Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right, y'all,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a long one. You ready, And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the introduction. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see how good I am at winging this.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So, uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 1: and we're with Sugar Steve Laiyah and unpaid Bill fan Tickeelo.
Speaker 1: I gotta pour out some wheat grass for the brothers
Speaker 1: who ain't here picnic. Yeah, So I just want to
Speaker 1: tell you guys alone, you know, my distinguished QLs CO stars,
Speaker 1: that I'm offering in advance a full apology because you
Speaker 1: know we already we already know that I'm cuckoo for
Speaker 1: anything purple related. But unlike our distinguished guest today, I'm
Speaker 1: throwing all of my cool out the window.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All my professionalism and whatever so called journalistic integrity I
Speaker 1: had is gone. I'm going fool. Chris Farley, Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: SNL interview mode. Right now, you guys aren't encouraged, you're
Speaker 1: encouraging me. Trust me. This is gonna be bad, and
Speaker 1: I'm look. Let me also preface by asking my guests
Speaker 1: to forgive me for all my levels of nerdom for
Speaker 1: this particular episode. Our guest today is probably the last
Speaker 1: plank of the original Purple squad or army, to whom
Speaker 1: I have not revealed my true geekdom. I've exhausted my
Speaker 1: I've exhausted my batteries on name Jimmy, Sheila Apples, Jill, Mark, Wendy, Lisa, Susannah, Allen, James, Shoot, Bobby, Jesse, Terry,
Speaker 1: even Brenda, Susan and I, like Saint Paul, I've exhausted
Speaker 1: my batteries asking dumb ass questions to every member of
Speaker 1: that squad except for our guest today. And that's on purpose.
Speaker 1: It's on purpose because I knew there was going to
Speaker 1: be a day in which we would get him as
Speaker 1: a guest on our esteemed webbee winning podcast. All right,
Speaker 1: and so okay, that was the preface. So here's the
Speaker 1: actual introduction. Yo, man, you only get this one moment once.
Speaker 1: All right, So, ladies and gentlemen. I was as I
Speaker 1: was prepping notes earlier, and notes it's like a small
Speaker 1: post it. As I was prepping notes, I realized that
Speaker 1: almost in every case of history, like once you reached
Speaker 1: that twenty year mark revisionist license sort of kicks in.
Speaker 1: So that said, I'll say it right here that our
Speaker 1: guest is probably my gateway drug to the Purple Kingdom.
Speaker 1: And I'm just saying that because I remember when Prince's
Speaker 1: debut was on the radio back in seventy eight, when
Speaker 1: Soft and White debuted on the radio. It was only
Speaker 1: because I remembered it, because because it was literally two
Speaker 1: minutes after my dad had to break the news to
Speaker 1: my mother that my grandfather just died. So for the longest,
Speaker 1: my Prince association was that song I was listening to
Speaker 1: while my mom was sobbing on the kitchen floor, you know,
Speaker 1: crying to death. And so for the next four to
Speaker 1: five years, Prince was more of a fixture on like
Speaker 1: my sister's girlfriend in his bedroom walls and all that
Speaker 1: high school ride on magazine stuff. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I mean I duck some joins as a kid, but
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of teen Jackson. And then
Speaker 1: shout out to my friend in sixth grade, Reginald Chieves,
Speaker 1: who told me that his older brother told him that
Speaker 1: our guest today and Prince were down with each other.
Speaker 1: And then he pulls out a radio, one of those
Speaker 1: realistic radio shack cheap things, and he transforms my life
Speaker 1: by playing me the entire ten minute version of cool
Speaker 1: and instantly, as a sixth grader, I was upset. I mean,
Speaker 1: records were five to ninety nine back then, so I
Speaker 1: mean I broke the piggy bank purchased the album Dahn.
Speaker 1: You know I turned that I'm down on the bad
Speaker 1: parts whatever. My parents are like super Christian. But the
Speaker 1: next thing I knew, me and my entire sixth grade squad,
Speaker 1: for the first time in our lives, had brand new
Speaker 1: heroes to look up to who were not born in Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 1: So that entire summer, like all of our Jordash Sergey
Speaker 1: o Valente begging, all that went out the window. And
Speaker 1: thanks to my science teacher who thought that the Time
Speaker 1: guys looked like the second coming of like Louis Jordan
Speaker 1: and the Tempanty five. He told us, well, if you
Speaker 1: guys want to dress like those guys, you gotta go
Speaker 1: to the five and Time. So you know, I've been
Speaker 1: avoiding going to the Goodwill all of my life. No
Speaker 1: one wants to go to the Goodwill Salvation Army. But
Speaker 1: now me and my whole crew are privy to a
Speaker 1: secret the world doesn't know about, which is basically, you
Speaker 1: can cop a pair of baggies for five bucks. Look
Speaker 1: sharp as hell. Pull all the Jains in sixth grade.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Monocha. Jordan looks, this is just as
Speaker 1: awesome now as fifty as she did when she was ten.
Speaker 1: But basically our parts are lated because now we're buying
Speaker 1: all these cheap suits looking good and they don't have
Speaker 1: to spend the money. So yes, only because of our guests.
Speaker 1: Our guest gave Prince the green light, not the opposite
Speaker 1: in my world that I gave Prince the green light
Speaker 1: and eighty two and then caught up afterwards, so you know,
Speaker 1: because Prince Vans want to swear that they were all
Speaker 1: down since the beginning, and no, make no mistake. If
Speaker 1: it wasn't for Mars e Day, my entire music direction
Speaker 1: probably would have went to either I don't know, Luther
Speaker 1: Manjos or Lelo Thomas. I don't know. God is here
Speaker 1: with us, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for
Speaker 1: Mars e Day. This is probably the longest introduction I've
Speaker 1: ever done. It's gonna say I was like it shows
Speaker 1: over now.
Speaker 4: The disclaimer this is the first.
Speaker 1: Right now, but it's okay, yeah, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I really love a guess, I'll geek out. So
Speaker 1: thank you. I can't even think you enough. I have
Speaker 1: a gazillient questions. Actually, I want to jump ahead to
Speaker 1: a question I've been dying, dying, dying to know. So
Speaker 1: every interview that I've heard you recall your story. Of
Speaker 1: course you get to the part where you realize that
Speaker 1: Prince is about to choose Bobby Z as a drummer
Speaker 1: and not you, clearly the more skilled drummer. And you know,
Speaker 1: most Prince fans and most QLs listeners know kind of
Speaker 1: know what time it is whatever, so we kind of
Speaker 1: dig the reason why Prince did the ban outfit the
Speaker 1: way he did, sort of after Slide the Family Stone.
Speaker 1: But what I want to know is, in light of
Speaker 1: everything that's happened for you, if you were able to
Speaker 1: have a time machine and this is not even a
Speaker 1: you know, to bring Prince back a live thing, but
Speaker 1: if you were able to get back in the time
Speaker 1: machine and go back to nineteen eighty and you knew
Speaker 1: there was a chance for you to get in the
Speaker 1: revolution as a drummer instead of the path you're on
Speaker 1: right now? What what what? What path are you choosing?
Speaker 1: Are you choosing to still be his drummer or your career?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, brother quest, I want to thank
Speaker 3: you for that that that grand intro, My brother. You know,
Speaker 3: I almost forgot that I was a guest.
Speaker 5: I was just like.
Speaker 1: The host.
Speaker 5: How many pages, you know.
Speaker 3: But but that's an interesting question. I liked that question
Speaker 3: because in the moment back then, I definitely would have
Speaker 3: chose to be the drummer because I was all about
Speaker 3: drumming and that was my life, you know, my security blanket,
Speaker 3: and that's what I did every day. That's what I
Speaker 3: skipped school to do. That's what I aspired to do.
Speaker 3: But looking back now, you know, hindsight, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: glad that I was kind of pushed, if you will,
Speaker 3: into the position that I'm in because you know, I
Speaker 3: found another aspect of my abilities that that I.
Speaker 5: Didn't really know about.
Speaker 1: Mm okay, because I still feel like, and I try
Speaker 1: to think of the logic, I'm like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you were given you were either given a choice to
Speaker 1: be like from my personal position, like my dad wanted
Speaker 1: to be opposite for me, my dad wanted me to
Speaker 1: be a session drummer because you know, in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I want a career like I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to drum for Anita Baker, like I
Speaker 1: want to be the guy that owns the stadium that
Speaker 1: she plays it like. I always thought that. So for me,
Speaker 1: I was I would just read when you say, like
Speaker 1: a man, he incused me as this drummer, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you got something better. But then I thought about it,
Speaker 1: Maybe playing with Prince as a musician is fun, and
Speaker 1: perhaps in him you found someone that's like a level
Speaker 1: of musicianship that you respected. And you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: about being lucrative or having more money or whatever. It
Speaker 1: was about like, oh, this is where my joy really is.
Speaker 1: And so I always wondered that, Well, the thing is,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a choice like that.
Speaker 3: And I never thought that drumming for Prince would be
Speaker 3: fun because he was probably one of the.
Speaker 1: Worst of tax masters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you will, you know that you could work under.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't about that. But at that point I
Speaker 3: never really considered being a lead singer. I was a drummer,
Speaker 3: and so that's all I knew, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: play drums, and I'm thinking, you know, my man's got
Speaker 3: this deal. Man, he's like Warner Brothers. He's about to
Speaker 3: hit the big stage. I want to be a part
Speaker 3: of that. And that was, you know, all that I
Speaker 3: was thinking about.
Speaker 5: At that moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I see. So you didn't think like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy's going to be so prolific that he's going
Speaker 1: to need other outlets and channels to express himself, and
Speaker 1: so I could be that outlet or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the time didn't exist in that moment, so I
Speaker 3: get it. You know, that came about later, and you know,
Speaker 3: like I said, I'm very glad that it did, because
Speaker 3: you know, I found something that I can do even
Speaker 3: better than drummings. So you know, it all worked out.
Speaker 4: We asked when and where did he hear your voice
Speaker 4: to think that you needed to make another decision.
Speaker 3: You know, we were in a I was in Princes
Speaker 3: Group Grand Central back in the day when we were
Speaker 3: like teenagers, and you know, I would sing a couple
Speaker 3: of songs from the drums and I would even come
Speaker 3: out in front and are percussionists at the time, would
Speaker 3: would go back play drums, I'd come out and sing.
Speaker 3: So he knew that I could sing, but he didn't
Speaker 3: know about the front man, you know, but he did.
Speaker 3: He's the one responsible.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: We tried when we were putting the time together. We
Speaker 3: tried Alexander O'Neil. We tried a handful of other singers
Speaker 3: and it just didn't work out. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: Prince was like, well, why don't you do it? And
Speaker 3: you know, I had to like stop and think about that.
Speaker 3: I was like, because I'm going to be the drummer
Speaker 3: in the band. He said, no, you need to be
Speaker 3: the singer. I said, I don't know how to lead
Speaker 3: a band. He said, put your hand in your pocket
Speaker 3: and be cool. I said, I can do that.
Speaker 1: Good advice, all right. So it's funny to say that
Speaker 1: because I'm actually working on I'm working on a book
Speaker 1: right now. There's a part, there's a chapter where I
Speaker 1: actually kind of explore the idea of what black cool is.
Speaker 1: Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca Walker, she does this, she does
Speaker 1: this essay about a woman on the New York subway
Speaker 1: and this black woman gets on She's like gorgeous. She
Speaker 1: sits down and Alice Walker immediately knew that her number
Speaker 1: one weapon was the way that she ignored people. So
Speaker 1: like this drop dead gorgeous walks on the tree, she
Speaker 1: sits and immediately Alice Walker notices like five guys like
Speaker 1: kind of oogling her. But the more that she ignores them,
Speaker 1: the more that they want her. And it's almost like
Speaker 1: she said that that's the story of black cool, where
Speaker 1: you know, normally we're taught to please and play kate,
Speaker 1: you know Motown's things like you know, go to charm school.
Speaker 1: You know, we're the right thing. Da da da da da,
Speaker 1: or you know minstrel se era entertainment where you gotta
Speaker 1: sort of shuck and jive your way into people's hearts
Speaker 1: and disarm them, whereas cool is where you're holding everything back,
Speaker 1: which leaves mystery and it makes people want to know
Speaker 1: you more, like that sort of thing. It's so weird
Speaker 1: now seeing her her breakdown of what cool means and
Speaker 1: now kind of revisiting what the time represented because you know,
Speaker 1: I guess for people that weren't around at that period,
Speaker 1: like you, you guys to me were kind of what
Speaker 1: NWA thought they were and I don't mean and just
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, NWA ride like the most
Speaker 1: dangerous group of all type. But the thing is is
Speaker 1: that they overdid it so it became cartoony and then entertainment,
Speaker 1: whereas the time was like dead pan serious like de Niro,
Speaker 1: like you don't know if they're serious or not. You don't.
Speaker 1: It's like hid your daughters like that sort of thing. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was I've never seen a black group
Speaker 1: not so eager to please or sort of like unbothered,
Speaker 1: like you know, we could take her to leave you
Speaker 1: Like That's how it looked to me when I was
Speaker 1: seeing you guys when as a kid, like, oh, these
Speaker 1: guys don't care like which you've just never seen that
Speaker 1: before in a black group, because most black groups like
Speaker 1: were eager, you know, happy to do.
