Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: this is QLs classic. My name is Quest Love, and
Speaker 1: we go back in the archives to September twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: some months after Prince's death. The members of his legendary band,
Speaker 1: The Revolution, gathered together can give us reflective moments of
Speaker 1: his life and his career. We hope you enjoy. Here
Speaker 1: we go.
Speaker 2: Suprema Supremo So some Supremo who call Suprema su su
Speaker 2: Supremo Ro call Suprema Sun So Supremo who call Subprema
Speaker 2: sun Suprema ro call.
Speaker 1: My name is Questo? Yeah, shut up already, damn. This
Speaker 1: is a special Purple News. Dearly beloved, check this out.
Speaker 1: This is Questlove and you're tuned to a very special
Speaker 1: episode of Questlove Supreme, only on Pandora. Right now, I
Speaker 1: think it's about time that me and the whole Team
Speaker 1: Supreme take a road trip up to Uptown, up the
Speaker 1: mini wood of the Minneapolis, the home of the legendary
Speaker 1: Prince Rogers Nelson. That's right, We're going on a road trip,
Speaker 1: all of us, all of Teams Supreme, Von Tigelow Sugar, Steve, Unpaid, Bill,
Speaker 1: Boss Bill, and now our recent edition Life this very
Speaker 1: special Minneapolis episode of Quest Love Supreme, We're going to
Speaker 1: talk to one of the hardest working bands of all time.
Speaker 1: That's right. I say they're the hardest working band. No
Speaker 1: band has prep more, rehearsed more and perfective more the
Speaker 1: Revolution Prince's band, that's right. I know you're like the
Speaker 1: Revolution exactly. We got them all. We got Bobby C.
Speaker 1: We got Brown One, Doctor Fink went Da Lisa. We
Speaker 1: also got de Dickerson, and we got Andre Simo, and
Speaker 1: we got s Sanna Milk, the subject of many a
Speaker 1: print song. So, without further ado, or if you're right
Speaker 1: back with Bobby Z, Brown Mark, Doctor Fink, must Leaf
Speaker 1: Sepree only on Pandora without further ado, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I'll probably say probably one of the most influential group
Speaker 1: members of of I don't know, I mean behind the
Speaker 1: creativity and the work ethic. I know no other band
Speaker 1: that's ever worked harder than The Revolution. We like to
Speaker 1: welcome Bobby z, h, Doctor Fink, and Brown Mark to
Speaker 1: Quest Good. You're good, that's awesome. That's awesome. So I
Speaker 1: have to, you know, there's so there's so many questions
Speaker 1: to ask, but I really would like to start with
Speaker 1: the with the beginning, the very beginning of how the
Speaker 1: group came together, but even before then, Like what were
Speaker 1: your backgrounds? Like, are all of you from Minnesota?
Speaker 3: Or I was raised here?
Speaker 4: Born in uh Bronx, New York b Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 4: I did not know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, when did you move here?
Speaker 1: How old were you ago?
Speaker 3: I was about seven seventh, Okay, it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: So what what brought you here?
Speaker 4: My mother, she just wanted to Uh, my my dad
Speaker 4: was military and h he's based out it.
Speaker 3: He he's from here, so this is where all his
Speaker 3: family was when they got married, and then we came along.
Speaker 4: She just wanted us to be closer to his family
Speaker 4: cause he was always overseas okay, and so that's how
Speaker 4: we ended up here.
Speaker 3: Think what about you, what's your your early big you
Speaker 3: know your well.
Speaker 5: I was born here, okay, and uh, Bobby and I
Speaker 5: were both born in the suburb of Saint Louis Park,
Speaker 5: which was one of the the you know what we're
Speaker 5: called the Inner Ring suburbs, like ten minutes from downtown.
Speaker 5: So you could just you know, shoot downtown to Minneapolis
Speaker 5: really quick and easy. And so we started with music
Speaker 5: pretty early. I mean my parents had me studying piano
Speaker 5: at a very early age, right around six, and studied
Speaker 5: classical really throughout through high school and jazz. Jazz came
Speaker 5: in about age of fourteen when I demanded to be
Speaker 5: hooked up with a jazz teacher here in town.
