Flashy pyrotechnics, gritty guitar tones, and a rowdy lead singer might be enough to impress a rock ‘n’ roll fan. But for fellow rock stars, it’ll take more than sparklers and snarled lips to really get riled up. That’s why bands like MC5 were so extraordinary. They might not have achieved the same level of fame as the bands they influenced. But the fact remains that they played a major role in shaping those famous bands’ sound. And that in and of itself is special.
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And indeed, to say MC5 had a significant impact on rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s would be an understatement when one considers the decades’ worth of rock ‘n’ rollers that came up in the Detroit band’s boisterous shadow. Even bona fide rockers like The Who couldn’t help but be impressed by the band’s in-your-face attitude. Of course, the fact that guitarist Pete Townshend was on one of his first LSD trips probably helped boost the band’s intensity by a decibel or two.
But Townshend’s admiration for MC5 went beyond their stage presence. “In the early days, they were super-Left-wing activists. They were really, really on the case,” Townshend told The Telegraph. “They were so anti-the-Vietnam-War, they were ready to go to jail. That says something for the way that basic rock ‘n’ roll and basic art can have a sociological and a political value.”
Slash Cited MC5 As One of His First, Most Important Musical Influences
As a young boy born in Hampstead, London, and later transplanted to Los Angeles at only six years old, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash naturally felt drawn between the worlds of American and British rock ‘n’ roll. MC5 was the first band that allowed Slash to put down permanent roots in the States. Their sound and attitude alike connected him to what would become his long-time home state, California. (Even though the band in question was from over 2,000 miles away in Detroit, Michigan.)
“MC5 was the first real American punk-rock band I identified with,” Slash told The Telegraph. “MC5 is timeless because of that attitude, the volume of it, and the brashness of it.” Describing the band as an “elevated level of teenage rebellion,” Slash said he felt drawn to the band’s unapologetic quality. And that was true even before he was old enough to realize what the band was speaking out against. As Slash put it, he just “loved the idea of sticking the finger in the face of authority.”
By the early 1970s, exhaustion, worsening drug use, and poor commercial performance led to MC5’s disbandment. Their short-lived tenure is one of the main reasons their ubiquity often falls short of that of other rock ‘n’ roll acts of the time. Still, their influence can be heard on bands like Motörhead, The White Stripes, The Clash, and Alice Cooper, who moved to Detroit specifically because of MC5.
“The music is so raw that you almost think it’s about to fall apart, but it never does, and it grooves like crazy, and it’s as soulful as can be. So, everything moves from that,” producer and MC5 collaborator Don Was told the BBC in 2024.
Photo by Leni Sinclair/Getty Images
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