Speaker 4: That was that the plan war is like, was that
Speaker 4: the plan y'all already knew what you're cool was gonna be,
Speaker 4: and it was no going back and forth as to
Speaker 4: what we're doing and what we're gonna look like and
Speaker 4: how we're gonna rep.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there was an evolution of cool, okay,
Speaker 3: and quite like Quest was saying, and in the very beginning,
Speaker 3: it was a very laid back cool where people had
Speaker 3: to invite themselves into the room with us.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think you.
Speaker 3: Know, as it evolved, you know, it became more of
Speaker 3: an extrovert type of cool, and you know, it was
Speaker 3: just it was an evolution.
Speaker 5: But yeah, we definitely, you know, back in the early
Speaker 5: days had that mystique.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, when we did, when I did
Speaker 3: do my laugh or whatever, you know, it's like, is
Speaker 3: he laughing?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: You know, what's he laughing about? You know what does
Speaker 3: what time?
Speaker 5: Is it mean?
Speaker 3: You know what is all this about? So you know,
Speaker 3: we kind of had people guessing, you know.
Speaker 1: Wanting wanting to be in on the joke. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I made you want to be down with them that way.
Speaker 1: I think Maris, what was your what was your first
Speaker 1: musical memory?
Speaker 5: It went way back.
Speaker 3: You know, because I kind of just came into the
Speaker 3: world with the notion that I was going to be
Speaker 3: involved with music, you know, born in fifty six, you know,
Speaker 3: and I can remember listening to the Beatles on our
Speaker 3: little am radio that we had, and you know, then
Speaker 3: later I remember doing you know the James Brown running
Speaker 3: around my you know, the house in the projects and
Speaker 3: fruit of the looms on doing the splits trying to
Speaker 3: do James Brown and all that, and then sixty four
Speaker 3: comes around. We were one of the first, you know,
Speaker 3: let you know how what priorities were back then, but
Speaker 3: we had one of the first color TVs in the projects,
Speaker 3: so all that. Back then, I was watching bandstand man
Speaker 3: and I'm watching the Supremes at four tops, you know,
Speaker 3: all these motown acts on bandstand and I was like,
Speaker 3: that's what I want to do, you know. So those
Speaker 3: were my early memories, you know, of music. But I
Speaker 3: just it was just.
Speaker 1: In my blood, okay. And what was it about the
Speaker 1: drums that? How did you come to be a drummer?
Speaker 1: And were there any other instruments that you played?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went through them all, you know, I went
Speaker 3: through I wanted to play drums first and foremost, but
Speaker 3: you know, you probably know in school, everybody takes drums first.
Speaker 3: So the drums were never available, you know, and I
Speaker 3: was always late to register for what I wanted to play. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I played the saxophone. I got pretty good
Speaker 3: at that. That was the first time I got invited
Speaker 3: to be in a band, but I didn't want to
Speaker 3: play saxophone in a band, so I passed on that
Speaker 3: then I went to the bass. The only base they
Speaker 3: had was the upright bass. I said, well, I'm not
Speaker 3: lugging this home to practice. So you know, I played
Speaker 3: a few different instruments, but the drums just stood out,
Speaker 3: you know, And so I beat on my mom's couch
Speaker 3: and pots and pans until she finally caved in and
Speaker 3: bought me my first drum set. And you know it
Speaker 3: was that was just really love at.
Speaker 5: First sight or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 3: But that was it for me.
Speaker 1: So I know that you're a left handed drummer along
Speaker 1: with Jellybean is also a left handed drummer, or at
Speaker 1: least am I assuming that you're also left handed? I am, okay,
Speaker 1: that's weird. I'm left handed too, but still I play.
Speaker 1: I play drums in traditional way. Yeah yeah, so or
Speaker 1: yeah backhanded. The thing is is that you know, I
Speaker 1: first saw my first backhanded drummer, like in the late seventies.
Speaker 1: So like when you're setting up the drums and you
Speaker 1: decide that this is the way I want to face
Speaker 1: and this is my positioning, Like no one tried to
Speaker 1: correct you and say, well you should be ambidexterrous or
Speaker 1: drum on both sides. Or like, how did you wind
Speaker 1: up drumming what we would call and reverse?
Speaker 3: They say, Brother, you asking me questions that make me
Speaker 3: question myself.
Speaker 1: Right now, welcome to quest love, superior. Man, this ain't
Speaker 1: gonna be the So tell us about junkle love. I
Speaker 1: already told you you've heard that question. But I already
Speaker 1: told you, man, I'm a nerd out.
Speaker 5: No, for real, I appreciate that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just think when I got my first drum set,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm down in the basement, you know, pulling
Speaker 3: out the box and setting it up, and I just
Speaker 3: gravitated toward having my snare, you know, on on my
Speaker 3: right side. And you know, I just that's just how
Speaker 3: I set them up, and I just continue.
Speaker 5: To play that way.
Speaker 1: Okay, So doesn't that make it hard to quote casually
Speaker 1: sit in like, do you have the ability to actually
Speaker 1: play the opposite way?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: No, I always you know, I can't switch the whole
Speaker 3: set around, but I can at.
Speaker 5: Least switch there and the high hat.
Speaker 3: Man, it makes the feeld sound interesting when you're going
Speaker 3: back towards around.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I see that. I don't I know that
Speaker 1: uh Garibaldi is holds dear to your heart, but like
Speaker 1: was he was he your who's your first drumming hero?
Speaker 5: Oh my, my drumming heroes were definitely all the James
Speaker 5: Brown drummers, you know.
Speaker 3: And and and and and listening you know, back to
Speaker 3: can't stand it and I got the feeling and stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean to me, the pockets and the meters brothers
Speaker 3: came up with was nothing short of incredible. And I
Speaker 3: definitely see where Garibaldi got his chops from listening to them.
Speaker 3: And but I just there was a technical way that
Speaker 3: he put it together that I I just thought was
Speaker 3: very clever. But definitely all the JB's drummers in the
Speaker 3: early days and still to this day for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I know that at some point you guys
Speaker 1: were all under the same management. Have you ever got
Speaker 1: into talk or get cool with Dave Garibaldi at all?
Speaker 5: Or we've talked a couple of times.
Speaker 3: You know, I go, you know, to a show when
Speaker 3: I whenever I can catch him when I know he's drumming,
Speaker 3: and you know, he he knows you know that.
Speaker 5: That I did.
Speaker 3: His style, but you know that's not the extent of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So just like nice, pleasant trees, but never like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it, guys, call you ol yo man, check this
Speaker 1: thing out. Okay, So you know, we asked, we asked
Speaker 1: Jimmy jim his version of this. Can you break down
Speaker 1: your version of growing up in Minneapolis as far as
Speaker 1: you know, the side of town you grew up on,
Speaker 1: where the cool side of town was, the side of
Speaker 1: town you don't go to radio socially like, could you
Speaker 1: just give us a kind of a run of what
Speaker 1: your your preteen life was in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: My preteen life, you know in Minnesota was I pretty
Speaker 3: much lived in the don't go to areas.
Speaker 1: Oh, you live on the other side of the tracks?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you know, both sides south side and north
Speaker 3: side were the areas that if somebody said, hey, where
Speaker 3: should I not go in Minneapolis, they would have said both.
Speaker 5: Sides of the town that I lived on.
Speaker 3: But what my experience and my takeaway from Minneapolis is,
Speaker 3: I can't hate on it because that's obviously where I
Speaker 3: really found myself and musically and in a great circle
Speaker 3: of musicians. But at the end of the day, my
Speaker 3: experience in Minneapolis, I'm not surprised with the whole George
Speaker 3: Floyd situation because I saw Minneapolis as being a racist town.
Speaker 5: And it just doesn't. It didn't surprise me.
Speaker 3: First avenue, which Prince chose to glorify, didn't really even
Speaker 3: cater to to black at all.
Speaker 5: You know, it was all about rock.
Speaker 3: Bands and husky. Yeah, we didn't hang out there at
Speaker 3: all and never really felt welcome there. So you know,
Speaker 3: that was just you know, it was interesting that he
Speaker 3: chose that and it worked out, but that's not the
Speaker 3: you know, the purple Ring Minneapolis is not the Minneapolis
Speaker 3: that I.
Speaker 5: Grew up in.
Speaker 1: So you guys had to build that utopian because like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was one of those people that like, you know
Speaker 1: that the modern aray theme, the modern air scene where
Speaker 1: you know, you and Apples are sitting in the audience
Speaker 1: with your champagne and all these black and white and
Speaker 1: mixed race people or just dance. Like in my mind,
Speaker 1: I thought like, oh, Minnesota's this utopian sort of you know,
Speaker 1: this mythical utopian place that we need to go to.
Speaker 1: But that was basically something that you guys had to build.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know what, you know, I just there's good
Speaker 3: and bad people, you know, but you know, Minneapolis grew
Speaker 3: to be that because so many people saw Purple Rain.
Speaker 3: And I think Prince did a great job of making
Speaker 3: Minneapolis really look like this music mecca and this melting
Speaker 3: pot and you know it, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: but it it wasn't like that, you know, And I
Speaker 3: think he helped he helped the city a lot by
Speaker 3: choosing to use First Avenue and glorify it like that.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm not.
Speaker 3: Trying to, you know, sound lean in one direction the other.
Speaker 3: Had a lot of good white friends and all of that.
Speaker 3: But I was, you know, stopped by the cops a lot,
Speaker 3: you know, thrown on the hood of my car in
Speaker 3: front of my five year old daughter at the time
Speaker 3: over really trivial stuff.
Speaker 5: So when you were it was on the way, it
Speaker 5: was on the way, you know. But but still, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I had one of the first uh you know,
Speaker 3: I was one of the first brothers you know, bought
Speaker 3: a porch back in nineteen eighty you know, two and Stopford,
Speaker 3: you know, just having a high end car.
Speaker 5: So you know, it was just.
Speaker 3: It was it was crazy stuff, you know.
Speaker 4: So wait, can I ask what that being said? Now?
Speaker 4: I want to know about your people then, because like
Speaker 4: where were your parents from and what was their background.
Speaker 4: I know you said you grew up in the projects,
Speaker 4: but who were who were your parents?
Speaker 3: Well, my parents, we're all out of Illinois. So I
Speaker 3: was born in Springfield, Illinois, and you know, all my
Speaker 3: folks were like Springfield, Decatur, Illinois, Chicago, that circle down there.
Speaker 3: And you know, a couple of my relatives moved up
Speaker 3: to Minneapolis. And the story goes, and like I always
Speaker 3: like to say, it's in.
Speaker 5: The book, you know, but you know, my mom took.
Speaker 3: Us up to Minneapolis.
Speaker 6: We were supposed to be going to Cali, and I
Speaker 6: was sold the looking forward to that, and we stopped
Speaker 6: in Minneapolis to visit my sick aunt, so my mom said.
Speaker 5: And we ended up there for the next twenty years.
Speaker 5: And I was a little bitter about.
Speaker 3: That, I understand, But it got good, you know, it
Speaker 3: got really good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I met some really good people.
Speaker 3: I met Prince, I met Andre Simone and all of
Speaker 3: my guys, you know, because I couldn't find myself. I
Speaker 3: wasn't an athlete, and I wasn't popular in school for
Speaker 3: no particular reason.
Speaker 5: So once I got.
Speaker 3: In the band, and once I found myself with the music,
Speaker 3: then all of sudden, you know what I mean, life
Speaker 3: changed for me. So Minneapolis for me was the place
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Okay in the idea of well, first of all, I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to wrap my head around the fact that
Speaker 1: and I'm going on Jimmy Jam's account about how radio
Speaker 1: was at the time. How are you guys getting culture?
Speaker 1: Like it's baffling to me that for a group of people,
Speaker 1: and meaning that all of you in Minnesota who basically
Speaker 1: dictated what black culture would be in entertainment from the
Speaker 1: eighties on, and that's you know, music, attitude, style, all
Speaker 1: those things for you guys to not even have that
Speaker 1: foundation to even know to build upon it. Like, how
Speaker 1: are you learning about whatever was hipping black in the
Speaker 1: day if it's not in Minnesota? Like how are you
Speaker 1: getting what's your internet? How do you know about the Meters?
Speaker 1: How do you know about a group called heat Wave?
Speaker 1: Like how are you getting hip to this?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 3: So you know, first of all, you got diverse.
Speaker 5: Parents from different parts of the country.
Speaker 3: Moving from Chicago to Minneapolis, moving from California to Minneapolis,
Speaker 3: and they're bringing their record elections. And then also we
Speaker 3: had back in the day it was called KUXL am
Speaker 3: radio station that played all the soul music and it
Speaker 3: broadcasted from maybe eight in the morning til the sundown
Speaker 3: and had like a five block radius. But listen to
Speaker 3: you know, you could get you know, all of the
Speaker 3: new music there. And then so then we would hear
Speaker 3: the new Parliament Funkadelic, we would hear the new.
Speaker 5: Commodores or whatever.
Speaker 3: And then we would go to the mom and pop
Speaker 3: and we say, hey, when do you get when this record?
Speaker 3: When is this record coming in? And they would tell
Speaker 3: us we'd be waiting on this record. And then on
Speaker 3: the other hand, you know, we could listen to the
Speaker 3: groups like the Commodores and Diana Ross and Lou Rawls
Speaker 3: and that had surface to pop radio, and we hear
Speaker 3: their music, and then we would hear the pop music.
