Bruce Kulick Announces His Departure From Grand Funk Railroad

Bruce Kulick has left Grand Funk Railroad after 23 years. He performed his last live performance with the group on Dec. 14 in Marietta, Ohio.

The former Kiss guitarist turned 70 that very same month, and as he tells UCR throughout an unique interview, the milestone made him think about his future. “I really wanted to look at what I wanted to do personally and creatively,” he says. “I’ve always loved playing with Grand Funk for all of those years, but all of that travel for most weekends of every month, all year, the time involved became more and more difficult.”

As Kulick shared throughout a wide-ranging dialog, he’ll flip the main focus again to his personal legacy right here in 2024. He’s wanting ahead to having the possibility to work on quite a lot of potential initiatives — together with new solo music and a possible memoir.

There’s Some Good News for Kiss Fans

While he was cautious to emphasize that nothing is ready in stone but, Kulick is worked up about many potentialities — together with the potential alternative to spend extra time celebrating “his era” of Kiss. He has seen first-hand how new generations have continued to find his previous work with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame legends. “It’s just remarkable that I was involved with a band with that kind of fame and that kind of influence on the youth,” he marvels. “Every generation going from there, that they haven’t forgotten me at all is wonderful.”

In the primary a part of the interview under, Kulick presents further insights relating to his departure from Grand Funk and tells UCR why you will not be studying his model of “The Dirt” if he does put out a guide.

Bruce, I think about that quite a bit went into making the choice to step away from Grand Funk after such an unbelievable run.
I believe a lot of my followers have been conscious that for the final 23 years, in the event that they actually studied my profession, I’ve been performing with Grand Funk Railroad. Every 12 months was strong with dates. It might occur in any month. It wasn’t like, “Okay, we’re doing three months and then you’re off for the rest of the year,” nonetheless a number of different bands [might do it]. As a band that may do the fly dates, because it’s referred to as, each month, mainly, there have been dates. During the second half of the 12 months, particularly within the fall, once I began to consider 2024, I actually wished to have a look at what I wished to do personally and creatively.

With the journey, It actually made my days at house change into extra like, “Well, what can I accomplish that I love to do [with] my career, before I’ve got to go travel again?” That can be very laborious. You can do some issues on the street. You fly and also you see a man with a laptop computer and he’s doing all of his enterprise there. But I don’t fly that effectively so I’m [not] all of the sudden going to be Mr. Creativity on the lengthy flights. In addition, I ought to point out that the band, 80% of the time, was acting on the East Coast or within the Midwest, which meant I had the longest journeys of the entire guys within the band. Whenever they got here out to Vegas to carry out, they have been conscious of the journey, from the East Coast, the place many of the different guys dwell — after which going again — the way it simply kicks your ass.

The pandemic actually gave me a possibility to sit down again and do nothing or soar into one million issues. I believe everyone on the market is aware of that I jumped into one million issues, with my spouse and with out. But we have been a group in lots of issues. Because even when it was nearly me, Lisa was in all probability filming me or ensuring every thing was proper, if it wasn’t the songs that we did collectively or the cooking web sites that we created content material for, it was me engaged on music and entertaining the followers. Whatever you can do then, I used to be very proactive and I cherished it. By the time I used to be prepared to return to journey, I used to be in shock, to be trustworthy. But I used to be conscious that that was nearly all of my life and it bought very acquainted fairly rapidly. Performing dwell on stage with these guys, they’re a terrific band, you understand, that was the half I favored. That was the solely half I favored! The 80-minute present is the one half that I actually loved. The relaxation was so laborious for me, time-wise.

Watch Grand Funk Railroad Perform ‘ I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)’

I get that. It felt like a great time to make a change.
I don’t need a loopy tempo, however I’m not retiring. I simply need it solely to be about my legacy, my profession and every thing meaning one thing to me. I imply, my Kiss followers have been wonderful. They love my period. Because definitely, Kiss wasn’t [promoting] the non-makeup years. Yeah, possibly on an anniversary, a product got here out from time to time, nevertheless it’s all the time been about them in make-up and the classic years after which the brand new band actually representing these nice songs. So in time, you understand in the course of the pandemic, how a lot I used to be waving the flag of my period. I’ll proceed to do this, however there’s a lot extra that I can do. I had all of those songs that I began to demo.