Speaker 1: You demanded, yes, I did.
Speaker 5: I told my parents that I really want to study jazz.
Speaker 5: So they we found these really great teachers here that
Speaker 5: had studios downtown here in Minneapolis, and they were called
Speaker 5: Wigley and Associates. There's just two guys, and Tom Weakland
Speaker 5: was my teacher. I credit him with a you know,
Speaker 5: teaching me improv and improvisational techniques and all that.
Speaker 1: And well this isn't usual because most people, I would think,
Speaker 1: would like, like see something influential rock and roll in
Speaker 1: television and be like that's.
Speaker 3: What I want.
Speaker 5: Oh well that was there too, I mean definitely throughout
Speaker 5: all that. I mean I was six when the Beatles
Speaker 5: came on Ed Sullivan. I watched it live and then
Speaker 5: I was off and running from that too. That was
Speaker 5: a huge influence on me that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, sir Bobby, both you and your brother.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was just gonna say, well, Matt mentioned Saint
Speaker 6: Louis Park, which was produced a lot of great people,
Speaker 6: Al Franken and you know Wilson. It's just kind of
Speaker 6: a strange outer ring suburb that really did produce a.
Speaker 1: Lot of fun.
Speaker 6: But yeah, my brother David was kind of the godfather
Speaker 6: of this whole thing because, like Matt said, our families.
Speaker 1: Knew each other.
Speaker 6: But David was before the Beatles with Peter Paul and
Speaker 6: Mary in the case to Trio. You know, the hippie
Speaker 6: folk thing that was just moving with the anti war
Speaker 6: movement grew, you know, the folk music. Of course, Bob
Speaker 6: Dylan came from here, but David was also. They created
Speaker 6: their own band. It's a whole Soma scene here with
Speaker 6: Soma Records was Amos spelt backwards and Amos Highlacher own
Speaker 6: music Land, So they had a label with the Chancellors
Speaker 6: and the high Spirits and and the trash men with
Speaker 6: Surf and Bird, and you know there was the cast
Speaker 6: raised with liar liar. I mean, it was exploding here
Speaker 6: in the in the late sixties, and those guys eventually
Speaker 6: laid the kind of the fertile ground for the musical
Speaker 6: Messiah to come. And you know Owen Husty of course
Speaker 6: was part of that group and it. But Matt and
Speaker 6: I had known each other because our families, our mothers
Speaker 6: worked together very creative people. Matn's dad was very creative
Speaker 6: and actors and radio and skits, and my mother was
Speaker 6: very creative, and so Matt I.
Speaker 1: They would come to the house.
Speaker 6: When we were very young, and my brother David was
Speaker 6: already showing us how to poke holes in the player
Speaker 6: piano to make more notes and.
Speaker 1: So really, yeah, so David's old. David's eight years older. See,
Speaker 1: in my head always thought he was like your little brother. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that he's the older brother.
Speaker 6: Yeah, older than Steve's in the middle of four. But
Speaker 6: when David met Prince, you know, Prince had worked with
Speaker 6: a with the eight track, and then David was working
Speaker 6: at Sound eighty and the.
Speaker 1: First digital actual.
Speaker 6: I think multi track digital was three AM and they
Speaker 6: gave it to Sound eighty one of them anyway.
Speaker 1: So all all of that was the main that was
Speaker 1: the centerpiece of Minneapolis. Yeah, it was her.
Speaker 6: Pilhoffer, a big jingle writer, a big orchestrator, and he
Speaker 6: built this incredibly beautiful facility for its time, you know,
Speaker 6: forty eight track two inches and you know, incredible.
Speaker 1: Drum boots and stuff. You know.
Speaker 6: It was really it was something and put struck to
Speaker 6: out like a fish to.
Speaker 1: Water, you know.
Speaker 6: And Peppy Willie we recorded their studio Beat two with
Speaker 6: the Polydor deal with ten fifteen and those tracks are
Speaker 6: played on.
