When the MC5’s Wayne Kramer passed in February 2024, punk lost one of its greatest icons. Idolized for his explosive fretwork, gritty, defiant guitar tones and long-running commitment to activism, Kramer’s legacy can now live on in MXR’s new, limited edition Jail Guitar Doors Drive pedal.
The drive unit was designed by Kramer, Jimi Dunlop, and Daredevil Pedals owner Johnny Wator before the MC5 man’s death, and now finally sees the light of day.
The overdrive pedal is named after the late musician’s charity, which uses instruments as tools for inmate rehabilitation and “aims to capture all of the high-voltage energy of Wayne Kramer’s sound.”
Built with two uniquely voiced gain circuits, the two can “cascade” together under a singular pot control that holds dominion over their collective output level and the distortion’s saturation. It’s no-nonsense – but that doesn’t mean it won’t bite your head off.
“This is the MC5’s roaring distortion sound in a box,” says Tom Morello, a longterm Kramer fan and one of his closest friends. “What they’ve (also) tried to bake into the pedal is Wayne’s attitude, and the grit and the rawness of Detroit, and of the MC5.”
For a super-charged example of what the pedal can do, check out MC5’s 2024 track Heavy Liftingwhich featured Morello’s superlative, whammy-loving talents, and a healthy dollop of the Jail Guitar Doors Drive.
“The MC5, with him at the guitar helm along with Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, invented the template that became punk rock music,” Morello explains. “They played in an unapologetic way, from the heart with their radical politics at the forefront and their radical music going head-to-head with it.”
“The rawest moment in the history of rock and roll is that live recording of Kick Out the Jams (Tartar Field, 1970). It unleashes itself like the four horses of the apocalypse running wild in a Beverly Hills crystal shop.”
That sound became the template for this pedal. The stompbox comes in two forms, each featuring artwork from artist Shepard Fairey, a well-known figure in the skateboarding scene, and the artist responsible for the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster.
It is not the first time that MXR and Daredevil have linked up, however. In 2023 the partnership instilled a gnarly fuzz circuit into the guts of Dunlop’s legendary wah pedal, and the results were wild.
Priced at $199, the MXR Jail Guitar Doors Drive pedal is available exclusively from MXR’s official Reverb store.
Check out Reverb for more.
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