(Grand Funk Railroad)
Being a total Simpsons nerd, I couldn’t resist reaching out to a member of Homer Simpson’s favorite band from the classic “Homerpalooza” episode. So, crank up the FM, turn on the blacklight, and spark up a doobie for Grand Funk!
Let’s go back to Honolulu, Hawaii, 1971. We were just a trio at the time, as we hadn’t added a keyboardist yet. The big rage at the time was how good the pot was in Hawaii. Everyone wanted to get their hands on some Kona Gold. We arrived, but I wasn’t a big pot smoker. I’d partake every now and then, but the other two guys in Grand Funk certainly were, and they got a bunch of it. They didn’t try it out until before the show, which I knew was probably a mistake.
As we progressed through the show, I noticed that the music was getting worse and worse. By the time we got to our cover of the Animals’ “Inside Looking Out,” which was our biggest song at the time, things went off the rails. There’s a big, elongated guitar solo, with the bass and drums pumping, and you have to be pretty tight to pull it off. When we got to the big climax, my two bandmates got totally lost. We weren’t used to that kind of pot back home, so it must have been like an acid trip for them.
Pretty soon, they started playing a completely different song, while I was still going on “Inside Looking Out.” I had no idea what they were playing, as they were off on some other planet. You talk about Grand Funk Railroad having a train wreck, man…that was it. I just stopped playing, and they kept going. I just stood there, and eventually, they quit playing. Then, we just walked off the stage. It was not our finest moment, and it was my most embarrassing Grand Funk moment.
When I saw people going into bathrooms and using needles, I was smart enough to leave. I raised my daughter by saying, “I don’t care if you go to a party. Just know when it’s time to get the hell out.” For us, it was the wild and crazy ’70s, and groupies were the big thing. They were always trying to get backstage and hook up with the band. That was going on all the time. But I was the boring one. I was the one to always drive everyone home.
We didn’t get sucked in by everything though. We stayed in Flint, Michigan, and didn’t get caught up in everything by moving to New York or LA. There are so many ungodly stories about what happened to so many people and bands during that time. It’s like being a football player and, eventually, it will end. There’s not a ton of longevity, and there’s a reason you don’t see a bunch of guys like Elton John or Paul McCartney around. Very few people can be Bruce Springsteen and make a lifelong career out of it. Most of the time, they’re gonna come and go. When they go, it goes down hard. It goes down bad.
We avoided that, and I think we did a pretty good job. We were kind of outcasts. We were from Flint, and all of the “in” bands were from Ann Arbor or Detroit, like The Stooges and MC5. When Grand Funk finally got nationwide success, we were the last band to be accepted in our home state. They certainly didn’t love us on the way up. So we just stayed to ourselves and did our own thing. We had a slow demise as disco came in. There was a lot of in-fighting about which direction we should go, and we were getting burned out on each other.
In 1976, we were working on an album with Frank Zappa, who was producing. We just couldn’t get along, and we disbanded after. It really didn’t come around until our music became classic rock in the ’90s. All the labels started reissuing catalogs and classic rock stations were springing up everywhere. Classic rock became an institution, and we reunited in 1996. What’s funny is that The Simpsons was instrumental in us reuniting because we are Homer Simpson’s favorite band.
I co-wrote the song that The Simpsons wanted to use in the episode, which is “Shinin’ On.” They sent me the “Homerpalooza” script because they wanted to get our approval to use the song. In the episode, Homer is driving his kids to school and “Shinin’ On” comes on the radio. Homer launches into this whole thing about how much he loves Grand Funk, and he’s so shocked to learn that the kids don’t know Grand Funk. He mentions each of us by name, and I thought it was a great use of the song and a really cool tribute to the band. We learned that one of the writers was a huge Grand Funk fan, and he’s made Grand Funk references in numerous episodes.
We started having young kids and musicians referencing that episode after shows. After they are done asking about Homer, they’ll say, “I didn’t know you guys could rock like that!” Forty years on, and we’re still doing great. We’re not selling out arenas, but we’re happy.