Speaker 3: And then so this is in our brains when we
Speaker 3: sit down to say we're going to write a song,
Speaker 3: and then we're thinking Parliament Funkadelic, We're thinking James Brown,
Speaker 3: but then we're hearing you know, all of the pop
Speaker 3: bands in our brains and so you know, these melodies,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of meld together and and I think
Speaker 3: that's how we really came up with what we ended up.
Speaker 1: With oh okay, I see, I see, I'm familiar with
Speaker 1: the kind of mixture of Enterprise slash Grand Central slash
Speaker 1: Flight Time amalgamation. But were there any other bands in
Speaker 1: the area that you were frightened of or just like, yo,
Speaker 1: they're gonna make it, or or even other people who
Speaker 1: were from the area, like the d trained guys, or
Speaker 1: even the what's his name rock Rocky Robins like or
Speaker 1: the Lips incorporated people like non Purple associated Minneapolis musicians
Speaker 1: like the other guys. How fierce was the competition or
Speaker 1: was it just like the four main groups that eventually
Speaker 1: wound up working all together.
Speaker 3: The competition was amazing. It felt like there was a
Speaker 3: band on every block. But for some reason, I always
Speaker 3: felt like, you know, and flight Time, you know.
Speaker 5: Was amazing. You know.
Speaker 3: There was a group called the Family that Sonny Thompson.
Speaker 3: I think Sonny plays in one of the spinoff Prince
Speaker 3: bands right now. And he's the guy that came by
Speaker 3: and he plays everything like Prince did. I think he
Speaker 3: taught Prince some things. And he's the guy that really
Speaker 3: came by and taught me my first real drum beat
Speaker 3: and how to really start mashing on the drums, and
Speaker 3: he was that kind of guy. But you know, there
Speaker 3: was the competition was fierce. But the reason why I
Speaker 3: got in Grand Central was because I went to a
Speaker 3: high school dance. I thought I was going there to
Speaker 3: see a girl, to meet up with a girl. I
Speaker 3: saw them plan and I forgot all about.
Speaker 1: The girl that you were on the day.
Speaker 3: I stood there right in front of the band and
Speaker 3: I was a mesmerized. You know, you got Prince thirteen
Speaker 3: years old on the guitar, Andre Simone, his Prince's cousin,
Speaker 3: Charles Smith, they call him Chaz. These guys are playing
Speaker 3: Santana Hendrix, They're playing everything like they're twenty one years old.
Speaker 3: Prince is doing the amazing guitar solos at that age,
Speaker 3: and I just said, man, you know, and I've been
Speaker 3: wood shedding on the drums for years at that point,
Speaker 3: and I said, I got to be a part of this.
Speaker 3: And you know, my whole point is I got to
Speaker 3: know Andre Simone. He came by my house one day.
Speaker 3: It's in the book Ques, you know, you know, and
Speaker 3: we were skipping school and he heard me play drums, man,
Speaker 3: and you know, I played some Garabaldi's Soul Vaccination with
Speaker 3: his hip, you know, and I'm firing up all my
Speaker 3: grooves and I stopped playing and he's looking at me
Speaker 3: like eyes all stretch. I was like, what, man, He's like,
Speaker 3: I didn't know you could play like that. And he said,
Speaker 3: you know, we're having trouble, you know, with a little
Speaker 3: you know, our drummers chasing women. He's not showing up
Speaker 3: a rehearsal and everything. We're looking, you know, to replace
Speaker 3: him and looking for somebody serious. You should come by
Speaker 3: and bring you drums, you know, let Prince hear you.
Speaker 3: So I take my drums over there, I set them up,
Speaker 3: I started firing up the grooves. We do some of
Speaker 3: the songs. I'm I'm, you know, doing my thing, and
Speaker 3: you know, so we stopped. Prince, you know, was a
Speaker 3: man of very few words, even back then. He's looking
Speaker 3: at me very mysteriously. You never really said shit to me.
Speaker 3: But then Andre came to me and he's like, man,
Speaker 3: you know, Prince loved it. You're in. So my point
Speaker 3: is that I felt like I was getting into a
Speaker 3: superior situation.
Speaker 5: From the time that I got into Grand Central.
Speaker 3: So I already felt like I was in a band
Speaker 3: that was even as fierce as the competition was. I
Speaker 3: felt like I was in the best band in Minneapolis
Speaker 3: at that point in time.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, often this name comes up anytimes we do
Speaker 1: these types of episodes, and I never ask, and I
Speaker 1: got to ask you. The common denominator between everyone associated
Speaker 1: with Minneapolis that the name holds holdly is the name
Speaker 1: of Sonny Thompson. But is there a reason why he
Speaker 1: was never in the first draft of any of these
Speaker 1: projects coming up like he did you guys ever figure like, oh,
Speaker 1: how can we get Sonny down with us? Or was
Speaker 1: he just so advanced that, you know, you guys never
Speaker 1: even considered that he'd be down with y'all. Or because
Speaker 1: everyone speaks of Sonny Thompson with this like religious like
Speaker 1: the best thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: He's an amazing musician and way ahead of his time,
Speaker 3: and his name I do believe came up to be
Speaker 3: in the time. But I had a different idea myself
Speaker 3: of what the band should be. And I already have
Speaker 3: my eyes focused on Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis because
Speaker 3: I had heard them play. I knew Flight Time was
Speaker 3: an amazing band, and I heard they had done some
Speaker 3: songs produced some songs on Cynthia Johnson, who was the
Speaker 3: one that ended up saying funky Town and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah, And so I already had that in mind,
Speaker 3: and you know he didn't argue with me on that,
Speaker 3: but I believe he wanted Sonny in the band.
Speaker 5: And you know, he had his idea what the.
Speaker 3: Time should be, and I had mine and fortunately, you know,
Speaker 3: he he went with my version of the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, So how do you wrestle? Like, what is
Speaker 1: the story of how you got kind of your own
Speaker 1: all star draft if you will, grabbing these people from
Speaker 1: various groups and making your your your own band.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it was pretty easy actually, because you know,
Speaker 3: everybody knew that. You know, Prince had done this thing.
Speaker 3: He had this big deal with Warner Brothers. He showed up,
Speaker 3: he went and got the deal, and you know he
Speaker 3: always used his pick for his afro, you know, cake cutter.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember the cake cutters. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, that pick with the handle on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with that cake cutter. Yes, I'm very familiar with that.
Speaker 3: Yes, he always had his cake cutter. So he went
Speaker 3: and got his deal with Warner Brothers. They cut him
Speaker 3: a check for eighty g's. We had never seen nothing
Speaker 3: like that. They had his name on it, and just
Speaker 3: to you know, seal the deal, he said, it's cake
Speaker 3: cutter right next to the check.
Speaker 1: You know, so we go.
Speaker 5: That it was for real.
Speaker 3: But anyway, you know, I just wanted flight time, you know, Jimmy,
Speaker 3: Terry and Monty and I really wanted Jellybean to be
Speaker 3: the drummer, but I was the drummer. So at that
Speaker 3: point we were looking at different singers. And that's when
Speaker 3: Prince said, hey, why don't you sing? And you know,
Speaker 3: at first I wasn't fond of that idea, but then
Speaker 3: when I thought about it, I said, hey, that means
Speaker 3: jelly Being could be in the band, and so everybody's in.
Speaker 3: And meanwhile, you know, when I was playing in enterprise
Speaker 3: band A Pleasure, you know, I had heard about this
Speaker 3: guitar player down in Rock Island, Illinois who was doing
Speaker 3: twenty minute solos where his band would leave the stage
Speaker 3: and he'd just stand up there and solo over twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: And I said, this has got to be our guy.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I told Maridi Holmes, who told
Speaker 3: me about Jesse. I said, can you have him come up,
Speaker 3: had him come up? He started. He stayed in my
Speaker 3: house and my little townhouse, in my living room, on
Speaker 3: my couch, and you know, he started playing with Enterprise.
Speaker 3: Amazing guitar player. You know, I played Prince a tape
Speaker 3: of him playing and Prince said, oh, yeah, that's our
Speaker 3: guitar player. So, I mean, you know history, that's pretty
Speaker 3: much how it came together.
Speaker 4: Dang, was anybody hard to get? Was it a struggle
Speaker 4: with anybody took Evince?
Speaker 5: No, because we were all struggling already.
Speaker 3: So just to be you know, in a group that
Speaker 3: you know, under Prince's production company with some promise to
Speaker 3: do something big, you know, everybody was in.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you guys are in this period of
Speaker 1: your lives, am I assuming that you guys had like
Speaker 1: day jobs to go to as well? And how do
Speaker 1: you balance like rehearsal versus pocket change? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well I pretty much failed at every day job I attempted.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the longest I last was maybe
Speaker 3: six months. And you know, pretty much every job I
Speaker 3: ever had, the manager would end up. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: that guy singled out that he'd be looking at you know,
Speaker 3: two hours into every shift, He's like, call me to
Speaker 3: his office. She's like, you don't want to be here,
Speaker 3: do you? Like?
Speaker 5: I don't know how to answer that question.
Speaker 3: So anyway, by the time we got to put in
Speaker 3: a band together, I was pretty much living with a
Speaker 3: girlfriend of mine.
Speaker 5: She was working and.
Speaker 3: Paying the big bills, and I was doing the musician thing,
Speaker 3: you know, and making fifty dollars of a show or whatever,
Speaker 3: thirty five dollars a show or whatever I made, and
Speaker 3: that was pretty much what I did. It was just
Speaker 3: all about music at that point in time in my life.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see, I do want to know, is at
Speaker 1: any point was Alexander O'Neil at all, like at any
Speaker 1: of these rehearsals. I mean, before you know, the eventual
Speaker 1: fallout or his exit or whatever. But is there any
Speaker 1: point in which it was the Seven of You or
Speaker 1: Honor of Jellybean? Was there? Like?
Speaker 3: No, At that point it was it was pretty much
Speaker 3: songs that either Prince had cut or Prince and I
Speaker 3: had cut, and we were just trying singers out in
Speaker 3: the studio. Never as a band, but you know, Alexander
Speaker 3: was was was the lead singer of Flight Time, so
Speaker 3: they were actively working together at that time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see, I know that you also, like I assume,
Speaker 1: traveled with Prince when he was touring. Well, I assume
Speaker 1: that the first major toy did was Rick James, So
Speaker 1: I guess you were on that tour with him. Am
Speaker 1: I correct? Were you at all like president during the
Speaker 1: Rick James Prince shows?
Speaker 5: I think that was over.
Speaker 3: I caught the next round when I came to town
Speaker 3: he was doing the Dirty Mind. I think that that's
Speaker 3: what I went out with.
Speaker 1: So okay, were you eyewitness to the Rolling Stones incident? Yes,
Speaker 1: I was, boy the book. Uh okay, so I've heard
Speaker 1: that you know, well, first of all, I know that
Speaker 1: you were like recording these shows and being a collector
Speaker 1: of these shows. I'm assuming that maybe one of these
Speaker 1: shows that I have is your camera work. First of all, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's who even has the the vision to know
Speaker 1: to record themselves every night? To judge, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's an amazing technology to have, because oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I believe that the legend is that you know, Mars
Speaker 1: would set up the tripod camera and record print shows
Speaker 1: on VHS or Beta Max whatever so that Prince could
Speaker 1: watch himself, and of course like suckers like me who
Speaker 1: indulge a lot in the bootleate market in the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years whatever, like all these tapes of surface
Speaker 1: and whatnot, and I'm not saying them maybe or maybe not.
Speaker 1: I paid a mid five figure for stuff. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You gotta do history history, but I'm playing anyway. But
Speaker 1: my my question is, yeah, like, who's for me in
Speaker 1: eighty eighty one, who's thinking of like purchasing a video
Speaker 1: camera recorder and recording these shows night after night like
Speaker 1: because it's a rare technology that wasn't a household name
Speaker 1: yet until at least eighty three, eighty forty five.
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't it wasn't compact technology either. Were talking
Speaker 3: big VCR and some pretty nice sized cameras that, yeah,
Speaker 3: how do you get the tapes night to night after
Speaker 3: night like those big like the big ones like this right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know tripod and I had a I had my
Speaker 3: own road case case that I was in and so
Speaker 3: you know, anyway, that was me after Prince said, hey,
Speaker 3: Bobby's he's my drama and He's said, but I'll offer
Speaker 3: you a gig to tape the shows.
Speaker 5: So you know, you know, I pay you one hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty dollars a week that I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, I can travel and you know, go to shows
Speaker 3: and at least, you know, somehow be a part of
Speaker 3: this for you know, I said, I'll take it, and
Speaker 3: so you know, I was a video on the shows.
Speaker 3: And that's something that's stuck with Prince throughout his career.
Speaker 3: And I don't care. You know, even when we did
Speaker 3: the Musicology tour with him, or the dates that we
Speaker 3: did do, he would make everybody his band and everybody
Speaker 3: had to go to whatever club he rented out afterwards
Speaker 3: and he would have that show on the projection and
Speaker 3: everybody had to watch it. Everybody had to.
Speaker 5: Watch it every.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the next level.
Speaker 4: Like a coach, like he was coach.
Speaker 3: Getting on the musicians. Hey, you were behind on that song,
Speaker 3: the whole thing, the whole show, every show he did
Speaker 3: in the nightclub though in the nightclub, but.