Speaker 1: Did any of you guys have any like lofty goals
Speaker 1: of like world domination or was it just like, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll just start a band, maybe I'll go to college
Speaker 1: or the army And yeah, no, I'd suburb definitely wanted
Speaker 1: to you wanted to break out of Oh yeah, no question.
Speaker 1: Did you feel there was a legitimate scene to nurture
Speaker 1: in Minnesota or was it like I gotta get to
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 5: Or it was more about getting to New York or
Speaker 5: LA and doing it. But we I always thought you
Speaker 5: could still do it anywhere in the country because you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of groups broke out from different cities.
Speaker 1: But we were.
Speaker 5: Really at that time one of the few groups that
Speaker 5: was able to do it at that time, just because
Speaker 5: Prince got his deal with Warner Brothers, you know, but.
Speaker 4: For me, I was on the I was like right
Speaker 4: on the cusp of that generation gap. They were in
Speaker 4: a d different generation than me, okay, and.
Speaker 1: You saying we're old. Nah.
Speaker 4: You know it was weird because m the generation of
Speaker 4: musicians that I hung out with, it was there. There's
Speaker 4: there was this distinct border of the type of music
Speaker 4: that we we approached. But I just remember when I
Speaker 4: was about seventeen, sixteen seventeen, I was determined.
Speaker 3: It was nothing gonna stop me.
Speaker 4: I was in the studio by the time I was
Speaker 4: sixteen years old, recording, trying to start my own thing.
Speaker 4: Even though I couldn't even say I, I didn't care. I
Speaker 4: was gonna do whatever it took. Cause I saw Prince
Speaker 4: did it, went in there and did all the instruments,
Speaker 4: and I was like, well, wait a minute, you know
Speaker 4: this can be done.
Speaker 3: And so I was determined.
Speaker 1: So how how did p into your Who's the first
Speaker 1: kid into the radar? Bobby Okay? I was.
Speaker 6: A runner for Hustny. He had an ad agency.
Speaker 1: I had.
Speaker 6: Just done it one summer from my junior year, and
Speaker 6: then in his senior year, I graduated high school and
Speaker 6: was U I inherited the job from Jeff Siegel, who
Speaker 6: went on to do the Renaissance Festival here and just
Speaker 6: amazing talent. And he had created this yellow excuse me,
Speaker 6: yellow paper delivery service, which just was kind of a
Speaker 6: invoice that you turn in on a yellow piece of
Speaker 6: paper on Friday, so it was you handed it in
Speaker 6: the hustney.
Speaker 1: It was like fifty dollars a week or something to
Speaker 1: drive around.
Speaker 6: And then I was in this this band, Kevin Odergarden.
Speaker 6: The KO band was kind of a country rock band
Speaker 6: following Marshall Tucker and all that stuff back then. And
Speaker 6: you know, my job became kind of mixed because at
Speaker 6: the studio I was walking from the back room, which
Speaker 6: when the studio, I've heard too.
Speaker 1: His Moon sound. So Chris Moon owned that.
Speaker 6: Chris Moon owned the studio and photography studio, and I
Speaker 6: think he used it to get girls mostly, but I'm
Speaker 6: a photographery English accent, but he was very charming guy.
Speaker 1: And so I was with this band.
Speaker 6: That we were helping build in the back room for
Speaker 6: free rehearsal. We were kind of painting it or doing whatever,
Speaker 6: wrecking it, whatever we were doing. And this one fateful
Speaker 6: day I was just walking from the back hall from
Speaker 6: Studio B to the front door, and I heard this
Speaker 6: sound coming out of the door wide open Studio A.
Speaker 6: I just looked in there and saw the fro first
Speaker 6: and just heard this sound, and he was he was
Speaker 6: working on baby, and he stopped. I got the half
Speaker 6: turned startled. Just the eyes move, you know, more of
Speaker 6: a different electricity current than anything I've ever felt. I mean,
Speaker 6: we're all in the same current. He ran on a
Speaker 6: different electric current. So you could just kind of tell
Speaker 6: as the personality, even though he was shy that there
Speaker 6: was just so much going on in there. And so
Speaker 6: I just sat down because it's like, you know, he
Speaker 6: was just a guy recording at that point.
