Why was the FBI watching this band?
- aimeeelkington153
- Nov 21, 2025
- 6 min read
This American band had their very own FBI files in the 60s and 70s. But why were they being watched?
MC5 formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan in 1963. A group of school friends who wanted to start a band.
Guitarist Wayne Kramer told Fresh Air in 2002:
"We really started about '64, '65, in a neighborhood kind of way. You know, I looked around for guys in the neighborhood that wanted to be in a band and collected a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, just like me. I mean, this is, you know, the boom time after World War II. Everybody has good jobs, and you can buy an electric guitar on credit from Sears. And they were everywhere. I mean, everybody, you know - somebody - everybody had an electric guitar. Everybody was in a band."
Now this was a ground breaking time in American history; the Civil Rights Movement was in full force, the Vietnam war was raging, and so was the youth of America. Political fractions had popped up everywhere, calling for an end to war and racism.
MC5 were well and truly onboard with this. Their sound was explosive, and matched the frustration a lot of young people were feeling at the time. Many consider MC5 to be the prototype of American hardcore punk and grunge. For Wayne Kramer, it was all about bringing the energy. He told Rhino in 2018:
We were always striving, because we wanted to put more energy into the music, and sometimes that translated into faster tempos and more volume and a denser tone.
Their lyrics were also ‘in-your-face’, with their most famous song Kick Out The Jams famously starting with the line “Kick out the jams, motherf**kers!”
Unsurprisingly, the radio stations weren’t a fan of that one, so they initially recorded a radio friendly version first with the hope that it would get super popular, then they would release the real version on the album. Sneaky sneaky!
But it wasn’t just their music that got them in hot water - it was also their politics. In their early days they were managed by a man called John Sinclair, who was a founding member of the anti-racist White Panther Party. The party was created as a way for white anti-racists to support the Black Panther Party, and their core values aligned. They were militant, and prepared to use violence if it came to it.
MC5 enthusiastically joined the movement and spread the message whenever they could. Inspired by the likes of Malcom X and anti-war movements, they believed that if change was going to happen the people were going to have to force it to happen. In the Fresh Air interview, Kramer recalled:
We just were frustrated with the slow pace of change. We were anxious about the future, and we felt like we had to take action. And the action we took was in endorsing our idols, which were the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X and our - you know, our spiritual leaders, which we viewed as John Coltrane and - you know, and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Archie Shepp. And we tried to bring all these ideas together in a message that our band could represent, the idea that, you know, you didn't have to go along with the program, that there was a better way that we could do things.
In their early career, MC5’s stage performances were very political. The band would walk on stage carrying unloaded rifles, and at the peak of the performance an unseen sniper would ‘shoot’ singer Rob Tyner. This blatant criticism of the Vietnam war set the tone for the rest of their career, as they put social change at the centre of pretty much everything they did.
MC5 also stuck it to the man by performing at protests. In 1968, the Democratic National Convention took place. Social tensions had reached a new height that year after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April and the announcement by President Lyndon B Johnson that he wouldn’t be standing for reelection.
The purpose of this convention was to find a new candidate in the Democratic party to take his place. It therefore made the perfect time and place to protest. The Youth International Party, also known as the Yippies, staged an anti-war protest that thousands of people attended. The event became known as the ‘Festival of Life.’
MC5 performed, although not without some issues. When they arrived, there was no stage or equipment. A lesser band might have called it a day there, but they plugged their own equipment in through a concessions stand and played.
Here is some footage of their performance.
It seemed their performance would be an uphill battle after false rumours that the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead would be playing had made the rounds, but MC5 were well received by the crowd. However, it was clear things were getting serious. Kramer told the Telegraph in 2019:
“On the day of our appearance the vibe was very heavy. There were agent provocateurs in the crowd provoking people to violence. The Chicago police were riding motorcycles through crowds of young people just to disrupt and hurt them. It wasn’t like the usual outdoor music festival where everyone was smiling and it’s all about rainbows, flowers and peace. This was a decidedly different atmosphere. The tone was ominous.”
This is where the FBI comes into it. They had already been surveilling John Sinclair and the White Panther Party, so by association, MC5. The band requested files through the Freedom of Information Act, and it revealed what they had been thinking was true. Kramer told Fresh Air:
I know a great deal about what the federal government's attitude about the MC5 was, and it's very scary. The white House viewed the MC5 as a threat. We discovered, through the Freedom of Information documents that go all the way to the top, that the COINTELPRO program targeted the MC5 and the White Panther Party. Our phones were tapped. We were followed. We were systematically harassed, arrested, jailed in an effort by the federal government, the state government and the city of Detroit.
Their reputation was catching up with them, and it was catching up with John Sinclair too.
Sinclair was a ticking timebomb. His politics and profile meant he was constantly being watched by the authorities, and it wasn’t long until they found an excuse to lock him up. In 1969, Sinclair was arrested for possession of marjuana.
He was slammed with a 10 year prison sentence, an extreme amount of time for the crime. This was met with huge criticism and Sinclair was eventually released in 1972, not long after ‘The John Sinclair Freedom Rally’ which featured performances from the likes of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Funnily enough, by this point he had fallen out with MC5, so they didn’t play this event.
However, the association with these political movements throughout the 60s and 70s sadly made record labels view MC5 as a bit of a liability. Atlantic records eventually dropped the band after the band’s follow up albums, Back in the USA and High Time, lost the label money.
Personal problems were also emerging. The same year, bassist Michael Davis left the band after a struggle with heroin addiction, and they struggled to find a suitable replacement. The band continued to crawl along for the rest of the year, until finally performing a farewell show on New Year’s Eve. Kramer, in the middle of his own battle with addiction, was so upset he left the stage only a few songs in. MC5 disbanded not long after.
It went from bad to worse for the personal lives of some of the members. In 1975, Kramer was caught selling drugs and spent 5 years behind bars in Kentucky. Unexpectedly, he was reunited with Michael Davis while in prison, also there for drug charges.
Kramer’s love of music continued during his time in prison, and when he was eventually released in 1979 he went on to release some solo music.
However, that wasn’t the end of MC5. They reunited in 1992 and continued to play and tour until Kramer’s death in 2024, leaving behind a legacy of sticking it to the man and putting politics at the centre of music.
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