Life & Wisdom Quote by Wayne Kramer

Kramer is doing damage control on a rock-and-roll myth: the heroic lead guitarist versus the disposable human metronome. He’s careful to say it “wasn’t a class system,” then immediately describes a hierarchy anyway: “his role” and “my role.” That tension is the tell. The line reads like someone trying to honor a bandmate without rewriting how bands actually function, where the spotlight is real currency and solos are the most visible form of authorship.

The phrase “second-rate guy” is loaded not just with ego but with the way audiences and even critics have been trained to hear guitar. Lead work gets framed as personality; rhythm gets framed as labor. Kramer’s insistence that the other player “took great pride” in rhythm technique pushes back against that bias. It reframes rhythm as a craft with its own virtuosity: precision, stamina, feel, the kind of mastery that makes the “soloist” possible in the first place.

The subtext is respect with an edge of guilt. By naming the division of labor so bluntly, Kramer admits the band’s internal economy: you can be essential and still be treated as supporting cast. In the context of a group like the MC5, where the music sold itself as collective force and political brotherhood, that admission matters. It punctures the egalitarian pose without turning it into cruelty. Kramer isn’t absolving himself; he’s showing how art, even at its most communal, still runs on roles, recognition, and who gets heard when the song opens up.