Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob less Us Podcast.
Speaker 1: Yesterday is the one and only Mark farn Martin. Good
Speaker 1: to have the other podcast. Good to be here with
Speaker 1: your brother, Bob. So how's your health. I know you
Speaker 1: have a pacemaker put in back in So how are
Speaker 1: you today? I'm good. And as a matter of fact, Uh,
Speaker 1: the pacemaker, you know, they're supposed to be good for
Speaker 1: seven to ten years, and uh, my date is coming
Speaker 1: up October twenty three for the for the ten year mark.
Speaker 1: And when I talked to the gal at the hospital,
Speaker 1: you know, you put this little thing over your heart
Speaker 1: and it sends it through the cell phone and gives
Speaker 1: them a reading for the month, you know, and she says,
Speaker 1: it's very extraordinary that you should have so much battery
Speaker 1: life left in your pay pacemaker. But you're good for
Speaker 1: a long time. Yeah. I love hearing stuff like that, Bob,
Speaker 1: don't we all? So tell us the story of why
Speaker 1: you needed the pacemaker to begin with. Well, my wife
Speaker 1: and I were down in Detroit doing some promotions, and
Speaker 1: uh we stayed at the Renaissance Center there and she
Speaker 1: had gotten up to do her thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: you know, she was in the bathroom, washing her face
Speaker 1: and everything. And she said when she came out of
Speaker 1: the bathroom, my left arm had was shot up into
Speaker 1: the air, and and I was I started kind of
Speaker 1: flipping around. I don't remember any of this, buddy, uh,
Speaker 1: but I guess I looked like a wounded tuna, you know,
Speaker 1: flipping around. And she calls, you know, the front desk,
Speaker 1: and has a paramedics come up. They put me on oxygen.
Speaker 1: They put me in a ambulance, and I go over
Speaker 1: to to Harper in Detroit and I'm in the emergency
Speaker 1: room and I gurney and they got me hooked to
Speaker 1: an external pacemaker. And these three doctors, well I think
Speaker 1: they were doctors. They had white coats and they had
Speaker 1: their backs to me, uh, and they were maybe six
Speaker 1: ft away from me, but they were looking at the machine,
Speaker 1: the external pacemaker, and it was in the corner. And
Speaker 1: as I look over, I'm glancing down at myself and
Speaker 1: I see these wires hooked to me, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I feel like they just plugged me right
Speaker 1: straight into the wall. It was like bam. And I
Speaker 1: hollered out to the top of my lungs. I was,
Speaker 1: what are you it was like and and my wife
Speaker 1: heard me holler, and she came running in from the hallway, Honey,
Speaker 1: what's the matter. And I said, those guys are They
Speaker 1: just plugged me straight into the wall over there. I said,
Speaker 1: this is this is not you know. I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna die if they do that again. They plugged. They
Speaker 1: did it again, and I died. Yeah, and uh so
Speaker 1: on on that approach to come back in into the
Speaker 1: bone suit. I didn't really want to make that trip, buddy.
Speaker 1: It was so good. On the other side, it was
Speaker 1: just like being home. I mean it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was more secure than your mother's womb, if you
Speaker 1: can imagine. Uh And and I knew all things in
Speaker 1: that state of being and uh and but I could
Speaker 1: hear my wife not now, you son of a bit.
Speaker 1: She's beating up my chest. And this guy when I
Speaker 1: when I re entered my bone suit, this the doctor
Speaker 1: standing next to her with the paddles in his hands.
Speaker 1: And uh it had they hit me again with this voltage?
Speaker 1: I go again, and I'm in I'm in heaven, man,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, Uh, it's the most wonderful place. And anyways,
Speaker 1: make a long story short. I hear him telling her
Speaker 1: we've got him back twice, there's no guarantee we get
Speaker 1: him a third time. We gotta get him to oh
Speaker 1: our stat. And when he said stat, it was like
Speaker 1: mash four oh seven seven scrambling around people, running, diving,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing me. I was doing fifty miles an
Speaker 1: hour down the hollway and they put the pacemaker in.
Speaker 1: But what happened was, uh, you know, they've got two
Speaker 1: parts to your your heart, the plumbing, of course, which
Speaker 1: is very important, but then you have the electrical. Well,
Speaker 1: my electrical had a short in it, Bob. They called
Speaker 1: it a bundle branch block, and my nerve branch did
Speaker 1: not receive the signal to squeeze the blood back up
Speaker 1: into the top part of the heart. So that's what
Speaker 1: happened to me. And I you know, now I have
Speaker 1: this pacemaker that samples ahead and it can see when
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss a beat, and it'll throw it in
Speaker 1: there for me. When it throws it in, do you
Speaker 1: feel something, Oh, yes, very much, so you go, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. And how often does that happen. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen very often. In fact, it happened more frequently ten
Speaker 1: years ago when I first got it put in. I
Speaker 1: mean it was happening quite frequently. I would notice every day.
Speaker 1: Now I go days without noticing. And is this hereditary
Speaker 1: or from living or just some people get a bad number.
Speaker 1: I believe it's hereditary, brother, because my grandfather, my dad's dad,
Speaker 1: died in his sleep and they didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was, you know, back years and years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think I might have picked something up from him. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's quite a story. So do you have to hold
Speaker 1: back in any activity or can you just live fine? No?
Speaker 1: In fact, Bob, he said, he told my wife, you
Speaker 1: tell Mark, don't baby that thing. You push that thing,
Speaker 1: you make it work, you, you know, take it to
Speaker 1: the limit. So I do, and on stage I make
Speaker 1: sure that you know I'm keeping it in good shape.
Speaker 1: And if I don't get to where I'm sweating and
Speaker 1: to something is wrong. Now, frequently when people have these
Speaker 1: near death or as you say in your case, actual
Speaker 1: death experiences, when they come out of them kind of
Speaker 1: changes their perspective in their life. Was your perspective changed
Speaker 1: at all? Yes? I was telling my wife for a
Speaker 1: few years prior to this adventure that I went on.
Speaker 1: I told her the thing that's wrong with mankind in
Speaker 1: general is debt consciousness, um I said, because once you're
Speaker 1: indebted to someone or beholden to someone or something, you
Speaker 1: you're compromised. You can't really be free in your expression
Speaker 1: and your relationship with that person or thing, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: That's that's you're in debt too. And on my re
Speaker 1: entry into my bone suit that last time, Bob, I
Speaker 1: had such a confirmation of that whole thing and what
Speaker 1: the Bible is talking about when Jesus is saying, oh,
Speaker 1: no man anything except to love him. You know, that
Speaker 1: was the state of mind that he was in. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's why there was all the miracles, because
Speaker 1: when you're indebted to anyone or any thing, uh, you're
Speaker 1: you're cutting yourself short. And I found out on on
Speaker 1: that reentry that you know, and on the other side,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know all things immediately, you know, I
Speaker 1: even had On that side of the fence, I had
Speaker 1: the purpose. I knew what the purpose of these earth
Speaker 1: years were. I mean, I knew what it was. And
Speaker 1: on this side I couldn't tell you. I'm thinking maybe
Speaker 1: it's like plugging a one ten fan into two twenty.
Speaker 1: It would just smoke you. I mean, your brain is
Speaker 1: only built for so much information. But the debt consciousness
Speaker 1: as not just money. Debt, that's certainly part of it.
Speaker 1: But what if you don't fulfill the expectations of some somebody,
Speaker 1: some people. What if it was somebody in your family
Speaker 1: and they called one of the siblings or somebody else
Speaker 1: and they tell them the story of how now you're
Speaker 1: indebted to them, you know, and then they call you
Speaker 1: and you're put on the ship list and you're in
Speaker 1: debt because of this situation. And it's all a misconception
Speaker 1: because people aren't people aren't coming from that point of view.
Speaker 1: They're not coming from the love that's in their heart
Speaker 1: and trying to find the love. And everybody else they
Speaker 1: are coming from a place of defense and coming from
Speaker 1: a place of being offended. And uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's a debt ladent world that we are living in.
Speaker 1: We are moved from our place of comfort by this
Speaker 1: silly four letter word d ebt. Holy crap, man, Let's
Speaker 1: go down to the drug store and buy a box
Speaker 1: and then and dump it on a table and look
Speaker 1: at it. Or that are yet, let's get a tenure
Speaker 1: dump truck full of it and have them dump it
Speaker 1: in our front yards. A wee can weigh in this
Speaker 1: stuff and really get familiar with it because even the
Speaker 1: indebtedness of regret we can set ourselves free from. But
Speaker 1: we are the only ones who can set ourselves free
Speaker 1: from this. And people don't realize this, but that's what
Speaker 1: I was that was revealed to me, and I was
Speaker 1: that was confirmed in me on that last re entry.
Speaker 1: I call it the re entry into this bone suit.
Speaker 1: And I've been sharing that experience with people who are
Speaker 1: profoundly jolted by this notion of being debt free and
Speaker 1: that we are the ones who control what we will
Speaker 1: accept as debt and uh and how not to accept
Speaker 1: any debt. I think once you get that going and
Speaker 1: realize who you are in this this simplistic form, this
Speaker 1: human form, that then we can see love. Then we
Speaker 1: can experience love, because you know that's where love lives. Buddy,
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example or two of how
Speaker 1: you changed your life relative to this debt insight. Yes,
Speaker 1: I look at other people that prior to the revelation
Speaker 1: that I've had brother, I may have held them responsible
Speaker 1: for actions that that they took that had a bad
Speaker 1: reflection on me, or had a bad influence on me,
Speaker 1: or you know, left might have left me um angry.
Speaker 1: And I just can't go there anymore. I can't go
Speaker 1: there because people are so precious and we don't let ourselves.
Speaker 1: We don't allow that tenderness to come through or to too. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think that it could be in another person to
Speaker 1: consider that and someone who's you know, maybe what if
Speaker 1: alcohol was involved and one of your relatives said something
Speaker 1: to you that was just off the wall. You know,
Speaker 1: it's has happened with me, And since the revelation that
Speaker 1: I've had, I can't hold that person in debt for that,
Speaker 1: you know, for the words, for that experience that I
Speaker 1: went through with him. I just have to let it go.
Speaker 1: And it's like a lot of people have asked me about,
Speaker 1: you know, the relationship that I had with the other
Speaker 1: two members of the band, and uh, you know, doesn't
Speaker 1: that piss you off? I want to know it doesn't
Speaker 1: piss me off. It makes me feel sorry for somebody
Speaker 1: who can't be truthful with the audience with our fans. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I I refuse to let it piss me off,
Speaker 1: because you know, that would keep me that would put
Speaker 1: me in some kind of uh frame, a reference to
Speaker 1: debt consciousness, and I don't want any more debt consciousness.
Speaker 1: In fact, every day, brother Bob, before my feet swing
Speaker 1: out and get put put on the floor, I lay
Speaker 1: in the bed and I pray to the Creator and
Speaker 1: ask to be shown where there's any more anchors in
Speaker 1: my soul here, so that I can take these bolt
Speaker 1: cutters that I have and cut that chain to that
Speaker 1: anchor and get set free. Because I want to be
Speaker 1: completely free before I leave this earth. And I think
Speaker 1: even in that state of mind, if we can all
Speaker 1: head that way, we'll be able to see some miracles
Speaker 1: before we go. What is the truth that your two
Speaker 1: other original band members are holding back from the public.
Speaker 1: They advertise themselves as Grand funk It. They have a
Speaker 1: legal right to do that because Uh the drummer came
Speaker 1: to me one night after a gig we did up
Speaker 1: in California telling me, and this is after a party,
Speaker 1: you know, you know it, had a few beers or
Speaker 1: have some drinks or something. Go back to the hotel room.
Speaker 1: He comes to my hotel room says, hey, Mark, we
Speaker 1: all we all need to sign the individual ownership of
Speaker 1: the trademark into the corporation where it'll have this protective umbrella.
Speaker 1: And he had gone to law school and I didn't
Speaker 1: finish high school. And I thought, well, he's looking out
Speaker 1: for the best interests of the band. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought to myself, Yeah, okay, I'll do that.
Speaker 1: He says, good, I'll go to my room and get
Speaker 1: the papers. And I'm thinking as he left, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: why the hell didn't he just bring the papers with him.
Speaker 1: But it didn't dawn on me that I was being
Speaker 1: set up. Uh, And so when he came back, I
Speaker 1: signed the papers, and so my ownership, my one third
Speaker 1: ownership of the trademark, which is the name Grandfunk Railroad,
Speaker 1: got put into the corporation where I found out, uh,
Speaker 1: they had fired me as an officer. I was like
Speaker 1: the vice president. Um, and I'm no longer an office.