Speaker 1: I just sat down and.
Speaker 6: He just looked at me like, you know, with that
Speaker 6: horrified look that we found out later was you know,
Speaker 6: who are you and what are you doing in my chair?
Speaker 6: You don't get out of here. So I just sat
Speaker 6: there and I just kind of listening and just go
Speaker 6: ahead and play it. You know, look, that's amazing. You
Speaker 6: know what's going on here? There's nothing, you know, I said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 6: And then Chris moonwalked in, What are you doing in here?
Speaker 1: It's you know, this is exprience and everything.
Speaker 6: I said, Oh okay, I didn't know this was like
Speaker 6: a nuclear you know, we need a special you know,
Speaker 6: suit to get in here. And uh. And so that
Speaker 6: the laughter, the first laugh I got out of him
Speaker 6: was the connection, and humor is kind of how I
Speaker 6: got into it. And then I'd see him like every
Speaker 6: day until one day he went with the hand you know,
Speaker 6: come in and he goes, sit down, and I was
Speaker 6: just like okay, and he goes, watch just I want
Speaker 6: you to make sure that drug. I want you to
Speaker 6: hit record, and I said okay. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 6: and I hit record and he's out there in the
Speaker 6: drum booth and he's putting down a drum track and
Speaker 6: I go, okay, well that's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like, where is he going? What is he doing?
Speaker 6: Is is a drum track, comes back in the boot,
Speaker 6: picks up the bass. He's putting on a bass truck,
Speaker 6: and I'm going, that's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Picks up the tarn.
Speaker 6: There's the keyboards, and I'm sitting there pretty numb at
Speaker 6: this point, you know, watching all this go down. And
Speaker 6: then he goes, I want you to punch me on vocals,
Speaker 6: and you know, it's like I'll just hit record, you know,
Speaker 6: and then he just recorded. He goes, stop, okay, go
Speaker 6: back to the next track, and we did the next track.
Speaker 6: So I kind of like got in there a little
Speaker 6: bit there and then.
Speaker 1: So he jed on engineering.
Speaker 6: Yeah, of course, I mean it's just you know, I
Speaker 6: was like, you didn't realize all the things were. So
Speaker 6: then I became Then the studio, I met him, and
Speaker 6: then we were hired by Chrismin for slide shows because
Speaker 6: that's what the back the work was. Back then, there
Speaker 6: wasn't any needle drop. There wasn't any music, so you'd
Speaker 6: hire these musicians to come up with, you know, jams
Speaker 6: basically that had no publishing rights. So me and Prince,
Speaker 6: my brother David, and the bass player from this country
Speaker 6: rock band, Gary Lopak, were doing a thing and that's
Speaker 6: the first time I saw him play an acoustic pianolok
Speaker 6: a regular upright panel and it was just like that
Speaker 6: was it when you saw the piano and the panel
Speaker 6: was moving and it was like a Max Fleisher Betty
Speaker 6: Boot cartoon and with Cab calloway, the thing was just
Speaker 6: kind of uh, you know those extra notes he kind
Speaker 6: of puts in those chords. It was just kind of like,
Speaker 6: I've never heard anything.
Speaker 1: Like that before. How was he at this point? He
Speaker 1: was seventeen. Wow, So slide shows like these events would happen.
Speaker 6: Well, you know when corporate shows get together now they
Speaker 6: put together slick video and all stuff about the car.
Speaker 1: Someone just tells me and put a playlist together. So yeah,
Speaker 1: back then, y'all have a playlists.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but it was that was the beginning of the friendship.
