Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner spoke with VRP Rocks about the band’s potential return if they were to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
“I would hope so. It hasn’t been me preventing the band from getting back together. It’s been the other guys and that’s just something that I think they’re off their path right now. They’re off the path,” Farner said about what is stopping the band’s return.
The rocker also commented on Foreigner’s late induction to the Hall Of Fame. “Like you say, Foreigner got in, but the guys that are going out presenting themselves as Foreigner now there’s no original members. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if they got the real Foreigner back together to play at the Rock Hall or for the ceremony, but that would be great to put the real people back together. Then we got something to celebrate, but beside that, all you got is a tribute band.”
Farner seems unhappy with how the Hall Of Fame inducts musicians. In 2021, he criticized the Hall for including rap and hip-hop artists. “Well, it just shows the illegitimacy of that Rock Hall. And the people are definitely smart enough to know this. They need to be reminded, though, that the Rock Hall is not a representation of the will of the people; it is a representation of the will of the owners of the Rock Hall. That’s what it is, and it is super political. And Steve Miller didn’t have a good time there. I read some stuff that I just feel for him,” Farner explained in another interview.
Like Grand Funk Railroad, many people reacted strongly to Foreigner’s exclusion from the Hall Of Fame.
“We’ve waited basically 21 years for this to happen. So when it did happen, it was a surprise in a sense. But it was also a relief that we finally could join our peers in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because I think we’ve definitely earned our place with the singles and the songs we’ve written and performed over the years. You know, what did we do wrong? I don’t know,” former Foreigner bassist Rick Wills once said.
After many other rockers commented on the issue, Foreigner has been inducted, but Grand Funk Railroad is still waiting for their turn.
