By Shawn Perry
Music fans and sideline observers know Mark Farner as the “shirtless” guitar god, frontman singer and songwriter for Grand Funk Railroad — a band he led to great success in the 1970s. From the hard rockin’ power trio of the early days to the more polished, pop-oriented quartet that followed, Farner became a poster boy and bona fide rock star during a golden era of music.
There was a short reunion of the original three members (Farner, drummer Don Brewer and bassist Mel Schacher) in the late 90s, but that led to acrimony, distrust, and inevitably, distance between the guitarist and his rhythm section.
Since then, Farner’s been receptive to one last reunion that he believes the three members — “as long as we’re still sucking air” — owe their fans. That, however, is mostly far and away in his rearview mirror these days.
Except for the music. That’s always been close by.
Playing it comes easy to Mark Farner. The man’s voice and guitar sound as fresh and formidable as ever. It’s been a while since he’s made a record, though that’s changed, too.
Closer To My Home, Mark Farner’s first album of new material in nearly 20 years, is finally here. Those who have heard it agree it was worth the wait. After spinning it myself, I’m happy to join the chorus of admirers.
So, after such a long spell, what motivated the 75-year-old musician to go into the studio and cut a record? We circle around a myriad of reasons — timing, circumstances, people involved, climate of the music industry — and Farner admits: “I’ve been reluctant to say exactly what it is, because it’s all of those things.”
More precisely, the seeds of Closer To My Home may have been planted just around the time he released his last album, For The People, in 2006. During an appearance that year on The Howard Stern Show, Farner played “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)” and was backed by a crack band that included Kip Winger on bass, Sandy Gennaro on drums, Bruce Kulick (who was playing guitar with Brewer and Schacher’s Grand Funk at the time) on guitar, Teddy Andreadis on keyboards, and singer and guitarist Mark Slaughter.
It was the beginning of a mutually beneficial working relationship between Farner and Slaughter, who’d made his mark with his own group in the 1980s and continued to stay active as a performer, producer, and songwriter. During our half-hour chat, Farner fills me in on the details.
“I told Slaughter, ‘Dude, you were hitting those notes so perfectly clear,’ when we did ‘I’m Your Captain.’ And he says, ‘I’m gonna send you something I’ve been working on. I want you to give me your opinion.’ So he emailed me and I opened it up, and it was music. I was so overjoyed that there was somebody getting a great sound on guitars. I wanted to talk to him and tell him personally. So I said, ‘Man, whoever did this production, they had it down.’ He said, ‘I did the production.’ And then he says, ‘I want to tell you whatever you do next, I want to produce it. I think I’m supposed to.’ And that’s all I needed to hear from him.”
After chance meetings and scheduling adjustments, the two began putting the album together, mostly at Slaughter’s studio near Nashville. The musicians bonded over family, shared beliefs, and a shared work ethic.
“A lot of times when you’re with producers, they have an idea of what they’re after, and when you say something, they just let it kind of slide,” Farner laughs. “But not Slaughter. When I said anything, he was focused on it. He told me right from the get-go, ‘If you hear anything, you let me know. I want to know, because I want this to be yours. I want you to be happy. That’s my main goal.’ So that’s the way we worked on it.”
With nearly a dozen songs and access to the best players (including Survivor’s Jim Peterik on one song), Farner and Slaughter slowly but surely crafted Closer To My Home to life. The collection reflects a wide range of moods and angles — from defiance and taking a hard stand on the issues of today, to the simple meaning of friendship, tenderness, and love for one another. While Farner’s longstanding Christian beliefs are evident, Closer To My Home is a secular record, without a filter, without boundaries, without compromise. Farner doesn’t shy away from speaking his mind, especially when it comes to the music. “These songs are honest and from my heart,” he said in a statement. That is irrefutable.
So I ask him about my favorite song on Closer To My Home — the edgy, hard-hitting “Same Game.” He didn’t hesitate to explain the meaning of the lyrics, which address the media and its monopoly on the information we’re force-fed in America every day.
“A ‘same game’ is the result of the deregulation of the FCC back in 1996 under the Clintons. We call ’em the Clintonistas. That was part and parcel to the whole bouquet of deregulation. And at the same time, we had the North American Free Trade Agreement…and its global agreements on tariffs and trades. The most favored nation trade status (was) for a red Communist nation. While all that was going on, I was just livid to think that the Congress didn’t stand up. The Senate didn’t say anything. Nobody said squat about any of this stuff. You didn’t hear it. The shift in the ownership of the media was hinging on this.