Speaker 1: I no longer have any say so in a corporation
Speaker 1: with three people, when you got two of them against you,
Speaker 1: it's just even even though I wrote of the music
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, and did all the stuff, they
Speaker 1: can go out with my music and make a living
Speaker 1: and claim that they are Grandfunk Railroad. Legally because of
Speaker 1: that mistake that I made. But I can't hold them responsible,
Speaker 1: even though that's a shitty thing to do. I'm telling you, Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't hold them responsible for that because I have
Speaker 1: to view that in my current state of mind as
Speaker 1: just them being off their path. But if they were
Speaker 1: honest with people, they would have said Grand Funk revisited
Speaker 1: or something to this degree, just like Credence Clearwater, you know,
Speaker 1: authorities not with him. Uh, And they had a spat.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was about. I didn't
Speaker 1: read on it. I just knew that there was something
Speaker 1: going on between them and the legally, that there was
Speaker 1: something that you know, at least they said Credence Clearwater revisited,
Speaker 1: which gave the fans heads up. Uh. I think the
Speaker 1: other two guys in the band, if they would have
Speaker 1: said grand Funk revisited, that would have given them, uh
Speaker 1: a point of you know, some validity with the fans.
Speaker 1: And you know, uh, they could have looked them online
Speaker 1: and say, well, what's this about. But no, they just
Speaker 1: go out and they don't tell the audience. There's no
Speaker 1: way that they can say to the audience or advertised
Speaker 1: that the guy who wrote and sang of the music
Speaker 1: is no longer in the band. What was the impetus?
Speaker 1: Obviously they had this all planned out. They wanted to
Speaker 1: sign the document. They wanted to get rid of you
Speaker 1: as an officer. What was going on that they wanted
Speaker 1: to do that at that time? I don't really. I
Speaker 1: can only say that it has to be a personal
Speaker 1: grudge of some sort, some kind of vendetta. Uh. Mel
Speaker 1: Shocker the bass player, and I have been friends. I
Speaker 1: mean we went to school together. We we jammed together,
Speaker 1: we we rode dirt bikes together, and uh, and we
Speaker 1: smoked pot together as kids. I mean, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I just could never understand how Mel uh could
Speaker 1: have gone along with Don on that and and come
Speaker 1: it in himself to it. But then just this year,
Speaker 1: I was, after we started, you know, doing a few
Speaker 1: more gigs, I was in the Delta Club in Detroit,
Speaker 1: and Mel the bass player was in there. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know he was in there. I was just I
Speaker 1: had my headphones on and I'm over there listening to
Speaker 1: some music I've been working on with Mark Slaughter and Uh.
Speaker 1: And I see Malcolm walking around the corner and he
Speaker 1: looks at me, and he puts his arms out, you know.
Speaker 1: So I stand up, I give him a hug, and
Speaker 1: he just says to me, you know, Mark, he says,
Speaker 1: I really love what you do. I really love who
Speaker 1: you are. You're the greatest, he says, And brother, I
Speaker 1: just had to do what I had to do. And
Speaker 1: at that moment, I looked at him and I just
Speaker 1: felt so sorry for this kid. That he was an
Speaker 1: only child and his mom and had died, and he
Speaker 1: went through some stuff. His his wife died. He's been
Speaker 1: through a lot, and I can't hold him responsible, um,
Speaker 1: you know, for the two of them going out and
Speaker 1: claiming to be the band and you know, grandfather and
Speaker 1: not warning or not at least telling somebody. So I
Speaker 1: looked him in the eyes and I told him, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought in my heart that that was
Speaker 1: probably you know, what was going on, that it's something
Speaker 1: that you had to do, because you know, with everything
Speaker 1: that you have been through and and the things, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that that all your bills don't go away
Speaker 1: when things like this happened, and you become very aware.
Speaker 1: And I said, I understand, Melvin, and I just I said,
Speaker 1: I forgive you for that, and he give me a
Speaker 1: big hug and that was it was like, man, that
Speaker 1: was so good, dude. Uh, just to know that that's
Speaker 1: how he felt. I can't, I can't say that. You know,
Speaker 1: because of that, the band is going to get back together.
Speaker 1: I think I had been trying to put the band
Speaker 1: back together for twenty three years because I realized when
Speaker 1: the Beatles were together and I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted them to go back on the road so I
Speaker 1: could see him live. Man, I'm a Beatle fan, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, those all four of them guys are
Speaker 1: still sucking air. Why can't they just bury the hatchet
Speaker 1: and do it for us, do it for the fans
Speaker 1: that bought all those records, you know, and so putting
Speaker 1: myself in those shoes. Um, I kept petitioning those guys
Speaker 1: to do it for the fans, to do it for
Speaker 1: the sake of our fans, and I kept hearing people
Speaker 1: say yeah, Don said uh, never say never. They asked
Speaker 1: him in an interview if he'd ever get back together
Speaker 1: with with you and if the original band would ever
Speaker 1: go out, and he says, never say never. But that's
Speaker 1: just easy to say. But when you when you feel
Speaker 1: the you know, the virility the and when you feel
Speaker 1: that hatred. Uh, Like when I when I went out
Speaker 1: as Mark Farner's American band, I got a trademark. I
Speaker 1: did it legally through lawyers. Uh. They sued me and
Speaker 1: it cost us a lot of money. Not only did
Speaker 1: it cost me to pay my attorn knees, one from California,
Speaker 1: one from Michigan because it was a Michigan corporation. Uh,
Speaker 1: I had to pay one third of their attorneys. Yeah, yeah, brother,
Speaker 1: But I gotta let all that go. You know, I
Speaker 1: cannot allow that to eat my lunch. That's my power, brother, Bob,
Speaker 1: and I will use it in the manner which I choose.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea what Don's beef with you? Is?
Speaker 1: Have not a clue? I really don't have a clue.
Speaker 1: Let's go side. How do you know Mark Slaughter? Mark Slaughter,
Speaker 1: we did a rock and roll fantasy camp years ago
Speaker 1: and h and Marcus is Uh he's part Cherokee. I'm
Speaker 1: part Cherokee. So on, just on that basis alone, we
Speaker 1: have something in common that not a lot of people do,
Speaker 1: and that we're musicians in the rock and roll field.
Speaker 1: That just gave us a head start on our friendship.
Speaker 1: And our brotherhood. Uh. And we did the Howard Sterns
Speaker 1: Show while we were in New York City and it's recorded.
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube now. But we had Kip Winger on base,
Speaker 1: Sandy Gennaro on drums, Teddy's Zigzag on the keyboards, um
Speaker 1: Mark Slaughter on guitar, and Bruce Culick who now plays
Speaker 1: guitar with Don and Mel. He was on the acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: But we were all doing rock and roll fantasy camp
Speaker 1: for David fish Off and uh, and we did a
Speaker 1: we did I'm Your Captain, and I was so impressed
Speaker 1: by those guys. They made it sound believable because all
Speaker 1: those guys told me how much they loved me and
Speaker 1: how much they appreciated that song in particular because it
Speaker 1: influenced them as young musicians. And I'm I'm standing there
Speaker 1: at the microphone singing the the in the chorus, and
Speaker 1: then and then when we go to the bridge, am
Speaker 1: I in my cabin breathe me? And I'm listening over
Speaker 1: and there's Mark singing the high part and he is
Speaker 1: hitting it dead nuts, buddy, I mean seriously, it gave
Speaker 1: me the chills and I thought, Wow, we're doing this.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is really coming off good for for
Speaker 1: just setting up a couple of amps in a in
Speaker 1: a studio up at Stearn's place. And so after that,
Speaker 1: Mark and I kept in touch with each other, and
Speaker 1: Mark sent me a copy of some of the music
Speaker 1: that he had been working on, and I said, man,
Speaker 1: uh that some of that stuff is really speaking to me.
Speaker 1: I said, the mix you have on that stuff, You've
Speaker 1: really got the separation where you can hear all the
Speaker 1: instruments and the vocals. He's got a song halfway there.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's beautiful. And uh, I said, man, uh,
Speaker 1: I encourage you and I want to, you know, sending
Speaker 1: you kudos on on the sound that you got. He says, well,
Speaker 1: I want to do something with you. He says, I've
Speaker 1: got this stuff. I can make your music sound just
Speaker 1: as good as this, if not better, he says, because
Speaker 1: I'm always learning. And so I said, you know something,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take you up on that because I've
Speaker 1: got a song that my son Jesse told me before
Speaker 1: he died. He said, Dad, that song. He says, there's
Speaker 1: two songs that really stick out to me. He says
Speaker 1: that one that you and he starts humming it to
Speaker 1: me and I and I go, oh, yeah, you really
Speaker 1: like that song? He says yeah, he says, uh, and
Speaker 1: it's a hit. He says, I believe that's a hit song.
Speaker 1: I just feel it in my heart. And so the
Speaker 1: one song titled Anymore Slaughter helped me finished because we
Speaker 1: co wrote it. I had the initial idea, the chorus,
Speaker 1: the first verse, the second first though, he really came through,
Speaker 1: and it came through with a shining of forgiveness. And
Speaker 1: it is forgiveness for the other guys for doing what
Speaker 1: they did and what they do. Uh, and it and
Speaker 1: it has a message. It carries that that love message
Speaker 1: through it. And I think that's what Jesse was hearing
Speaker 1: because he was definitely into the love, especially in his
Speaker 1: latter years. I'm proud to be working with. Why don't
Speaker 1: you tell us a story of Jesse who had a
Speaker 1: tragic accident and then tragically passed. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that because not everybody knows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jesse back in two thousand and ten was on camping
Speaker 1: trip with his buddies and there was a bunch of
Speaker 1: I call him kids. I mean, he's my kid, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty some year old, and they were camping
Speaker 1: out at this lake and it was the fourth July weekend,
Speaker 1: and Jesse told me in the emergency room when we
Speaker 1: went up there too, you know, we found out he
Speaker 1: was hurt. We went to the emergency room at the
Speaker 1: hospital where the the ambulance had brought him, and he
Speaker 1: told me, he said, Dad, I drank too much and
Speaker 1: tried to do something stupid, he says. Everybody was doing
Speaker 1: these back flips off the picnic table, he says, and
Speaker 1: I just didn't land it, said too much beer, Dad.
Speaker 1: And at that time he could still move his his arms.
Speaker 1: He was paralyzed from his waist down. But the doctor
Speaker 1: told us, the surgeon said, he's gonna lose the use
Speaker 1: of his limbs too. Because he was laying in the
Speaker 1: back of a pickup truck for eleven hours. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to bring the police into it or ambulance out
Speaker 1: there because he didn't want to ruin all of these
Speaker 1: kids camping out and having a good time. So they
Speaker 1: he just said, just lay me in the back of
Speaker 1: that pickup truck and out sober up and get better
Speaker 1: and whatever. If he could have gotten to the hospital
Speaker 1: within the first four hours, there's a window of opportunity
Speaker 1: where they could have injected um steroid right at the
Speaker 1: point of the injury and arrested the edema. That actually
Speaker 1: is what took his arms away from him and the
Speaker 1: use of his arms, and the only he only had
Speaker 1: the use of his head. I mean, he could move
Speaker 1: his neck around and he drove his wheelchair with his mouth.
Speaker 1: It was a sip and puff system and he was
Speaker 1: real good at it. As a matter of fact, some
Speaker 1: of his friends took the sip and off system and
Speaker 1: attached it to a remote control device where he could
Speaker 1: actually run these four wheel drive electric models. And uh,
Speaker 1: he had a boat that would do like eighty miles
Speaker 1: an hour on the water down here, and people would
Speaker 1: just gather around him to see him run this stuff
Speaker 1: because he was really good at it. And he took, uh,
Speaker 1: he took a first place in Traverse City where they
Speaker 1: were having these competitions with all these people. And when
Speaker 1: people looked around and saw this kid driving this truck
Speaker 1: with his mouth, you know, he was pretty good at it. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was really blessed. But his condition kept going down
Speaker 1: and the doctor told us, he said, it's like a
Speaker 1: limb on a tree when when it gets crushed like that,
Speaker 1: the life just starts leaving it. And he says, he
Speaker 1: told us there will be uh, you know, kidney troubles,
Speaker 1: there will be internal organ troubles that that you just
Speaker 1: can't do anything about, because that's what happens at this point.
Speaker 1: And so we we had him here at our house
Speaker 1: and my wife Lisa, God bless her heart. Um, she
Speaker 1: took care of him most of the time. But then
Speaker 1: we had help from uh people that would nurses and
Speaker 1: people that were paid by the state to come in
Speaker 1: and help and give her a break because it's really
Speaker 1: strenuous for one person. I mean, it's you can't imagine,
Speaker 1: and you have to do things like for a quadriplegic
Speaker 1: who's on life support. Uh, you gotta roll them up
Speaker 1: on their side, and in order for them to take
Speaker 1: a ship, you gotta stick your fing here up in
Speaker 1: there and stimulate that and then you got to catch
Speaker 1: it as it's coming out. It's it's a very uh
Speaker 1: humilifying experience for him. And when I volunteered, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, Lisa, let me do part of this. Let
Speaker 1: me and he looks at me, says, Dad, you're not
Speaker 1: sticking your big finger in my ass. So anyways, his
Speaker 1: his condition got you know, worse and worse, and then
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen he passed and we know that
Speaker 1: he's whole. Now. We know that, you know, from my
Speaker 1: experience of leaving, you know, exiting the bone suit and
Speaker 1: coming back, I know his whole and I know that
Speaker 1: as soon as he made the exit from the bone
Speaker 1: suit that he was set free. And uh, we miss
Speaker 1: him like crazy. I got a picture that pops up
Speaker 1: every time I turn on my computer. There's Jesse and
Speaker 1: his dog, him with his laying in bed with his track.
