It’s going to get funky at Warsaw’s Central Park June 15. With opening act Funk Park Rangers taking the Glover Pavilion stage at 6:30 p.m., Grand Funk Railroad will headline the Classic Rock Concert at 8 p.m. Grand Funk founding member Don Brewer talked about some of the history of the band during a telephone interview Tuesday. Originating in Flint, Mich., in 1969, Brewer said the band surpassed his expectations. “When you start a band at 19, 20 years old, you don’t expect to go on 42 years,” he said. “It’s just about getting a check.” He said band members wanted to stay out of the bars, and they didn’t want to perform covers of other bands’ songs. So they wrote and performed their own music, but they had to play at “hippie” establishments at the time to do that. “That’s what we did. We lit it up in 1969,” Brewer said. Perhaps the most well-known, biggest hit song from Grand Funk is “We’re An American Band.” Brewer said at the time he wrote the song, the band was on the road. They also were being sued by their former manager and attorneys who had been ripping them off. They sued the band, and the band left their manager and producer. Grand Funk put out an album titled “Phoenix.” It did OK, but the band knew to make it, they had to follow the music trend. As the band toured town to town, Brewer said, he came up with “Comin’ to your town to help you party it down.” That’s what the band was doing. He knew three chords, so Brewer joked, he put all them of them in the song. “I put all these little stories together that were going on on the road,” he said. And when he was done, he had “We’re An American Band.” Today, Brewer said, Grand Funk is still focused on doing their hit songs of the last 40 years. They have a few new ones in the show, like “Sky High,” but the focus is on the hits. As far as their audience goes, Brewer said it’s all ages. If they’re playing casinos, it’s an older group like their own demographic. Recently, they performed in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., and the audience was younger. At fairs and festivals, Brewer said they see a mix. “When we play ‘Some Kind of Wonderful,’ we see people of all ages lipping the words right along with us,” he said. The show in Warsaw June 15, like all their shows, he said, will be a pretty straight-forward rock ’n’ roll show. There’s no giant television screens or pyrotechnics. “We just want people to come and sweat and have fun. It’s not a big spectacle,” he said. Brewer said Grand Funk performs 30 to 40 shows a year. For a classic rock band, that’s not as many shows as others. They go out and do a couple shows a week during the summer and spring, and then go home to their families. Band members live all across the country. “It’s a nice schedule,” he said. According to a provided press release, Grand Funk Railroad includes original founding members Brewer (vocals and drums, writer and singer) and bassist Mel Schacher. Joining them are singer Max Carl, a rock veteran from 38 Special; lead guitarist Bruce Kulick, best known for his 12 years with KISS; and keyboardist Tim Cashion, whose credits include stints with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and English soul man Robert Palmer. Outside of Grand Funk, Brewer said each member all have separate projects. Brewer used to produce records for other bands in the 1970s and 1980s. He tours with the Bob Seger Band as a drummer during the winter, having done 50 shows last year. Kulick is still doing KISS expos, and Cashion has a recording studio. Brewer encouraged people to come out for the June 15 show. “Come, have a good time, smile and sweat,” he said. Over their career, Grand Funk has had 19 charted singles, eight Top 40 hits and two No. 1 singles (“We’re An American Band” and “Locomotion” both sold more than one million each), according to the press release. The group has now accumulated 13 gold and 10 platinum records with record sales in excess of 25 million copies sold worldwide. The most recent gold CD award was presented to the band May 10, 2002, for their greatest hits package “Grand Funk Railroad The Collectors Series.” For more on the band, visit its official website at www.grandfunkrailroad.com
