Dennis Thompson obit

Dennis Thompson, MC5 drummer and ‘last man standing,’ dies at 75

 

He was not on the list.

MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson, whose muscular, high-octane style helped propel the influential Detroit band, died Thursday morning after a series of medical issues. He was 75.

Thompson passed away at MediLodge of Taylor, where he had been rehabilitating following a heart attack in April.

The drummer, a longtime Southgate resident, was still at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital during his initial recovery when he got word April 21 that the MC5 was headed into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

His first reaction, according to Becky Tyner, widow of MC5 vocalist Rob Tyner: "It's about f------ time!" He told Tyner he was eager to make October's induction ceremony in Cleveland.

“Dennis was thrilled with it, so excited and happy,” said Becky Tyner. “He just wanted to get home to his cat, Annie, and was optimistic about recovering.”

Thompson was the last surviving member of the band, preceded in death by singer Rob Tyner, guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis and guitarist Wayne Kramer. The group’s former manager, John Sinclair, died April 2.

Thompson was a Lincoln Park High School graduate whose first big musical venture came with a teen garage band called the Bounty Hunters, with his friend Kramer on guitar.

“The (school) tried to boot me because my hair was a quarter-inch over my ears,” he told the Detroit Free Press in 2003. “But they didn’t end up doing it because I was in the National Honor Society with an A-minus average.”

He joined the fledgling MC5 in 1965 at the urging of Kramer, during a time when the rock climate in Detroit was “kinetic,” as Thompson called it. He credited the band’s rise to its blue-collar work ethic and tight musical chops honed through constant woodshedding.

“We thought we were a good band and were on our way. The band liked to rehearse — everybody loved to play,” Thompson recounted. “We loved what we were doing. It was fast cars, hanging out at the drag strip. It was the best way to break away from the system where you went straight to a factory if you didn’t go to college.”

Thompson’s hard-pounding style at the kit was born of necessity during the MC5’s early years around Detroit, he explained:

“Wayne was always telling me, ‘Dennis, you need to play harder and stronger.’ They had these (Vox) Superbeetle amps. When you’re doing sock hops and parties, it was the PA system, the Vox columns and a couple of woofers,” Thompson told the Free Press. “The drums weren’t miked, but the amps were cranked on 10. They were drowning me out. So I started hitting them harder and harder. I had to play as powerfully as I could to break through that wall of sound.”

Thompson remained with the MC5 through its infamous rise and fall in the late ’60s and early ’70s, including the group’s time as Grande Ballroom house band, the powerhouse live debut album “Kick Out the Jams” and a notorious performance amid demonstrations outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention in 1968.

Thompson was uneasy with the radical image the MC5 took on over time, and he would later say the Chicago DNC performance was “my epiphany.”

“We became a political band. The media tagged us as a band that was the vanguard of ‘the revolution,’” he said in 2003. “I didn’t want to be the band of the revolution. It’s not what we started out to do. Looking back from a 30-year vantage point, I can see it was beneficial because of the notoriety. It was powerful stuff, and that media notoriety helped make us a household word. But at same time it was ending our career. It was killing us.”

Among the MC5’s members, Thompson was especially tight with Tyner, and he credited the singer with sticking by his side during a brutal addiction recovery that he contended led to the MC5’s split.

By the early ’70s, Thompson had developed a serious heroin addiction and — through a family intervention — enrolled in a Royal Oak detox clinic.

A European concert tour was fast approaching on the MC5’s calendar. During a band meeting at Tyner’s house, Thompson asked that the dates be postponed as he continued recovery: “God willing, I’ll get cleaned up and we can go on tour,” he recalled telling the band.

“Rob sided with me. He said, ‘If Dennis isn’t going, I’m not going,’ ” Thompson said. “The reason was that Rob had been with me throughout many European tour dates when I was climbing the walls when there was no heroin. He watched over me like baby as I went cold turkey. I told those guys: ‘If I go back there, I’ll die.’ ”

Thompson said his line in the sand prompted an argument with punches thrown. A makeshift version of the group, with a pickup drummer and no Tyner, headed off for the overseas shows.

“It was the correct decision for me. It took four weeks and I was cleaned up. I never did heroin again,” Thompson said. “But that was the end of the MC5.”

Thompson continued to perform locally with various metro Detroit bands, and went on to participate in a series of reunion projects with Kramer and Davis during the 2000s.