Speaker 6: And then Andre entered the mix, and then the three
Speaker 6: of us were the three Musketeers for a while because
Speaker 6: they got Obviously some stuff happened with Morris. I. I
Speaker 6: came new to it because the history from the whole
Speaker 6: community in the North Side, but the flag time, Alexander
Speaker 6: O'Neill and everything, and Andrea and I was just kind
Speaker 6: of like they you know, I Prince wanted a you know,
Speaker 6: a rock drummer, and he said, I want, you know,
Speaker 6: spin sticks on fire.
Speaker 1: I said, I can't, I'm not gonna because I'll show you.
Speaker 1: So he took it.
Speaker 6: He took you to Mother's finance and the guy was
Speaker 6: spinning sticks on fire.
Speaker 1: That's right, okay. I was sparklaying whatever they were doing.
Speaker 6: And and then we walked away from He goes, what
Speaker 6: did you think? And I said, you know, it's crazy
Speaker 6: rock band. It's just you know, because he had these
Speaker 6: beautiful melodies too, and then he had these big rock
Speaker 6: chams like baby. It was kind of like what, you know,
Speaker 6: are you Mother's Finest or are you Joni Mitchell or what?
Speaker 1: And then we saw.
Speaker 6: Fleetwood Mac together and that was that was achieved later
Speaker 6: with Wendy and Lisa.
Speaker 1: So the goals were there for a long term.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a combination of Mother's Finest, the Rolling
Speaker 6: Stones and Fleetwood Matt.
Speaker 1: But did he let you know that he wanted this
Speaker 1: utopian poster group of white gerummer, white keyboard player in
Speaker 1: the basically.
Speaker 6: Not in the beginning with Mac and we were looking
Speaker 6: for identities and costumes and we were out with Rick
Speaker 6: and you know, it was it was, you know, pretty
Speaker 6: chaotic as far was getting to the revolution, as far
Speaker 6: as the whole concept. But it's also the look like
Speaker 6: between Meet the Beatles and Abbey Road. I mean, there's
Speaker 6: a lot of things that go into that. The success
Speaker 6: breeds more creativity, but there was an identity search, you know,
Speaker 6: by him in the beginning, you know, the early.
Speaker 1: Costumes.
Speaker 6: You know, we're, for lack of a better word, you know,
Speaker 6: we're not formed. And then of course the fat, the
Speaker 6: bikini briefs, and.
Speaker 1: The Okay, so I kind of want to skip to
Speaker 1: the point where you guys are now professionally hired. I'll
Speaker 1: say that the one thing that I witnessed that I
Speaker 1: now know is key and important is the only because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like one of those collectors that really
Speaker 1: gets off on the process of how it gets done,
Speaker 1: not the final product. But I know that you guys
Speaker 1: have put in endless hours of preparation before you even
Speaker 1: hit a stage. Just the amount of times that like
Speaker 1: when you hear the word body heat be flat, like,
Speaker 1: does it like sen me to hysterics, Like because he'll
Speaker 1: just yell it at the most hitting opportunity time and
Speaker 1: you guys are like instantly there. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to go to the point where you guys are
Speaker 1: already a perfective machine, like around eighty three eighty four,
Speaker 1: But just in the beginning, at what point did you
Speaker 1: realize that, oh god, he really wants to do this
Speaker 1: a twentieth take or till four in the morning, or
Speaker 1: you know, oh so all of sound check is going
Speaker 1: to go right before the show.
Speaker 6: I'll let them answer. Mark and Matt get to that.
Speaker 6: But I'll just tell you I was already on that clock,
Speaker 6: you know, because I had started so early that I
Speaker 6: already knew that it was. You know, we were jamming
Speaker 6: until dawn. It was already like that from day one.
Speaker 1: So even in the beginning before you guys down the
Speaker 1: would move on furniture out, jam put the furniture back,
Speaker 1: and they would open at eight nine am, and we
Speaker 1: would be done at six. Wow. Not that I think
Speaker 1: he would know about the ten thousand hour perfection rule,
Speaker 1: but do you just think that for him, playing was
Speaker 1: much more better than socializing or just playing with his life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I came in, I was so stunned because
Speaker 4: I mean I had a pretty busy schedule, you know.
