mark-farner
"I'm still up for it," says former Grand Funk guitarist Mark Farner of performing.
Life can get hard, real hard, but Mark Farner keeps smiling.
Farner — founding singer-guitarist for Grand Funk Railroad, a band he is no longer in — has had some pretty rough stretches in recent years. He believes his old bandmates in Grand Funk have conspired against him. He needed to have a pacemaker put in. And he helps care for a son who became a quadriplegic following an accident.
But Farner won't wallow in self pity. As he'll tell you: "I've got my power, brother."
Farner — who sang and played on such Grand Funk hits as "I'm Your Captain," "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "The Loco-motion" — has four upcoming New Jersey gigs as part of the multi-act Happy Together tour. Farner says his special brand of faith keeps him going in dark times.
"I'm Christian, but I'm a different kind of Christian, especially since I had my pacemaker put in," says the Michigan native, 65.
Farner (center) with former bandmates Don Brewer and Mel Schacher on the cover of Grand Funk's debut album, "On Time" (1969).
"I died and came back twice, so I know what it's like to be outside of this body, and to be in the arms and the presence of love."
Yeah, Farner can get a bit deep at times, but he's always up for some fun. Case in point: The inveterate strutter believes men need to dance more — something he espouses in his new song, "Take You Out."
"The guys who get lucky are the dancers," he says. "The song is designed, it's intended, to provoke men to get out on the dance floor. Women want to see men out there. When you look at the dance floor, it's all women dancing with women. Well, women don't like that. So I'm saying: Guys, do something out there. Get over that crap."
Come to one of his shows, Farner vows, and see him practice what he preaches.
"They'll see more than a guy standing at a mic," he says. "I just can't be still. I gotta move around. The more people get excited, the more I get excited.
"What people expect out of me, of course, is the hits. We're just doing all the A-sides, but with a lot of energy. I'm still up for it, still singing the songs in the original keys."
Farner has quit Grand Funk twice, in 1976 and 1999. Now, he maintains, his old bandmates, bassist Mel Schacher and drummer Don Brewer, won't let him back in.
Says Farner: "Those guys keep turning me down every time I say, 'Why not put the band together for the fans, while we're all still sucking air?' I remember with the Beatles, I really wanted to see those guys. I kept thinking, 'Why not bury the hatchet and do it for the fans?' I can see, from being that fan, that the Grand Funk fans would dig it if the three of us bury all that crap and get out there and do it for the fans.
"I've been rejected every time. I don't like to sound gloomy, but it doesn't look very good. I just had a meeting with them about a month ago."
Farner isn't too bitter to play with them?
"I'm not going there," he says.
"I've forgiven them. That's my power, brother. They're stuck in some place where their conscience isn't for the fans. It's deceptive to call (their band) Grand Funk, but the guy who wrote over 90 percent of the songs is not gonna be there. The same way they deceived me into signing (an ownership agreement). What they didn't say was, then it would be two-against-one.
"But that's the way life is. You've just got to learn how to get over it. I feel better about forgiving someone than being bitter toward them."
He believes there is only one Grand Funk.
"The uniqueness is the chemistry of those three individuals," he says. "To capture that, to play that sound and reproduce it over and over — that's serious chemistry."
HAPPY TOGETHER 2014
With the Turtles, Mitch Ryder, Gary Lewis, Mark Farner and Chuck Negron
JUNE 22: 7 p.m. at Bergen Performing Arts Center, 30 N. Van Brunt St., Englewood. $45 to $100; call (201) 227-1030 or visit bergenpac.org.
JUNE 28: 8 p.m. at the Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank. $29.50 to $119.50; call (732) 842-9000 or visit countbasietheatre.org.
JULY 1: 8 p.m. at Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South St., Morristown. $39 to $89. Call (973) 539-8008 or visit mayoarts.org.
JULY 29: 8 p.m. at the State Theatre, 15 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick. $35 to $95; call (732) 246-7469 or visit statetheatrenj.org.
Mark Voger can be reached HERE.