 1: was with that band where everybody's kind of keeping tabs
Speaker 1: on each other in that community like that Flinty. Now
Speaker 1: this is true for all performance. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's that white hot period and it goes by. You
Speaker 1: almost didn't even know what's happening. You don't even know,
Speaker 1: you don't even you almost don't even know it is
Speaker 1: the white hot period. Right, But and then she you
Speaker 1: realize that we all age and it changes. Yes, when
Speaker 1: do you start to feel this is changing? When here
Speaker 1: started going away bad, fantastic, You can feel it exactly
Speaker 1: sighting up. And I believe too that I know that
Speaker 1: in my heart. Uh, I was born and you know
Speaker 1: I was put here on this planet to entertain, also
Speaker 1: to provoke people to think I'm an entertainer, but there's
Speaker 1: something more to me. I have an underlying motive. I
Speaker 1: have love in my heart and I love all people,
Speaker 1: all colors, all races. I don't see um, I don't
Speaker 1: see difference like this. You got a little political for
Speaker 1: a while when you were very entering the war. Correct, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I wrote the song people Let's Stop the War, and
Speaker 1: people today when I play that on stage at like
Speaker 1: they love that sting. I mean because it's still no,
Speaker 1: it's still but you're not political now. I put it
Speaker 1: in between the lines and my music. I've always said
Speaker 1: it with a song, brother, and I I'll say it
Speaker 1: this way because I believe the world could be one
Speaker 1: with the right song, It could be one get to
Speaker 1: the heart of every person. What was the easiest song?
Speaker 1: What's the song that really really flowed out of you?
Speaker 1: Was I? Was it closer to home? Yes, because I
Speaker 1: remember I read was somewhere where you jumped out of bed,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the night. You had to
Speaker 1: write it down. Yes, you just you just came to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: but I'd pre empt that with I did say my prayers.
Speaker 1: Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the
Speaker 1: Lord my soul to keep if I should die before
Speaker 1: I wake, and pray the Lord my soul to take
Speaker 1: You know, I used to pray just for the fire
Speaker 1: insurance because I used to think, Man, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to hell, so I gotta I gotta touch
Speaker 1: base with God here before I closed my eyes. You know.
Speaker 1: That's the way I do it. But I pray the
Speaker 1: Lord myself to take it. If I should die before
Speaker 1: I wake, I pray the Lord that I get that
Speaker 1: last verse. If I'm your captain. Well I did. I
Speaker 1: put a p s after I said, God bless my
Speaker 1: mom and dad and Graham. I blessed everybody in the
Speaker 1: whole damn family. Then I said, God, would you please
Speaker 1: give me a song that would reach and touch the
Speaker 1: hearts of peace pool you want to get to. But
Speaker 1: when you you finished that song, how does that process
Speaker 1: work with those two guys. You'd all get together to
Speaker 1: rehearse and you'd lay it out for them and say,
Speaker 1: here's this, this is what I came up with. Yes,
Speaker 1: And well that the following morning, I got up and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the horses out in the pasture. I've
Speaker 1: got a hundred ted acre farm them there, and I
Speaker 1: make my coffee I got, you know, I'm strumming my
Speaker 1: George Washburn, American made George Washburn was the baddest guitar
Speaker 1: I ever had. Uh, And I said, bop and bop
Speaker 1: and bop, and it just started coming, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking wow. Uh. Then I start in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, oh, the words. I wonder if that is
Speaker 1: a song. And so I go and I get my
Speaker 1: little yellow legal pad there with all I'm your captain
Speaker 1: written down on it, lay it on the table, and
Speaker 1: I just started this. This the sea, that second chord,
Speaker 1: I'd never played it, that inversion of that sea, and
Speaker 1: I went Wow, where the hell did that come? And
Speaker 1: I looked down at my fingers and I went, wow,
Speaker 1: that looks pretty cool. I'm gonna keep that. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get that and I take it to rehearsal that day.
Speaker 1: I like and then I and I said, look, I
Speaker 1: got this song and bopping do today and they're going
Speaker 1: damn far enough. That's a hit man, That's all I say.
Speaker 1: Hire cool. They were right, and you recorded that what year?
Speaker 1: And they played the hell out of that. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: I told you, I'm not I'm not ashamed to say this.
Speaker 1: I'd stick my head out the window and I'd smoke
Speaker 1: a joint and blow up that joint out the window.
