Classic Band Grand Funk Here To Tell You It’s Groovin’ Once Again

Mark Farner wants to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. Just one more time. Spotlights. Hair down. Crazy on stage. Heck, maybe another Lear jet.

And why not? As Farner would say, it’s the bug, bro, that itch. The juices are flowing and - man! - who can say no to that?

For the rest of us, it means that Grand Funk, the best-selling American band of the early ‘70s, may soon stick its name onto an old familiar spot - the tops of the country’s marquees.

Grand Funk In Concert.

Farner got a whiff of the band’s potential at a jam session this spring.

“If we can transfer the excitement we had in that room - ‘cause that’s what Grand Funk was known as, an exciting band, a high-energy band - if we can transfer that to the grooves, we’re in.”

That’s why Farner will hunker down in a few weeks with former Grand Funk mates Don Brewer and Mel Schacher to fine-tune plans for a new album and a national tour they hope to kick off next summer.

You can already see the rock cynics rolling their eyes. Wash-up alert. Oldies redux. El stinko.

Not a chance, says Farner.

“We’re gonna discuss a game plan, a way to go about it, rather than just going out as a classic rock band per se and doing only our old material,” he says. “We feel that the talent is vibrant and alive within the group, and we’ve got a reason to continue on.”

“Continue” is probably a bad word. “Jump-start” may be more like it.

It’s been nearly two decades since the real Grand Funk - vocalist-guitarist Farner, bassist Schacher and drummer Brewer, all of Flint, Mich. - called it quits, about 12 years now since a half-baked incarnation with Farner and Brewer made two albums that floated like dead fish on the early ‘80s New Wave cesspool.

Since then, Farner’s put out three Christian albums, opened a retail store that sells alternative-energy products and kicked back with his wife and three kids on a big farm near Petoskey, Mich. Even nabbed himself a No. 2 hit on Billboard’s contemporary gospel chart a couple years back and hit the road this summer with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band.

And now he’s primed to do it again: “We’re An American Band,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Bad Time” - that whole big, fat catalog of pure no-bones-about-it Midwestern muscle-car metal, the stuff that made critics gag while drawing hard-rocking teens by the millions.

“Mel Schacher and I had talked about (a reunion) over a year ago, and whether Don Brewer would be in on it,” Farner says. “Don Brewer in 1976 was the one who called it quits with Grand Funk. He was instrumental in the breakup of the band.”

About the time Farner and Schacher were mulling over their options, longtime Bob Seger manager Punch Andrews was getting mad.

Andrews had noticed something on the sales reports he received from Capitol Records, Seger’s label and Grand Funk’s old home. Seems all of Grand Funk’s old albums - all 11 platinum records - were being released on budget-line compact discs, a situation Andrews regarded as a kick in the face to one of the biggest-selling acts in American rock history.

In a chance meeting with Brewer, whom he knew from the drummer’s mid-‘80s stint in the Silver Bullet Band, Andrews vowed to wield his clout with Capitol Records to remedy the mess.

“I saw Donny in a restaurant down in Florida, and I stormed over to his table and said, ‘I don’t care if I have to do this for free, but this just (ticks) me off,”’ Andrews recalls. “We arranged a meeting with the whole band.”

That February pow-wow with Andrews gave Farner, Schacher and Brewer a quick whiff of what was cemented a few months later at an off-the-cuff rehearsal.

“It was like getting back on a bicycle and pedaling down the street,” Farner says. “It was just rolling and rocking. We were amazed. We thought it would take months to get back in the groove, get the feel, but we just started playing and it was happening.”

Now it’s really happening. The band’s nomination on this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot provided ideal accompaniment to the first of Capitol’s remastered CD reissues, which hit stores this summer, thanks to Andrews.

And sources say several major labels - big names, now - are ready to fight over the new Grand Funk. That concert promoters are eager to book next summer’s tour. That there’s no way this thing can miss.

“When I went up and heard Mark sing, I was shocked,” says Andrews. “I’m used to hearing somebody his age lose it a little bit. All these guys still have their licks.”

Farner thinks so, too.

“I know these guys. I’ve been with ‘em for a long time, and we’ve been friends for a long time.” He chuckles.

“We’re gonna make some company some money.”