Speaker 1: He had a tricky out of me and he had
Speaker 1: his life support, but he never lost his grin. He
Speaker 1: never lost his love for life and had his friends.
Speaker 1: And we have a memorial out here on our farm
Speaker 1: for him, and his friends come over and they go
Speaker 1: back to the memorial and they leave little bunches of
Speaker 1: flowers or uh, pinted Jack Daniels. You never know what's
Speaker 1: going to be left at the memorial, but his love
Speaker 1: will never leave them. I mean, he was that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. He just he was real and uh, and
Speaker 1: we miss him like crazy. But Lisa and I have
Speaker 1: definitely learned some valuable, valuable lessons through all of this,
Speaker 1: and it's just to reiterate that love, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we get here in the form of this little
Speaker 1: infant and we, uh, we just hold that I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, the love and a little kid that the energy,
Speaker 1: and so we nurture them because you know, it's our instinct,
Speaker 1: our human instinct, to care care for this little baby.
Speaker 1: But we're holding that love. That's really who we are
Speaker 1: in our heart, you know, is that that bundle of love,
Speaker 1: that energy that comes from the great beyond. And we
Speaker 1: have learned how to look at people with eyes that
Speaker 1: see that. No matter what other kind of physical representation
Speaker 1: there might be, or what kind of words we come
Speaker 1: out of the mouths of people, we always look in
Speaker 1: and see that love and and you know, know that
Speaker 1: all that person needs is to to realign with it. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have other kids? Yes, I have two other children,
Speaker 1: two other boys with Lisa, and then I have two
Speaker 1: other boys with two other women. Okay, well let's stop
Speaker 1: here for a second. How many times you've been married twice?
Speaker 1: When did you get married the first time? How old
Speaker 1: were you and what motivated you to get married? I
Speaker 1: just felt like it was time because I felt like
Speaker 1: I was in love with this girl, and uh, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be I wanted to UM at that point,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I started in Grand Funk when
Speaker 1: I was twenty. I had been two other countries. I've
Speaker 1: been on big tours, you know, sold out Shasee Stadium
Speaker 1: with my music, and H this was in them. That
Speaker 1: was seventy one. So in seventy two it was like
Speaker 1: I felt like I wanted to somehow put down, uh,
Speaker 1: the beginning of a permanent commitment. But as life goes
Speaker 1: h both parties didn't see it that way, and so
Speaker 1: uh it was. I think three years later we were
Speaker 1: divorced and I said, man, I am never gonna get
Speaker 1: married again. Forget about this. UM. We did not have
Speaker 1: any children. My first wife and I did not have
Speaker 1: any children. My oldest son, Joey, came from a relationship
Speaker 1: I had with my oldest sister's girlfriend app and uh
Speaker 1: and dude, I didn't even orgasm. It was a one
Speaker 1: time thing and it was just it was just off
Speaker 1: the wall, but it was enough to get her pregnant.
Speaker 1: There was enough of the seed that got through even
Speaker 1: without my experiencing anything like that. And Joey and I
Speaker 1: are very good friends. He's a musician. He's lives in
Speaker 1: Detroit and he's out doing gigs all the time. He's
Speaker 1: a good songwriter, good singer, he's got he's got talent.
Speaker 1: And his wife and him come up and we you know,
Speaker 1: we eat, have barbecues and we talk, we jam and
Speaker 1: I go down there and his house. He's got his
Speaker 1: stuff set up in the basement. He's got a nice
Speaker 1: recording thing set up. And so I have good relationship
Speaker 1: with him. When was he born before or after your
Speaker 1: first marriage? Before? So that's one song, yes, and then
Speaker 1: after I was divorced from my first marriage. We're on
Speaker 1: the road and Wet Willie was the opening act for
Speaker 1: the Grand Funct Tour Um. It was when the Local
Speaker 1: Motion was a number one hit um and and the
Speaker 1: gals from Wet Willie they said, you know what we were,
Speaker 1: We want to come out there and sing the backgrounds
Speaker 1: for Local Motion with you guys. In fact, the whole
Speaker 1: band wants to come out. And we said, man, that
Speaker 1: would be great, you know, because we used to do it.
Speaker 1: And just as like the last song before our encore,
Speaker 1: and so Wet Willie would all come out on the
Speaker 1: stage and and I got very friendly with Donna, Donna Hall,
Speaker 1: who was one of the singers, and there was Jack
Speaker 1: Hall and Jimmy Hall. Jimmy Hall was the lead singer
Speaker 1: and Jack the bass player. But Donna moved in with me.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't thinking about marriage or anything. I just
Speaker 1: having a relationship and uh. And then I met Lisa,
Speaker 1: my wife that I'm married to, uh currently and forever
Speaker 1: more forty four years now. Um, and man, I knew
Speaker 1: as soon as I saw, as soon as I heard
Speaker 1: her voice, soon as I was around her, that it
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god. And Donna came to me
Speaker 1: and she said, Mark, I see what's between you and Lisa.
Speaker 1: I can see it. You'd have to be blind not
Speaker 1: to see it. And she said, and I'm gonna bow
Speaker 1: out of your life now. I'm going to go back home.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, are you kidding me? I said, I
Speaker 1: feel bad. She said, don't feel bad, she says. I
Speaker 1: I love Lisa, and I love you, she says, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to be I don't want to hold
Speaker 1: you back from anything. That it's this precious And she
Speaker 1: didn't know she was pregnant. Moved home back to Mobile, Alabama,
Speaker 1: and her mother, Bibie God Rest her Soul, called me
Speaker 1: out of the blue UH and said, Mark, my daughter
Speaker 1: is pregnant with your baby. And I went what And
Speaker 1: she says, Donna, don't freak out. She says, don't freak out.
Speaker 1: We're not mad. There's nothing you know. You guys didn't know.
Speaker 1: She didn't know when she left, and you didn't know.
Speaker 1: So I just want you to know that we're gonna
Speaker 1: take good care of this baby and that we will
Speaker 1: always love you. And that's what kind of relationship I
Speaker 1: have with the whole family, including my son Adam, who
Speaker 1: came out on the road with Donna. Uh wet Willie
Speaker 1: opened for us again down in New Orleans and UH
Speaker 1: and Donna had ad Adam with her and it was
Speaker 1: the first time I met him, and I had my
Speaker 1: son Jason with me, and so Adam and Jason got
Speaker 1: together and they are still you know, there's there's there's blood,
Speaker 1: and there's no kind of questioning about that relationship at all.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we all went to Mexico together before
Speaker 1: Jesse was hurt and UH and had a great time
Speaker 1: together and you know, those memories. It's great to have
Speaker 1: those memories because they're built on it's just always a
Speaker 1: reminder of the love that has always kept us together
Speaker 1: and has always found its way through any hurt and
Speaker 1: always uh made the glue that keeps us stuck on
Speaker 1: each other. Are Adam and Jason up to jay Eason
Speaker 1: is working at a shoe store doing good. He makes
Speaker 1: good money. He does he works on a commission as
Speaker 1: well as his and he does things on the side
Speaker 1: where he's he's got good money coming in. He lives
Speaker 1: on his own in an apartment. And Adam works he's
Speaker 1: a chef down in Mobile, Alabama. And Isaac and Sarah
Speaker 1: my grandchildren. Uh, he takes them on the weekends and
Speaker 1: his and his ex wife uh get some you know,
Speaker 1: through the week But he's doing good. He you know,
Speaker 1: he's uh, it's just to have a job and keeping
Speaker 1: holding down the fort at this point in life in
Speaker 1: this country as really saying something. But they're not the
Speaker 1: kind of people that would set back and say I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna work, I'll let the government support me. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not that kind of people. And I'm proud of that. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're really mellow understanding and love it. What were you
Speaker 1: like when you were a teenager and then in your
Speaker 1: twenties at the height of Grand Funk Road. I was
Speaker 1: very grateful for the experience, you know. When I wrote
Speaker 1: Closer to Home, I'm Your Captain, I prayed for that song.
Speaker 1: I always say my prayers. I always pray. I pray
Speaker 1: every day, and at night, before I go to sleep,
Speaker 1: I pray, and I said, mine, Now I lay me
Speaker 1: down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Speaker 1: If I should die before I wake, I pray the
Speaker 1: Lord my soul to take. And then I blessed all
Speaker 1: my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandma's, grandpa's and
Speaker 1: you know. And I put a ps on the end
Speaker 1: of the prayer, and I said, God, would you please
Speaker 1: give me a song that would reach and touch the
Speaker 1: hearts of those you want to get to. And I
Speaker 1: got up in the middle of the night and I
Speaker 1: wrote words. But I'm always getting up righting words. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it was a song. It could have been
Speaker 1: just a poem with you know. And when I wrote it, Bob,
Speaker 1: I was I was in a state of mind that
Speaker 1: was halfway between heaven and Earth. I was not in
Speaker 1: a totally conscious uh state. And somehow I knew that
Speaker 1: if I went back to the top of the page
Speaker 1: and started reading the words again, it would stop. So
Speaker 1: I kept writing. I kept writing, and I kept writing,
Speaker 1: and I got through the whole thing. And I'm still
Speaker 1: in this frame of mind, not completely uh cognizant consciously,
Speaker 1: and I lay down the steno pad and the paper,
Speaker 1: you know, and the pencil, and I slipped back under
Speaker 1: the sheets and I go to sleep. And I get
Speaker 1: up in the morning and I have a coffee sitting
Speaker 1: on the table. I'm looking at my horses out in
Speaker 1: the pasture, and I've got a George Washburn flat top
Speaker 1: and acoustic guitar sitting in the kitchen in a stand,
Speaker 1: and I grabbed it and I started playing but pop
Speaker 1: pop pop doo doo doo doo, and I went, wow,
Speaker 1: where the hell did that come from? And uh, it's
Speaker 1: like and then I grabbed this, this inversion of a
Speaker 1: C cord that just it just spoke to me in
Speaker 1: such a way. It was like, man, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at that chord and I'm thinking, man, I can't forget
Speaker 1: this this chord right here, and I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: and then I thought, oh, the words, Maybe that's a song.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a song. So I go in and I
Speaker 1: grab the lyrics and bring them out, put them on
Speaker 1: the table. I pushed the button on my cassette recorder
Speaker 1: and I started playing it bad. Don't du dun, dude,
Speaker 1: everybody listen to me. You know, it just started coming.
Speaker 1: And I took the cassette recorder to rehearsal that day
Speaker 1: and I played it for the guys and and they said, man, Fearner,
Speaker 1: that songs a hit. That songs a hit man. So
Speaker 1: they were right, and it's a hit with a lot
Speaker 1: of people, but especially with our military and back when
Speaker 1: that song came out, it was during the Vietnam era,
Speaker 1: and a lot of our brothers and sisters we're a
Speaker 1: long way from home, but they wanted to be where
Speaker 1: I was. And so when the Vietnam Veterans of America
Speaker 1: got ahold of my management in two thousand five, they
Speaker 1: asked me if I had come and play the the
Speaker 1: at the memorial at the at the Wall, and it
Speaker 1: was the anniversary h ceremony, and then I said, well,
Speaker 1: rather than to just bring my guitar, I said, are
Speaker 1: you guys going to have stage set up in lights
Speaker 1: and you know, oh yeah, we're gonna p a system
Speaker 1: and everything. I said, the whole band will come. We
Speaker 1: will put a show on a full show for the
Speaker 1: Vietnam veterans there and will include the song that they love.
Speaker 1: And we did. Of course, we didn't charge them at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, god, how could you? And it was thirty
Speaker 1: six degrees, Bob, it was thirty six and we were
Speaker 1: warming our hands up on the lightbulbs that were in
Speaker 1: this trailer so that we could play our instruments when
Speaker 1: we got out there. And when it came time to
Speaker 1: play I'm Your Captain Closer to Home, Man, I looked
Speaker 1: out and there was not a dry eye any place.
Speaker 1: And not only our American brothers and sisters, but are
Speaker 1: Canadian brothers and sisters who are Vietnam veterans were in
Speaker 1: the crowd. And I had a very difficult time trying
Speaker 1: to sing because I was so choked up. It felt
Speaker 1: like I had a softball in my neck. But it
Speaker 1: was with all this appreciation and the emotional connection that
Speaker 1: I was making with this audience, Oh my god, Uh,
Speaker 1: the words came back to me, Uh for those you
Speaker 1: want to get to and h and those words got
Speaker 1: to those brothers and sisters, and and that's that's what
Speaker 1: keeps me going today. I I always dedicate that song
Speaker 1: when we get to it, and said, I always dedicated
Speaker 1: to our troops and to our veterans, and just to
Speaker 1: promise we would never forget them. We appreciate them so much.
