Mark Farner: The Cussing Christian of Rock and Roll

faster than the Beatles. For decades after his first performance, the self coined cussing Christian is still touring, but before going solo, it was his time with Grand Funk that taught him how to rock. Our first manager, Terry Knight, would tell me. He says, you know, there's a lot of people there. The people in the back row can't see your antics. If you're doing, you know, little things, you got to exaggerate everything. So I went into this

exaggeration and it really worked playing to the back row. Yeah. Now you started out your parents were musical, yes, and your dad who passed away when you were very young. You're like nine years old and your dad, what do you play? The sacks? He played sacks and guitar. Was he in bands and played in bands. Nab that every Sunday he was playing guitar with. My mother's people came from Leechville, Arkansas, and they moved up when she was sixteen years old and she met my dad, you know,

marrying uh North meet South. And I believe that's what happened to You know. Why all that music came out of Michigan was a lot of people came from the Southern States to get the high pay and auto factory jobs. And so we had a lot of Southerners and they brought their guitars and their banjos, and they were picking every culture. Yes, and it mixed with Flint. It mixed real good and and we got a lot of good music to prove it out of Michigan. Now you're dead.

What kind of work did he do for a living? He was a fireman World War Two VETT. He was a tank driver. He returned home with four bronze medals. Most tank drivers didn't get to see their second battle. He went through four of them. Brother. Yeah, and my mother was the first woman in the United States to weld on Sherman tanks at Fisher Body in Flint, Michigan. So there's auto blood in your family too. Yeah, and

we call it Assembly Lion rock and roll. Give for people who don't know the etymology of Grand Funk Railroad, what was there was? There's a meaning to that. It's an actual railway system that runs through Ontario, Canada, Michigan and Ohio called Grand Trunk and Western. And our first manager, Terry Knight, had a song that he had written, Grand Funk Railroad. He says, why don't you name your band the name of my song, Grand Funk Railroad. We went, yeah,

that's cool. That works. He was in a band himself, Yes, and you were in that, Yes, Terry Knight in the pack and I played bass and sang and Don the drummer, and I one day said, you know he doesn't sing. We're singing better than uh Don. So Don went to Terry and said, we're going to do this without you. Terry. Well, he was all pissed and went off and had the

Terry Knight Review, had horns and all this stuff. But Don kept in contact with him, and Terry had some contacts in New York City and they ended up being the attorneys that did the legal work for the Atlanta Pop Festival. In nineteen sixty nine, So that's how we got there and mel shocker shocker. Yeah, at this point in time, we didn't know what a hundred and eighty

thousand people look like. We were only yeah, we were only looking at the front rows, you know, looking out through the fence and why there's a lot of people. And then when we're fifteen feet in the air up above their head, I would holy, I just meant I had to piss so bad. But whatever, what But what do you do? You know? You you go, you're not a big headlining act, and do you say to yourself,

hey man, this is my shot. Like when you get up from perform in front of people and you because you because you come across on stage like the consummate pro you're not wasted or whatever, as you don't see a cure you might have. I don't know. No, I was never wasted. That's amazing. You were never wasted. And you get up there and describe what the set was like. At Atlanta, we did our first album, all original music, your first original material, you do, how did it come time?

How did it go over? What were they like? Dude? They loved it, they loved it. I had purchased this Paisley print kind of see through nylon or something. Wasn't cotton, just wild colors and everything. And I had to think long sleeve. And I'm out there, it's a hundred and ten degrees out in the shade, and I'm just sweating. I worked up a ladder between my legs. You could

shave a buffalo. You know, I'm serious. You gotta And we come to the end of the set and I told Brewer, I said, were not we gotta throw in Land of a Thousand Dances because we used to do Wilson Pickett version of Land of a Thousand Dances and I would take my axe off and just prance around a dance and you know, And at this point, I was so stuck with this shirt all over my wet body. I'm I was pissed, and I just I ripped it. They went and I learned right at that point, man,

that they liked the skim. They like this, So I went there, were you look an athlete because you're very fit, You're like a super fit. You look like an underwear model. I appreciate it, but I was an you know what I'm saying, Yeah, man, you don't take your shirt off unless you got you ready to. There's a nice surprise in that you played football, didn't you in high school? Yes? And the shirt comes off and that's that's the new you. Oh yeah, man, it was my sign? Here is your sign?