Speaker 1: And I'd had these big I mean, I saved the
Speaker 1: money to buy these gigantic Acoustic Research, these gigantic, beautiful
Speaker 1: A and R speakers, and they were in the corner
Speaker 1: of my bedroom. And when I would move them next
Speaker 1: to my head, and I would lay my head down
Speaker 1: like I was having a cat scan. You know. I
Speaker 1: have like these two giant boxes next to my ears,
Speaker 1: and I get the volume really low. I'd smoked that
Speaker 1: joy to come back, and I laid it and I
Speaker 1: put on closer to home such a beautiful song. Thank you. Now,
Speaker 1: what's the song that you sweat it over? What was
Speaker 1: a tough song to write? What was one of the
Speaker 1: hardest songs Peter write the hardest? I believe like bad Time.
Speaker 1: I was as my first wife. She was in the
Speaker 1: kitchen hollering and screaming, and I'm in the dining room
Speaker 1: on the keyboards. You know, she's about the exactly dude.
Speaker 1: But she's in there threatening to put a twelve inch
Speaker 1: cast iron skillet through my forehead. I mean, she's just
Speaker 1: really madding the wet hair. And I'm in there writing.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to write bad Time, and yeah, this is
Speaker 1: Queen and she's you know, I'm singing that part out
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know that this what she's doing
Speaker 1: is not melting with what I'm trying to do in here. Uh,
Speaker 1: when this song comes out, you're not gonna be happy, baby.
Speaker 1: But but that song was played more than any other
Speaker 1: song in V five. I got a b m I
Speaker 1: Award for that song. When the band really really and
Speaker 1: you go, what was it like for you to perform
Speaker 1: overseas as? I mean, you sang a song One are
Speaker 1: your most legendary songs is We're an American band. How
Speaker 1: did one of the most famous American bands in rock
Speaker 1: and roll history? How did they play overseas? Where where
Speaker 1: did they welcome you the most? Where did you get
Speaker 1: the vibe, the feeling, because you're very spiritual. Where did
Speaker 1: you feel that communion with the audience the most? Um,
Speaker 1: I felt it when we were in Germany. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, you know, we did a show for
Speaker 1: the troops at Shrine, for ten thousand troops and then
Speaker 1: all the civilians. Dude, there was like thirty thousand people there.
Speaker 1: They had backed up to semi trailers. That was the stage,
Speaker 1: and the spotlights were three tanks out in front. You know,
Speaker 1: you got this tank following you, uh to to play
Speaker 1: in in Europe. They loved it, and especially when we
Speaker 1: would hit We're an American band? Are you kidding? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know when you go out there now and you performed.
Speaker 1: Now you're still performing and I want to read I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read. Let me read this for you if I may.
Speaker 1: This is from Elmore Magazine, January thousand sixteen. Barry Fish
Speaker 1: walking out onto the stage and a T shirt, jeans,
Speaker 1: and his long, partially braided hair. He looked exactly like
Speaker 1: the Mark Farner of old. More importantly, he sounded exactly
Speaker 1: the same as well, both with his vocals and his
Speaker 1: guitar playing. Leading a band consisting of bass, drums and keyboards,
Speaker 1: he launched right into are You Ready, the same tune
Speaker 1: used to open many of Grand Funk shows back in
Speaker 1: their heyday around forty five years ago. This began a
Speaker 1: set of songs that came right at you, NonStop, hit
Speaker 1: after hit, footstop and music. We're an American band, and
Speaker 1: they just kept coming until he finally stopped to take
Speaker 1: a break and say hellad to the audience. Farner informed
Speaker 1: his very dedicated bands that in the recent past he
Speaker 1: had a pacemaker put in due to a heart condition.
Speaker 1: The energy he exudes on stage now is proof of
Speaker 1: how he has completely recovered. The doctor said, don't baby it,
Speaker 1: and he told my wife, he said, tell him, don't
Speaker 1: baby it. He's got a new heart. Now. That's the
Speaker 1: way he's got to look at it. Everybody listen to
Speaker 1: me and return me my ship. I'm your captain. I'm
Speaker 1: your captain. Oh I'm feeling mighty sick. I've been a
Speaker 1: love now days accounted, and it's months. I've seen home.
Speaker 1: Can you hear me? Can you hear? Tickets to his
Speaker 1: upcoming shows can be found at Mark Farner dot com.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: My friends and I used to sit there and sing,
Speaker 1: we will be doing a movie and if we didn't
Speaker 1: like the director, I'd sit there in myself going and
Speaker 1: my in my trailer dreaming. Are you really scheming to
Speaker 1: take this movie away from me? You better think of that.
Speaker 1: You know, we think that lyric keeping very handy, lot
Speaker 1: of lot of moments. You're singing in tune, Well, well
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't go that. For All I want
Speaker 1: to say to you is you are such a great, great,
Speaker 1: great musician. Thank you, and you're such a great part
Speaker 1: of my life musically. I was just really really happy
Speaker 1: to have you come into the show. Well, God bless you, Alec.
Speaker 1: It's been my pleasure. Thank you. Only you had a
Speaker 1: thing about it. I just can't live without it, so