DENNIS THOMPSON
MC5’s hard-hitting drummer (1948–2024)
DENNIS Thompson attributed his uncompromising style to MC5’s formative days on the local dance-party scene in 1960s Detroit. “The drums weren’t mic’d, but the amps were cranked on 10,” he explained to the Detroit Free Press. “They were drowning me out… I had to play as powerfully as I could to break through that wall of sound.”
Nicknamed ‘Machine Gun’ thanks to his explosive approach, Thompson helped power the MC5’s ascent from noisy covers band to proto-punk agitators, aligning themselves to socio-political causes and appearing regularly at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, site of 1969’s incendiary debut, Kick Out The Jams. Recalling the two-night stand that yielded the album, Thompson told Uncut in 2007: “I played harder than I ever played in my life… Both nights were kickass. It was magical, because we knew we had something.”
Thompson had known guitarist Wayne Kramer since school, where they played together in The Bounty Hunters. They reconnected in 1965, the drummer replacing Bob Gaspar in the newly christened MC5. The band’s burgeoning. “I didn’t want to be the band of the revolution. It’s not what we started out to do… It was killing us.”