Speaker 1: They are kids following orders. They didn't start the damn wars.
Speaker 1: They're just kids following the orders. Now, back in that era,
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War era, it was a tumultuous time and
Speaker 1: there was the draft. How did you deal with the draft?
Speaker 1: I was physically disqualified. I got a four F. I
Speaker 1: had some things, uh in my duadenal track and uh,
Speaker 1: some things that were you know, just we're wrong with me.
Speaker 1: And when I went down for my physical into Detroit,
Speaker 1: they took me out of the line. We're all, you know,
Speaker 1: marching along with our clothes in our hands and our
Speaker 1: skivvyes on. And it came over to me and they said, uh,
Speaker 1: we want you to go over to this building um
Speaker 1: at noon and uh, they all do the you know,
Speaker 1: finished the examination over there. Well, what had happened part
Speaker 1: of the examination, as the guy in front of me,
Speaker 1: when they when they're taking a blood draw. He lays
Speaker 1: his arm over the top of this board, and uh,
Speaker 1: when they hit him, there was blood that just kind
Speaker 1: of come shooting out and and it just made me
Speaker 1: sick to my stomach. Man, because I hate needles. I
Speaker 1: just I would have made a bad drug agg But
Speaker 1: I got out there and I went to put my
Speaker 1: arm over the board and that's the last thing I remember. Bam,
Speaker 1: I was gone. I was out cold. I passed out
Speaker 1: from that experience. And I woke up on this cot
Speaker 1: and uh, you know that they had already taken the
Speaker 1: blood um when I was out, and they had did
Speaker 1: you know some of our other examinations, And she the
Speaker 1: the gal says, well, you need to go over at
Speaker 1: this building and they'll finish over there. So I went
Speaker 1: over and talk to some people and they they said, uh,
Speaker 1: well you're not physically fit. You're not fit for military service.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, well, I guess it's it's my Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll stay home and serve with my music. You know,
Speaker 1: that was my attitude. Okay, what's so special about Michigan
Speaker 1: and the music? You've certainly been all over the country.
Speaker 1: Michigan known for hard rock, certain other things, certainly motom music.
Speaker 1: What is it about Michigan. I believe it is the
Speaker 1: fact that we had all of these auto factories up here,
Speaker 1: Bob that drew people like my mother's family from Leech
Speaker 1: for Arkansas. When she was sixteen years old, she moved
Speaker 1: to Flint, Michigan. All of the you know Grandpacott and
Speaker 1: Uncle Woodie, Uncle Brian and uh, the whole everybody in there.
Speaker 1: You know cousins came north to get these high paying
Speaker 1: auto factory jobs. Well, they brought their instruments with them
Speaker 1: as well. And every Sunday, either at our house on
Speaker 1: Davidson Road my mom and dad, or at my aunt
Speaker 1: Dorothea's house on Normandy Court, there would be a jam
Speaker 1: session and all of the kid would come and bring
Speaker 1: the fiddles, banjos, guitars, uh and play music and sing
Speaker 1: all of these old uh you know it's uh, I
Speaker 1: guess country roots and some little gospel in there. Um.
Speaker 1: But the women would sing and it was like, Oh
Speaker 1: my God. I would just look up as this little kid.
Speaker 1: I would never forget thinking these these ladies are actually
Speaker 1: angels singing because it was so beautiful. It was the
Speaker 1: most beautiful thing I'd ever heard and uh and my
Speaker 1: mother could sing so good. In fact, everybody in the
Speaker 1: family could sing. And it was always a good, you know,
Speaker 1: good time. And we either had Southern fried chicken with
Speaker 1: those hockey puck biscuit uh, you know, or Sloppy Joe's.
Speaker 1: It was one or the other. But the chicken and dumplings, man,
Speaker 1: that was my favorite because I used to love those
Speaker 1: Doughey dumplings. Uh. And and just to everybody taking a
Speaker 1: break to eat, but then they'd returned back to the
Speaker 1: instruments and get to play in and it was just
Speaker 1: we spent hours every Sunday doing that. So it was
Speaker 1: not just in our house, but everybody around Flint, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure around Detroit and Pontiac and all of the
Speaker 1: satellite cities that had automotive related uh you know, factories
Speaker 1: and things to a c. Delco Turnsteads Fisher Body and
Speaker 1: my mother was the first woman in the United States
Speaker 1: to weld on Sherman tanks at Fisher Body in Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: And my dad was a tank driver in the seventh
Speaker 1: Armer Division and returned home with four bronze stars. He
Speaker 1: was in four major battles and a lot of tank
Speaker 1: drivers didn't get to see a second one brother. So
Speaker 1: we were we were very blessed. But I knew a
Speaker 1: lot of other you know, people that that love to
Speaker 1: play music. And I think because of the North and
Speaker 1: South thing. My dad he blew saxophone and play guitar,
Speaker 1: but he was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. And
Speaker 1: and just the love that we had, it just it
Speaker 1: came out. Uh. And the kids, you know, of those people,
Speaker 1: myself included, we didn't want to be in the shop.
Speaker 1: We wanted to do something else. We you know, we
Speaker 1: saw that they were making good money and providing for
Speaker 1: the family and had everybody had two cars and a
Speaker 1: boat and nice house. Uh, but we wanted something else.
Speaker 1: And so uh, you know, MC five came out, uh,
Speaker 1: Iggy and the Stooges, the Rationals, Scott Richard, Kay's and
Speaker 1: Boy Dukes, a lot of these bands. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: started hearing the sound that was being generated. And uh
Speaker 1: so when uh the band that Don and Brewer and
Speaker 1: I were in broke up. I told Brewer, I said,
Speaker 1: we need to start a three piece man um just
Speaker 1: a three piece band and and see what happens. And
Speaker 1: that's when we heard Mel Shocker at in Bay City.
Speaker 1: He was playing with question marking the Mysterious and when
Speaker 1: they took a break and Mel came walking out. We said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. Would you like to join a
Speaker 1: three piece band? And he of course, Mel and I had,
Speaker 1: like I said, we smoked dope together back when we
Speaker 1: were kids. Uh. He said, Man, I am so ready
Speaker 1: to leave this band. This is perfect timing. So Grand
Speaker 1: Fox started the next week at the Flint Federation of Musicians,
Speaker 1: the Hall on April Street and Flint, and we started
Speaker 1: three piece. You can imagine. I had some guitar, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: electric guitar, and it's amped that this guy was letting
Speaker 1: me use this West It was a West Fillmore amp
Speaker 1: with two fifteen inch speakers, and it sounded so good,
Speaker 1: especially when I would hit that Jimmy Hendrix fuzz tone
Speaker 1: and you just really uh. I remember Hank Guyer coming
Speaker 1: out and saying, you boys, turn that stuff down. We
Speaker 1: can't even hear the phone's ring in here. But there
Speaker 1: was a lot of us. Um you know, Alice Cooper
Speaker 1: came out of Flip, or not out of Flip, but
Speaker 1: out of Michigan. Glenn Fry, a lot of there was
Speaker 1: a lot of bands you know that that just came
Speaker 1: out because of the North and South. Uh reunion that
Speaker 1: we had in there, and it was like it was
Speaker 1: a family there was in the North. You didn't have
Speaker 1: the discrimination that you had in the South. Um, I
Speaker 1: had black friends, We hung out together. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: it was totally different. When you hit the Michigan state line.
Speaker 1: It was like, man, there was a bunch of friendly people.
Speaker 1: And it didn't matter what color you were. It didn't
Speaker 1: matter what nationality you were. Uh. If you were a
Speaker 1: working man or working gal, then you were you were
Speaker 1: part of the family. And and that's uh, I guess
Speaker 1: that's what were you know, the music we call an
Speaker 1: assembly line rock and roll just because of the nature
Speaker 1: where it came from. We are the kids of those
Speaker 1: who worked those assembly lines. Okay, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the beginning. How many kids in the family growing up?
Speaker 1: What kind of kids were you? Popular, unpopular, troublemaker, not troublemaker,
Speaker 1: good student, bad students. In my family there was six kids,
Speaker 1: but my mother lost two sets of twins and three singles.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, she was bound and determined to have kids.
Speaker 1: And when my dad died, I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: and there were four of us in the family. My stepdad,
Speaker 1: Reginald Russell, Fortune with a great guy. He married. My
Speaker 1: mother was a couple of years after my dad died
Speaker 1: and she lost a baby with him, and then had
Speaker 1: to my sister Julie, and my brother Jimmy, God rest
Speaker 1: Jimmy soul. And we never looked at each other as um,
Speaker 1: half this or half that, or step children or you know.
Speaker 1: I called Reginald his his brother couldn't say Reginald. When
Speaker 1: they were small, he called him pege, so we called him,
Speaker 1: uh pege, and I called him Dad because I want
Speaker 1: him to know that I accepted him as that role
Speaker 1: in our family. And my brother Ricky is a guitar player,
Speaker 1: hell of a guitar player. My sisters all sing they
Speaker 1: all good singers, and uh, they're still sucking air. And
Speaker 1: you know, except for Jimmy, and he had a stroke
Speaker 1: and we miss him, and uh and Page he died
Speaker 1: he had a uh stroke as well, I mean later
Speaker 1: in the years and uh and we miss him. But
Speaker 1: we're still uh sucking Aaron and proud to be family.
Speaker 1: And you were growing up going to school, go to
Speaker 1: public school, parochial school, have a lot of friends where
Speaker 1: you're good or bad. In school. Public school had a
Speaker 1: lot of friends. And once the music started when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old, was I started playing guitar, it
Speaker 1: kind of really slid downhill for me because I I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't want to do anything but play music. Uh.
Speaker 1: When I would go out and play music with whoever
Speaker 1: it was, I would play with these guys. Those guys
Speaker 1: I had several different groups that I would go out
Speaker 1: with and we would pass the hat to get enough
Speaker 1: gas money to get home. That's all we really were
Speaker 1: concerned about was just getting back home. So we were
Speaker 1: having a good time. And I didn't realize at the time,
Speaker 1: but it was learning in the chops. It was learning
Speaker 1: to belt out those songs and learning that when I
Speaker 1: would hit those high notes, hey, you know, get up there. Uh,
Speaker 1: people really would turn their heads around. So I would
Speaker 1: visit that more often even, you know, just to get
Speaker 1: some heads turning. And uh. When in in school to
Speaker 1: high school, Um, I went to Cursionally High it was
Speaker 1: Class B school and uh, there was a Catholic school
Speaker 1: down the road that it was Holy Rosary and at
Speaker 1: lunch hour, Um, these Holy Rosary students would come up
Speaker 1: and finish the day at the high school. They started
Speaker 1: the morning at Holy Rosary and then they came up
Speaker 1: and I wasn't playing football at this time because I
Speaker 1: had received some injuries. And the doctors told my mother,
Speaker 1: Mark's not going to be able to play anymore ball.
Speaker 1: He's not going to be able to run track, so
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna have to find something else for
Speaker 1: him to do. And that's when she got me the
Speaker 1: guitar lessons. She knew that I loved to hear my
Speaker 1: name called out on that loud spo that was that
Speaker 1: was far her number sixty in on the tackle and
Speaker 1: I mean I would go prance in a cross that field.
Speaker 1: So anyway, she knew that I needed something that way.
Speaker 1: So I blame it on her that I got started
Speaker 1: on a guitar. And here it is two years later,
Speaker 1: the Holy Rosary kids are coming in and the football coach,
Speaker 1: who kind of was pissed at me because when I
Speaker 1: quit playing ball, so did about half the team. We
Speaker 1: just hung together. We were friends, and they said, man,
Speaker 1: if you ain't playing, we ain't playing. You know, we're
Speaker 1: just hanged together. And so he was kind of pissed
Speaker 1: about that. And as the Holy Rosary bus pulls up,
Speaker 1: he looks over at me and I'm standing with like
Speaker 1: three of my friends around the radiator, uh, where the
Speaker 1: heat was coming out. Um, and that's where we hung
Speaker 1: out during the lunch hour. And uh. He says, Farner,
Speaker 1: move your boys, and it made me feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? These ain't my boys? And I
Speaker 1: said that to him. I said, I said, Mr, these
Speaker 1: are not my boys. These these are your students. And
Speaker 1: he came over. He grabs me by the shirt and
Speaker 1: he throws me up against the wall and my head
Speaker 1: ricochets off this brass picture frame of the superintendent of
Speaker 1: schools that was there at had had the light on
Speaker 1: the top. And I reached back and I feel my
Speaker 1: head because it was man, it was hurt like hell.
