Grand Funk Railroad is commemorating the 50th anniversary of its iconic anthem, “We Are an American Band” this year, and is stopping by Gila River & Casinos – Wild Horse Pass on Saturday, November 18 to celebrate. We sat down with founding member Don Brewer to chat about his ties to The Copper State, the story behind the band’s 1972 album Phoenix and his favorite spots in Arizona.
“We’re an American Band” is such an iconic song in American pop culture. What is the story behind creating it?
It was at a time in our life [when] we had gone through a separation from our manager/producer, Terry Knight, and he was suing us [and] suing every city we were playing in. The inspiration for the song came from the fact that we were broke because he had taken all our money, and we were suing him for taking all our money. We were flying into these towns, and I looked down from the airplane and the thought came to my mind, “We’re coming to your town, we’ll help you party it down,” and I wrote the song around that line and that was it.
There’s a unique story behind your 1972 album, Phoenix. Tell us more about that.
That was happening at the same time we were separating from Terry Knight. That was our first album after the Terry Knight albums. He had done the first six records producing and managing us, we separated from him, and we went on our own for the next album. We went to Nashville and decided to record everything in Nashville, we were looking for a name for the thing and we were looking through dictionaries and all these things trying to find something that was relating to what was going on. We chose Phoenix because it’s the rising from the ashes of what was before and on the album cover, we put a bird – the Phoenix bird… coming out of the flames and that’s what we were doing, we were resurrecting ourselves.
We’d like to know a little bit about your personal connection to Phoenix, the city. What are your feelings and thoughts about Phoenix? And how have you seen it change over the years?
I live in Florida. I live in a hot place, so I’ve always related to Phoenix… Our singer Max Carl lived out by Phoenix for quite a few years, and I flew out there quite a few times and we would write songs together. I love Phoenix. It’s a beautiful place. I love to take the trip from Phoenix to Sedona. That’s one of my favorite drives in the world… When you take off from Phoenix, you’re going through this kind of gravely stuff and some cactus, and then, all of a sudden, it just opens up and it’s magical. There are all of these red rocks and it’s right out of a movie.
You’re originally from Flint, Michigan and have been playing in bands since boyhood. What were some of your early musical influences?
My mother and my father were both entertainers. My mother was a former dancer, and my father was a drummer in a swing band back in the depression. He used to play drums in a swing band… and they would pay the band with beer, so when I expressed interest in playing the drums, he jumped at it. We’d sit down in the basement, and we’d play records.
Grand Funk Railroad will be playing at the Gila River Casino in Chandler on November 18, the 50th anniversary of “We’re an American Band.” Congratulations!
Thank you… It’s with Jefferson Starship. We’ve done a bunch of shows with them, too. It’s a great show, a lot of hits all night long.
Get tickets to see Grand Funk Railroad and Jefferson Starship on November 18 at 8 p.m. at playatgila.com.
