Long considered an American rock anthem, 'Born to Be Wild' has a Canadian backstory
New documentary traces the story of one of rock’s most iconic songs and the band behind it
Released in 1968, the song Born to Be Wild is a classic — you'll hear it in commercials, in movies and on television, at birthday parties, weddings and corporate events. The song transcends generations. Its energy, raw defiance and that iconic guitar line have made it one of rock's most powerful anthems.
"Born to Be Wild, it's one of the best songs any rock band ever made," says musician Jello Biafra who played with the Dead Kennedys.
The song is the signature hit of the band Steppenwolf but also represents a turning point in music history. It was a time when flower power was beginning to wilt and the world was turning dark; it was the era of the Vietnam war, assassinations, protests, and social unrest.
Made famous by the cult-classic film Easy Rider, it was iconic Americana. Yet, four out of five band members were Canadian, and two of those, John Kay and Nick St. Nicholas, were German immigrants.
Their story is told in the new documentary Born to Be Wild: The Story of Steppenwolf now streaming on CBC Gem.
Behind the rebellious roar of Born to Be Wild is a surprising origin story that is as much about cultural upheaval as it is about the musicians who created it.
Watch | Musicians Alice Cooper, Jello Biafra and others talk about Born to Be Wild
Steppenwolf's roots were in Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood
Born Joachim Krauledat in 1944 in East Prussia, where his father was killed at war before his birth, John Kay and his mother were refugees who escaped to West Germany and eventually moved to Canada in the late '50s, landing in Toronto.
To add to their struggles, John was diagnosed at an early age with a severe visual impairment, achromatopsia, a rare condition that causes limited vision, sensitivity to light, and colour blindness. He is legally blind. The dark sunglasses he wore on stage were worn because he had a severe aversion to light, not because he was trying to be cool.
Around the same time, Nick St. Nicholas, born Klaus Kassbaum, came to Canada with his family from post-war Germany.
They both came of age in the blossoming music scene of Toronto in the early '60s – now known as the Haight Ashbury or Greenwich Village of the North.
John was honing his blues-influenced guitar and singing skills, and as a solo artist, he played in the coffeehouses of Yorkville. Previously a sleepy residential neighbourhood, in those years Yorkville was coming alive with a burgeoning hippie folk music scene: "It was a magnet for those that just felt out of place in the regular neighbourhoods," remembers Kay in Born to Be Wild: The Story of Steppenwolf.
These coffeehouses were the venues that became the meeting grounds for musicians, artists and intellectuals. Figures like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and David Clayton-Thomas all made their mark here.
The scene in Yorkville mirrored the larger global movements, where music was no longer just entertainment —it became a powerful tool for social and political change. A few streets away, Yonge Street venues were blasting out rock and roll and R&B, to the likes of Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks – with a young Robbie Robertson on guitar. The two music scenes collided as a breeding ground for young musicians like John and Nick.
"Toronto was the nexus of American music and British music," says Canadian music producer Bob Ezrin in Born to Be Wild. "If you take it on a per capita basis, the people coming out of Toronto, we're punching way above our weight class."
Through a mutual friend, John was introduced to Nick, who was playing in clubs with fellow Oshawa musicians in a band called Jack London and the Sparrows. Just around that time, the band was separating from singer Jack London and were looking for a replacement. John and Nick connected over their love of music and shared background.
John started jamming with them and eventually was invited to join the band, renamed The Sparrows: Nick St. Nicholas on bass, Jerry Edmonton on drums, his brother Dennis (later known as Mars Bonfire) on guitar, and Goldy McJohn on keyboards. This was the foundation of what became Steppenwolf.
The story of an iconic song: Born to Be Wild
The Sparrows first went to New York and then travelled to Los Angeles in search of success. Nick, who was the only one with a driver's license, drove the band across the continent.
"Los Angeles at that time, this was a gritty town," says John Kay's daughter, Shawn. "Coming out of the ashes and being tough. And that's where hard rock came from." The scene in Los Angeles would also influence their sound.
In L.A. they played alongside bands like the Doors, but it was San Francisco where, by the late 1960s, the city's counterculture was in full swing. The band went north and it was there that they first attracted a cult audience, including a biker crowd that started to converge on their shows.
In San Francisco, the band eventually parted ways over creative differences. They scattered, went back to L.A., forging their way alone, or with new bands.
Eventually, John brought most of the band back together to form Steppenwolf. Dennis Edmonton (aka Mars Bonfire) departed from the band to pursue a solo career shortly after, but left them with a demo of the first version of the band's breakout hit. Living in a small apartment in L.A. where he couldn't use an amplifier, he recorded an unplugged, almost whispered version of Born to Be Wild. John Kay and Steppenwolf – with new guitarist Michael Monarch — would take this recording to a whole new level that would become the iconic anthem we know today.
The lyrics were a call for adventure: "Get your motor runnin' / Head out on the highway." It echoed with the biker subculture and exemplified everything that they stood for: riding, rebellion and freedom.
It was no coincidence that Born to be Wild was featured in the film Easy Rider, an indie movie starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper who play two bikers on an epic road trip. The film became a huge mainstream success and solidified Steppenwolf's reputation as a biker band. Both the film and the song embodied the rebellion of the 1960s — a rebellion against conformity, authority, and societal norms.
Watch | Members of Steppenwolf talk about the impact of Born to Be Wild
Written and directed by German filmmaker Oliver Schwehm, Born to Be Wild: The Story of Steppenwolf is a refreshing and unexpected story of a song that is ubiquitous in pop culture all over the world.
Weaving the story through interviews and live scenes with surviving band members, their families, and artists like Alice Cooper, Taj Mahal, Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), Klaus Meine (The Scorpions), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Dale Grover (The Melvins), Bob Ezrin (Producer: Kiss, Pink Floyd, Taylor Swift, among others).
It also features incredible archival footage and photos, including never-before-seen 8-mm film from Nick St. Nicholas' vault.
The film brings to light an endearing new Canadian perspective on what was long considered to be an American music story.
These days, John and Nick live about an hour's drive from each other in southern California. They hadn't been together for over 50 years, until this documentary reunited them at the premiere in Munich in July 2024. They were arm-in-arm on stage presenting the film.
Says Rolling Stone music critic Cameron Crowe, "There's a lot of love for Steppenwolf out there and I think why their music remains present … It's authentic. It's not a toy band with toy emotions. They're actually sincere."
Watch Born to Be Wild: The Story of Steppenwolf now streaming on CBC Gem.