What year was Atlanta? And we recorded in sixty nine? Had on time released in September of sixty nine and it went gold. I mean it was just like the word from the Atlanta Pop Festival. You know, we opened noon the first day. They liked us so well they moved us to seven o'clock the second day, and then the third day we were on at eleven o'clock under the lights. Are the people that they're waiting for? Now? Yeah?

So you did three nights there, Yes, Now at that time in sixty nine, you do Atlanta and you start recording. Are you married to your first wife at the time? Now? And without I mean, I know you're a Christian, yes, So I want to talk about these things appropriately. I don't want to get to you know, kind of still talk about anything you want. But you know what, I appreciate that that's very sweet of you. But but it's like you, I mean, you must have had women jumping

out of the trees on top of you. But you got married when what year? And nineteen seventy two, So it wasn't that long after that you got married. Was that something you always wanted? You always wanted a family? No? I mean it was like what you do, you grow up, you get married, you have kids. I mean it was like, that's that's what I wish you. Yeah, it's down home right. Yeah. So you did that and had a couple of kids

while not with her. I didn't my first wife, I had no children with We were married for four years and divorced. This is when you're making it's a lot of work back, a lot of work, and so it was tough to be married. What you do it again? But I do it again. My wife, my second wife, my current wife, Lisa, we've been together for thirty well we've been married thirty eight years together. It's called compromise and love really true love. Yeah, I mean seriously, Uh,

there's there's nothing that I can't talk to her about. Uh, there's nothing I wouldn't talk to her about. And and vice first, and we've got especially now that we've gone through this and we're continue to go through with my son being quadriplegic there. It takes a lot of care and and it takes a team to take care of him. But people around us know that we love each other. I mean, it's it's obvious when you see us together. You know, people see us together, they go, they go, wow,

you guys are a match. You know what happened to your son. My son was camping out with his friends on a fourth July weekend. They were at a lake, a remote lake in northern Michigan. It was, you know, miles and miles and miles. He's twenty one at um. They were drinking, you know, but there was a lot of other kids that were out there that were under age. He was going to turn twenty one, I believe in

in September. But they were doing backflips off a picnic table, and my son said, now, I'm not going to do that. I'm not gonna do that. And these guys kept, especially one guy that he told me about, kept needling him, calling him a pussy and everything, you know, and just kept at him until finally he gets up there, back flips off the picnic table, lands on his neck and he's paralyzed. They laid him in the back of a pickup truck. He was communicating. He could move his arms

at this this point. Uh, they laid him in the back of a pickup truck for eleven and a half hours. He laid there and and if if they could have got him in within the first four hour window, they could have given him an injection at the point in his spine and arrested the edema. But that was long passed by the time he was in the emergency room. And when we went into the emergency there, if you know my asking, was there any explanation as to why they didn't take him to some medical care right away

because of the underage kids. He didn't want to expose them to the police coming out there. He didn't want to, right, So where is your son now? He's home. Yeah, he's got a power chair that he runs with his mouth. It's called a sipping puff. And Chris was a friend of mine too, God rest his soul. But Jesse his friends put a remote control for r C trucks and

cars and boats. They built him this remote where everything's in one joystick and he's got an extended straw and they put it on a mic stand that's got vice grip welded to the end of it, and they clamping on his chair. And here this thing is and he runs the thing with his mouth and and he's got this boat that's a jet boat, and he runs it up our stream. We got a trout stream in front of our house. And he runs that thing up there.

