Grand Funk: They’re an American band, and they’re playing Chinook Winds

Don Brewer still loves drumming after doing it professionally for 55 years (courtesy Grand Funk Railroad)

Updated 10/29/2024 4:38 AM; 11/6/2024 3:46 AM

If you listened to rock and roll during the 1970s, you listened to Grand Funk Railroad, one of the top bands of that genre during the era.

Grand Funk, which plays a concert at 8 p.m. on Saturday, November 9 at Chinook Winds Casino and Resort in Lincoln City, had two No. 1 hits: “We’re an American Band” and “Do the Loco-Motion.” The band also recorded six other top-40 singles, including “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “I’m Your Captain.”

Grand Funk formed in Flint, Michigan, in 1969, with Don Brewer (drums, vocals), Mel Schacher (bass) and Mark Farner (vocals, lead guitar) as a trio. Their first album, “On Time,” sold more than 1 million copies.

Fifty-five years later, Brewer and Schacher remain with the group, which now includes Mark Chatfield (lead guitar), Tim Cashion (keyboards) and Max Carl (lead vocals).

Grand Funk played at Chinook Winds in 2019, celebrating its 50th anniversary as a group. I interviewed Brewer then for the Portland Tribune and caught up with him this week again at his home just outside of Jupiter, Florida.

Current lineup of Grand Funk Railroad (Courtesy Gregg Roth)

KE: How did you make out with all the weather that has come through your area recently?

DB: We had a close one with that last hurricane. We had tons of tornadoes everywhere. That was the big part of it around here. A gate on the property got damaged, but other than that, there were just some tree limbs knocked down. A lot of rain, but no major flooding.

KE: Last time we talked, you were marking your 50th anniversary as a band. This year, you’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Loco-Motion.”

DB: And next year is the 50th anniversary of “Some Kind of Wonderful.” (laughs)

KE: I’m glad you are still playing. How do you feel about it?

DB: I love it. I don’t know what else I would be doing. I am so fortunate to have done this my entire life. I started my first band when I was 12 years old. I have been playing music ever since. I am 76 and I’m still going. That’s pretty cool.

KE: You have a new member of the group, Mark Chatfield, who joined up this year. You two have played together with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band; he was with Seger for 25 years. Tell me about him.

DB: I have known Mark for almost 50 years. We go back to ’75 or ’76. I produced his band, “The Godz,” back in the ‘70s. I got him the gig in Seger’s band. I was rehearsing with Bob and he asked, “Hey, anybody know a good rock-and-roll guitar player?” I said, “Yeah, I do.” We had Chatfield come up from Columbus, and he got hired. He is a great guy. It hasn’t been a transition at all. The entire band knows Mark. He was like one of the guys.

KE: How much time have you spent playing with Bob Seger and his band over the years?

DB: Multiple tours — probably 10 or 11 of them. I did a tour in ’83 and another tour in ’86 and ’87. We started touring again in 2006 and that went on for 10 years. In those 10 years, I was doing both Grand Funk and Bob Seger. We would tour with Bob in the winter and with Grand Funk in the summer. I was doing both of them.

KE: Are Grand Funk and Seger’s band doing any shows together these days?

DB: In 2019, he invited us (Grand Funk) out to play about 10 shows on his tour. It was wonderful.

KE: So for a time, you were working both bands?

DB: Yeah, but in 2015, Grand Funk started doing more shows. It got to the point where I just couldn’t do both bands anymore. I bowed out for the next two or three tours (the Silver Bullet Band) did.

KE: Other than Mark, the Grand Funk band has been together since 2000. That’s coming up on a quarter-century. Are you guys still getting along?

DB: We don’t do bus tours. A lot of bands get on a bus and do 100 shows a year. We limit it to no more than 40 shows a year, all weekends. We only play Fridays, or Fridays and Saturdays, then everybody goes home. We all have a family life. It’s a great situation. That’s why we have been able to keep the band together for this long. We are not on top of each other all the time.

KE: How is your health? Do you have any hearing loss after banging the drums for 55 years?

