Wayne Kramer, the guitarist and frontman of the renowned Detroit punk band MC5, passed away at the age of 75 on February 2, 2024. The cause of death was not revealed when the news was posted on Kramer and MC5’s official social media profiles yesterday.
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The guitarist, who was born Wayne Kambes on April 30, 1948, joined his friend Fred “Sonic” Smith to form the MC5 (for Motor City 5) when he was a youngster. They began by performing locally before moving on to become the house band at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom.
After left-wing activist John Sinclair took over as the band’s manager, they quickly established themselves as a mainstay of the late 1960s political activities, supporting the White Panther Party, the anti-racist organization that Sinclair cofounded.
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The group’s sound was difficult to pin down, yet it was rebellious and is often recognized for having sparked the punk movement. Before signing with Elektra and recording their 1969 debut album, the iconic Kick Out the Jams, live at the Grande Ballroom, the trio played at rallies and the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
With its opening profane battle cry, the album served as a portal to the impending punk tidal wave and featured the boisterous title hit. MC5 mentored fellow Detroit rock expressionists Iggy and the Stooges, who signed to Elektra on Kramer’s advice. They also toured with Cream and the Janis Joplin-fronted Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The MC5 signed with Atlantic after Elektra dumped them despite their album charting, following a public spat with Detroit department store Hudson’s, which declined to carry the LP. They went on to make two additional albums, High Time (1971) and Back in the USA (1970). On December 31, 1972, they called it quits with a farewell Grande Ballroom gig.
Kramer attempted to reassemble the MC5 with himself as the main vocalist. However, he was charged with and given a four-year prison sentence in 1975 after being apprehended for distributing drugs to undercover police. After his release in 1979, Kramer started playing with Was (Not Was) and temporarily formed a band named Gang War alongside Johnny Thunders.
Kramer became a solo artist and signed with Epitaph in 1994. He recorded three more solo albums on Epitaph during the 1990s after making his solo debut in 1995 with The Hard Stuff. In 1994, he made a cameo appearance on Bad Religion’s album Stranger Than Fiction.
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Kramer eventually brought the remaining MC5 members back together, and they went on tour with bands like Rage Against the Machine.
Kramer released his autobiography, The Hard Stuff, in 2018. He was recording new music to go along with the next world tour that the MC5 had planned at the time of his passing. Slash, Tom Morello, Vernon Reid, William DuVall, and original MC5 drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson—the only surviving original—appear on two tracks of the album Heavy Lifting.
Kramer is survived by his son and his wife, Margaret. Details about the memorial were not immediately available.