He takes it down to the you know, the waterfront, and there's you know, hundreds of people standing around and they're watching this boat zipping from own and they're looking for who's doing this, who's running it, And they see this kid in a power chair running this thing with his mouth. They can't believe. And my son, Jason, his older brother, who was born the same day, nine years earlier. Uh, he says, Dad, I got both my hands. I can't

run as good as jess Ken with his mouth. If you don't mind my asking this question, which is this Christian faith of yours? Was that something that was a constant, Was that something that was as a result of what happened with your son? Was that something that you that you be dedicated to after what happened here? Something? Because I know that for me terrible time, I'm a Catholic and in really tough times in my life. I'm gonna take the good word. I'm gonna take the good ideas

from wherever I can get them. And I'm a churchgoer, probably become a more regular churchgoer when I'm in trouble. What was that like for you? Well, for me, it happened when my dad died. My mother, aunts and uncle's friends are all like in the dining room crying, sobbing, you know, looking at pictures. And this is just a few days after his death and the funeral. And I go into the living room and Billy Graham is on the television set and he's doing a crusade in Flint

and he's at Atwood Stadium. And I see all these people down there at Atwood and I used to live next to Atwood, and I knew how big that place was. I said, man, there's a lot of people there. And so I started watching and he says to the viewing audience, if there's anybody out there that's hurting, that needs a touch from God that and he starts, you know, talking some directly to me, come on over here and put your hand on the television, said, I walk over nine

years old. I put my hand on the television set and I pray with Billy Graham and I asked Jesus into my heart, you know, at nine years old. And then you know, I had my fame and went on. But I always had that The Lord is love, you know, the Lord is love, and I always had that in me.

You know. When we had our Phoenix album, which was the first album after Terry Night, after the management thing we split, had Phoenix, there was a song on their calls, so you won't have to die, you know, and it talks about um, you know, the world and the overpopulation and a lot of things that we all recognize as problems. There's too many children only then more on the way if you don't start some birth control, and you won't last a much longer. It's best that would let him

save us soul so we can get much stronger. You know. It's it's like it was he was calling on me, Love was calling on me, and I was putting it in the words, and people at that point we're saying, hey, are you a Christian now or what's going on? You know, because you said Jesus not a record. But I went through all those motions and I think a lot of people do in a religious setting because they don't want to appear to be, you know, not plugged into God.

So we're going along with and we're opening our mind to this. But what happens is the indebtedness that we were under in the world. Every debt that is anyone's holding against us, any financial debt that we carry, is an anchor to our soul. This indebtedness bullshit. And I am a Christian. I'm a customed Christian. You know. I have become life of Romans to win Romans. Brother, But you exchange the worldly debt for a godly debt, And I mean that's what people do because the church puts

you right in debt. Now you gotta pay ten percent, you gotta tie. Now, you got to give your offerings. Nott, you got to support the missionaries. You gotta do this. No, no, because love isn't like that. There is no debt. When I had my pacemaker put in here four years ago October, I left the bone suit. I went into heaven. Brother, I know what it's like. It's debt free. But the things this procedure done twice, yes, yes, but one more than the other was that that dramatic or did you

feel you left your body twice? Oh? I I knew I left it twice. It was both times you had a very, very kind of otherworldly experience. Yes, when you are absent from the bone suit, you are present with love. And this is what I I didn't get it when I was a Christian in the church because I was indebted to all these other silly notions that don't exist except in this religious realm where even Jesus said in the end time there's gonna be many wolves in sheep's clothing.

And this is what we got today. You see, some of these cats got more bling, bling than the pimps on the street. It makes me sick. They're selling Jesus, they're selling their sound. If there's any kind of money that's involved, yes, exactly, Alec. But that money ruins the prospect of the real Jesus getting in there because it's not gonna happen. Really, love does not inhabit the indebtedness of a person's soul. But I would imagine also, and I'm not saying this to be glib, there, there's a

very independent nature to you in your work. So it's like you don't really want to do a lot of covers of other people's material. You'll do one every now and then, but you'd rather write your own songs. The same is true in all things. I'd like to do my own material, but I want to I'm gonna switch gears here. I want to talk about when you're in a band, and you're in a band and you're pretty much in charge, were you viewed as the guy that was calling the shots? It wasn't much more to describe

the other two guys. It's you and the guitar and vocals, Mel Shocker on bass and Don Brewer on drums and vocals and vocals. And Don was the businessman of the band, who handled Terry, who handled Terry and handled all of the books. Uh did he handled the business after Terry was gone? It's eventually, and you didn't need another guy

