In a revealing interview, the renowned rock frontman reflected on his new music and Grand Funk Railroad’s past. The story and radio show podcast was one of the year’s top Local Spins posts.
Still Rocking: Mark Farner, shown on stage at Flint’s Capital Theater, releases a new album in November. (Photo/Brad Shaw)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Our year-end countdown of the year’s top music stories at Local Spins continues with No. 8: The revealing interview with Michigan rock icon and former Grand Funk Railroad frontman Mark Farner. Plus, listen to that week’s Local Spins on WYCE radio show podcast that accompanied the September interview.
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Mark Farner describes it as a “divinely inspired mistake” – the song he prayed for, the song that helped define his career with Grand Funk Railroad, the song with moments that will linger in his mind until the day he dies.
“It’s the one that has gotten the most plays,” Farner said of “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home),” the closing track on Grand Funk’s 1970 album, “Closer to Home,” which was written in his bedroom before he went to sleep one night.
“It’s the one I prayed for and God answered my prayer, and I didn’t even realize it because of the state of mind that I was in when the words came out . … I was half in heaven and half on earth, man, I swear to you in that state of mind.”
So, it should come as no surprise that Farner’s first studio album in 18 years would revisit that classic 54-year-old track, with the singer re-recording the lengthy tune for his “Closer To Home” collection produced by Mark Slaughter and released in November.
Half-Century Legacy: Farner (Photo/Brad Shaw)
Because Farner subscribes to the theory that music played, recorded and tuned to 432 Hz (as opposed to the standard A 440 tuning) has a more soothing and healing effect on listeners, he said he wanted to re-record “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)” in A 432 which is “a natural frequency” that’s “friendly to every bone in your body, every hair your head and your chinny, chin, chin. It’s very soothing and natural and lovely and harmonic.”
But revisiting that signature tune is only part of the story for the singer and multi-instrumentalist who asserts that he wrote more than 90 percent of Flint-bred Grand Funk Railroad’s catalog during its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.
Farner, 75, who makes his home between Petoskey and Wolverine in northern Michigan, said Slaughter, a producer and rock musician, convinced him to record material for a new solo studio album, with most tracks laid down at Slaughter’s studio in Tennessee.
“He said, ‘I think the timing is right.’ I went down to his place in Tennessee and hung out with the dogs and the cats in the studio. … It was fun doing it. It was just what I needed.”
The resulting 10 tracks – ranging from a song about forgiveness (“Anymore”) to the rocker “Same Game” co-written with Slaughter – have a familiar Farner feel, with soulful vocals and driving rock riffs.
AN ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER FOR A FLINT NATIVE & GRAND FUNK FRONTMAN
It’s the latest salvo in an illustrious career for the “Flintoid boy” who attended Flint Kearsley High School and spent his summers fishing, swimming and listening to rock heroes such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
He eventually formed Grand Funk Railroad with drummer Don Brewer ad bassist Mel Schacher, a band that released a dozen albums between 1969 and 1976 with hit singles such as “Closer to Home,” “We’re an American Band,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Bad Time” and “The Loco-Motion.”
Different lineups of the band followed at different junctures, with Farner releasing solo projects, touring with Ringo Starr and eventually being inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame as a solo artist and member of Grand Funk and Terry Knight & The Pack (his first band).
In recent years, he’s toured as Mark Farner’s American Band, after Brewer and Schacher moved forward as Grand Funk Railroad with a different lead singer. It’s a split that’s led to legal wrangling over the years.
‘Be True To You’: Farner’s advice to young musicians. (Courtesy Photo)
“It’s legal, what they have done, because it’s the corporation,” Farner says. “I don’t hate ‘em. I still love those guys. … I only pray that they can, for the sake of the fans who still want to see the real Grand Funk Railroad, the original Grand Funk Railroad, that they can get over it – and while we’re still sucking air, brother. Get out there and do it for our fans.”
For now, however, Farner is concentrating on the new album project being released on Righteous Rock Records, with touring planned to promote the release at some point. (Follow him at markfarner.com.)
And he still cites his Michigan roots and upbringing for inspiring that music, listening to “pure rock ‘n’ roll” and Motown music churned out by radio station CKLW that inspired him as a young dancer and singer.
His long and noteworthy career since serves as a roadmap of sorts for younger musicians to follow as they navigate the thicket of the music business.
“Don’t give up. There’ll be a lot of disappointments but you can’t let that bother you when you’re writing and when you’re playing your music,” he said.
“I got it to where, dude, I was doing it for me. When you can do it for you and you can feed yourself with that God-given talent and it starts stirring you and stirring your soul, you’ve got to hang on to that. You can’t let anybody’s words guide you. You’ve got to be true to that and true to you. Just to it to satisfy you. And when the right ears get ahold of it, and when the timing is right, it might just blossom into this great big old sunflower.”
The September 13 edition of Local Spins on WYCE — which spotlights music by Michigan artists at 11 a.m. Fridays and 5 p.m. Sundays on WYCE (88.1 Fm) and online at wyce.org — showcased two tracks from Farner’s upcoming album – “Anymore” and “I’m Your Captain (Closer to My Home).” Listen to the songs below as part of the radio show which also featured music by Luke Winslow-King, Cold Leather Seats, Joey Gados Jr., Ben Steer & Noah Mercil, Sean Anthony Sullivan, Wreckno, Nicholas James & The Bandwagon, Greg Nagy and Troll for Trout. Listen to the show here.
PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE (9/13/24)
VIDEO: Mark Farner, “I’m Your Captain” (Live)
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