“We’ve watched it since then, because prior to this deregulation, there was the 7-7-7 rule. You could own seven AM, seven FM, and seven television stations. The rule was put into place to prevent what we now suffer from, which is a monopoly. If you only had seven AM, seven FM, and seven television stations, and it was held that way across the United States, you could have 21 properties, and you could get a lot of conjecture in there because it was owned by American patriots, moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, who had moral conscience over what our children were seeing and hearing. This is the main thing that I was objecting to back when it was being talked about.
“‘Same Game’ speaks about it because it is corrupt. You know, the ‘same thing’s’ going on, the ‘same’ commentary on this news channel, that news channel, all the mainstream channels. And it’s just accumulated and snowballed to this point. And I think people will get it.”
Other songs like “Surveilling US,” “Façade,” and “Real” tackle similar topics. Before we go too far down the road of slimy politics, corporate greed, and the uglier, hidden caverns of humanity — and Farner has very astute opinions on some very specific issues — I ask him about the future and where he sees things going.
“I feel good about a shift in the people. There was a dark cloud hanging over everybody. I see a lot of people getting a lift from this and some of the burdens.”
He has more to say about this later.
Closer To My Home includes a new re-recorded version of arguably the most popular song Farner ever cut with Grand Funk — “I’m Your Captain (Closer To Home).” Celebrating its 55th anniversary, the song has come to represent a simpler time for many, especially military veterans for whom it’s become an anthem of sorts. It’s as if they find solace in its theme of “getting closer to home” after a perilous voyage.
I ask Farner what he was able to do with the song this time that he wasn’t able to do with the original. He’s ready with an answer I’m not expecting.
“The tuning standard for the United States is 440 hertz. It was switched from the old standard, 4-3-2, which was the tuning standard up until 1953 when Rockefeller changed it. Just by the nature of this conversation and now I’m telling you who changed it, you can understand why I am very suspect of this A440 tuning. Let me give you a word picture: The whole world changed, as far as the tuning. Our American music went around the world. We were in Russia and South America and places where I go and play. These people are singing my words to my songs that I wrote. And they can’t speak English, but they can sing my words. It’s a wonderful feeling.
“But that tuning 4-3-2 — this word picture I want to give you — is a link that somebody sent to me, and it’s what turned me onto it in the first place: A guy who had a kiddie pool on his deck; he had a speaker, a 15-inch driver sitting right next to the pool, right as close as he could get it. He had a tone generator and an amplifier. So, he played A2, which is a very low note, at 440, the current American tuning standard, at 125 decibels — and the threshold of pain is 90! This is loud dude (laughs). The little kiddie pool’s jumping up and down like it had legs on it. It was just frothing and waves — it was violent. Then he shuts it down, tunes the generator to 4-3-2, hits A2 at 125 decibels and…it was a piece of glass, did not have a quiver. There wasn’t a ripple. That got my attention.
“I called my buddy Navy Seal who gave me this link. I said, ‘OK, you got my attention.’ He says, ‘Now, tune your acoustic guitar down to 4-3-2.’ It’s not much. If you played a record at 440 and then played another one at 4-3-2, unless you were a critical-ear musician, you couldn’t tell the difference. It’s that close. But 4-3-2 is so natural. It blends as you can see from the demonstration of the water. It blends with nature. Since our bodies are 80, 90% water, it blends.
“So, this version of ‘I’m Your Captain (Closer To Home)’ is recorded in 4-3-2, along with the rest of the songs on this album. Everything is in 4-3-2. There are some songs out there that have already been recorded in 4-3-2 that are hit songs. One of them is Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s ‘Ohio.’ In 4-3-2, I do that song on stage, and I start it and people are saying to me — every audience that I’ve played this for this way — ‘Thank you Mark. Thank you, brother Mark,’ There’s something to this 4-3-2. It brings peace. I did the Happy Together tour with Flo and Eddie years ago. I switched over and we did it in 4-3-2. I got those guys to tune — every band — in 4-3-2. It made people happy. There’s something to it. A common lay person probably wouldn’t get it.”
Farner convinces me that I probably “get it,” and I do to a degree. I reason that his vocals on this album sound so good, they could provide anyone with a little peace. He’s a rarity among his peers when it comes to the preservation of his voice. There just aren’t that many rock and roll singers in their 70s or 80s who can still hit the notes. Farner is an anomaly on this count, and it gets me to wondering if he relies on a magical herb or potion to keep those pipes clean and in top running order. As it is, I couldn’t be more wrong.