because Don could take care of everything. Right. Well, it was Don that came to me and and said, we all need to sign the ownership of the trademark Randfunk Railroad into the corporation where it will have this protective umbrella. And I didn't finish high school. Uh. And he had gone to law school, so I figure he knows what he's talking about I figure, he's my friend, he he wants to protect us, yes, and so I said to him, okay, I'll do that, and he says, let me go to

my room and get the papers. And as he left, I'm thinking, why the hell didn't he just bring the papers with him. And it didn't dawn on me what was going on until I had signed those papers he brought back to my room. I signed him and then I got the call that I was no longer in the corporation. They had thrown me out of the corporation and the band was going out without me. And I

got a phone call. This was a ninety eight. Oh so, so after Terry is gone, Terry leaves, Terry's with you through the Golden Ages, late late sixties, early seventies, all the platinum records, all the big tours. Terry's gone. When he's out and done, replaces him fully win in so that quickly right after shea stadium three days sell out, So you sell out quicker than the Beatles. You're smoking hot. Terry's gone, Don takes over then, and everything was fine.

It was Don took over as far as the books and keeping track of you know things, but we are road manager. Andy Cavaliery took over as management at that okay point, did you do a good job? Yeah? He did, uh, you know for not being a manager. I mean, he didn't know what the heck to do, but he learned real quick. Without getting into specifics, because I I don't. I'm not so much leaning on income and money as

I am. That you were able to protect him income because you always hear that the business is nothing but guys getting no money for the first five or six albums that they make because they've signed some crappy deal. You made a lot of money during that period, maybe not as much as you'd like to him made You made enough money. But Terry Knight told me that I needed to publish my songs through his company because he had this worldwide affiliation. So he didn't say to me,

do you want all your money or half of it? Now? If he did, if he had presented it to take his piece of your money, yeah, he took his. Yeah, he took the publishing. Yeah, get it back to you, buy it back. No, I have it now. But but all those songs on the first seven eight albums are published through Storybook, which is Terry Knights published those songs. Are I only get my song writing, I don't get

any of the publishing whatsoever. Yeah, he was stabbed to death by his daughter's boyfriend, Yes, six years ago in Temple, Texas. Brother there was drugs involved. She was eighteen, the boyfriend was twenty seven. The boyfriend came in, they were high

on drugs. He starts abusing the daughter. Terry tries to get between them, and the guy goes in and grabs a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer stabs Terry twenty six times sixty at the young No, but his daughter had used that time to go to a friend's apartment because it was a complex, and when the cops got there to arrest this guy, he was trying to kick down the door on this other apartment to get at her, and he had a knife and blood and everything.

I mean, the cops got him in. But but oh yeah, and uh but now she has the publishing company she has, she don't know anything about publishing, sorry to say, God bless her. Uh and so that's still I'm now you know this this new rule, you can get your songs back no matter who published him. So that's what I'm doing. I'm in the in the process, sweet Sweet. While Grand Funk was rocking its way into America's hearts, Patty Lapone, another musical legend, was winning them over on the Broadway stage.

When did it start to become fun for you? Oh? Anything goes okay because of the material and because of the cast. And it was hysterical. I mean Jerry's acts. And Jerry did a great job of direction. Yes he is. And but however, these were the way musicals used to be written. Dud to have a joke coming and then a gorgeous song. The material was so ripe and so beautiful. If I was in a bad mood, all I had to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I

am tonight, take a listen that. Here's the thing dot Org in the nineties seventies, Mark Farner and Grand Funk Railroad. We're selling out stadiums worldwide while pushing politically charged hits like people, Let's stop the war. The Michigan native credits prayer for his resilient is. After all, he has a heart condition that he says has killed him twice. I knew about it just because of the flutter when I

was in my early twenties. So you had an arrhythmia, which I have that as well, and you had a in arrhythmia. We're gonna go down the whole list, and I have that too. I just can't write songs and sing. But other than that, other than the whole rock and roll thing. So um, But when did you like first flame out? Like, when did it really get serious? I woke up. We were at the Renaissance Center in Detroit. We're down doing some radio and stayed tonight and my

my wife is in the bathroom. She she told me as she came out of the bathroom and looked at me, I'm laying in a bit. My arm, my left arm shoots up in the air, and she said, my body started going into these contortions and and I started having this foam coming out of my mouth. And she's on the phone. She's got the paramedics there, and like stat they were right there. They had me on oxygen. They having a seizure. Yes, I was having a seizure, but