Speaker 1: I reached back and I feel and I will, oh,
Speaker 1: is that wet? And I bring my hand down and
Speaker 1: I look and there's blood all over my hand. And
Speaker 1: at that moment, I was so pissed at this teacher
Speaker 1: that I bam. I smacked him right in the eye
Speaker 1: and down he went. And I had rings on that
Speaker 1: hand and when I hit his eye like that, it
Speaker 1: unzipped his eyebrow and the skin fell down over his eye,
Speaker 1: and he was he stood up and he was throwing
Speaker 1: haymakers at me, but he couldn't see me because he
Speaker 1: had skin in his eye. And I was ducking duck,
Speaker 1: and I was timing it out, and I was gonna
Speaker 1: nail him again. As as I draw back, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hit him, my friend Derry Speck, God bless him.
Speaker 1: He grabs my army, says, Figer, you're in so much
Speaker 1: trouble already, don't hit him again. Jesus, what's the matter
Speaker 1: with you? Are you idiot? You know? And he drags
Speaker 1: me off, and uh. I go back in front of
Speaker 1: the school board with an attorney to get back in school,
Speaker 1: and this teacher who had the stitches up in his
Speaker 1: eyebrow there he's sitting across the table glaring at me,
Speaker 1: and the school boarders saying trying to decide whether or
Speaker 1: not they want to let me back in school. My
Speaker 1: attorney and my attorney, and he was supposed to have
Speaker 1: been a friend of the family. But when they mentioned
Speaker 1: that I had long hair and I was using v
Speaker 1: O five to you know, plaster it back. Uh, he says, yeah,
Speaker 1: he does have those long sideburns. To my attorney says this.
Speaker 1: So I was so pissed. Uh this this teacher who
Speaker 1: was algebra, algebra teacher and football coach. He says, let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. If you let this kid back
Speaker 1: in school, I quit And so I stand up. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll make it easy on you, and I walk out
Speaker 1: because they were not going to fire him. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they were not going to let him go. And I
Speaker 1: could see the writing on the wall. And so as
Speaker 1: I'm walking down the road, this attorney pulls up behind
Speaker 1: me and then uh, after the traffic went by, he
Speaker 1: rolls his window, pulls up alongst that he says, get in, Mark,
Speaker 1: get in. I'll take you home. I said, do you
Speaker 1: want to look like that algebra teacher? I said, if
Speaker 1: I get in that car, I'm gonna punch you into
Speaker 1: your face. And so he just away he went, and
Speaker 1: I walked the rest of the way home. I um
Speaker 1: got into summer school. I started doing nights nights school
Speaker 1: and it was interfering with my ability to go play
Speaker 1: music and to make money. And I told my parents,
Speaker 1: I said, I think you know it's more important that
Speaker 1: I make money now, and and put it together because
Speaker 1: I got a car. I gotta you know, I got
Speaker 1: things I got and I need the money for in
Speaker 1: this school, the schooling has taken it away from me.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, I would like to quit it
Speaker 1: with your blessings and and continue in my music. They said, son,
Speaker 1: you just do what your heart is leading you to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How did you go from there to end up working
Speaker 1: with Terry Knight? What were the steps there? Terry Knight
Speaker 1: was a DJ and he started as C. K l
Speaker 1: W in Windsor, Ontario, and then he was working at
Speaker 1: W T A C in Flint, Michigan, A A M
Speaker 1: Stations and he uh, he wanted to put together a
Speaker 1: band because he had written some songs. And Don Brewer
Speaker 1: and uh Kurt Johnson and Al Pippins, Bobby call Well
Speaker 1: they were all in the pack and and HERM. Jackson
Speaker 1: got the bass player got drafted and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: can you play bass guitar? I said, well, it's got
Speaker 1: only got four strings and I'm playing a six string
Speaker 1: now I know, I said, I think I could probably
Speaker 1: do it. Uh. So I tried out and I made
Speaker 1: the band because I could sing, I could do all
Speaker 1: the harmony. Parts and playing bass. It came a little
Speaker 1: easier for me because I played tuba in the marching
Speaker 1: band before I got into playing football, so I had
Speaker 1: that feel, the base kind of feel and uh, and
Speaker 1: it just worked out for me. Okay, how many years
Speaker 1: after you quit school? Was it before you got into
Speaker 1: Terry Knight in the back? It was two years? And
Speaker 1: in those two years you were just digging with various bands.
Speaker 1: What was happening? Yeah, I was playing. I played with
Speaker 1: Dick Wagner and the Bossman. How'd you know Dick? Well,
Speaker 1: Dick Wagner. Of course I would go and see them
Speaker 1: because they were a fabulous band, and they would come
Speaker 1: and play the Riviera Terrorists in Flint, Michigan, and they
Speaker 1: would just tear it up. And they were a show band.
Speaker 1: They didn't just you know, stand at the microphone and
Speaker 1: saying they were all over the stage. You were a
Speaker 1: show band. And I always admired them for, you know,
Speaker 1: for what they did, especially Dick for having the ability
Speaker 1: to write all those songs. So uh, he asked me,
Speaker 1: Dick Wagner asked me if I wanted to to come
Speaker 1: and join his band and uh and play out with him.
Speaker 1: And I went wow, and Dad be great man, Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? So? And in fact that my first
Speaker 1: song that I had ever written, Heartbreaker, came as a
Speaker 1: result of one night Dick Wagner and I sat up
Speaker 1: after a gig that we played in northern Michigan. We
Speaker 1: sat up in his UH studio in Saginaw, and we
Speaker 1: were playing our electric guitars reel, you know, not plugged in,
Speaker 1: just and and electric guitars are not very loud if
Speaker 1: they're not plugged in. So his wife and kids are
Speaker 1: in the other room sleeping, and I he showing me
Speaker 1: some chord inversions and and I said, Dick, can you
Speaker 1: tell me how do you write all of these songs?
Speaker 1: He says it comes from within Mark. He says, you
Speaker 1: got it in you. I said I do. He says yeah,
Speaker 1: he says you can write songs. He goes to bed.
Speaker 1: I stay up and I write Heartbreaker. That was my
Speaker 1: inspiration when Herm was the Herm Jackson, the bass player
Speaker 1: of Terry Knight in the Pack was drafted. It was.
Speaker 1: It was right at at the end of my run
Speaker 1: with Dick Wagner and the Bossman. And I say the
Speaker 1: end of it because the keyboard player Warren Keith got
Speaker 1: an opportunity to play with Hank Williams junior year, and
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? You're gonna go play with
Speaker 1: Hank so um At that time the band kind of
Speaker 1: split apart and and Dick Wagner formed UM, a different
Speaker 1: rock band in in Michigan, the Frost with you know,
Speaker 1: with some great musicians and they are the pack because
Speaker 1: of Herman's you know, being drafted. They asked me if
Speaker 1: I had come and play bass with him, so and
Speaker 1: I I took to the base. I loved playing and singing,
Speaker 1: but Don and I both thought that either one of
Speaker 1: us could have sung better then Terry did. And what
Speaker 1: he what Terry really had going for him was a
Speaker 1: lift of gab. He could, he could talk to about anybody,
Speaker 1: and he really had a schmoozing personality. So one night
Speaker 1: after a gig and and Terry wasn't hitting his notes
Speaker 1: very good, and and Don and I were just kind of, man,
Speaker 1: why are we doing this? That we were both kind
Speaker 1: of bummed out because like I said, either one of
Speaker 1: us could sing better than Terry h and we were
Speaker 1: seeing this was just feeding his ego and he was
Speaker 1: he was you know blowing up kind of blowing up
Speaker 1: from it, and so I said, well, you know, why
Speaker 1: don't we just have the pack without Terry night Brewer goes,
Speaker 1: I'm in it, dude, I am in it. Let's fire
Speaker 1: that s o b it's up. So we did. We
Speaker 1: fired him that we're going out as a pack, and
Speaker 1: we did. We went out as the pack. We went
Speaker 1: out as the Fabulous Pack. Uh where I was just
Speaker 1: uh stand up lead singer in the Fabulous Pack. It
Speaker 1: was this was just before Grand Funk, and we had
Speaker 1: Kenny Rich, guitar player from Canada Windsor, Ontario. Um played
Speaker 1: with steel picks on his fingers and he did a
Speaker 1: lot of this backpick and stuff. And we had Craig
Speaker 1: Frost on keyboards, and we had Rod Lester on basse
Speaker 1: Don on drums, and of course myself stand up singer.
Speaker 1: And the Delta Promotions who was doing some of our
Speaker 1: booking for us. They said, there's an opportunity that's opened
Speaker 1: up here where we could send you guys out to Boston,
Speaker 1: but you'd have to play these gigs for free, no money,
Speaker 1: and we would They said, we would handle all of
Speaker 1: your expenses. We'll make sure that you're fed, and you
Speaker 1: know you're not gonna die out there. We'll take care
Speaker 1: of it, we'll put you up, but you've got to
Speaker 1: do this stuff for free. And we looked at each other, said, well,
Speaker 1: what the hell. It'll get us out of Flint, you know.
Speaker 1: So we go out to East Sandwich, Cape Cod. We
Speaker 1: get two of these little cabins on the beach. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is the first time us Michigan boys had
Speaker 1: ever seen an ocean. So we went out and you know,
Speaker 1: we're picking up all the starfish and picking up all
Speaker 1: the seashells, and oh man, each one of us had
Speaker 1: bags of this stuff, and we put them in the
Speaker 1: crawl space under these little summer cottages that were out there.
Speaker 1: And then and wouldn't you know it, the worst snowstorm
Speaker 1: in the history of the world hits the East Coast.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, in sixty there it's sucked in them
Speaker 1: this little space heaters that they had. Uh, we're not much.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't wouldn't heat the whole house. You had to
Speaker 1: be right next to it to feel any heat. The
Speaker 1: pipes had all frozen, the all the starfish and things
Speaker 1: that we were going to take back to Michigan. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're frozen in ice down in the crawl space, the
Speaker 1: pipes being frozen. We didn't have a functioning toilet, brother, Bob, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, no tap water, So we would take a
Speaker 1: pan scoop snow come in and melt it down for
Speaker 1: drinking water. For the water that we used to make
Speaker 1: our oatmeal, which was the only thing we had for
Speaker 1: the last week we were there. We didn't have any
Speaker 1: sugar to put on it. We didn't have any milk
Speaker 1: or you know, anything to put in that oatmeal, just oatmeal. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and then happened to melt down the water, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the snow to make the water to wash
Speaker 1: the dishes. And I mean it was really a pain,
Speaker 1: even to the point of you know, each one of us.
Speaker 1: Once in a while we got to do a number two, right.
Speaker 1: So we had these this old kitchen chair that didn't
Speaker 1: have a seat in it, uh, and that was our
Speaker 1: little potty. We would put a paper bag underneath that
Speaker 1: with the plastic in the bottom of it and do
Speaker 1: our thing, roll that paper bag up and go out
Speaker 1: and bury it in a snow. Bang. That was it, dude.
Speaker 1: And thank God for the The store at East Sandwich, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: We didn't have any money to buy anything. But the
Speaker 1: guy would give us paper bags. He would give us
Speaker 1: a little stack of paper bags, and that got us through.
Speaker 1: And Don's mother we end up uh using the guy's
Speaker 1: phone up there. When it finally got to where it
Speaker 1: was working, the phones were down. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: no communication. And we were there for got ten days.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just horrible. Uh. But but Don
Speaker 1: called his mother and she Western Unions the money too
Speaker 1: for us to go rent this van. She was a
Speaker 1: school teacher in Swarts Creek, Michigan, and she Western Union
Speaker 1: the money to us, and Don you know, told her
Speaker 1: we al pay her back and everything. So we got
Speaker 1: the van. We rented. This is before the credit cards, man,
Speaker 1: this was cash. So we rented. We put all of
Speaker 1: our equipment in the van, came back to Michigan. We
Speaker 1: drive up the Bay City because we want to give
Speaker 1: Key a piece of our mind. We found out that
Speaker 1: we were getting paid for those gigs three fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a night, and back then that was not bad pay
Speaker 1: for you know, garage band three piece. Uh. But anyways, Uh,
Speaker 1: we were in the outer offices and that's when uh,
Speaker 1: we had already determined we were going to do a
Speaker 1: three piece thing, and we're going to go in and
Speaker 1: tell this guy Keyhole, uh that we knew we got
Speaker 1: paid and we want our money, you know. But during
Speaker 1: that waiting time in the out in that waiting room there,
Speaker 1: that's when we heard the base coming through the wall.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was Mel. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was question Mark and the Mysterions in that room playing.
Speaker 1: But when they took their break and mel walked out,
Speaker 1: it was like, wow, oh Melvin, you know. Uh. I
Speaker 1: told him what we were up to and he was
Speaker 1: very much into it, and uh and the rest is history. Okay,
Speaker 1: how long until Terry Knight becomes your manager? Why does
Speaker 1: he become your manager? And what happens before you get
Speaker 1: to Atlanta? When he starts promoting how successful you are?