“I just use it,” he notes matter-of-factly. “I’m in a barn, I’m singing, I’m out in the woods with my electric chain saw, cutting firewood, I’m singing. Riding down a road in the truck, I’m singing.”
Then he adds with a laugh: “I even sing in the shower, dude.”
It looks like Mark Farner will be using his voice quite a bit in 2025. After a couple of warm-up shows in late 2024, he’s primed and ready to bring the songs of Closer To My Home to fans around the country. He assures me he’ll be on the road next spring and summer, promoting the album. And there’s an extra special treat he has in store.
“We’re going to bring, for the veterans, a portable wall to honor those who gave their lives to this country.”
A true patriot if there ever was one.
And what about a follow-up to Closer To My Home? You’d have to think that after nearly 20 years, Farner has more music in his arsenal he’d like to release. For him, the inspiration for a song can strike anywhere at any time.
“I just called Slaughter the day before yesterday, and I told him, ‘Dude, I found some chords on my guitar…’ I’m just dinging at four o’clock in the morning and I’m playing my electric not plugged in. Just sitting down away from where my wife sleeps so I’m not waking her up. Oh man, this song. Oh my gosh. I’m so geeked about it because my wife came down and I was still playing. She says, ‘What is that song that you’re doing right there?’ I said, ‘It’s one I’m working on. I’m just getting the incentive to write it.’ She says, ‘I think it’s a hit already. I cannot get that out of my mind. It just goes all day.’ She has never told me this before.”
Our time is running out at this point of the conversation. I intentionally tried to steer away from too many Grand Funk Railroad questions. We’ve talked about reunion possibilities in the past. As for future plans around reissues, box sets, DVDs, vinyl anniversaries, et al, all Farner has to say is: “I’m kind of kept like a mushroom.”
However, I feel compelled to comment on the band’s glaring absence from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The band has been eligible for 30 years, and has yet to even be nominated, yet alone inducted. You could spend an eternity arguing with music fans over who should be in and who shouldn’t. Grand Funk is a different story. They broke concert attendance records, had multiple gold and platinum-selling records, influenced a legion of others that followed in their path. They are the very definition of what any artist in the Rock & Roll Hall Fame should be.
The critics, many of whom comprise the voting body of the Rock Hall, were not very fond of Grand Funk Railroad in their heyday. Without naming names, speculation is varied as to who or what’s standing in the way. Like other well-deserving artists who haven’t made the short list, Mark Farner is familiar with the politics around these kind of quasi-show-biz affairs only too well.
“I’ve thought of it…” he says with some thoughtful hesitation. “The only reason that it would make a difference to me is for the fans’ sake. I’m with you as far as what the motives are of the people that own it and who they induct and who they don’t. It’s kind of like our government. It’s only because of the people don’t have a say in it. They could give a rat’s ass about what the people think. They’re just going to keep whatever it is that motivates them and what whatever they’re trying to sell us.”
You could argue that Farner’s point of view is about as rock and roll as it gets. Maybe that’s why so many think of Grand Funk as the “People’s Band.”
Naturally, if the band were to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a reunion is likely if the members are all still among the living. There’s been plenty of groups who’ve reunited at their inductions. Cream, another hard rock power trio — arguably the first who paved the way for groups like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Grand Funk Railroad — reunited at theirs in 1993. If they can do it, most certainly Grand Funk can.
“I have said this for 20 some years now. For the sake of the fans who made Grand Funk Railroad, I would humbly and graciously get on that stage. There’s only three people in the world that can make that noise properly.”
At that very moment, I think about those three people when they were together and a beloved Grand Funk compilation album named after them: Mark, Don & Mel. There was a time when that was all you needed. That and a stereo with a good set of headphones.
I’m not expecting Farner’s position about the band to change, though I’m glad to hear it nonetheless. You just never know what can happen next. No one even expected a new album, and the next thing you know, Mark Farner releases Closer To My Home. Touring in 2025, the possibility of more new music, and then…who knows?
“It ain’t over till I suck my last breath,” Farner reminds me before we part ways. “I got some love in my heart. I want to see this country back in good shape. I want to see us all gathering under the flag, leave all the other bullshit aside, just the flag, that flag of unity…no matter what persuasion politically we may be. We got put that aside and look at each other and say, ‘Hey, I don’t care what color you are. I don’t care what religion you are. We are Americans together and this is what’s gonna make us strong.’ This is what we should be doing…we can get better. We can definitely heal.”
With Mark Farner fully vested in the future, making music and seeking to “heal,” maybe we’re all getting a little closer to home.