August was a bit of loopy, however I bought actually motivated to document a couple of issues on my Garageband. I had labored with Todd Kerns a bit on a couple of songs that I had previously. Then, he bought busy and with my fixed [schedule], each weekend, being gone, I can’t say that I used to be capable of make the progress that I do know I can do with out that type of journey schedule. So there’s been authentic music that I wish to proceed to have the ability to put out one other solo document. I definitely may very well be engaged on a guide lastly, which I’ve nice tales for. There’s so many different inventive issues that I wish to [pursue]. I really like doing the movies that I’ve been doing, celebrating anniversaries and issues of my Kiss profession. I’d wish to be extra inventive with that. I wish to do extra issues with my spouse. I wish to hold the alternatives fully open to [be] performing music that I believe folks know me for.

READ MORE: Bruce Kulick Plays His Last Kiss Show

As far as writing a guide, I do know that it’s one thing you’ve checked out previously. How far did you get into doing one beforehand?
It’s bought to be about 20 years in the past, I’d need to test the dates. There was anyone within the business that I used to be working with, Ken Gullic, who truly was very influential in Kissology popping out and issues like that, as a result of he labored for [the label] Universal. He was concerned with my BK3 album as effectively. We had the thought of doing a guide collectively and he was capable of go get interviews with folks [like] my dad and mom and Bob Ezrin. There are chapters that exist that I by no means took any additional.

What’s ironic was that on the time, yeah, that was nearly sufficient to ask folks, if you happen to have been searching for a guide deal, “What do you think [as far as a book telling] the story about Bruce Kulick?” Timing-wise, it truly wasn’t nice. It was too shut [to Kiss] with their [ongoing] fame, the reunion and [return to] make-up. But all of the [publishers] wished was the filth — like Motley Crue. I received’t do a guide like that. I don’t like ripping folks aside. I’ve heard loads of the books from folks I’ve labored with and I’ve learn issues. And I’m type of like, “They didn’t have to say it that way.” But I get that they wished to say that they didn’t get together with this particular person or that particular person. I’m not a guide like that. Which meant I wasn’t going to get a guide deal again then. [Laughs]

You know, for me, I wish to have a good time my years, however inform the backstory. I’d wish to get into the issues that provided that you have been there you can describe. For instance, what it was wish to be at a video shoot for 12 hours with Eric Carr doing “God Gave Rock and Roll to You II.” I don’t need to say something adverse about anyone. Obviously, there are some tales I believe are nice to clear up for folks, as a result of they have been conscious there was rigidity right here or there. You know, what was it like working within the band? But I actually wish to simply inform my story within the sense of celebrating the music and the way it was performed — nearly like a few of my blogs that I used to have on my previous web site. I nonetheless assume it might be very compelling for folks.

I do know some folks have written books and the extra outrageous they wish to be, the higher, is the best way they checked out it. I believe sadly, a few of the publishers choose whenever you’re saying outlandish [things] with heavy accusations. I’ll be trustworthy, I assumed each Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] have been very unusual with one another. I didn’t learn all of it, however some issues that I’ve heard, I used to be like “Ooh, I wonder how that felt for the other person to read that or hear it on the audiobook?” I believe I’ve a terrific story to inform. There’s sure issues about even how my profession began and the way I bought to that time to being in Kiss — and another issues that I’ve been actually quiet about, as a result of I wish to reserve it for the guide.

With Grand Funk, what has your involvement been serving to them make the transition to a brand new guitar participant?
There’s some actually nice recordings of us. The new man, who they don’t need me to speak about at present, is somebody I do know effectively. He was capable of come to some exhibits to have eyes on every thing. There are solely a few issues that he had questions on, which I used to be very happy to help with. I used to be shocked at how many individuals have been contacting me and asking about [my departure]. Look, for that band to have the identical constant guys for 23 years, that’s fairly exceptional. But a part of that was additionally everyone actually understanding what their function was and what the job entailed.

Don [Brewer] is a really good and impressive chief within the sense of conserving everyone of their lane to know what to do and what they need to do and what they should do. Even although typically issues weren’t all the time dealt with in my imaginative and prescient, they have been dealt with to guard how he views Grand Funk’s survival. He’s performed an admirable job with that. I truly thanked him as I used to be having the dialog about my retirement.

Playing to Don’s drumming for all of these years was an actual pleasure. Eric Singer loves him — he got here to see us a couple of instances. You know, a band is simply good as their drummer, that’s one of many issues that musicians typically say. When you’ve bought a drummer that’s within the pocket and strong — and he nonetheless sings nice. Eric was throughout me, “He still sings the same as 1970! That’s unbelievable! He’s amazing!” I’ve bought to present it to Don that he’s 75 and he’s nonetheless singing and enjoying nice drums and main this model of Grand Funk Railroad. It’s unbelievable.