Speaker 1: Don Brewer had kept in touch with Terry Knight, and
Speaker 1: Don Brewer came to the band and then he confesses, well,
Speaker 1: I've been staying in touch with Terry, and he says
Speaker 1: he could do us some good because he's got an
Speaker 1: apartment in New York City. He's made some friends there,
Speaker 1: he's got some connections, and I think we should let
Speaker 1: him manage us. He wants to manage us. And I
Speaker 1: thought for a minute, I said, he's gonna screw us Brewer.
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, but it will at least we'll get
Speaker 1: out of Flint, the Sable sable, you know. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: let's hear what he's got to say. Anyways, And so
Speaker 1: he came to Flint. He flew in. We we played
Speaker 1: him some of the music that we were you know,
Speaker 1: I was writing, we were putting together. And he says, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great stuff. He says, uh, if you got
Speaker 1: a name yet, We went no, you know, we've just
Speaker 1: been playing for you know, two three weeks here. We
Speaker 1: don't have a name yet. But he says, well, why
Speaker 1: don't you name your band? Oh the name of my
Speaker 1: song Grand Funk Railroad. And I thought, well, because the
Speaker 1: Grand Trunk and Western is an actual railway system that
Speaker 1: runs between Canada, you know, Ontario, Michigan and Ohio. Uh,
Speaker 1: that that would be a great play off of a
Speaker 1: very familiar name for US Michiganders and the people that
Speaker 1: are familiar with the railway system. So we adopted that name.
Speaker 1: And uh. The the attorneys for Terry in New York City,
Speaker 1: Bell Doc and Kushnik Um, we're doing the legal work
Speaker 1: for the Atlanta Pop Festival, which was on the fourth
Speaker 1: of July. It was actually uh, I think it was
Speaker 1: the third, fourth and fifth of July. And they worked
Speaker 1: to deal with the promoters that we're doing uh putting
Speaker 1: that on so that we could play because we are
Speaker 1: Terry's band, that we could open that festival and we
Speaker 1: would play for free and on all three days of
Speaker 1: the festival. So when we left Flint, Michigan, how long
Speaker 1: had the band been together before this happened, Oh, a
Speaker 1: couple of months, and he played any gigs around town,
Speaker 1: no play, no gigs. We did play the Hamburg County
Speaker 1: Fair in New York up by Buffalo. That was actually
Speaker 1: our first gig as a Grand Park Railroad and it
Speaker 1: was in a tent and the people really loved it.
Speaker 1: But it was, you know, all these music that was
Speaker 1: on the first album. So on our way down to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: the guy a jeep holland God Rest his soul. He
Speaker 1: loaned his van, he had a window Vanish Chevy window
Speaker 1: van and his driver, Jimmy, he loaned to the band
Speaker 1: and we rented a U haul trailer and put all
Speaker 1: of our equipment in the back and we headed to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: And when we went through Toledo, and we were on
Speaker 1: the other side of Toledo. Um, this was before I
Speaker 1: seventy was finished. There was a lot of back roads
Speaker 1: that you had to take, a lot of detours that
Speaker 1: you had to take and get around. And we were
Speaker 1: on one of those and it was just breaking daylight
Speaker 1: and I was riding shotgun and I opened my eyes
Speaker 1: and I see this sign coming at us. I se
Speaker 1: and the arrows going to the right, and I know
Speaker 1: that Jimmy's going way too fast. He ain't even seen
Speaker 1: this sign. So I said, Jimmy, I seventy five goes
Speaker 1: to the right, and he just jerks that wheel. I
Speaker 1: guess he forgot he had a trailer on the back.
Speaker 1: And the trailer rolls down through the dish. The safety
Speaker 1: change snap and it's we were lucky that it didn't
Speaker 1: flip the van over and you know, hurt us. But
Speaker 1: we take all the equipment out of the van or
Speaker 1: out of the trailer, and all the guys got on
Speaker 1: the other side. We flipped this two wheel trailer back
Speaker 1: over on its tires. We loaded back up with what
Speaker 1: we can you know, see visibly is our equipment is
Speaker 1: all broken up. The some of the chassiss of the amplifiers,
Speaker 1: the transformers had ripped completely off the aluminum chassis, and
Speaker 1: the wires were busted and cut and and we just said,
Speaker 1: well to fix it when we get there. So we
Speaker 1: throw everything in the trailer because we're running a little behind. Now,
Speaker 1: we go down. As we're going down the expressway, this
Speaker 1: tire passes up and I look back. I looked back
Speaker 1: and there has sparked flying out from underneath the trailer.
Speaker 1: I said, that's our tire. Then it goes bound, singing
Speaker 1: across the expressway, uh over the northbound traffic and just
Speaker 1: about hits the semi. If it wasn't if he wasn't
Speaker 1: been paying attention, it would have went right through his windshield.
Speaker 1: But it narrowly misses him and goes out into this field.
Speaker 1: We run down there and retrieve that tire. We take
Speaker 1: two lug bolts off the other side of the trailer.
Speaker 1: We put it back together. The tires doing this. Bob, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's doing this, But we're only doing like twenty or
Speaker 1: fifteen miles at the most, and going right down the
Speaker 1: shoulder of the expressway. Well, luck would have it there
Speaker 1: was a U haul trailer place at that first exit.
Speaker 1: So we make the exchange of the trailer and we
Speaker 1: get back on the road and we are hauling the
Speaker 1: ass and we get to Atlanta just just a little
Speaker 1: bit before we're supposed to get on open that trailer,
Speaker 1: and here's all this equipment that's all messed up. The
Speaker 1: speaker cabinets were still in one piece, but the amps
Speaker 1: were all just like I said that, the transformers ripped
Speaker 1: from the chassis. And these guys, we had two roadias
Speaker 1: that were with us, and they're standing there like going,
Speaker 1: what the hell are we gonna do? And so all
Speaker 1: these other road eas from ten years after, uh, from
Speaker 1: you know, the ten wheel drive, a lot of the
Speaker 1: road eas I mean they're just hey, man, let's put
Speaker 1: it together. You guys got to get on stage. So
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe the workbeat that happened in the last
Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes. They were soldering wires back together. They
Speaker 1: sat the transformers up on top of the heads. Uh
Speaker 1: it was you know, there was a big hole where
Speaker 1: it used to go, so they put them up on
Speaker 1: top of the heads and they've got our stuff up
Speaker 1: there and it worked. They just you know, color matched
Speaker 1: the wires and it worked. Uh. And before taking the stage,
Speaker 1: you only the idea of you know, the enormity of
Speaker 1: this crowd was. We were looking out between the cracks
Speaker 1: and the fence and you could see the first few rows.
Speaker 1: You could see that it was they were having fun
Speaker 1: and it was wide. I kept, I kept. I looked
Speaker 1: down one side, I looked down the other way. Wow,
Speaker 1: is this a big crowd. But I didn't realize until
Speaker 1: we walked up and we were fifteen ft above this
Speaker 1: crowd's head. And I looked at it was the ocean
Speaker 1: of people, an ocean right out to pass the front
Speaker 1: of house, way out to the horizon. It was like
Speaker 1: just people everywhere. A hundred and eighty five thousand people,
Speaker 1: I believe is the figure. And Uh, I looked over
Speaker 1: at the at my guitar tech and I said, dude,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe how bad I got a piss he said,
Speaker 1: He says, put this thing on, man, you got work
Speaker 1: to do it. So we went out. We gave him
Speaker 1: our first album. We gave him all that music, and
Speaker 1: UH did for an encore because they kept calling us back,
Speaker 1: you know, they more and more so the promoter says,
Speaker 1: you got another one. We said, yeah, we got one more.
Speaker 1: So we go back and we give him Land of
Speaker 1: a Thousand Dances Wilson picket style. And during the song,
Speaker 1: I take my guitar off and throw it over to
Speaker 1: the tech and I've got this Paisley print shirt that
Speaker 1: I paid fifty bucks for that shirt back then. You know,
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of money. But it's sticking
Speaker 1: to me. It's a see through Paisley print shirt, and
Speaker 1: it's it's just got me constrained here, you know. So
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, this this audience deserves this,
Speaker 1: and I go I ripped the shirt off, and those
Speaker 1: people jumped to their feet, are going yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this party type and I go to dancing,
Speaker 1: and uh, I knew that that really worked. Taking the
Speaker 1: shirt off really worked. And so from that point on, uh,
Speaker 1: I would go with just a vest on and to
Speaker 1: take that vest off, like the second song, it was gone,
Speaker 1: you know, And that started. Uh. We opened at twelve
Speaker 1: noon the first day. The second day they put us
Speaker 1: on at seven pm, and the last night of the
Speaker 1: festival they had us on eleven o'clock with full lights.
Speaker 1: We had and they loved us. The people absolutely loved us,
Speaker 1: and uh that was a blessing from God. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, yeh okay. You know, I was in the
Speaker 1: New York radio market, and what I remember is these
Speaker 1: radio ads about all these people thrilled in Atlanta, which
Speaker 1: begs the question, I gotta believe that's Terry Knight. Would
Speaker 1: you have made it without his intense promotion? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I mean it was Terry Knight that had
Speaker 1: that gift of gam None of the band did, and
Speaker 1: those attorney sure didn't. Uh. It was all that height
Speaker 1: and uh, his ability two convince people that we were
Speaker 1: going to be big, we were going to do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how did you cut the first record? And how
Speaker 1: did he end up being the producer? Well, we didn't
Speaker 1: know any better. We didn't know any producers. We didn't
Speaker 1: know that your manager didn't produce your records. We were
Speaker 1: twenty years old about Mel was nineteen. Don and I
Speaker 1: were twenty Mel was nineteen, and when we got the
Speaker 1: you know, I got the idea, well we better put
Speaker 1: this all this together in a record. Terry Uh knew
Speaker 1: this gal who worked at a bank, and she was like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know a big to do UM and and he
Speaker 1: could get him the money that he needed to record us.
Speaker 1: So we had her come to one of the engagements
Speaker 1: that we played UM in Ohio and Uh, she saw
Speaker 1: the band and she decided to finance the recording, and
Speaker 1: of course he paid her back. And she she had
Speaker 1: always come to the gigs whenever we were close enough,
Speaker 1: and we've we always had a great relationship with her
Speaker 1: because of her believing in US and and Terry getting
Speaker 1: her to make that investment. And we recorded at Cleveland Recording.
Speaker 1: Don Hammond down there had beautiful uh array. He had
Speaker 1: every microphone known to man, and his whole thing. Don's
Speaker 1: was don't eat Q the mix on the board. Don't
Speaker 1: eat that. We'll get the microphone that that closely fits
Speaker 1: it to where we don't have to use the e Q.
Speaker 1: And that cut a lot of the noise floor out. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when you got ears like Don Hammond had, oh
Speaker 1: my god. Uh. He was very critical. He could he
Speaker 1: could pick this stuff up. And Terry, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he produced, he he mixed it, he pushed the faders
Speaker 1: up in the but Don was responsible more for the
Speaker 1: tone of everything. And uh, and that's where we recorded
Speaker 1: on an eight track. Scully, buddy, how did you get
Speaker 1: the deal with Capital? It was after the Atlanta Pop Festival.
Speaker 1: The there was a few Capital representatives there, you know,
Speaker 1: with the various bands that were on Capitol and uh,
Speaker 1: and Terry came back after the third night. He said, well,
Speaker 1: you guys, we got some interest. Capitol Records is really
Speaker 1: interested in you guys. I think I got a deal going. Well,
Speaker 1: what he did was he made a production deal with
Speaker 1: Capitol Records and signed us to his uh good Night Productions,
Speaker 1: his company. He told us that the six percent that
Speaker 1: we were splitting was more than the Beatles, Scott, so
Speaker 1: the two percent I got, two percent, Don got, two percent,
Speaker 1: Mel got was more than the Beatles got. We didn't know.
Speaker 1: We're twenty year old kids. Uh. We said, wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1: But we didn't realize that it was a production deal
Speaker 1: or we you know, we didn't know anything about that.
Speaker 1: We thought we were actually signed, uh you know, somehow
Speaker 1: to the company. But that's what caused really, Um. The
Speaker 1: breakup between Terry and Knight and us was it was
Speaker 1: three years because they had this contract. Terry Knight had
Speaker 1: us for three years exclusively and Uh, at the end
Speaker 1: of that three years. We were in New York City.
Speaker 1: We had just returned from Europe. We did uh Shafe
Speaker 1: Stadium that summer. Uh you know, it was a big
Speaker 1: year for us. And they said, you guys are in
Speaker 1: uh in trouble with the I R S. We go,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? In trouble? We made all
Speaker 1: kinds of Yeah, you made too much money. You you
Speaker 1: owe over four hundred thousand dollars to the Infernal Revenue Service.