I didn't realize what was going on. My problem was electrical. I had what they call bundle branch block, so it wasn't receiving the signal to squeeze and send the blood to the top part. And that's what happened to me. But on the way to the hospital and the ambulance, you know, this guy is talking to me and I could feel my heart doing some crazy stuff, you know, it's just like whopping around in there. I go in to in the emergency room on a gurney. They've got

me on an external pacemaker. There's three doctors ten ft from me in the corner looking at a screen and they're dialing hitting switches instead. There's three of them over there, and all of a sudden, wham, I'm hit like it feels like I'm hit with four forty volts or something. They hit me hard and it hurts so bad. I hollered out. My wife Lisa comes over, what's the matter? What's the man? I said, Do you hit me with

so much electricity? They're trying to kill me? And she starts telling to the top of her lungs, Hey, hey, she's screaming. These guys are not turning around. Doctors are coming in from out in the hallway, Uh, what's going on in here? Because they hear the commotion and her hollering and she's saying, they're trying to kill and and wham they hit me again, and I'm gone, I'm in

heaven now, I'm in heaven. Now I'm digging it because heaven is you understand, and you know all things immediately, immediately you know everything, and the peace that passes understanding takes over your consciousness. I thought you were going to see you're in heaven, and you know you're in heaven because Elvis Presley wokes up, just says Mark Farner. I'm a big fan of or Love music. I think I love local. You're covering on the way you think, Alec,

that's happened to me. But good continue. I'm sorry. I'm there, and I hear you know. We got him back twice. I be there twice. I died. They paddled me back. I die again, and they paddled me back. And the doctor says to Lisa, we got him back twice. There is no guarantee we're going to get him a third time. We have to get him to o R right this second, and I mean stat. And when he said stat, things were like Mash four oh seven seven. People were just

hauling ashes every direction. And I got down there had this pacemaker put in. The following morning, the doctor who did the catholization came in. Thirty two year old guy, and he says, Mr Farner, I've done thousands of these, I mean literally thousands of these catholizations. He says, I did a twelve year old kid yesterday. And I want to tell you something. Your cardiovascular system is in better shape than this twelve year old. I want to know

what you're doing. He says, you don't have any plaque? What's that in that back row? Now, let's go back, you know, back in that time or in and around that time. Seventies. I mean this is I mean the seventies are just this blazing the business blazing thing. It's does It's Zeppelin and the Who and yeah and you guys and uh, you know you had three guys? Why is it three guys? Who makes it? Did you ever think we need more guys? Did you bring on more guys? Why was it just? It was a bassist, a drummer

and the lead guitars only or a keyboardist. Right? We had just I say we the band, the Fabulous Pack, had gone to Boston to do some gigs. Now, this agency from Michigan told us, we're gonna send you out there. We'll put you up, they're gonna feed you. You're not gonna get paid, but if you do good, if they like you, we'll go back and we'll actually make some money. That we were making money from the get go. They

just lied to us. Right. So we're staying on Cape Cod in summer cottages and the worst snowstorm in the history of the world hits and we are stranded in Cape Cod, East Sandwich, Massachusetts. We're melting down snow because the pipes are frozen. We have a little gas heater or in the living room. No insulation in these I mean, just a little you know, space heater deal, and we're stuck. We go to the grocery store. He would give us

oatmeal and that's all we had. We didn't have sugar, we didn't have butter, we didn't have We just had the oatmeal. We'd melt down the snow make this olden. Yeah, man, it was. It was unbelievable. And dude, we had to take a crap in a paper bag that we got from the guy at the store, and then you know, we take the bag and go stick it in the snow bag. I would hate to bend the people cleaning that message tall you kidding. But we were there two weeks, I mean it was, and with two of the guys