Speaker 4: It was in the club, but them, you know that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I feel like you should start some shit with
Speaker 1: the roots where you don't start play it back like
Speaker 1: you for it. But here's the thing though, here's the
Speaker 1: thing though, now now, don't feel so bad because you
Speaker 1: know they're My nightclub story is the fact that he
Speaker 1: took me off turntables and wanted to watch Finding Nemo
Speaker 1: in the nightclub.
Speaker 4: You were there, like you yeah, I know, I said,
Speaker 4: I remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's such like you don't have an embarrassment.
Speaker 1: You don't know what the embarrassment it is being a
Speaker 1: world class DJ for those of them, what's the story?
Speaker 1: So the story is basically, Princess in Philly for the
Speaker 1: Musicology tour and I get ten tickets, and in true
Speaker 1: a mere fashion, I forgot to count myself as part
Speaker 1: of the tens. So I got ten friends. And so
Speaker 1: we're walking in one, two, three, four, five, six, seventy nine, ten,
Speaker 1: and I realized, shit, I'm eleven. Fuck so who he
Speaker 1: said home. It was well, it was like more than
Speaker 1: sold out. And it just so happens that Ruth and
Speaker 1: him happened to be in a golf cart whizen by,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, man, shoot your shot, and
Speaker 1: I said, look, I know I got ten tickets from
Speaker 1: you guys, but I forgot to conclude myself in the ten.
Speaker 1: He thought was silly. He thought it was funny.
Speaker 4: He laughed, and was like, all right, in that moment,
Speaker 4: that was the girl that was with you, just so
Speaker 4: you know, well there was ten of your moment. Yeah,
Speaker 4: way go ahead.
Speaker 1: Oh anyway, My point was that I sat under the
Speaker 1: stage and watched the show. But then towards the end
Speaker 1: of the show, Ruth rushes to me and says, Prince
Speaker 1: does this thing with me. Like my relationship with him
Speaker 1: is like I Prince has this thing where he tells
Speaker 1: you to do something and automatically you're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: work for you, yes, sir, So I'll go to the club. Hey,
Speaker 1: run the soundboard, okay. And I'm like at the soundboard, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, but Prince sold me
Speaker 1: run the sound play.
Speaker 4: Bass a mirror. It was an error, right.
Speaker 1: So Princeville, have me just do ship. I never did
Speaker 1: a month, Like, I've gone to the supermarket to get milk.
Speaker 1: I've played bass. I'm like, wait, I don't play bass.
Speaker 1: So this one night, this one night, he asked me,
Speaker 1: well he he They command me to find him a
Speaker 1: nightclub to have uh an after party. And so then
Speaker 1: of course I hit up our good friend Stacey Wilson
Speaker 1: from Philly cease find me a nightclub. She finds me
Speaker 1: a nightclub, but it's a five story walk up and
Speaker 1: then at the last minute, Prince is like, and I
Speaker 1: want to play pool And so now they got an
Speaker 1: hour to find a pool table and and dismantle it
Speaker 1: and lug it up five stories to the to the
Speaker 1: rooftop of this nightclub. Uh, and I want you to DJ.
Speaker 1: So now I got it this Rados, and now I
Speaker 1: got to run to my dungeon grab all these records,
Speaker 1: so you know, I I do it, and three records in.
Speaker 1: Prince obviously didn't take a liking to FAILI I was
Speaker 1: playing afrobeat and they're like, put this on instead, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking as a DVD and it's Finding Nemo and
Speaker 1: I'm like, uh wait, what am I? What am I
Speaker 1: supposed to do with this?
Speaker 4: So so Kemp Flores, can you translate that? What was
Speaker 4: he trying to say to a mirror in that moment?
Speaker 4: I still don't understand.
Speaker 1: Oh really, you don't understand where a person tell you
Speaker 1: he's getting fired right now?
Speaker 4: Well, I was hoping that wasn't it. Maybe it was
Speaker 4: something else.
Speaker 1: No, Well, he just I've just never seen someone put
Speaker 1: a videotape on in the nightclub, like we're in and
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's like it's two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: So our version of the nightclub is more like Diddy era,
Speaker 1: where it's sexy and you know, smoky and lasers and stuff.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, like you're here Ellen
Speaker 1: DeGeneres and you know, Albert what's his name in Finding Nemo.
Speaker 1: We're watching a Pixar film in the club like it
Speaker 1: was normal. And now that I know that mars Is
Speaker 1: told us that okay, that he just puts tapes on it.
Speaker 1: Anything but music on the club just seems weird to me.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, I'm surprised he don't make it everybody
Speaker 3: watch the show because that that's usually what he did.
Speaker 3: It was a man, It's like he had to see himself.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: I loved that he was a coach. I think that's dope.
Speaker 4: That means he's an athlete, Like he's a real athlete.
Speaker 1: When it comes to this, I get it now that
Speaker 1: the approach. So I gotta ask, so can you give
Speaker 1: us your version of the Rolling Stone show?
Speaker 5: Oh man?
Speaker 3: That was traumatic because you know, you know, I I
Speaker 3: know I knew this brother, you know, to his level
Speaker 3: of professionalism and his need to be accepted as an artist.
Speaker 3: And so I think he's going up there thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: he's straight up in billy idol mode, you know, half yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, half neckd you know, I'm gonna show him
Speaker 3: how I can rock and roll, you know, with the
Speaker 3: bikinis and the lake warmers and all that on. And
Speaker 3: you know, you're straight up in front of a hardcore rock.
Speaker 5: And roll crowd.
Speaker 3: A lot of these guys were bikers, and you know,
Speaker 3: and and and they just wasn't hearing it, man.
Speaker 5: So you know, he comes out.
Speaker 3: And he's doing his thing and uptown and all that,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, you know, you start hearing
Speaker 3: the booze and the beer bottles start flying up on stage.
Speaker 3: And I knew, you know, right at that moment that
Speaker 3: it was time to start making my way with my
Speaker 3: you know, little cameras, camera equipment backstage because it wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna be nice.
Speaker 1: So that shows on tape.
Speaker 3: I never saw it on tape, but I taped it,
Speaker 3: you know, happened to it.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in this earth.
Speaker 3: Is that show somewhere on this planet?
Speaker 5: That show is on DVR.
Speaker 3: You find it VHS.
Speaker 1: It's labeled it's labeled finding Nemo.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Wow, Okay, Morris, how long did you keep this job,
Speaker 4: the cam cordy, this gig.
Speaker 5: Well, see, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I was just staying close, you know, because when I
Speaker 3: I had moved away, you know, when he got his
Speaker 3: record deal, I was living down in Gaithersburg, Maryland side
Speaker 3: of d C, you know, and so you know, things
Speaker 3: didn't work out well for me. So I moved back
Speaker 3: to Mini and once he found out that I got back,
Speaker 3: he was real happy that I was there. So I
Speaker 3: started hanging out, going to rehearsals, and that's when I
Speaker 3: kind of said, you know, hey, man, I really like
Speaker 3: to be the drummer, and he's like, I have a drummer.
Speaker 3: And that's when I got offered the job to video
Speaker 3: the shows. And so you know, he told me, you know,
Speaker 3: he said, you know, you can use the studio anytime
Speaker 3: you want, and of course I took advantage of that.
Speaker 3: And so one of the first songs I cut was
Speaker 3: this slow funk track and you know, I put the
Speaker 3: drums down, then I put the bass down and it
Speaker 3: was the party up baseline.
Speaker 5: But I played it way funk here.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I was in a funk mode with it, and he's like,
Speaker 3: you know, And so I go home and I come
Speaker 3: back the next day to cut some more stuff and
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, I like that track that you cut.
Speaker 3: He's like, if you give me that track, he said,
Speaker 3: I'll give you. I don't know ten k I forget
Speaker 3: what he said. He said. Or I'll help you put
Speaker 3: a band together. You pick it, I said, And he said,
Speaker 3: I'll get your record deal. I said, of course, I'll
Speaker 3: take the band and the record deal. Yeah, so that
Speaker 3: was pretty much the end of my video career, videoographer career,
Speaker 3: and you know, from that point on.
Speaker 5: It really really happened fast.
Speaker 3: You know, he sent he had me sing a couple songs,
Speaker 3: he said them the Warner Brothers. They signed the band
Speaker 3: and the concept of the time sight Unseen. And so
Speaker 3: then we had like two weeks to complete the record
Speaker 3: and it was just a whirlwind from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's ten thousand. In my mind, I thought
Speaker 1: it was substantial, like twenty twenty five thirty, and I
Speaker 1: was doing the math and I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: well twenty back in nineteen eighty, that was like seventy
Speaker 1: thousand dollars today, Like, I don't know. It's like, of course, yes,
Speaker 1: you made the right choice by choosing the band situation,
Speaker 1: but I'm also thinking, you know, you could have had
Speaker 1: your cake and eat it too, because I don't know
Speaker 1: if he's is he even expressing again the need to
Speaker 1: have other outlets to express him Like are you seeing
Speaker 1: this this ocd obsessiveness to channel more music through other
Speaker 1: acts yet, because I'm like, wait, why couldn't you get both?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you're right, but you know that.
Speaker 3: Was probably his inside his brain, right, But my brain is,
Speaker 3: you know, I can you know, I know that we
Speaker 3: can put something nice together. And he'd already played me
Speaker 3: as he had played me Get It Up, which he
Speaker 3: had cut believe it or not, for the group Brick
Speaker 3: and why absolutely, And he had cut it for Brick Brick.
Speaker 5: He sent the song to them. They didn't want it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, they didn't want it, and I was like, man,
Speaker 3: I will take it.
Speaker 5: So it's so yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy, I know, because they were hot at
Speaker 3: the time, you know, and he was just thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: he had cut a song that they might like. But
Speaker 3: that's real, that's that's a true story, though a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't know that.
Speaker 5: I don't even know if that's in the book though it's.
Speaker 1: Definitely not in the book by the way, Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Brick Brick's you guys, that's Sleepy Brown's Uh yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Sleepy Brown's father. Okay, So this is what I want
Speaker 1: to know. The hearing you speak right now, and I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that this is your natural speaking voice. When you're
Speaker 1: in the character of Mars Day or when Prince is
Speaker 1: in the character of Jamie Starr. Who who is the
Speaker 1: figurehead that you guys are. Who's the figurehead to whom
Speaker 1: you guys are mocking or or imitating or like where
Speaker 1: did this this character? You know, the that that pre Yes,
Speaker 1: I've talked to Kat Williams himself and he even said that, yes,
Speaker 1: you guys were kind of his impetus for that voice, like,
Speaker 1: ain't like me exact who is who is that voice
Speaker 1: to what you guys took and perfected? Is that how
Speaker 1: brothers talked to Minnesota?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: You know what you know? It's it's really everything that
Speaker 3: you hear from from my laugh to when I get
Speaker 3: into that zone. You know, there's a way that you
Speaker 3: talk you know, when you're just seeing chill, more regular mold.
Speaker 3: Then there's a way that you talk when you have
Speaker 3: hyped up talking to your partners, talking shit, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 5: So it's just it's just a it's just.
Speaker 3: An elevated level if you will, of you know, of
Speaker 3: of of my normal self. You know.
Speaker 5: So when I go into that mold, that's pretty much how.
Speaker 3: We were when we were just talking shit to each other,
Speaker 3: you know, laughing, and you know, and and and you
Speaker 3: know when I when I got in that mold, I
Speaker 3: would laugh loud, like I laugh and Prince was like, man,
Speaker 3: we got to put that on the record, you know.
Speaker 3: So it was just, you know, it was it was
Speaker 3: kind of our inner circle, the way we talk to
Speaker 3: one another.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, this this this is my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the interview. Okay, so now I finally get to
Speaker 1: figure or ask you, grill you on the work mode
Speaker 1: operation of the tview. So are you the are you
Speaker 1: the complete drummer on most of the Times albums.
Speaker 3: I played drums on all most of the early albums,
Speaker 3: and I played drums on a few Prince's songs as well, you.
Speaker 1: Know, So that's what I wanted to know what what
Speaker 1: Prince songs or other non Time records have you drummed
Speaker 1: on that I might not know about.
Speaker 5: I did part of Let's Work. I played all Let's Work,
Speaker 5: and Prince, you.
Speaker 3: Know, he kind of he played on it as well,
Speaker 3: so he kind of took parts of his his track
Speaker 3: and mind. Yeah, I played drums on Controversy. I've yeah
Speaker 3: a new power generation.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, I played on a lot of his stuff, but
Speaker 3: I never, you know, got credit, just like he didn't
Speaker 3: necessarily in those days take credit for playing on the
Speaker 3: Time stuff. But I played on a lot of Prince's
Speaker 3: songs as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm trying. I've been trying to explain to
Speaker 1: people what what the process is because we all, you know,
Speaker 1: most most purple heads or whatever, they're very familiar with,
Speaker 1: uh chlorine bacon skin, which was initially, I guess the
Speaker 1: impetus of it was supposed to be a workout that
Speaker 1: would eventually morph into an actual song. But then I
Speaker 1: guess it was so good, y'all just let the workout
Speaker 1: be the song. So if you guys aren't familiar with
Speaker 1: chlorine bacon skin.
Speaker 7: You don't, that's not don't that's nailed symbol. You just
Speaker 7: get knowing.
