Dave Leone, a booking agent from the MC5 days, called up with a job offer. He was booking my old pal Ted Nugent, and they were trying to think of ways to draw crowds to his gigs. They came up with the idea of “guitar battles,” like big-time wrestling. I agreed, and a series of events were booked. They would pay me well, and I was grateful for the work.
The night before the first show, we had a blowout party at my apartment for Tim Shafe’s birthday. The drugs and booze flowed and flowed. A great deal of it flowed into my body, and when Ted’s crew showed up first thing the following morning to collect me for the tour, I was in pretty bad shape. I slept in the back seat for the drive to Jackson, Michigan, where Ted lived.
When we arrived, I wasn’t feeling much better, but I knew I’d have to pull it together and greet my host. I had known Ted for years; we went back to the midsixties and the old neighborhood music store Capitol Music in northwest Detroit. Ted had achieved some success with the hit single “Journey to the Center of the Mind” with the Amboy Dukes. He had left the group and was developing a solo career. These gigs were part of that effort.
I saw that Ted had a nice little spread. It started to dawn on me that, up to that point, Ted probably hadn’t made much more money than I had in the MC5. In fact, the MC5 were a much bigger draw up until the end in ’72. But Ted had carried on, and was doing pretty well. As I looked around, I realized that we were on his property; he owned it. He had a little lake with a boat in it. He had a barn and horses. When I went in the house to say hi to the missus and see his new baby, the house was full of stuff. His stuff: big color TVs, gun racks full of expensive hunting rifles, fur rugs, and appliances. He had a lot of material possessions to show for his work. And what did I have? A world-class hangover. We were both guitar players and bandleaders who’d started out at basically the same point, but our paths had diverged to such a degree that I was having trouble taking it in.
The guitar battle concerts were easy. I came out at the end of Ted’s set and danced. Ted couldn’t dance, so that was that. The fans had a great time, too. Back at the hotel, it was nonstop debauchery: young girls, impersonal sex, and lots of booze. Ted never drank or did drugs, but he kept up in the other departments. Even though we couldn’t be farther apart politically, we’re still friends today.
After the guitar battle tour, Mel and I couldn’t get financing for our label. We were still playing dates around Detroit with Tim, and had added Bob Schultz on keyboard and vocals. Schultz is one of rock’s unknown premier vocalists. He has a powerful, soulful style, and had been a local star for years going back to his time in Bob Seger’s band. He had played on their fantastic local hit single “East Side Story.” The band, which we’d named Radiation, had real potential. The combination of Melvin Davis and Bob Schultz’s vocals would be unstoppable. The possibilities were exhilarating; we could have hit-songs-on-the-radio success.
Melvin was a world-class songwriter in the mold of the great Motown songwriting team of Holland–Dozier–Holland, but with his own take on the human condition. He was always working on a new song. Shafe was a brilliant bassist with solid instincts in song construction, and he was also a perfect collaborator. The bottom was funky and hard rocking. Bob Schultz wrote some, and I thought that if encouraged, he’d blossom as a writer. I brought my guitar playing, stagecraft, songwriting, and political consciousness. I was also beginning to collaborate long-distance with Mick Farren, who was sending me terrific new lyrics from England. We all liked and respected each other and got along together wonderfully. I knew that, between us, we could write and produce material that was commercially viable and artistically groundbreaking. The future was ours for the taking.
When I visited Leone’s office to promote my new band, he choked out, “Wayne, you can’t have a black guy in the band. The white girls will dig him, and it will cause a problem with the white guys in the club and there will be fights. Then the club owners won’t book you. Can’t you replace him?” I was stunned. I told him this was Detroit in 1974, not the Deep South in the ’50s.
I was still angry when I told Melvin. He was patient with me, explaining this was how it was for black people in America. He wasn’t upset in the least. He said I should relax. “This doesn’t mean shit. We just keep on doing what we’re doing.” I was still idealistic and naïve about race in America. Mel wasn’t going anywhere.
I believed interracial bands were going to be the future of pop music. I reasoned there were no differences between us that could stop us. Of course, we were different, but we were even more alike. Skin color just was not an issue that divided us. We were from the city of Detroit, in a time and place that allowed us to transcend the divisions that had kept people apart in America. We were the new breed of American musical artist.
I would do anything in my power to make this group succeed. The trouble was, we would need to shoot photos for publicity and needed gear to tour with. We needed a van, clothes, tape recorders, and demos to send out to labels. But studio time cost money, demos cost money, photos cost money, and there were countless other costs needed to launch the band. And I was impatient. I felt that if I didn’t make something happen quickly, it would all fall apart.
I decided I would finance the band by dealing drugs.
I knew dealers around Detroit that were doing well, but I was seeing what I wanted to see. Most drug dealers were not wealthy; most were subsistence-level dealers. I actually believed I was going to make a lot of money, and it was for a great cause. The truth was, anytime I scored a payday dealing drugs, the first thing I did was get loaded.