Speaker 4: I was in high school, got out at three point thirty,
Speaker 4: had a job from four to nine thirty at the
Speaker 4: pancake house.
Speaker 3: That's where I met him, actually cooked in.
Speaker 7: That he was he was I was a young guy.
Speaker 1: That's that's you got yourself.
Speaker 4: But you know, from nine from I got off at
Speaker 4: nine thirty, I headed over to the North Minneapolis to
Speaker 4: the community Center. I rehearsed till one, so from about
Speaker 4: ten to one. That's what I was used to when
Speaker 4: I got in the band. We'd start at ten am.
Speaker 4: We'd be on a jam, one groove till correct me
Speaker 4: if I'm wrong, three four o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Trust me.
Speaker 3: I would get a sandwich.
Speaker 1: Playing my bass.
Speaker 4: I'd be in the kitchen area opening up, making the
Speaker 4: sandwich one handed and playing with one hand because the
Speaker 4: groove couldn't start if you stopped the groove.
Speaker 3: He's gonna be looking at you.
Speaker 1: Really. Yeah, no lunch breaks or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a driver.
Speaker 3: Man, That dude was a driver.
Speaker 8: When y'all with jam like that? Would he use those
Speaker 8: as like bassis for songs? Like would songs be born?
Speaker 8: Kind of in the moment that bault is probably packed.
Speaker 8: We jammed all the time, Susan Rogers.
Speaker 6: Which is he'd be like rollo tapes yea, and he
Speaker 6: would just listen to it on I just pull stuff
Speaker 6: out of it during mine came out of stuff like
Speaker 6: that with Matt just jamming on something and come out
Speaker 6: of the house.
Speaker 1: And you could tell that story. That's that's so weird
Speaker 1: because now I'll say in the early days of the roots,
Speaker 1: like we would jam that relentless. But then once I
Speaker 1: discovered like, oh, I could just loop this because Daike
Speaker 1: would like write in real time, like as we were jamming,
Speaker 1: like four hours later, I'm like, all right, dude, we
Speaker 1: play the same loop like wasted. Just listen to this
Speaker 1: loop and then Tarik will use that as a basis,
Speaker 1: But do that in real time? Is the word loop was?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 6: Was was a limb pattern and there was no you know,
Speaker 6: everything was pioneered. The drum machine arrived. I walked into
Speaker 6: a rehearsal and Eden Prairie and but I heard Private
Speaker 6: Joy when he recorded it. That was I think one
Speaker 6: of the first lum one tracks. And and he looked
Speaker 6: at me, he looked at the machine. He looked at me,
Speaker 6: didn't say anything. He's looking at them, you know, he
Speaker 6: just give me that smile. It's kind of like yeah.
Speaker 6: And so I walked into rehearsal and the thing was
Speaker 6: blasting away, and I went right up to Steve farn
Speaker 6: Only and I felt like a union auto worker or something,
Speaker 6: and be all drummers everywhere in the history of all drummers.
Speaker 1: This thing is evil. You know, He's a Mustard with
Speaker 1: the machine, and he.
Speaker 6: Gave me the best advice I ever got. He looks
Speaker 6: at me and goes, it's here, learn how to use it.
Speaker 6: That's what we did, and we had to created Don Batts,
Speaker 6: who's working on.
Speaker 1: Our crew in our recent shows. You know, he created
Speaker 1: an interface with.
Speaker 6: Guitar pickups that we're using for acoustic guitar interfaced with
Speaker 6: this spaghetti thing that they created to interface with the
Speaker 6: outs of the limb to trigger pads.
Speaker 1: Nobody even had that. Yeah, I want to say, you,
Speaker 1: did you guys invent at least create? Did you?
Speaker 5: Guys?
Speaker 6: Don was a genius, Don Bout a genius, and he
Speaker 6: and Prince staid, you know, I want him to play pads,
Speaker 6: and Donald was like, I have an idea, but you
Speaker 6: know it was a jalopi at best. I mean, it
Speaker 6: would just kind of run and then work. And then
Speaker 6: you know, when we did the American Musical Awards, the
Speaker 6: fact that it didn't double trigger was was you know,
Speaker 6: because the double trigger it was your fault.