Speaker 1: So Steve is my engineer. So Steve, you know, like
Speaker 1: when you set up a click track for me, So
Speaker 1: basically Prince would play that the role of the click track,
Speaker 1: so Mars would just drummer beat, and to keep Mars
Speaker 1: sort of you know, in the zone or whatever, Prince
Speaker 1: would set up his bass, set up a microphone the
Speaker 1: way that I talked to the guys on the show whatever,
Speaker 1: talk shit, whatever, and then you record the drum thing,
Speaker 1: and then of course that morphs into something else. In
Speaker 1: this one particular case, Chlorine BigGAN Skin actually wound up
Speaker 1: being so good it stayed on its own.
Speaker 4: That's what I want to a song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just a fifteen minute song where Prince
Speaker 1: is just talking shit and it's mad hilarious, but it's
Speaker 1: also mad funky. So for that song alone, I know
Speaker 1: that it was intended to be a work song that
Speaker 1: turns into something else. But when it was over, why
Speaker 1: didn't you guys turn that song into something else?
Speaker 3: Because I think we were both you know, you know,
Speaker 3: just kind of really cool with the way it turned out.
Speaker 3: You know, he was talking ship, you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the song. We started the song
Speaker 3: and he's talking and you know, he's getting on me.
Speaker 3: He's like the headphones, headphones on, and then my headphones
Speaker 3: were on the floor, so I'm laughing and put my
Speaker 3: headphones on. Here. At the end of the song, we
Speaker 3: got done, and you know, it was like it was
Speaker 3: just so hilarious. We said we got to leave this alone.
Speaker 3: We got to just let it be.
Speaker 5: What it is.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I was gonna say, one of the
Speaker 1: one of the rarest highest things I've paid for. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that you guys were actually intending to release this, So,
Speaker 1: you know, I one one of the up there. There's
Speaker 1: there's like a mastered her Her Powers mastered twelve inch
Speaker 1: of chlorine that was supposed to see the light of day,
Speaker 1: and I guess at the last it was six Nate
Speaker 1: or maybe he just had one printed up, one of
Speaker 1: one or whatever. But is that how all the songs
Speaker 1: were created? So like when you're doing like Wild and Loose,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're drumming, are you drumming to something
Speaker 1: totally different? And then it eventually morps into Wild and Loose? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: It started out as a you know prints on the bass,
Speaker 3: which you know, probably one of the funkest bass players.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know exact listen to.
Speaker 5: Seven seven h seven ninety three eleven. Nobody can play
Speaker 5: that song. Nobody can play that.
Speaker 1: Song the way he did so exactly.
Speaker 3: So a lot of the songs we just we started
Speaker 3: like that, him on bass, neon drums, and then we
Speaker 3: would find a pocket or if he had idea of pocket,
Speaker 3: he tells me to go there, I'd hold the pocket
Speaker 3: and you know, we would just kind of go from there.
Speaker 5: But most of all, most all of our songs.
Speaker 3: That I played on were you know, they start out
Speaker 3: as jam sessions.
Speaker 1: So jam sessions and totally different keys and totally other things,
Speaker 1: and then you go home, and then you come back
Speaker 1: the next day and then that drum performs you gave
Speaker 1: turns into something else.
Speaker 3: Yep, possibly that or possibly the actual the actual session itself,
Speaker 3: you know. And he was a master at cutting two
Speaker 3: inch tape because you know how it was pack in
Speaker 3: the day, so you know, he would cut out the
Speaker 3: sections that we didn't need and spice them together and
Speaker 3: then start overdubling overdubbling from that point.
Speaker 1: You know, so he could raise or splice his own tapes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, were you guys working on was it a
Speaker 1: sixteen track or a twenty four? Like? What board do
Speaker 1: you know? Like? The Yeah, the boards that we.
Speaker 3: Started out on sixteen and that's what we get it
Speaker 3: up and all cool Girl. All those songs that first
Speaker 3: album were cut on sixteen track, and then after that
Speaker 3: graduated to twenty four track, and then after that graduated
Speaker 3: to two twenty four tracks where we had forty eight tracks.
Speaker 1: You know. Oh okay, I see, okay, So let me
Speaker 1: ask about the twin of bacon skin, which is tricky.
Speaker 3: Why you big.
Speaker 8: Hair, dum heavy, long toll snagly going to funk inhabit
Speaker 8: form leather wear bean pole.
Speaker 2: Black was tricky.
Speaker 1: Initially intended as one of these sessions that should turn
Speaker 1: into another song, and then again, you guys were just
Speaker 1: clowning around and decided, okay, let's just leave this as
Speaker 1: as it is.
Speaker 5: Well, tricky happened when.
Speaker 3: We heard that, I believe it was was it Bootsy?
Speaker 5: But anyway, it's either it was either Bootsy or George
Speaker 5: George Clinton when I had a song that said Morris
Speaker 5: to copy cat.
Speaker 3: Immediately after we heard that, we went into the studio
Speaker 3: and that was our rebuttal that.
Speaker 1: Was, it's like why you be wait you.
Speaker 3: So toss solid hairdoo have And that was Bootsy.
Speaker 5: The Michelan man. That was George Clinton.
Speaker 3: So we went in and you know, had a field day,
Speaker 3: you know, as a rebuttal to them talking ship about us.
Speaker 1: Dude, this okay, this.
Speaker 4: Is a cute yo.
Speaker 1: Heads are exploded, do you literally? I didn't expect this
Speaker 1: because in our mythical made up land, we had decided
Speaker 1: that that was directed after the James Brown incident, you know,
Speaker 1: the James Brown Michael Jackson, because we thought like, okay,
Speaker 1: well he has to be talking about somebody. At first,
Speaker 1: I just thought that you two were just ranking on
Speaker 1: each other because you know, I didn't realize again, like
Speaker 1: Prince never made his voice known to us during that
Speaker 1: period in real time, so I had no idea that
Speaker 1: like the waiter on the skits and the Italian guy
Speaker 1: on the walk, I didn't realize that was Prince, right,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking that's you and some of the guys,
Speaker 1: and so once I became aware of that, then I
Speaker 1: was like, well, wait a minute, that's Prince of Mars,
Speaker 1: Like who are they talking about? So in my mind,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, nineteen eighty three, I know, the
Speaker 1: James Brown incident happened and he was real embarrassed, and
Speaker 1: oh maybe that's who he's talking. That is crazy. So
Speaker 1: did you ever get actual verification that was actually out
Speaker 1: you or you know, were they like, no, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the actual Mars the cat from the Friskies commercial.
Speaker 5: Yeah, now we knew.
Speaker 3: Exactly, you know, and I'm not sure, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: they thought maybe they thought get it Up was you know,
Speaker 3: sort of a parliament funkin deelic groove. And I could
Speaker 3: see that, you know, and you know, I could see
Speaker 3: the influence of that. But I by no means feel
Speaker 3: like we were biting their sound at all.
Speaker 1: But now, I mean they were no strangers to bucking shots,
Speaker 1: you know, because like, let's take it to the stage.
Speaker 1: They playfully call out you know, Earthwin and Fire and
Speaker 1: Rufus and Sly and even you know, the people that
Speaker 1: they're down with, but still like playfully doing Wow, man,
Speaker 1: I had no clue what so, So was he actually
Speaker 1: eating chicken while he did that?
Speaker 5: No? No?
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, no, you know what, maybe you mentioned that
Speaker 3: I think we might have bought a bucket of chin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, I think he was chewing chicken.
Speaker 3: I think we might have had a bucket the chicken
Speaker 3: on hand now that you mentioned it, So that's okay.
Speaker 1: I want to know what was the awareness of your
Speaker 1: contemporaries at least Again, the myth of my head was
Speaker 1: that you guys were too cool for school. You didn't
Speaker 1: listen to nobody else, like nobody like Zap, fuck Them
Speaker 1: and whatever. But now that I'm older, I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: almost impossible for you guys to not know about the
Speaker 1: Dazz Band or Zap or even like these new groups
Speaker 1: groups coming up like z Look and Real to Real
Speaker 1: and Click and you know, all these all these groups
Speaker 1: post ady two that were trying to fit into that
Speaker 1: mood that you guys were. So, I mean, how aware
Speaker 1: were you guys of other groups and their music? Like
Speaker 1: did you ever come in and say, like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: this group called the System from New York listen to
Speaker 1: this shit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you know what, But you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: We were on we were on that page. But on
Speaker 3: a larger scale for us, we were listening to new
Speaker 3: wave groups like The Cure and you know, we were
Speaker 3: listening to a lot of the cross over the pop
Speaker 3: groups and trying to because we'd already you know, we
Speaker 3: we had the funk thing down. So what we were
Speaker 3: trying to do, and if you think about it, you
Speaker 3: listen to ice Cream Castles and you know, listen to
Speaker 3: the verses on that and the whole vibe of that song.
Speaker 3: We were trying to get that that the cure, you know,
Speaker 3: we were trying to get that slightly new waves sound
Speaker 3: integrated and and and and that's that's really where we
Speaker 3: were thinking. We were We were already past the funk
Speaker 3: thing because.
Speaker 5: We had that.
Speaker 1: Wow, I never thought of that, So you guys were
Speaker 1: aware of Okay, I see, I see it. So humor.
Speaker 1: Humor is also another important weapon in the arsenal of
Speaker 1: the time, which you know, humanized you guys. And that
Speaker 1: was sort of the difference between you know, your presentation
Speaker 1: and Prince's presentation because your humor, even though it was
Speaker 1: inside baseball jokes, it still made us want to be
Speaker 1: down with you, and it endeared us to you more
Speaker 1: because it showed a side of you, Like Prince didn't
Speaker 1: show a sense of humor until way later in his career.
Speaker 1: So like, but what I want to know is the
Speaker 1: fact that you guys would actually stage vis kind of vignettes,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's really the precursor to skits that
Speaker 1: De La Soul and Wa and them started doing, except
Speaker 1: they would actually make skits where you guys would just
Speaker 1: do the skits on the record. So like when you're
Speaker 1: doing songs like the Walk or even Wild and Loose,
Speaker 1: Wild and Loose is probably a better example because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that's that's Lisa. Is that Lisa and Jill
Speaker 1: Jones talking to each other, them talking to each other
Speaker 1: on Wild and Loose when you guys are there.
Speaker 3: I actually think it's just some some random girls that.
Speaker 5: Come in, you know. But however, on the Walk, that
Speaker 5: was that was vanity.
Speaker 1: That was vanity. I know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the reason why I'm asking about Wild and Loose
Speaker 1: is because, you know, in my mind, over analyzing this song,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, there's a thirty two bar break, and
Speaker 1: in that thirty two bar break on the left side,
Speaker 1: the two girls have to set up the narrative perfectly
Speaker 1: where they're explaining how they got your phone number when
Speaker 1: they talk to you and da da da da. But
Speaker 1: then on the right hand you hear you know, you
Speaker 1: Jesse or whoever talking shit about the same thing that
Speaker 1: they're talking about, and and it's it's coordinated perfectly, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound casual, like it doesn't sound like it
Speaker 1: was just a happy accident, like yes, we're just going
Speaker 1: to take this thirty two bar break and talk shit,
Speaker 1: like there's an actual narrative that goes on. And like
Speaker 1: so when it comes to those those those moments in
Speaker 1: the time songs when it's time to talk shit or
Speaker 1: do humor and I'm talking about the kit KM Make
Speaker 1: You Come, or even Chili Sauce or those songs, Like
Speaker 1: how important is that or was it just Prince? Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't have another I don't have a third verse,
Speaker 1: so let's just do a skit real quick, Like how
Speaker 1: is that organized?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I think it was.
Speaker 3: I think it was more once we got the body
Speaker 3: of the song, you know, versus hooks, and you know,
Speaker 3: then you know, it was always Prince's plan to make
Speaker 3: these to bring our personality to these songs, and you know,
Speaker 3: to make them you know, you know accessible, you know
Speaker 3: and not I mean, we have the great musicianship.
Speaker 5: And then on the other hand, you know, make.
Speaker 3: It accessible through you know, like these vignettes and a
Speaker 3: little comedy in there, and just have fun with it
Speaker 3: to you know, just kind of you know, help people
Speaker 3: enjoy it. And I don't think that that was the plan
Speaker 3: outright at that moment, but you know, that's what it
Speaker 3: ended up being. He just wanted to bring personality to
Speaker 3: the records. And you know, we always laughed and talked shit.
Speaker 3: We would go to the club, we would have a
Speaker 3: good time, then straight to the studio and you know,
Speaker 3: listen to what was on and get that fresh in
Speaker 3: our brains and then straight to the studio and start cutting,
Speaker 3: you know with with what was hot in mind, and
Speaker 3: you know, doing our own thing with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I knew you guys had to present to us
Speaker 1: that you were above funk and above you know, like
Speaker 1: what what you what you mortals do? Like we're above that. However,
Speaker 1: can you just name one or two songs or groups
Speaker 1: that like all right? I respect that? Like, I know
Speaker 1: you guys toured with Zap like yeah to them, were
Speaker 1: they like they all right? Or was it like wo
Speaker 1: okay this like yeah, yeah, No, Zapp.
Speaker 3: Was a hell of a band. I mean more bounced
Speaker 3: to the ounce. Who can deny that?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 3: That's you know, that's that's one of the funkiest songs,
Speaker 3: you know, and and you know that's the way Roger
Speaker 3: always presented it. He would make his band like stay
Speaker 3: in that pocket, you know how you know, sometimes you
Speaker 3: get excited and we we do that and and our temples, yes,
Speaker 3: and they're higher than the record is. And you know
Speaker 3: that was okay because you know, you were in concert,
Speaker 3: you know, the energy and and and then the excitement
Speaker 3: is there. But Roger always had his band, you know.