Speaker 1: And I go, what how did this happen? I mean,
Speaker 1: who's watching our books? Who's doing us? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, just as the price you pay when you're big.
Speaker 1: And he says, but this is the attorney speaking. We
Speaker 1: will loan you that money if you will resign another
Speaker 1: three year contract with Terry Knight. And I looked at
Speaker 1: Don and Melt. I said, look, that's a big decision.
Speaker 1: We aren't just gonna make that kind of decision just
Speaker 1: standing here off the cuff. They said, okay, you guys
Speaker 1: stay in here. We'll go in the other room. You
Speaker 1: talk it over. So they left. They scurried out of there.
Speaker 1: I said, this is bullshit, you guys. I walk over.
Speaker 1: I sat down at Bell docks death in his chair.
Speaker 1: I kicked my feet up on his desk and I said,
Speaker 1: you guys, something in the milk ain't cream. This feels
Speaker 1: real bad to me. This feels so bad. It's like
Speaker 1: we've been we have been screwed here. And as I
Speaker 1: said that, I sat up and my foot dragged down
Speaker 1: off the top of the desk and opened that first
Speaker 1: big drawer, that's the long shallow drawer. And here's a
Speaker 1: copy of the contract between good Night Productions and Capitol
Speaker 1: Records for six Bob. So I tell Don and Melt
Speaker 1: I said, you guys, you're not gonna believe this. Come
Speaker 1: over here, look at that. And Brewer says, that son
Speaker 1: of a bitch, because here, you know, we're splitting, two
Speaker 1: said each and then him taking a management commission. He
Speaker 1: took my publishing. I mean it was twenty years old.
Speaker 1: My mom had designed a contract. So Terry and I
Speaker 1: takes my publishing, takes uh, you know, an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of money. Uh. And then and then takes a management
Speaker 1: commission from the pittance that the band was splitting. And
Speaker 1: we just we were boiling at that point, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna tell him we can't make up our mind.
Speaker 1: We need a week or so to think about this.
Speaker 1: And so when they came back in, well, I had
Speaker 1: shut the desk drawer, of course, uh, and I went
Speaker 1: way across the room so it wouldn't look like I
Speaker 1: was sitting in anybody's chair. And when they came back in, well,
Speaker 1: what do you what do you guys think? Said, we
Speaker 1: need a week or two to think about this. This
Speaker 1: is just just as just mind boggling how this could happen.
Speaker 1: And I came off as I was piste off. So okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll let you We'll let you think about that. So
Speaker 1: then we we left, and uh we got a hold
Speaker 1: of Eastman and Eastman and John Eastman of course his
Speaker 1: sister Linda Well married Paul McCartney and he was a
Speaker 1: big name in in the in the city. And uh
Speaker 1: we said, you know, we want to we want to
Speaker 1: get out of this. And it went to court and
Speaker 1: we settled out of court. But Terry always told everybody, well,
Speaker 1: if those guys you know, would have waited to the
Speaker 1: end of the contract, and then he made up some
Speaker 1: kind of bullshit, uh, but tried to push the blame
Speaker 1: of the breaking up between him and the band upon
Speaker 1: the band. Uh when really that's uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: you find out some information like that, you don't want
Speaker 1: to ever see this guy again. And uh, and we
Speaker 1: didn't at this late date. Who owns the songs? Do
Speaker 1: you still get paid royalties? What's going on? Terry Night
Speaker 1: owned the publishing Storybook music. And as you know, the
Speaker 1: publishing is fift of the pie. The songwriter takes fifty,
Speaker 1: the publisher takes fifty. But I should have been the
Speaker 1: publisher on all of my songs because I was the
Speaker 1: one out singing them, promoting them. I wasn't shopping them
Speaker 1: to other artists to have them uh consider doing my
Speaker 1: song where. You know, a publisher would have earned his
Speaker 1: keep if he would get a song covered by a
Speaker 1: big artist or something. But I was the artist. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I didn't find this out until later about publishing and
Speaker 1: about you know how bad I got screwed. Uh. But
Speaker 1: the when we broke up Eastman, the breakup between Terry
Speaker 1: and Knight and and the Grand Funk, Eastman had the
Speaker 1: wherewithal to think, you know, we're gonna have to have
Speaker 1: your record royalties paid directly to each one of you guys.
Speaker 1: That way, there's gonna be no hanky panky, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know Terry Knight's not going to have anything to
Speaker 1: do with it. We get him completely out of the picture.
Speaker 1: So to this day we still get paid the record
Speaker 1: royalties for record sales and now streaming directly from Capital
Speaker 1: or I forget what the name of the corporation is
Speaker 1: that has Capitals Old Recordings, but it's still paid that way.
Speaker 1: I get my songwriters, I get my b M I
Speaker 1: uh because I ran all my stuff through UH Broadcast
Speaker 1: Music UM, but Terry Knight's state gets all the publish things.
Speaker 1: There were sixteen points in the deal, and each band
Speaker 1: member was getting to subsequent to your hiring Eastman. How
Speaker 1: many did you guys end up with? Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know what that was. I I don't know what the
Speaker 1: final number was. I just was trusting Eastman to get
Speaker 1: us the best deal. I do know that we renegotiated
Speaker 1: and David Fishoff, who does rock and roll Fantasy camp
Speaker 1: manage Grand Funk for one year on our reunion and
Speaker 1: six and we did the Bosnia album and uh we
Speaker 1: put a wing on the hospital in Sarajevour Children's Hospital,
Speaker 1: UH and David negotiated our rate up because no one
Speaker 1: had ever uh, you know, bargained up for the CDs
Speaker 1: and all the digital stuff that you know, we were
Speaker 1: evolving into into the music industry. All we had back
Speaker 1: then we're records and tapes, cassette tapes or eight tracks,
Speaker 1: you know when when we first did our deal. So
Speaker 1: we did get an update, uh, an upgrade in royalties then,
Speaker 1: but I can't even tell you what that is. I
Speaker 1: would just let's look at it a different way. Do
Speaker 1: you have to work to pay the bills? Or does
Speaker 1: enough money come in? No? No, I gotta work. I
Speaker 1: have to work since Squam Funk broke up, has it
Speaker 1: been financially good or has it been a struggle. It's
Speaker 1: not a struggle because I love to play and as
Speaker 1: long as I can play, I can pay. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go back. The first album comes out, Rolling Stone gives
Speaker 1: it a terrible review, and certainly for the first couple
Speaker 1: of albums, reviews are not positive. How do you feel
Speaker 1: about that? How did you feel about it? Then? That's
Speaker 1: what I'm asking. We always thought, what show did they
Speaker 1: go see? They didn't come and see a grand function.
Speaker 1: They're not giving um a report of of how popular
Speaker 1: we are with the fans. They're just shipping on us
Speaker 1: because part of Terry Knight's whole scheme was to keep
Speaker 1: us from the press and create a mystique. And that
Speaker 1: was what he gave you. That was his story he
Speaker 1: gave us. So while we are not doing interviews, uh,
Speaker 1: Terry Knight has taken that opportunity to tout his managerical uh,
Speaker 1: you know, his talents and uh. And then when Billy
Speaker 1: Billboard and cash Box came out, uh in nineteen I
Speaker 1: think it was one the centerfold. Is Terry Knight doing this,
Speaker 1: given the finger to the world and he says and
Speaker 1: to all a good night, k and I g h
Speaker 1: d you know, and he had the ship eating grin
Speaker 1: on his face. UM. And that that is we paid
Speaker 1: for that attitude, Grand Funk. The guys in the band
Speaker 1: paid for that attitude that Terry had, and that he
Speaker 1: left a bad taste in uh, in the mouth in
Speaker 1: the mouths of the press and those people that wanted
Speaker 1: to do the interviews with us because he wouldn't let
Speaker 1: it happen. And when we you know, to this day,
Speaker 1: I believe that is part of why uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we got all the bad rap. So ultimately Terry Knights
Speaker 1: out of the picture. You end up working with Todd Rundgren.
Speaker 1: How does that happen? We drew names out of a hat, buddy,
Speaker 1: And I'm serious. There was a Rundgren was one of
Speaker 1: them because Lynn Goldsmith, are publicist, knew him very well,
Speaker 1: had worked with him, and she said, uh, man, he'd
Speaker 1: be great if he's if that's who you pull out
Speaker 1: of the hat. And there was up several other people
Speaker 1: that we put in the hat. You know, there's probably
Speaker 1: eight names. And I reached in and I pull out
Speaker 1: Todd Rundgren and that's it. And that's how Frank Zappa
Speaker 1: got h pulled two and we had names in a hat.
Speaker 1: Pulled the name Frank Zappa. Okay, let's let's ask them
Speaker 1: see if they'll do it. Uh. Todd was very willing
Speaker 1: to come out h and to Michigan and hear us
Speaker 1: and to work with us and see where we were
Speaker 1: recording and see if he could get it done there.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when Todd was producing, I lived across
Speaker 1: from the studio, which we lovingly called the swamp. We
Speaker 1: had to dig up pond there in order to get
Speaker 1: a perk test to put the building down and have
Speaker 1: a you know, septic system. Uh. But you couldn't see
Speaker 1: the farmhouse from the swamp because of the woods that
Speaker 1: we had to go through. And the driveway was kind
Speaker 1: of like an s and it's dirt, and where I
Speaker 1: lived on a dirt road, Partialville Road. And I went
Speaker 1: home for the for lunch to the farmhouse, and on
Speaker 1: my way back, it was a beautiful day. The sun
Speaker 1: was out, the birds were chirping and singing, and I
Speaker 1: could hear the guys in the parking lot at the studio.
Speaker 1: I could, you know, hear their conversation a little bit.
Speaker 1: I could hear them talking. So I start saying, everybody's
Speaker 1: dude in a brand who dance now? And then guys
Speaker 1: start singing the backgrounds from the parking lot, and and
Speaker 1: Rundgren comes walking out as I come around the corner,
Speaker 1: and now I can see the band and the crew
Speaker 1: and they're singing and I'm still singing, and we're singing
Speaker 1: the locomotion. Rundgren comes walking out of the studio. He said,
Speaker 1: what the hell is that? I said, what is that?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? That's little Eva, that's the locomotion.
Speaker 1: He says, well, you guys get in here right now
Speaker 1: because we're recording the Locomotion. We went in, he pushed
Speaker 1: the button, we went in, and he came out to
Speaker 1: record with us. That's him singing all that high false
Speaker 1: settle part in Locomotion. We turned it into a party
Speaker 1: and when the guitar solo uh starts, he walks over
Speaker 1: to my rig Bob, and he grabbed the head on
Speaker 1: the eco plex and slid it from one end to
Speaker 1: the other and he go im gonna do that. It
Speaker 1: sounded like the car guitar was eating itself and people
Speaker 1: loved it. Man, that was a big hit for us,
Speaker 1: Number one. Okay, let's go back. I've talked to Todd,
Speaker 1: and Todd said when he was called that you had
Speaker 1: new management and were an American band. Was already written
Speaker 1: the song and he came in and cut it right away,
Speaker 1: and then it became a hit and then cut the
Speaker 1: album after. What's your memory of all that? Yeah? He Well,
Speaker 1: he was the first producer that we felt confident that
Speaker 1: he could make the records sound like we did on stage,
Speaker 1: that he could actually put the energy that the band
Speaker 1: was putting out and the and the sound, you know,
Speaker 1: the tone uh, which we never thought. Terry Knight did
Speaker 1: a very good job of replicating what we sounded like
Speaker 1: on stage on the records, as successful as they may
Speaker 1: have been. But but Todd had the magic. He had
Speaker 1: the musical genius. Uh. Easy for him. And one of
Speaker 1: is a musical genius. It's it is easy that they
Speaker 1: don't have to work at it. And I recall doing
Speaker 1: American Band. We we we did it. We cut it
Speaker 1: at the Step in the Swamp, but then we did
Speaker 1: the vocals at Criteria in Miami. And when we finished
Speaker 1: American Band, which, by the way, I said to Brewer, man,
Speaker 1: this song it needs a cow bell in the worst way.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't have a cow bell. I said,
Speaker 1: we need to get one. Dude, I'm telling you, I'm
Speaker 1: hearing cow bell on this. He says, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll pick one up on a way to
Speaker 1: rehearsal tomorrow. I said, no, man, pick up six and
Speaker 1: we'll pick the best one that matches this the chord
Speaker 1: that we're playing this song. So he did that, and
Speaker 1: and I taught him the drum intro that is my
Speaker 1: I heard that in my head and I said, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm hearing for an intro, and then we
Speaker 1: come in and he goes, man, I can't believe well.
Speaker 1: I kept encouraging him, and the nicest way that he could.
Speaker 1: I said, you know who you are. You're Don Brewer, dude.
Speaker 1: You could do this ship no problem. So we get
Speaker 1: it down, we rehearse it. We get this thing down
Speaker 1: and go to rehearse or go to Miami to record.
