Dennis Thompson (born September 7, 1948) is an American

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

, most famous for being a member of the 1960s–70s Detroit

proto-punk Proto-punk (or protopunk) is rock music played mostly by garage bands from the 1960s to mid-1970s that foreshadowed the punk rock movement. The phrase is a retrospective label; the musicians involved were generally not originally associated wit ...

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

group MC5, which had a No. 82 US single with "

Kick Out the Jams ''Kick Out the Jams'' is the debut album by American proto-punk band MC5. It was released in February 1969, through Elektra Records. It was recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom over two nights, Devil's Night and Halloween, 1968. The LP p ...

" and a No. 30 US album with the same name.

Biography

Thompson began playing drums by the time he was nine years old. Joining the MC5 by 1965, Thompson was later given the nickname "Machine Gun" because of his "assault" style of fast, hard-hitting drumming that sonically resembles the sound of a Thompson machine gun (commonly referred to as a "Tommy Gun"). His drumming pre-figured and influenced punk, metal, and hardcore punk drumming styles. After MC5 broke up in the early 1970s, Thompson was a member of the 1975–1976 Los Angeles-based

supergroup Supergroup or super group may refer to: * Supergroup (music), a music group formed by artists who are already notable or respected in their fields * Supergroup (physics), a generalization of groups, used in the study of supersymmetry * Supergroup ...

The New Order, the 1981 Australia-based supergroup New Race, The Motor City Bad Boys, and The Secrets. In 2001, he guested for

Asmodeus X Asmodeus X is an American electro-industrial band whose music is frequently characterized as a mixture of EBM and darkwave and typically includes the use of environmental sampling.Dj Cybergoth''Asmodeus X Mourningstar (Electrogeneration album of ...

on the song, "The Tiger" (St. Thomas Records). His influences include Elvin Jones, Keith Moon and Mitch Mitchell, and

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...

. In 2015, he described how his drumming technique had changed considerably over time, playing with "much less force and tucked in elbows, more wrist action and less arm action". Thompson was in the band DKT/MC5 with the surviving members of MC5, from 2003-2012. Later, he recorded two tracks for a new MC5 album in 2022.Wayne Kramer Unveils ‘We Are All MC5’ Spring Tour
- ''Yahoo!''. 9 March 2022. Retrieved 18 April 2022.

References

External links

official website

1948 births American punk rock singers Living people MC5 members American people of Slovak descent Protopunk musicians American male drummers American punk rock drummers American rock drummers Singers from Detroit The New Order (band) members 20th-century American drummers New Race members 20th-century American male musicians {{US-rock-drummer-stub