Speaker 3: It was almost like he would click it out and say,
Speaker 3: you know, keep it right there. And it was always
Speaker 3: just slow and funky and know and they they always
Speaker 3: you know, had a great show.
Speaker 5: So you know, I mean, you know, there's thousands of
Speaker 5: funk songs that I love.
Speaker 3: And could get down with, you know, but you know,
Speaker 3: we just we just wanted to present ourselves a little differently,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see what's what's the reasoning behind? You didn't
Speaker 1: find it a little unusual that, like all of your
Speaker 1: records were just six songs. You know.
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's just like would you like a
Speaker 3: bucket of twenty four pieces of fried chicken taste all right,
Speaker 3: like a sixth piece, that's real good.
Speaker 1: That's the quality, not quantity.
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, But as a person who's made a
Speaker 4: multi track album in retrospect, is that kind of genius
Speaker 4: than a way those did you always get paid?
Speaker 1: Is way harder to make a classic with less songs?
Speaker 4: Like yeah, to me, it's just contacts, right.
Speaker 1: Because all the records that we look at that are
Speaker 1: classic are really under forty five minutes innervisions off the wall,
Speaker 1: dirty mind? What time is it? Like shorter? You know.
Speaker 1: But it's also the thing. The risk of six songs
Speaker 1: is like when you shoot your shot, you better hit
Speaker 1: that ship right right on target.
Speaker 4: That's gotta be confidence.
Speaker 1: So I meant were you were you at all like
Speaker 1: uh word? Like okay, Well, after you heard cool and
Speaker 1: these songs done, did you know instantly like, oh man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna blow up so big? Like did you feel
Speaker 1: that at all? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was It was crazy like that. I felt,
Speaker 3: you know that we were really onto something. You know,
Speaker 3: when when we finished seven seven seven ninety three eleven,
Speaker 3: I'm like thinking, hell, they ain't hurt nothing like.
Speaker 1: This, you know? So right?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you know, we just you know,
Speaker 3: we always just felt like we were on point with it.
Speaker 5: You know, we were in the moment and.
Speaker 3: We knew we were doing something innovative, and you just
Speaker 3: felt like we had something different, you know. So you
Speaker 3: know I felt real good about you know, uh, each
Speaker 3: each song on those six song albums.
Speaker 1: What was your life for like two months after the
Speaker 1: first Time album at least in Minnesota, Like was like
Speaker 1: when did your life transform to whoa?
Speaker 5: Well, you know.
Speaker 1: Now now I'm this level well, you know, with Reggie
Speaker 1: Hammond and in forty eight hours like buy it out.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you know, brother, but you know if I
Speaker 3: went from you know, trying to stretch my little five
Speaker 3: dollars to do the cover charge, to get a drink
Speaker 3: to hold onto until the ice cubess milk, you know
Speaker 3: by the end of the night, you know, to you know,
Speaker 3: to get it offered. You know, bottles of champagne get
Speaker 3: in for free.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like when brothers need something for free, you can't
Speaker 3: get it when you don't need it for free.
Speaker 5: When I'm actual throwing everything at me for you know,
Speaker 5: change like that.
Speaker 4: You know, well, I just want to know I want
Speaker 4: to circle back to this band leader thing now because
Speaker 4: now you are the band leader, and I'm curious about
Speaker 4: your evolution as a band leader. And if you thought, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is in the beginning, this is who I'm going
Speaker 4: to be, but then everything kind of changed for you
Speaker 4: because it's a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 3: You know, I've never you know, been like you know,
Speaker 3: like Prince was a he was a band leader. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. You don't play one note, you
Speaker 3: don't wear one sock that he doesn't approve of, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know everything is controlled and he's in control.
Speaker 3: You know, I've never been like that, you know, I've
Speaker 3: always give him my guys, you know, a little room
Speaker 3: to express themselves. Just never been a hands on, like
Speaker 3: dictator type of guys. So you know, I you know,
Speaker 3: I always took a light handed approach, and I always
Speaker 3: found that, you know, kind of like when you let
Speaker 3: people express themselves a little more, you get a little
Speaker 3: more out of them. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 3: what happened with the time. You' The only time that
Speaker 3: it really we really got clamped down on is when
Speaker 3: Prince showed up to rehearsal.
Speaker 4: I was going to ask was he thinking he was
Speaker 4: a punk, like, come on, man, get him together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it wasn't like that because he felt like
Speaker 3: it was all his ship anyway, because we were signed
Speaker 3: to his production company, so you know, when he comes in,
Speaker 3: then the hammer comes down. But you know, I think
Speaker 3: some of our greatest moments when we came up with
Speaker 3: the dance move the bird, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: grooves we came up with were when he wasn't there
Speaker 3: what they did show up and you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of times he liked what we came up with, but
Speaker 3: you know, if he didn't, he would say he was
Speaker 3: quick to say he didn't.
Speaker 5: And sometimes he say.
Speaker 3: I don't like that ship, and they turn around and
Speaker 3: come back, and he wrote a song with the same
Speaker 3: groove that he heard.
Speaker 5: So he was just one of them kind of people.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: He was good, so with with his with his with
Speaker 1: his attention to detail. You know, how hard was it
Speaker 1: in trying to bring seven seven, seven ninety three eleven
Speaker 1: alive and jelly Bean not really nailing the snare part?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, yeah, you're you're right.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying to be diplomatic, as.
Speaker 3: You know, never really able to grasp that drum beat
Speaker 3: but he found a version of it.
Speaker 5: I guess that.
Speaker 1: No, it works for him. Yeah, that straight on the snare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But okay, how come you guys didn't opt to do
Speaker 1: the drum machine thing that the Revolution was doing, because.
Speaker 3: You know, we always prided ourselves on being the live band.
Speaker 3: No samples, no click tracks, you know, none of that.
Speaker 3: So you know, we always opted to you know, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, you know, keep it real. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: not the greatest thing on the planet. You hear bad Nope,
Speaker 3: guess what You're gonna hear a few bad notes if
Speaker 3: you come to my concert. But guess what You're going
Speaker 3: to know that it's me singing, not a perfect track
Speaker 3: that I put together that we hit and play just
Speaker 3: to get by. You know, it's me doing what I do.
Speaker 1: Speaking of seven seven, seven ninety three eleven. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: we when we when a lot of us, Jesse was
Speaker 1: all too gleeful to let us know that, you know,
Speaker 1: Dave Garibaldi's beat number fourteen on the Linn drum, Yeah,
Speaker 1: was actually that like that program Like in our minds,
Speaker 1: we're thinking, like, yo, it's the most genius drum programming
Speaker 1: of all time. And Jesse's just all too happy, like
Speaker 1: mmm that it was pressed. So at the time, did
Speaker 1: you know that Garibaldi had pre programmed the lind drum machine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I absolutely knew that. Oh yeah, that's why I
Speaker 5: was cool.
Speaker 3: With the you know, using that, you know, because I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, this is one of my my drum
Speaker 3: rolls beats, you know, so right, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, so.
Speaker 5: I was good with that.
Speaker 1: Was he ever made aware that, oh, you guys use
Speaker 1: beat number fourteen from what I programmed.
Speaker 3: I told him that, you know, I told him when
Speaker 3: when when I finally met him, you know, I met
Speaker 3: Dave some years later, man, I when I was living
Speaker 3: in Vegas. You know, they were doing a show at
Speaker 3: one of those small showrooms, and you know, I had
Speaker 3: a hot second to go back there and rap with
Speaker 3: him and the other guys. And I definitely told him.
Speaker 1: Was he familiar with the song?
Speaker 3: Like, oh, I'm sure, I'm sure he knew, you know,
Speaker 3: probably when he heard the song, he's probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's my beat, Okay, I see.
Speaker 3: You know, at that point, it's public domain once you
Speaker 3: put it on. The drummers come after somebody to say, hey,
Speaker 3: that's my beat, you know, because at that point, he's
Speaker 3: already been paid for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, No, I didn't even mean for relatitious reasons.
Speaker 1: I was meant.
Speaker 4: Somebody's thinking that, though I was kidding myself.
Speaker 5: It's just me had my little two cents.
Speaker 4: In case he's good.
Speaker 1: So the thing is with you know, we're rehearsals as
Speaker 1: super rigorous as the Prince rehearsals, because again, you guys
Speaker 1: only have like I can see you know Brown Mark's
Speaker 1: point of like, oh man, we're playing the same group
Speaker 1: for four hours, but you know, Brown Mark is also
Speaker 1: dealing with the artist that not only has four five
Speaker 1: albums under his belt at that time, but you know,
Speaker 1: other music pouring out of him. But you guys are
Speaker 1: basically like in those first two years when you're only
Speaker 1: dealing with the six songs. Yeah, it's like, how many
Speaker 1: ways did you guys have to perfect something that I'm
Speaker 1: certain that you had downpacked by a week?
Speaker 3: No, well, you know we did. The rehearsals were super rigorous.
Speaker 3: That's like that's almost brother, that's almost like saying, how
Speaker 3: many ways can you cook eggs? Because you know, we
Speaker 3: went in there and we rehearsed the song a certain way,
Speaker 3: and then we would flip the arrangements and he would
Speaker 3: be there, and I mean, he taught us a work ethic,
Speaker 3: you know, that was unbelievable. We would rehearse every day,
Speaker 3: day in, day out, then go in. Then when the
Speaker 3: next single come out, then we would we would flip
Speaker 3: the arrangement of the songs, change the arrangements of the song,
Speaker 3: and of all the songs.
Speaker 5: And then it was just always we rehearsed all the time.
Speaker 5: When we weren't on the road, we were rehearsing.
Speaker 1: I know, rehears it makes a better band, but the
Speaker 1: part of me also felt like maybe just had you
Speaker 1: there just to keep you from off the streets or
Speaker 1: just you know where my eye was on you.
Speaker 5: But possibly, but we rehearsed to the point.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean because if you uh, and
Speaker 3: you may have brother question, but if you look at
Speaker 3: you know, our shows and all of the things that
Speaker 3: we did, you know, with those six songs and once
Speaker 3: it turned into twelve songs, and and from there on
Speaker 3: we had, you know, a lot of choreography, a lot
Speaker 3: of of of arrangements, different arrangements from the record, and
Speaker 3: it was second nature. We rehearsed so much that you know,
Speaker 3: it was second nature. And at one point, you know,
Speaker 3: I look at the shows and we were so tight,
Speaker 3: you know that it was you know, it was amazing
Speaker 3: to watch. You know, I'm not I don't even feel
Speaker 3: like I can put myself in that mindset to be
Speaker 3: as tight as we were. The moves me and Jerome
Speaker 3: did together, and the band did together, and the arrangements
Speaker 3: they were super tight. And that's like I said, we
Speaker 3: had gotten to the point where, you know, people will.
Speaker 5: Walk away from the show when we did shows.
Speaker 3: With principally man time kicked that ass tonight, you know.
Speaker 3: So it was it was intense, and you know, you
Speaker 3: might be right about what his motives were. I weren't.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I just felt like he just
Speaker 3: wanted us to be as tight as we possibly could,
Speaker 3: and you know that we definitely achieved.
Speaker 1: Okay, So all right now I'm gonna vicariously become a
Speaker 1: member of the Time for a second. So, okay, Jellybeans,
Speaker 1: no longer your drummer, I'm your drummer. And it's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. How much money am I making a week?
Speaker 1: When if I'm in the time, by the time that
Speaker 1: what time is it comes.
Speaker 5: Out you make it about one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 5: a week plus per diem?
Speaker 1: Was that quasi normal?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 1: Well, I got my inflation calculator.
Speaker 4: Do you have inflation calculator?
Speaker 1: Yes? I do, because I always I'm so derivative of
Speaker 1: the past. I even want to know what prices were
Speaker 1: back in the day. Yeah, so if all right, so
Speaker 1: one hundred and all right, let's be nice and say
Speaker 1: that I'm a good drummer that you guys gave me
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars. What is that formula?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so curious.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to get there's literally there's there's an
Speaker 1: app called inflation calculator. Well, there you go. So I
Speaker 1: thought you were doing math.
Speaker 4: Dece' that smart?
Speaker 1: I'm quasi smart. So two hundred dollars in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: when you get to nineteen eighty one, it is hang on, Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm actually solving a math problem.
Speaker 4: You just got everybody down loaded down calculated.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that would be six hundred and forty dollars today.
Speaker 1: That's something kind of paid someone to carry my records. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I get it. But you get your own room, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know.
Speaker 3: Back then, you know, none of us were really used
Speaker 3: to a steady paycheck.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean, And you know, plus a
Speaker 5: per diem. You know, the per diem.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It was another ten to fifteen dollars a day, so
Speaker 5: you know, it was okay.
Speaker 3: You know, I might have got it up to eight
Speaker 3: hundred dollars today by today's standards.
Speaker 1: All right, But I'm only well, I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out the thing is is that in our situation, we
Speaker 1: were definitely not making money. So our whole thing was
Speaker 1: we're going to stay on the road forever, because once
Speaker 1: we come home, that's when we become broke. At least
Speaker 1: on the road forever. There's okay, So I ask you
Speaker 1: in eighty two, is there such thing as a rider
Speaker 1: like in my day? I knew early Okay, I want
Speaker 1: Golden Grams and Captain Crunch on every show. We want, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's how we realized that, Okay, we
Speaker 1: get a rider, So we'll make the promoter go to
Speaker 1: the supermarket and stock up one. Yeah, brilliant beats right.
