Bruce Kulick left Grand Funk Railroad in January 2024 following his 23-year run with them.
The guitarist, who said he wanted to focus on other projects at the time, recently explained his departure to VRP Rocks, saying, “The last couple of years since the pandemic got really wearing on me. Not the music, not playing with them. You know, we all got along. It was just like I’m killing myself with the flights and the hotels and the travel every weekend, and I’m not celebrating my legacy. So, last October, I told Don I’d leave at the end of the year.”
“They have a tremendous, a dear friend of mine and Don’s, who’s now playing guitar. Mark Chatfield,” he noted before revealing, “and Chatfield was the guitar player with Bob Seger when I first met Don Brewer. I mean, it’s like an interesting symmetry there. And that was like 40 years [ago]. That was ‘83 [when] we did that. So, yeah, do the math. It’s crazy.”
Grand Funk Railroad set on a tour with their new member the same month, performing across the United States throughout the year.
“Mark’s having a hell of a time,” Kulick shared. “He loved Grand Funk, and he wants to—he learned the way I was doing Grand Funk, but he loves Foreigner. So, he was able to make it his own, and that’s what he’s done now. So, they’re really still out there doing it. They’re working really well, and I’m so proud of them.”
“Like I said, it was time for me to just concentrate on me, and Don got it. I had the worst travels because I had—I’m [in] West Coast and most of the gigs are [in] Midwest and East Coast. But I keep in touch. I still dream about gigs with them. It’s pretty funny.”
Bruce Kulick, who joined Grand Funk after their second disbandment in 1983, played his last show with them on December 14, 2023, in Marietta, Ohio. While the band went on the road with Chatfield, he teased new projects of his own that might revisit his KISS era.
Grand Funk Railroad’s final 2024 show will take place in Detroit, Michigan, on December 14. The group will quickly return to the stage for a 2025 leg on January 11.