Speaker 1: It's not it was always your fault. Was a machine.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, all right, maybe I've
Speaker 1: used it three times in my life. And we started
Speaker 1: using Indians because the vibration of the monitors on stage
Speaker 1: and the base would offset the drum set right. And
Speaker 1: I mean of the hundreds of hours I've watched, I
Speaker 1: mean I've watched concerts just to see how you react
Speaker 1: to stuff, to queues and all that stuff. Has there
Speaker 1: ever been a faux pile like, oh, I don't have
Speaker 1: a job tomorrow, Like oh, like twenty five times? I mean,
Speaker 1: has water ever spilled doing it? Has a machine just
Speaker 1: got off?
Speaker 6: First of all, maybe I'm a star turn into Simon says,
Speaker 6: So he's hiding his stop on the one.
Speaker 1: Mark had to relay them to me because.
Speaker 6: He would sell, he would go, he would just lose
Speaker 6: himself or do it on purpose.
Speaker 1: I never really knew, you know, it was like is
Speaker 1: he just messing with us?
Speaker 6: Or he would just go way over the way to
Speaker 6: the corner over there, right, and then he'd look at
Speaker 6: Mark and goes stop on the money, I can't see.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, they would go, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Besides that, though, the biggest problem was he would hold
Speaker 5: his hands up, fingers up in the air to give
Speaker 5: us how many horn punches?
Speaker 1: And then it would if you if.
Speaker 5: You saw it sideways like that, You're like, you couldn't
Speaker 5: see how many, and then you know, he could tell
Speaker 5: if you weren't playing, if you were like, well, no,
Speaker 5: because I didn't see how many. You know, there's one.
Speaker 1: There's ones where Bill and I just discovered, h was it?
Speaker 1: And New England somewhere Oh, the Worchester mass Show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we yell from one hundred. That's that's Atlanta. There's one.
Speaker 9: Oh, but there's one in Boston where I think you, Bobby,
Speaker 9: I think you actually played.
Speaker 1: A little bit. Yeah, he did five extra Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was no. The show was so loose, it was
Speaker 1: doing possessed. The show was so loose that he actually said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get you, and I'm gonna get you, and
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna get you, and I'm and I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, who challenges his band to mess up
Speaker 1: an actual show? You know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I'll slay one more technical glitch that used
Speaker 5: to take place for me.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: We were using the first what are called MIDI Musical
Speaker 5: Instrument Digital Interface switchers for the keyboards, you.
Speaker 1: Know, racks.
Speaker 5: We'd have like racks of sounds and if you were
Speaker 5: making a program change in the middle of your song,
Speaker 5: and there would be sometimes several If you were holding
Speaker 5: down notes or a stain pedal and you made a
Speaker 5: program change, the whole thing would just lock up and
Speaker 5: and whatever chord you were playing would keep playing and
Speaker 5: you couldn't shut it off. So if you'd be sitting
Speaker 5: there in the middle of the song and just be.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, and.
Speaker 5: Then we'd have to hit the panic button or the
Speaker 5: keyboard tech would have to run over and hit the
Speaker 5: panic and make it shut up. But then you had
Speaker 5: like nothing, and it was a big it was a nightmare.
Speaker 5: So you had to time your your switches really, you know,
Speaker 5: really quickly, you just right split second stuff because it
Speaker 5: didn't the technology hadn't caught up.
Speaker 1: Quite yet with technology. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So then so one one day I get called in
Speaker 5: the dressing room after the show after one of those
Speaker 5: problems happened, and Prince goes, what what happened during that song?
Speaker 5: And I go, well, there's a technical issue and nothing
Speaker 5: I can do about it, And he goes, all I
Speaker 5: could say was I can't have that in my show.