Speaker 1: So I at the end of the tour, I'd mailed home,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty boxes of cereal. Now of course. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: I became morbal Leo beasts. I've lost the weight, stopped playing.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying there's a downside to that too. But
Speaker 1: you know, like, are you able to take care of home?
Speaker 1: I don't know what home is, like get your own apartment,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Or is it just like hand
Speaker 1: of mouth, hand to mouth, hand of mouth. I got
Speaker 1: a VCR. Now I'm going back to my aunt's couch.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I I was making more money as as you know,
Speaker 3: the band leader. I think, I be honest, I think
Speaker 3: I had gotten up to maybe you know, when we
Speaker 3: were out there with Prince and toured regularly. I gotten
Speaker 3: up to maybe five grand a week.
Speaker 1: Nice, that's awesome, that's all, okay, But I was asking
Speaker 1: if I was the jone at the time, you were
Speaker 1: still getting to you know, six Okay, I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 5: So but the rider was was cold cut Sandwiches. That
Speaker 5: was our rider.
Speaker 1: Okay. May Now traveling wise, like is it fifteen passenger van?
Speaker 1: Is it station wagon? Who's driving?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we started out in station wagons and
Speaker 3: by the time, you know, we graduated to doing the
Speaker 3: tours that we were on the nineteen ninety nine tour,
Speaker 3: whatever tours.
Speaker 5: Were on, we had our own tour bus.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see, all right, Now, the dumbest question I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask, and I've never asked to anyone from Purple.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I'm not I'm not a
Speaker 1: gotcha journalism person, so I'd never liked like gossipy questions
Speaker 1: or whatever, like technical questions. But i just gotta know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you guys are also in the midst of some
Speaker 1: of the finest women on earth. At least that's how
Speaker 1: they were presented to us. Oh yeah again, Ivanity and
Speaker 1: now you guys seen Susan, Brendan all them like morning,
Speaker 1: So I understand that there's the magic of the makeup
Speaker 1: artists and the hair and all stuff. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that I don't expect them to wake
Speaker 1: up in camou salls and ship. But I'm just saying
Speaker 1: you don't.
Speaker 4: But Maloney and Vanity was hot in the morning. I
Speaker 4: don't care what you say. They woke up like that time.
Speaker 1: My whole, my whole point is that in you know,
Speaker 1: I know, or at least my perception of how you
Speaker 1: guys were were there unspoken ground rules on the cock
Speaker 1: blockage tip. Those words, No, I've never heard those words
Speaker 1: put together. Like, I can't believe I said those words.
Speaker 4: I'm very proud of.
Speaker 1: You, Yo dog. I've been in situations where, you know,
Speaker 1: motherfucking drum text trying to holler at my joint or whatever,
Speaker 1: and like, yo, b that's called fired. Well you know
Speaker 1: I'm not that petty, because then I went the beginning.
Speaker 1: Oh man, he fired me because I was trying to
Speaker 1: talk to.
Speaker 5: The unspoken rule was.
Speaker 3: They all belong to Prince, so leftovers are good and
Speaker 3: if that's if that's what you was down for. The
Speaker 3: unspoken rule was, hey, you know, print all mine.
Speaker 4: So some nerve can't handle all of them.
Speaker 1: That's that's rather amazing. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: the sort of the PIMPI ish. Wow. I want to
Speaker 1: be that when I grow up. But I can't even imagine.
Speaker 4: I feel like Jed.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just can't. I can't even I
Speaker 1: can't even juggle the Tonight Show, a roots album, a movie,
Speaker 1: and a book, and man, my girlfriend, like, imagine three
Speaker 1: of them. Isn't that what you're doing? Maybe I'm asking
Speaker 1: for tips? How did he do it? Dude, multiple women
Speaker 1: is the whole thing. I can't. That's like I can't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I meant in being around in that atmosphere where
Speaker 1: they actually I know that the power of beautiful women around.
Speaker 1: Actually they make the best wingmen. You know, they make
Speaker 1: the best wingmen almost, So in terms of that, like,
Speaker 1: what was it like just in general? Oh wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got to stop this question, Stop this question. No,
Speaker 1: I got some more important to ask. Something that just
Speaker 1: hit me right now. Jimmy, jim just recently revealed to
Speaker 1: me that quote ah cock cock cock co and the
Speaker 1: kid can't make you come was your version Vanity's ad
Speaker 1: lib and Nasty Girl. Yeah, yeah, I know you got Look,
Speaker 1: I know I'm talking inside baseball right now. I will
Speaker 1: explain to you guys way later. Okay, I'm hosting a podcast,
Speaker 1: so I gotta explained, ladies and gentlemen, listen. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: at the end of Nasty Girl, when Vanity has to
Speaker 1: add lips somewhat before the breakdown of the song, she
Speaker 1: reaches for a few notes, which one of them is
Speaker 1: a high note. Whatever. So I'm assuming that she tried
Speaker 1: to reach this high note in concert and I'm imagining
Speaker 1: that there is some mocking going on of her, maybe
Speaker 1: not hitting the notes or whatever, whatever the case was.
Speaker 1: There's a skit, and I was talking about these skits earlier.
Speaker 1: There's there's a skit. There's a skit where I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that that's Mark Mars's orgasm voice, and when he hits
Speaker 1: his orgasm on this song on the skit, he does
Speaker 1: the I don't know it at the time, but he's
Speaker 1: doing the vanity adlab whatever, And at first I just
Speaker 1: thought he was imitating a chicken. And then Jimmy Zam
Speaker 1: reveals to me, No, that was him. That used to
Speaker 1: be our inside jokes. So can you can you explain
Speaker 1: to me the genesis of how.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: I don't even think you need to explain it to
Speaker 1: me because I can almost imagine that there had to
Speaker 1: be some ribbing or teasing going on.
Speaker 5: Oh man, Yeah, we used to do that a lot.
Speaker 5: You know when we were I couldn't.
Speaker 1: Hit on them, so you had to treat him like
Speaker 1: second grade sandbox teasing.
Speaker 3: I get it, you know, we could, you know, hit
Speaker 3: on them, take our best shot.
Speaker 5: See how I went.
Speaker 1: But you know, situation I just found him about and
Speaker 1: mir you don't know about Tony.
Speaker 2: And Karmen Electric Oh yes, electric, Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I never knew how Tony Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I found out that he allegedly got dismissed because he
Speaker 1: crossed that line. Anyway, so finish what you were saying
Speaker 1: that was that was.
Speaker 3: A line that if you cross was a dismissable lines.
Speaker 3: But you know anyway, no, we we just used to
Speaker 3: kind of make fun of her and she really would
Speaker 3: get pissed.
Speaker 5: You know, we walked by the dressing room.
Speaker 3: You know, it was just yeah, that was our version
Speaker 3: of nasty girls.
Speaker 4: Since you ask him dumb questions, gonna ask.
Speaker 1: A dumb question, yes, please ask dumb question. But Maris,
Speaker 1: I really I really appreciate you. I know you're doing
Speaker 1: this just to be polite, Like I thank you for
Speaker 1: letting us nerd out on you. I just have to
Speaker 1: say that be good.
Speaker 4: No do I do too, But this is not my question,
Speaker 4: just for everybody else who may have still thought this.
Speaker 4: So just officially, Laura's Day and Prince not related, right, wrong,
Speaker 4: They are your cousins.
Speaker 5: That's that's the story.
Speaker 3: But we just we're just brothers and the brother from
Speaker 3: another mother. Sense you know, but not blood related at all.
Speaker 4: And one more because I know you talk about this
Speaker 4: in the book, but I just need to know now
Speaker 4: bringing Jerome in, at what point did you was it
Speaker 4: thought that he needed to be there? I know Jimmy
Speaker 4: told his version of the story and the evolution of
Speaker 4: your relationship. Can you just talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Jerome, he's just one of those guys
Speaker 3: you know to this day, you know you you you
Speaker 3: know Jerome. You know, he's a lovable guy, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know he was just there at first. He
Speaker 3: was a real valet where and he would collect our luggage.
Speaker 3: You know, we're out on the tour bus, you know,
Speaker 3: twelve o'clock they say, having your luggage outside the door.
Speaker 3: Jerome's getting the luggage, he's putting it on the tour bus.
Speaker 3: He's getting us pizzas and whatever we want and doing
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 5: And so we go back into rehearsal after the first
Speaker 5: tour and.
Speaker 3: We're rehearsing cool because that's going to be our second single,
Speaker 3: and so you know, we rehearsing. We get to the
Speaker 3: part where I say, somebody bring me a mirror, and
Speaker 3: you know, Jerome takes off grabs a mirror off the wall,
Speaker 3: runs back up, shows up in front of me holding
Speaker 3: up a mirror, and everybody just kind of stopped playing.
Speaker 3: We all looking at each other like that's going to
Speaker 3: be in the show. So that was it, you know,
Speaker 3: from that moment on, Jerome was part of the band,
Speaker 3: and it just evolved from there.
Speaker 4: In the pants minds, we just thinkure y'all are just
Speaker 4: so close at this point. I don't know, it just
Speaker 4: it always felt like that.
Speaker 1: No, you know, it got to be that way speak
Speaker 1: speaking of Jerome and his duties. Okay, I've asked this
Speaker 1: question a lot, practically to every artist that has an
Speaker 1: on stage reputation, and the answer never satisfies me. Now,
Speaker 1: you're in a very specific situation because in your initial
Speaker 1: five year iteration, at least of the of the of
Speaker 1: the first draft of your your period with the time,
Speaker 1: you guys have basically worn the same outfit every time
Speaker 1: I've seen you. And the thing that that is that
Speaker 1: is baffling to me. And I've seen your I've seen
Speaker 1: these concerts and you guys are dancing, moving, sweating and whatnot.
Speaker 1: When the show is over, are you getting into street clothes?
Speaker 1: And how is your your your Presley jacket and your outfit.
Speaker 1: How is it clean and ready for the next night show,
Speaker 1: especially when you have to do six hours on the
Speaker 1: tour bus to the next city. And like, I just
Speaker 1: never understood how one outfit could sustain, like that's your
Speaker 1: everyday outfit.
Speaker 3: Well that yeah, that that that pressley uh as I
Speaker 3: called it, uh it kind of it was, you know,
Speaker 3: it was like a uh is a Linus you know
Speaker 3: the security blanket. Man. You know, I don't even know
Speaker 3: if the dry cleaner back then because show show. And
Speaker 3: then my Stacy's my black and white Stacy's. When I
Speaker 3: say about to walk a hole in my Stacy Adams,
Speaker 3: I looked up and you know, Stacy Adams have some
Speaker 3: thick souls on them, right, I had actually walked a hole.
Speaker 3: There was a hole in one of them. And so
Speaker 3: you know, that's just that's just what it was, man,
Speaker 3: And and and the pressley. I wore a thing until
Speaker 3: it fell. It basically fell off of me. And after
Speaker 3: it did, you know, we looked up and I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're doing well now. So then I start I started
Speaker 3: getting custom clothes made from that point on. But you know,
Speaker 3: that got me through my first at least tour and
Speaker 3: maybe first two tours. And you're right it probably I
Speaker 3: was scared to dry clean it because it would have
Speaker 3: fell apart a lot sooner.
Speaker 1: Where is that original Presley jacket? Now?
Speaker 3: I don't know it's it's in uh, it's in stage
Speaker 3: clothes heaven, right now, you know, yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: It literally fell apart. I looked up one day after
Speaker 3: I came off stage and it was hanging off of me,
Speaker 3: and that was a sad day for me.
Speaker 1: Jacket man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, listen, I'm literally in Nashville. The Black is a
Speaker 4: museum that should be in there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's right. That is.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't make it. Wow, that's that's crazy.
Speaker 1: He was invited. So no, the the movie premieres. So okay,
Speaker 1: at what point are you taking Prince seriously when he's saying,
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to do a movie. And before
Speaker 1: I even answer that question, do you have any information
Speaker 1: whatsoever about the quote unquote the second Coming movie or
Speaker 1: at least you know some some clips have finally wound
Speaker 1: up one line of you know, whatever idea he was
Speaker 1: flirting with with doing before that morphed into purple Rain, Like,
Speaker 1: were you guys going to be a part of that
Speaker 1: presentation as well? Or was that just him at the time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must have been just him, because you know,
Speaker 3: all I know is, you know, it came to me.
Speaker 3: You know, one day it's like, you know, Marris, we're
Speaker 3: going to do a movie. I was like, okay, you
Speaker 3: know whatever, And then you know, next thing, I know,
Speaker 3: we're doing dance classes, we're doing acting classes, and all
Speaker 3: of this going on. And I'm still not really taking
Speaker 3: it serious because I'd never been involved in anything like that, right,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm taking it all with a grain of salt.
Speaker 3: But the next thing, I know that these directors and
Speaker 3: cinematographers and producers are starting to come to town. I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, we're serious now. And next time I know,
Speaker 3: we're in production. So I think at that point I
Speaker 3: started to take it serious.
Speaker 1: Okay. So then by that point it's like, okay, we're
Speaker 1: really doing this.