Speaker 1: And when we have done with the song, Don, it
Speaker 1: was at night. Don comes to me and he says, Mark,
Speaker 1: I've never had a songwriter credit on any song. Would
Speaker 1: you mind if I take it on this song? I said,
Speaker 1: go ahead. Even though I wrote the music. He didn't
Speaker 1: write those chord changes. I wrote those chord changes. I
Speaker 1: did the background vocal arrangement, and the Kyle Bell and
Speaker 1: the drum intro I did. I had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with that song. That's why he came to me
Speaker 1: and asked me. Because any other song prior to that
Speaker 1: that we had co written together, he did the lyrics.
Speaker 1: I did the music, and that's how we worked. I
Speaker 1: didn't try to interfere or you know, change the lyrics
Speaker 1: that he was writing. Whatever his ideas were, I wanted
Speaker 1: him to you know finish that. So he's not the
Speaker 1: songwriter of that song. And anybody that would ask him
Speaker 1: to go ahead and play it on whichever instrument he
Speaker 1: wrote it on that they would soon find out. Uh,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, I have that's part of my lessons, That's
Speaker 1: part of my life lesson and uh, I don't regret it,
Speaker 1: because regret is debt, it's dead consciousness. Okay, you make
Speaker 1: two albums with Todd and then you work with Jimmy Ironer.
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with Jimmy and you
Speaker 1: have some success there? With Jimmy Einer was pulled from
Speaker 1: a hat and we knew with the raspberries that he had,
Speaker 1: you know, had some great sounds, especially vocals. He had
Speaker 1: a way with vocals man, and uh so we just
Speaker 1: working with him. He was every time I come into
Speaker 1: control room, Jimmy had this smile that was like looking
Speaker 1: at the moon. I mean, you know, it lit up
Speaker 1: the room and and he just loved what he was doing.
Speaker 1: And we worked at the record plant and did in
Speaker 1: a bad time to be in love there. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: he did the vocals. I just couldn't believe how it
Speaker 1: was coming out. And uh, he would have people from
Speaker 1: the record plant come up, some of the engineers that
Speaker 1: were downstairs, and the owner, he had her come up
Speaker 1: and and there he's wanting me to keep singing this
Speaker 1: song over and over over again. Uh you know that intro,
Speaker 1: I'm in love with you, and uh he just loved
Speaker 1: that part. And uh, I'm glad that we did it
Speaker 1: with him because that and some kind of Wonderful are
Speaker 1: probably the best vocally arranged and the vocal presence, uh,
Speaker 1: those two songs of the whole catalog, Grandfat Catalog. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: from an outside view, you have an awaking and you
Speaker 1: become very Christian. Was that something that people didn't know
Speaker 1: about or was there some significant turning point in your life? Actually,
Speaker 1: when my dad died, you know, when I was nine
Speaker 1: years old, I walked into the living room. My dad
Speaker 1: had just purchased our first television set. Prior to the TV,
Speaker 1: we used to listen to the radio. We had a
Speaker 1: big wooden radio, you know, like a twelve inch speaker,
Speaker 1: and would listen to the Lone Ranger and Flash Gordon
Speaker 1: and Creaking Door all this stuff, and and all the
Speaker 1: cousins would be around the speaker and we'd be eaten.
Speaker 1: You know, popcorn in these grocery bags, big huge bags
Speaker 1: full of popcorn, and they're grease soaked from the butter,
Speaker 1: you know, and and we're just our imaginations are going
Speaker 1: like crazy listening to Flash Gordon and the Lone Ranger
Speaker 1: and all this. Uh So, when we got the TV,
Speaker 1: my dad was very proud that he could get that
Speaker 1: for us. Uh and then he died like a week later.
Speaker 1: So I walk in out of the dining room where
Speaker 1: my mother and my aunts and uncles, Grandma and grandpa. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were all just crying. They were they were sobbing,
Speaker 1: and it was just a lot of voices that were hurting, hurting.
Speaker 1: And I walked into the living room where the TV
Speaker 1: was on, kind of faint, and I looked over and
Speaker 1: Billy Graham was doing a crusade in Flint, Michigan. He
Speaker 1: was at Shasta or Shake. He was at the stadium.
Speaker 1: What the heck his name of the Yankee Stadium? No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: This was in Flint, Michigan. God, actually what was it
Speaker 1: Silver Dome? Anyways, he was there and that it was
Speaker 1: packed and as he's talented, you know, I'd walking in
Speaker 1: and he's telling the people if you need a touch
Speaker 1: from God, if you are hurting, if there's pain in
Speaker 1: your life. And I'm I'm going damn, he's talking to me.
Speaker 1: You know. I walked up to the TV and he says,
Speaker 1: I want you to pray with me. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: right into his eyes. He says, put your hand on
Speaker 1: the television set. I reach up and I put my
Speaker 1: hand on a television set and I received Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: as my savior. I confess it with my mouth. I'm
Speaker 1: nine years old. I've been to church a few times,
Speaker 1: but you know, on Easter with my great grandmother, you know,
Speaker 1: or some other special holiday. It wasn't every week, every
Speaker 1: you know, Wednesday, Sunday thing. It was just every once
Speaker 1: in a while. But what I prayed, I felt a
Speaker 1: piece come over me, an actual you know, nine years old,
Speaker 1: I can still remember that piece and it's that pieces
Speaker 1: part of who I am now. But I went on.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a big star in Grand Funk Railroad. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, rock and roll icon what have you. And
Speaker 1: when I married Lisa, Uh, she's the love of my
Speaker 1: life and to let's be two. So four years into
Speaker 1: our marriage, we have two of the three boys that
Speaker 1: we had together. But Jason and Joseph we're at the house.
Speaker 1: I come home from the studio and there was a note,
Speaker 1: uh that she's she's left, She's gone, she's leaving me boom.
Speaker 1: And the kids were over at my sister in law's.
Speaker 1: So I went over and I tried to play like,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, she she'll be coming back anytime, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Well after that, after the first few days, man,
Speaker 1: I started going to church. I'm looking for God. I
Speaker 1: walk into this one. The first church I go into.
Speaker 1: It's like hell fire and brimstone and all this bullshit,
Speaker 1: and I went, I did, Nah, he got ain't here.
Speaker 1: And I walk out. You know, I walk in and
Speaker 1: part of my test, Bob was I put on my
Speaker 1: Hawaiian shirt, faded blue jeans with holes in the knees,
Speaker 1: and my sneakers, and I got a headband on and
Speaker 1: my long hair hanging down. I'm kind of hippified. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, part of it is if they can get
Speaker 1: past this, I might listen to them, you know. And
Speaker 1: that was part of the test for me. And then
Speaker 1: I got into this other, one of the other church
Speaker 1: I went. I went to one on Wednesday. I went
Speaker 1: to one on Friday. I went to one on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for God, And finally I got into this
Speaker 1: little church where no but he knew who I was. Uh.
Speaker 1: These old ladies, I mean older ladies, uh came up
Speaker 1: to me. Hello, Sun, how are you doing, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the church, and blah blah, and they're hugging me, and
Speaker 1: I felt like, are these people for real? Wow, this
Speaker 1: is really kind of what I need, you know. Then
Speaker 1: the pastor gets up there, Pastor Exley, he was uh
Speaker 1: eighty four years old, preaching on the institution of marriage
Speaker 1: according to God's work, How people walk out the front
Speaker 1: door of the church and they leave the commitment that
Speaker 1: they've made, this holy matrimony. They leave it behind when
Speaker 1: they walk out the front door of the church and
Speaker 1: they just off, you know, doing their life, and they
Speaker 1: and the the Testament and and uh, what brought him
Speaker 1: together in the first place, and to that point gets
Speaker 1: left in the church and that's why marriages fall apart.
Speaker 1: And it was, man, it was like this guy had
Speaker 1: a gun and he and he was shooting me with
Speaker 1: this gun. He had no blanks in that gun. And
Speaker 1: it's like I'm thinking, he singled me out. He knows
Speaker 1: I got trouble, and he gives an altar call and
Speaker 1: I go up there. I scurried up there, and I said,
Speaker 1: I told him the story. I said, my wife left me.
Speaker 1: I said, I I gave my life to Jesus back
Speaker 1: when I was nine. But uh, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: involved in all this worldly stuff. I'm not really you know,
Speaker 1: a churchgoer or anything. I said, but man, I want
Speaker 1: my wife back. He said, Uh, well, I understand it,
Speaker 1: you know, Sonny. I said, well, can you pray with
Speaker 1: me to get her back? He says, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what I'll do, son you pray and I'll agree. So
Speaker 1: I prayed. I said, God, I want my wife back.
Speaker 1: I want her back. I I want to have my
Speaker 1: life with her. I want to have the mother of
Speaker 1: my children. And I'm crying, you know, and I just
Speaker 1: just like I just said, and he agreed. He said,
Speaker 1: I agree on touching that prayer in Jesus name. And
Speaker 1: I found out my wife gave her life to Jesus
Speaker 1: that same day, fifty miles away in another city, Ah
Speaker 1: that morning. And AH. So we got back together two
Speaker 1: two days, baby three at the most, and we've been
Speaker 1: solely sold out to each other. And uh, and we
Speaker 1: have allowed that love to be real and to hold
Speaker 1: onto it and to um, I esteem my wife to
Speaker 1: be equal with myself Bob Um. How could you love
Speaker 1: somebody with everything you are? And I believe this is
Speaker 1: what we have to do, is man, that we have
Speaker 1: to give all of ourselves to that relationship, reckless, abandoned. Uh.
Speaker 1: You've got to give yourself to love and then it'll
Speaker 1: come back to you. And and that's the way we've
Speaker 1: played it. And for fort or four years now it's working. Okay,
Speaker 1: So family is the most important thing. But Grand Funk
Speaker 1: rail Road, what do we know? The song still stay alive.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, you said, well, you would like to
Speaker 1: get together with the other two for the fans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But how do you feel about the legacy of Grand
Speaker 1: Funk Railroad? Do you think you've gotten to do? You know,
Speaker 1: there's always the question of the rock and roll Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, whether that's an institution that has any gravitas
Speaker 1: or not. But how do you feel about it all
Speaker 1: these years later? Well? I feel like, uh, in the
Speaker 1: hearts of the true fans, they know who I am
Speaker 1: because I wrote that music and my songs are I
Speaker 1: am who my songs say I am. They are a
Speaker 1: testimony to my life, to my belief, to my love,
Speaker 1: to my convictions. And I can leave this world knowing
Speaker 1: that and pretty pretty happy. Guy. I would love to
Speaker 1: have that band entertain the fans the truth Grand Funk fans,
Speaker 1: just from that point of view. I was sharing earlier
Speaker 1: Bob about me being a Beatle fan, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to see, you know, the four dudes up there. I
Speaker 1: wanted to see them. I wanted to feel that magic.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be there. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of fans that would still really like to
Speaker 1: see the original three guys get up there and do it.
Speaker 1: But it's my feelings are not shared. So um, the
Speaker 1: way it stands is, I just have to keep telling
Speaker 1: myself and reassuring myself that at least my willingness and
Speaker 1: my uh trying, you know, my efforts to put the
Speaker 1: band back together for the sake of the fans, it's
Speaker 1: good enough. It's good enough for me. That has to be.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let it become a burden to me
Speaker 1: because that would put me in debt. Brother, Okay, but meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you're working and you work with your band, you also
Speaker 1: work solo acoustic. Uh so how do you decide which
Speaker 1: show to do and how often do you work? I
Speaker 1: do them all, anything that comes along, as long as
Speaker 1: I and pay my guys and pay my air affairs. Oh,
Speaker 1: I do them all. I love to perform. I love
Speaker 1: it when people call my name out. I love it
Speaker 1: when my name was called out on that loud speaker
Speaker 1: and I was prancing across that football field. I love
Speaker 1: it when people holler out from the crowd, we love you, Mark,
Speaker 1: We love you Mark. I love you Mark, Thank you Mark.
Speaker 1: It's so gratifying. Two. I wish people could know this.
Speaker 1: I wish every person could know how it feels to
Speaker 1: truly be a brother. Too many people but a being.
Speaker 1: On that note, we're gonna leave it at that. You know, Mark,
Speaker 1: it's really it's just fascinating. You know, I've seen the band,
Speaker 1: and to talk to you gives me a lot of
Speaker 1: insight that I didn't have, And I think my listeners
Speaker 1: will feel the same way. And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who love you and love your music. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because certainly weren't American being phenomenal track and
Speaker 1: closer to home. You know, I'm your captain, but when
Speaker 1: I hear some kind of wonderful, you know, come out
Speaker 1: of the speakers, it just does something for me that
Speaker 1: I pull it up, you know on the streaming service.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just got that exuberance and you know
Speaker 1: that lives on you after fifty years of bullshit. You
Speaker 1: hear that and you go, wow, thank you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: those words, my friend. I appreciate that encouragement. Until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob Left Sex