DB? What? Huh? (laughs) Yeah, I have some hearing loss. My wife points it out because she has to repeat everything she says. I have had custom-made silicone earplugs for about 15 years. Every time I play I use them, and that helps a lot.

KE: Your father was a drummer in bands during the Great Depression and your mother was a ballet and tap dancer. How instrumental were they in you having an interest in becoming a musician?

DB: I started out playing clarinet in the school band. When I came home one day and said, “Hey Dad, I’m going to switch over to the drum section,” he was like thrilled. He had a drum kit and we would go down in the basement. He would put these records on and show me how the drummers were playing the kit. It was great.

Because both of my parents were into entertainment, they had no problem with me having the band rehearse in our basement. Most parents would go, “No, you’re not going to do that here.” They were totally open to it. When we started playing gigs, my dad helped me build a trailer that I could pull behind the car and carry the equipment. They were very supportive.

KE: During your heyday in the ‘70s, Grand Funk was playing all over the world, even in baseball stadiums before huge crowds. What kind of an adrenaline rush?

DB: Playing Shea Stadium was just unbelievable. It was like, “Am I going to have a heart attack before I go on stage?” It was a rock and roll fantasy. I’m from Swartz Creek, Michigan, the other guys are from Flint, and here we are playing to a sold-out crowd, with Humble Pie as our opening act. It was like, “Are you kidding? This can’t be really happening.” But it did.

KE: During that period, how wild was it with the party scene and groupies and drugs and all that went on? Did you guys get caught up in it?

DB: We didn’t get caught up too badly. We had our share of fun, but we never got into the hard drug thing. It was mostly pot and that kind of stuff. After a lot of the bands made it big, the first thing they did was move to New York or Los Angeles and fall in with the wrong people. We stayed in Flint. We came out of it virtually unscathed.

KE: You wrote and sing lead in “We’re an American Band,” one of the most quintessential rock songs of the era. What is the story behind the creation of that song?

DB: We had left our manager, Terry Knight, because we found out he was taking all the money. He sued us because we left him. He laid claim to the name (Grand Funk Railroad). So we were playing all these towns — going to Nashville, to Des Moines, to all these places — and he was suing every city we were playing in.

Radio had changed from FM underground to a hit format. You couldn’t make seven-minute songs anymore and get them played on the radio, like “Closer to Home” or “Inside Looking Out.” You had to make three-minute hits. I thought to myself, “I’m going to take a shot at this.”

So I took three or four chords on a guitar I know and started writing these lyrics about things that were going down on the road. “Up all night with Freddie King, I gotta tell you, poker’s his thing.” Freddie was a great blues singer and he’d play poker with his band. He’d invite us over to play poker after a show. “Four young Chiquitas in Omaha.” True story. They came to the hotel, these four girls looking for Grand Funk.

I put these little stories together, came up with the chord changes. I had the lyrics done, the verses, the chords done, but I didn’t have a tag for it. One day I was practicing the song and it came out of my mouth, “We’re an American Band.” And it sounded so good to sing it: (breaks into song) “We’re an American Band!” It rolled off my tongue. And I was like, “That’s it!” I took the song into the band and everybody loved it. That’s how it came about.   

KE: I never get tired of listening to that song. Do you ever get tired of playing it?

DB: I don’t. I love watching the audience. Like when I start singing “Some Kind of Wonderful,” I can watch parents and grandparents and kids and grandkids, and they’re all singing the lyrics to the song. There is nothing that feels as good as that. And watching the people get up on their feet for “American Band?” I mean, it’s great that we have had this kind of effect on this many generations of people. No, I don’t get tired of playing these songs at all.

KE: Between you and wife Sunny, you have five grandchildren. Do they know what Grandpa does?

DB (laughs): They do, and they have all come to see me play. They love it. It’s all good.

KE: Is it still a thrill to get out and do a live show?

DB: It is. I love it. I don’t like the travel anymore. I don’t like sitting on an airplane for six or seven hours, sitting in a hotel or driving 100 miles to get to a show. But I love playing.

KE: How much longer do you think you’ll play music? Will you ever retire?

DB: (laughs) I’ll go when my wife and my daughter tell me, “You’re making an asshole of yourself. Get off the stage.”

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