Speaker 5: Yeah it's real now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So I okay, I just got to ask,
Speaker 1: at what point I assume that you always knew that
Speaker 1: Jimmy and Terry got snowed in Atlanta? Correct? Absolutely, Okay,
Speaker 1: and at this point, it's it's Jamie. Shoot, that's sort
Speaker 1: of you guys's tour manager or your wrangler, if you will,
Speaker 1: pretty much Okay, So at the point where they're like,
Speaker 1: we can't get a flight out, what's happening on your
Speaker 1: side of the fence. It's just the four of you,
Speaker 1: no base no keyboard player. So at what point do
Speaker 1: you realize that you're about to do a timeless show? Like,
Speaker 1: are you guys trying to keep this from Prince's camp
Speaker 1: until the very last minute? Like, at what point do
Speaker 1: you have to break down to him and say they
Speaker 1: aren't going to make the show?
Speaker 5: I think that Prince was.
Speaker 1: He was in on it.
Speaker 3: You know, he knew more details than I did about it, because,
Speaker 3: like I said, you know, we were on tour, you know,
Speaker 3: and he was there with us, and he knew that
Speaker 3: they weren't going to make the show, and he was
Speaker 3: pissed about it because he didn't want any of us
Speaker 3: producing or writing for anybody else, or doing anything that wasn't.
Speaker 5: Related to the time.
Speaker 1: He suspected that they were producing. He knew that for
Speaker 1: a fact, or did he just think, like, oh, y'all
Speaker 1: fucking around with girls or something?
Speaker 3: Now he just knew that they were snowed in, uh
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, right, and so guess what he ended up
Speaker 3: with on off to the side of stage, playing bass
Speaker 3: with the keyboard in front of him. So he actually
Speaker 3: played those instruments that night, and we put Jerome over
Speaker 3: where Terry would have been.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: So we had three people in front, Jesse, Me and
Speaker 3: Jerome and we just did the show like that with
Speaker 3: Prince playing bass off to the side of the show.
Speaker 1: And you put a hat on Jerome and the audience
Speaker 1: wasn't any other wiser.
Speaker 3: No, we didn't put a hat on him. We just
Speaker 3: let him be Jerome, you know, standing in that spot.
Speaker 3: But you know they heard the base going just like normal,
Speaker 3: so it was all good.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, these stadiums aren't totally one. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that somebody from some angle had to see
Speaker 1: prints on the side plane, like is he hiding behind
Speaker 1: a curtain? Or yeah, how's he seeing? Yeah, how's he
Speaker 1: seeing the cues? Or like where's he standing as this
Speaker 1: is happening.
Speaker 5: He didn't need to see the cues. He knew to
Speaker 5: show he needed to show back than we did.
Speaker 1: Did it feel just a little bit better when he
Speaker 1: was playing bass.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well it felt good. You know, we didn't
Speaker 5: miss sleep man, it was you.
Speaker 1: Know, it was it was awesome. Who played keyboards? He
Speaker 1: did tandem at the same time.
Speaker 3: We had bass and keyboards, so you know, when the
Speaker 3: bass was more necessary, he played that, and when the
Speaker 3: keyboard was necessary he played that.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, I see. So when the acts is
Speaker 1: supposed to come down, are you two talking first or
Speaker 1: is he just going into executive order action without even
Speaker 1: consulting with his senate in his house first? Like, what
Speaker 1: should we do?
Speaker 3: Executive order? Brother, We're in the studio, I want to
Speaker 3: say sunset sound, you know. And he had them come
Speaker 3: in and I didn't know we were in. They're cutting
Speaker 3: We had cut ice cream castles that day. You know,
Speaker 3: I did my vocals and we were just putting some
Speaker 3: fishing touches on and you know, Terry and Jimmy come
Speaker 3: in and I didn't know. I was glad to see him,
Speaker 3: you know, And right at that moment he told them,
Speaker 3: he said, you know, you guys have fired from the band.
Speaker 3: You know you you went to Atlanta, you missed the show,
Speaker 3: and you know you're fired. And that, you know, that
Speaker 3: hit me like a ton of bricks because my band
Speaker 3: was my band. You know, we were all brothers, you know,
Speaker 3: we had love for each other, and I was always
Speaker 3: one of them, you know, I was always one of
Speaker 3: those kind of guys that, you know, if Dave Garibaldi
Speaker 3: left Tower Power or you know whoever, you know, they
Speaker 3: lost an original member, then the band didn't feel the
Speaker 3: same to me, right, And I never wanted to be
Speaker 3: one of those bands.
Speaker 5: And it just hit me like a ton of bricks
Speaker 5: that all of a sudden, we're one of those you
Speaker 5: know where where what.
Speaker 4: Was his name?
Speaker 5: He used to saying lead and Sammy Hager.
Speaker 1: Came into Yeah, yeah, exactly, Van Healing.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just you can't change members, like it's
Speaker 3: just not the same. So you know that that that
Speaker 3: just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 1: Man, and just no, you were I think you just
Speaker 1: had to roll with it.
Speaker 5: And yeah, yeah, and I had to roll with it.
Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, here comes these new members
Speaker 3: and I'm looking back and and that's the moment really
Speaker 3: where it really hit me, where it's you know, it's
Speaker 3: really time for me to start to think about, uh
Speaker 3: going and doing my own thing.
Speaker 1: So was he it's so weird because I would imagine that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I never pegged him as being super
Speaker 1: confrontational because he's so his image wise was so elusive
Speaker 1: or mysterious that I can't you know, I have I've
Speaker 1: probably had to fire you know, maybe five people with
Speaker 1: my entire career, and man, i'd be losing sleep over
Speaker 1: that ship at night, called therapist, like, man, how I
Speaker 1: do right? Letting people slip?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Man, just don't let it happen again, please, But like
Speaker 1: he was confrontational.
Speaker 3: Like that, like just yeah, yeah, cut, just point blank,
Speaker 3: just saying whatever's on his mind, just and and and
Speaker 3: a lot of times, not really much emotion behind it,
Speaker 3: just how you would think of him to talk, you know,
Speaker 3: you're fight.
Speaker 5: You know, you guys missed to show it's.
Speaker 3: Not your priority, you know, and that and that's it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say necessarily he.
Speaker 1: Wasn't afraid of of of confrontational act, you know, because
Speaker 1: again it's like I want to make sure I'm covering
Speaker 1: my ass because like I mean, not for nothing, but
Speaker 1: you also dealing with brothers and ship, right, you know,
Speaker 1: So it could have went another way like motherfucker.
Speaker 3: You had zon in and then yeah, well you know
Speaker 3: he always kept you know, uh, you know, a big
Speaker 3: three hundred pounds.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot about tors off to the side.
Speaker 5: You know, he gotten to the point where he just
Speaker 5: kept security with him.
Speaker 1: So you know, well, are you allowed, are you allowed
Speaker 1: to answer back? Are you allowed to say that song
Speaker 1: was whack? Or you know, like, are you allowed to
Speaker 1: make fun of him?
Speaker 3: I always spoke my mind, you know, with him, you know,
Speaker 3: and that was that was both good and bad for us.
Speaker 3: But you know, I always told him if he played
Speaker 3: something for me that I liked, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: I would say it, but I wouldn't lie to him,
Speaker 3: you know, just like when he played, uh and this
Speaker 3: is in the book, you know, but when he played
Speaker 3: when Dubs Crying for me. You know, I'm listening to
Speaker 3: the song and you know, we're we're three three quarters
Speaker 3: of the way through the song, and I ain't heard
Speaker 3: a bass yet. You know, I'm like, I'm like, I said,
Speaker 3: there ain't no bass in the song, man, And and
Speaker 3: uh it's like, yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 5: I said, Man, I got out the car.
Speaker 3: I said, Man, next time you play something for me,
Speaker 3: make sure it's funky and make sure it has some
Speaker 3: bass in it.
Speaker 5: And I kind of slammed the door, you know what.
Speaker 3: And that one, that one kind of came back to
Speaker 3: bite me on the ass because it ended up being
Speaker 3: a number one smash for me. Right, But when I
Speaker 3: first heard it, I wasn't chilling it and I expressed
Speaker 3: that to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, it's so weird because all
Speaker 1: of you guys are are characters, and the thing is
Speaker 1: is that you know, there's there's a side of himself
Speaker 1: that he expresses, especially with sexuality that yes, it works
Speaker 1: spot on and it's bullseye, but it's also like, you know,
Speaker 1: is he going to you guys to be like, look,
Speaker 1: I created a new song called do Me Baby. It's
Speaker 1: eight minutes long and it's going to be a little awkward,
Speaker 1: but listen to it, Like, is it weird where he's
Speaker 1: playing you guys like some of his weirder shit where
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, Okay, where are you going with this?
Speaker 1: Or does he just like only give you the funk
Speaker 1: shit like okay, this is called nineteen ninety nine or
Speaker 1: this is you know, like I'm did he ever get
Speaker 1: was it ever an awkward thing when he's showcasing a
Speaker 1: song that uh kind of crosses the lines or boundaries,
Speaker 1: like today there's no line that can't be crossed, like I,
Speaker 1: you know, make the Stallion can release some shit and
Speaker 1: it's be like, okay, yeah, she's talking about her web
Speaker 1: ass pussy. But you know, back in the day, like
Speaker 1: someone says, I sincerely want to fuck the taste out
Speaker 1: of your mouth. Like yeah, it's like you never heard
Speaker 1: that shit before unless it's a Blowfly record. So like
Speaker 1: is it awkward in front of you guys where like
Speaker 1: you're hearing your boss have your five for three boss
Speaker 1: have like orgasms on records and shit, yeah, talking talking
Speaker 1: in an English accent right right now.
Speaker 5: He's especially me.
Speaker 3: You know, he would corner me with a lot of stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, because that's just how we were back in
Speaker 3: the day.
Speaker 5: We hung out, you know, we cut you know all
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I played a lot on a lot
Speaker 3: of his songs, and you know, obviously he played on
Speaker 3: just about every time song until maybe after Ice Cream
Speaker 3: Castles when we did Pandemonium. Then you know, he started
Speaker 3: to kind of slack off, but he would always play
Speaker 3: me stuff because I would always be there.
Speaker 5: In the studio.
Speaker 3: So he's always played and you know I understood his
Speaker 3: avant gardener's, his his weirdness and and and he just wanted.
Speaker 5: To be different, and you know that was his thing.
Speaker 3: And that's that's really what got him, you know, in
Speaker 3: trouble at the Rolling Stones concert, because he wanted to
Speaker 3: switch from I Want to be Your Lover, you know,
Speaker 3: and and all of a sudden he's you know, running
Speaker 3: around half naked, you know, playing new wave songs. And
Speaker 3: you know, he could have I think, you know, he
Speaker 3: could have rose a lot quicker. And he took a
Speaker 3: dive you know in his popularity and sales for that
Speaker 3: Dirty Mind record.
Speaker 5: But it took him in a.
Speaker 3: Direction that you know, actually led to where he ended
Speaker 3: up being. So he was definitely a risk taker. And
Speaker 3: he played me a lot of stuff and I just
Speaker 3: kind of understood, you know, his thought process, you know,
Speaker 3: and some of the stuff I liked, some of.
Speaker 5: It I didn't.
Speaker 1: Is there a song of his that you wish you
Speaker 1: guys had for yourselves? Well, okay, I know that International
Speaker 1: Lover was supposed to be for you. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: At any point, did you actually cut your own version
Speaker 1: of it. Oh, where can we You can't.
Speaker 5: Unless you can get in the vault, you know you can.
Speaker 5: But I sang that song.
Speaker 1: I sang. I sang it first, okay.
Speaker 3: And then I just think he's decided that he liked it,
Speaker 3: you know, more than he thought. And and and then
Speaker 3: you know, next thing, I know, I uh, he came
Speaker 3: back to me. He's like, I don't like I don't
Speaker 3: like your vocals. I don't like what you did, he said,
Speaker 3: you know, I said, okay. So then the next thing is,
Speaker 3: you know, he's like, well I did it for myself,
Speaker 3: you know. So I listened to it, and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: that's great, you know, you wrote it. So but he
Speaker 3: did the same thing with seven seven seven nine three eleven.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm up, you know, he said, you know,
Speaker 3: I got some stuff to do. I'll leave you sing
Speaker 3: the song. I'll come back. I did the vocals. He
Speaker 3: came back from wherever he was, and he's like, I
Speaker 3: don't like it. You know, you know, he said, I
Speaker 3: hate how you sound on it.
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: I said, uh, okay, cool. So I go back to
Speaker 3: the hotel. About nine ten o'clock the next morning, he's
Speaker 3: calling me, you know, meet me downstairs in the car.
Speaker 3: We're getting a limbo. He's like, I love this man,
Speaker 3: I love the way your voice.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't he wasn't cutting your vocals half the time?
Speaker 5: No I, I you know, I had gotten to the
Speaker 5: point where I would do you know, I cut the
Speaker 5: vocals myself.
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I was gonna say, is it cutting vocals is
Speaker 1: such an intimate experience? Uh?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Were you like, were you uncomfortable if he's sitting there
Speaker 1: like micromanaging your vocals or it's just like all right,
Speaker 1: I'll leave and come back.
Speaker 3: And No, I was very comfortable with him because you know,
Speaker 3: he's he's such, you know, such a great producer, you know,
Speaker 3: and he knew how to get the best out of me,
Speaker 3: and that's why he taught me.
Speaker 4: And so you know,