in the band were married. So by the time we'd hitch hiked up the coast and one of the one of the guys, I don't know how they did it, but they had contracted the crabs, so he was in one house by hisself, and all the rest of us

was us out there exactly. Yes, when we got back home, the two that were married, their wives were threatening divorce and we just I mean it was a big blowout, right, And so I said to Brewer, you know, we should just do three piece and forget, forget the keyboards, forget getting anybody in the band that has anything to do with a woman. But you know, because this is gonna

screw us. Yeah, so we go up and we're gonna give these guys in Bay City a piece of our mind because we one way after we found out we were paid three fifty dollars a night for doing these shows and we never saw a penny of it. We were going to chew their ass out real good for him. And we're setting in the waiting room to waiting to get into the office, and it was also a rehearsal facility. And there's a band in their rehearsal and I'm listening to this base through the wall. I'm going Brewer, let

into this bass player. Dude, who is this? And so they're rehearsal blah blah blah. We can just hear kind of the throbs. They get done with their little rehearsal. Mel Shocker walks out and he's playing with question marking the mysterious, you know, and we say to him, dude, we're going to start a three piece band. Would you like to be in the band? Man? He says, I am,

I'm ready to leave this band. You couldn't have picked a better time for me, because when do we start with a Monday at the at the Flint Federation of the Musicians Union Hall. And you know him, Yes, I went to school with Melvin. He was a year under me. When he kept tabs in his career, you knew he was with that band where everybody's kind of keeping tabs on each other in that community like that Flinty. Now this is true for all performance. You know, there's a

there's that white hot period and it goes by. You almost didn't even know what's happening. You don't even know, you don't even you almost don't even know it is the white hot period. Right, But and then she you realize that we all age and it changes. Yes, when do you start to feel this is changing? When here started going away bad, fantastic, You can feel it exactly sighting up. And I believe too that I know that

in my heart. Uh, I was born and you know I was put here on this planet to entertain, also to provoke people to think I'm an entertainer, but there's something more to me. I have an underlying motive. I have love in my heart and I love all people, all colors, all races. I don't see um, I don't see difference like this. You got a little political for a while when you were very entering the war. Correct, absolutely.

I wrote the song people Let's Stop the War, and people today when I play that on stage at like they love that sting. I mean because it's still no, it's still but you're not political now. I put it in between the lines and my music. I've always said it with a song, brother, and I I'll say it this way because I believe the world could be one with the right song, It could be one get to the heart of every person. What was the easiest song? What's the song that really really flowed out of you?

Was I? Was it closer to home? Yes, because I remember I read was somewhere where you jumped out of bed, like in the middle of the night. You had to write it down. Yes, you just you just came to you. Yes, but I'd pre empt that with I did say my prayers.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake, and pray the Lord my soul to take You know, I used to pray just for the fire insurance because I used to think, Man, I don't want to go to hell, so I gotta I gotta touch base with God here before I closed my eyes. You know. That's the way I do it. But I pray the Lord myself to take it. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord that I get that

last verse. If I'm your captain. Well I did. I put a p s after I said, God bless my mom and dad and Graham. I blessed everybody in the whole damn family. Then I said, God, would you please give me a song that would reach and touch the hearts of peace pool you want to get to. But when you you finished that song, how does that process work with those two guys. You'd all get together to rehearse and you'd lay it out for them and say,

here's this, this is what I came up with. Yes, And well that the following morning, I got up and I'm looking at the horses out in the pasture. I've got a hundred ted acre farm them there, and I make my coffee I got, you know, I'm strumming my George Washburn, American made George Washburn was the baddest guitar I ever had. Uh, And I said, bop and bop and bop, and it just started coming, you know, and I'm thinking wow. Uh. Then I start in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, the words. I wonder if that is

a song. And so I go and I get my little yellow legal pad there with all I'm your captain written down on it, lay it on the table, and I just started this. This the sea, that second chord, I'd never played it, that inversion of that sea, and I went Wow, where the hell did that come? And I looked down at my fingers and I went, wow, that looks pretty cool. I'm gonna keep that. I'm gonna get that and I take it to rehearsal that day.

