Last week, Wayne Kramer, the former guitarist of seminaly proto-punk band MC5, went to the Los Angeles County State Prison in Lancaster, California to drop off some guitars. It wasn’t his first time seeing the inside of a prison—he served time in the 70s for drug possession—but this time the circumstances were a lot happier, at least for him. The guitar delivery was part of Wayne’s work with Jail Guitar Doors USA, a non-profit founded by Wayne and his wife Margaret. The group provides musical instruments to prisoners all over the country in an effort to rehabilitate them—learning how to play music is a far more productive thing to do than most activities available behind bars. Wayne also brought along some of his musician friends—including Matt Sorum and Gilby Clarke from Guns N’ Roses and Corey Parks from Nashville Pussy—to perform along with a couple bands made up of prisoners for the inmates (who had to stay on the other side of a chain-link fence). I tagged along with Wayne to photograph the show, and caught up with him afterwards to chat about Jail Guitar Doors.

VICE: First off, tell me a bit about your own incarceration in the 1970s and the role music played when you were behind bars.

Wayne Kramer: Music helped me structure my time, as unstructured time in prison is your enemy. Music allowed me to participate in prison life in a positive way by organizing a prison band and putting on regular performances with the inmates who became my band. I was handed a four-year sentence and sent to Lexington Federal Correctional Institution in Kentucky. I went down in 1975 and was paroled back to Detroit in 1978, so I served just under three years of the four years with a three-year special parole term. The great jazz trumpeter Red Rodney was serving time at the same time I was and once he discovered that I could read chord charts that were more complicated than simple rock songs, he took me under his wing. We got permission from the prison administration to form a Music Theory class.

In the middle of my prison term, there was a radical policy shift in corrections in America. We went from a rehabilitation-based model to an accountability-based model. In other words, we no longer believe that inmates can be changed for the better. Now, we’re only interested in punishment and retribution and that’s been the position in the United States for the last 35 years.

How open have fellow musicians been to taking part in your organization?

Our fellow musicians from all over the world have been wonderfully positive and are willing to step up and help however they can. Musicians have always identified with the people caught on the margins of society. We are musician-founded, musician-operated, and for the most part, musician-supported. And music fans have been a large part of the additional support. 

You’ve been trying to organize this event at Lancaster for over two years, why did it take so long? 

It took so long because the state of California is broke and they couldn’t afford the overtime for the guards. Arts in corrections rehabilitative programs are not a priority despite their proven effectiveness.

Last week you visited and performed at Lancaster’s Honor Yard; can you explain what that is?

Prisoners themselves organized the concept of an Honor Yard, where, if you agree to  certain criteria, you can live without the level of violence that exists in the rest of the system. The criteria is to forego violence, racism, gang affiliations, drug and alcohol use and also to agree to use your time engaged in positive activities such as studying, writing, etc. Inmate Ken Hartman is a resident of the Honor yard and one of the group of inmates who fought for its establishment. He is also an award-winning author of Mother California and actually is a fully-engaged father to his teenaged daughter.

What is the music program like at Lancaster? 

The equipment is in terrible shape. It’s decades old and broken down, but since there is no money in prison budgets for arts in corrections, the inmates do amazingly well given the state of their gear and their particular situation.

Upon our arrival at Lancaster you pointed out the rows of unmanned guard towers.

When Lancaster was originally built, security was of course their primary concern. They didn’t realize that no one would actually attempt to go through the electric fence that surrounds the facility and that they would need to pay three guards three shifts per day to man those towers. So now the towers just sit there unmanned. It was security overkill. People don’t actually try to escape that way. Empty guard towers are really symbolic of the California prison-building madness.

When the power went down at one point, you apologized for the delay and one prisoner responded “Don’t worry, it’s not like we are going anywhere.” Is the inmate response to your visits generally this light-hearted? 

Yes prison humor is the greatest humor on earth. It’s a dark, gallows-type humor, which really appeals to me.

Did you feel like you connected with the inmates when you performed? 

Yes. I always feel like I connect with the inmates. Sometimes I think they’re the only people who understand what I’m talking about… When we were joined by the inmate who rapped about running for president, it was the high point of the show for me. We don’t ask what people are in prison for. We don’t judge anyone. They have already been judged.  

How can people support the cause? 

What will help us the most to function as a non-profit is a direct donation at jailguitardoors.org.  What JGD-USA does will surely change what happens to the men and women currently incarcerated, 90 percent of whom are going to get out and return to our neighborhoods.

JGD has a bunch of merch designed by Shepard Fairey and upcoming benefit gigs, check out jailguitardoors.org for more info.