I like and then I and I said, look, I got this song and bopping do today and they're going damn far enough. That's a hit man, That's all I say. Hire cool. They were right, and you recorded that what year? And they played the hell out of that. Oh boy, I told you, I'm not I'm not ashamed to say this. I'd stick my head out the window and I'd smoke a joint and blow up that joint out the window.

And I'd had these big I mean, I saved the money to buy these gigantic Acoustic Research, these gigantic, beautiful A and R speakers, and they were in the corner of my bedroom. And when I would move them next to my head, and I would lay my head down like I was having a cat scan. You know. I have like these two giant boxes next to my ears, and I get the volume really low. I'd smoked that joy to come back, and I laid it and I put on closer to home such a beautiful song. Thank you. Now,

what's the song that you sweat it over? What was a tough song to write? What was one of the hardest songs Peter write the hardest? I believe like bad Time. I was as my first wife. She was in the kitchen hollering and screaming, and I'm in the dining room on the keyboards. You know, she's about the exactly dude. But she's in there threatening to put a twelve inch cast iron skillet through my forehead. I mean, she's just really madding the wet hair. And I'm in there writing.

I'm trying to write bad Time, and yeah, this is Queen and she's you know, I'm singing that part out and I wanted to know that this what she's doing is not melting with what I'm trying to do in here. Uh, when this song comes out, you're not gonna be happy, baby. But but that song was played more than any other song in V five. I got a b m I Award for that song. When the band really really and you go, what was it like for you to perform overseas as? I mean, you sang a song One are

your most legendary songs is We're an American band. How did one of the most famous American bands in rock and roll history? How did they play overseas? Where where did they welcome you the most? Where did you get the vibe, the feeling, because you're very spiritual. Where did you feel that communion with the audience the most? Um, I felt it when we were in Germany. I was going to say, you know, we did a show for the troops at Shrine, for ten thousand troops and then

all the civilians. Dude, there was like thirty thousand people there. They had backed up to semi trailers. That was the stage, and the spotlights were three tanks out in front. You know, you got this tank following you, uh to to play in in Europe. They loved it, and especially when we would hit We're an American band? Are you kidding? Yeah? You know when you go out there now and you performed. Now you're still performing and I want to read I'm gonna read. Let me read this for you if I may.

This is from Elmore Magazine, January thousand sixteen. Barry Fish walking out onto the stage and a T shirt, jeans, and his long, partially braided hair. He looked exactly like the Mark Farner of old. More importantly, he sounded exactly the same as well, both with his vocals and his guitar playing. Leading a band consisting of bass, drums and keyboards, he launched right into are You Ready, the same tune used to open many of Grand Funk shows back in

their heyday around forty five years ago. This began a set of songs that came right at you, NonStop, hit after hit, footstop and music. We're an American band, and they just kept coming until he finally stopped to take a break and say hellad to the audience. Farner informed his very dedicated bands that in the recent past he had a pacemaker put in due to a heart condition. The energy he exudes on stage now is proof of

how he has completely recovered. The doctor said, don't baby it, and he told my wife, he said, tell him, don't baby it. He's got a new heart. Now. That's the way he's got to look at it. Everybody listen to me and return me my ship. I'm your captain. I'm your captain. Oh I'm feeling mighty sick. I've been a love now days accounted, and it's months. I've seen home. Can you hear me? Can you hear? Tickets to his upcoming shows can be found at Mark Farner dot com.

This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. My friends and I used to sit there and sing, we will be doing a movie and if we didn't like the director, I'd sit there in myself going and my in my trailer dreaming. Are you really scheming to take this movie away from me? You better think of that. You know, we think that lyric keeping very handy, lot of lot of moments. You're singing in tune, Well, well

I wouldn't. I wouldn't go that. For All I want to say to you is you are such a great, great, great musician. Thank you, and you're such a great part of my life musically. I was just really really happy to have you come into the show. Well, God bless you, Alec. It's been my pleasure. Thank you. Only you had a thing about it. I just can't live without it, so