Speaker 5: And that was it. And I'm saying, well, I don't
Speaker 5: know what else today we got this technical limitation. I'll
Speaker 5: do my bed and then you just have to work
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 3: You know, one thing, what was it?
Speaker 1: What happened on any song?
Speaker 5: It could happen any song, It didn't matter.
Speaker 3: That's what I liked about him though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was okay.
Speaker 3: There was a work ethic that he plays that we're not.
Speaker 4: We would never get anywhere else he put. He trained us.
Speaker 4: We were like battle ready at any time.
Speaker 3: That's why we could leave for twenty five years not
Speaker 3: see each other.
Speaker 4: When we came back together and we hit the room,
Speaker 4: it was we all just looked at each other and
Speaker 4: started laughing because the energy, the power, everything was still there,
Speaker 4: and there was.
Speaker 3: This sound that is so distinct.
Speaker 4: I played with many bands since I left this band,
Speaker 4: but nothing, there's nothing like it. I don't know why,
Speaker 4: but there's a chemistry that we have that he developed
Speaker 4: with us.
Speaker 3: It just it's there. It's prevalent.
Speaker 1: Was he always the first to arrive? No? Was he
Speaker 1: great thirty years? No?
Speaker 6: We waited, man, I mean, first of all, going back
Speaker 6: to the again, you know, I see.
Speaker 1: I thought he was the first new riding in the
Speaker 1: last leave.
Speaker 6: Like we Wendy's story, you know what she told our
Speaker 6: recent shows about the freezing cold purple ran and his
Speaker 6: advice to you know, start your car and let it
Speaker 6: run for three hours when we did the Capri Theater
Speaker 6: and it was just I drove them over and rusted
Speaker 6: out pinto station wagon.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: He he just said, I want to put gas in
Speaker 6: your car, run all day because he didn't want it
Speaker 6: to get cold.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to make sure that was warm. It
Speaker 1: was so it was really I hear these over exaggerating,
Speaker 1: like it gets we can give you. You know, Siberia
Speaker 1: and Minneapour is kind of connected really if.
Speaker 6: You look at the globe on the top. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean it gets, it gets. It's just it gets
Speaker 6: purple here on the weather map. But you know, I
Speaker 6: just want to go back to the show. On top
Speaker 6: of all that stuff, there was audibles four or five,
Speaker 6: maybe six audibles that I have a tape called ice Cream,
Speaker 6: which is a fifty nine minute jam which is just
Speaker 6: working on the sixteen bars of ice cream.
Speaker 1: We got it all right.
Speaker 6: Let me explain though, when he's when he gets to
Speaker 6: confusion at the end of the fifty nine minutes, that
Speaker 6: means we had just done that for confusion a month
Speaker 6: or a week earlier where we spent one hundred hours
Speaker 6: figuring out these audibles. The audibles were extra hard to see.
Speaker 6: They were a sleight of hand. There were a stomp
Speaker 6: on the foot, they were, you know, a stripper butt move.
Speaker 6: They were just all kinds of things that you had
Speaker 6: to watch.
Speaker 1: Remember the napkin drop.
Speaker 10: The napkin dropped, you had to hit when it hit, damn.
Speaker 1: It still keep the pace. But and it was fans
Speaker 1: blowing everywhere. So the thing was kind of like being
Speaker 1: on a journey on the.
Speaker 4: Way down and watching he had Alan Lee's on the
Speaker 4: side of the stage just wait God, and.
Speaker 1: You know he goes, Bobby see two hundred dollars. When
Speaker 1: the fans are going, It's like I just got fired.
Speaker 1: Those fines were real. They were real.
Speaker 6: It all depends what kind of Yeah, they were real,
Speaker 6: but it all depends what kind of mistake if he remembered.
Speaker 6: There was two kinds of mistakes, whether he was in
Speaker 6: the spotlight or not in the spotlight. If he was
Speaker 6: not in the spotlight changing over here and he heard it,
Speaker 6: you could sometimes hear him laugh at you. But if
Speaker 6: he was in the spotlight.
Speaker 1: And you missed something, it was usually a two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars now.
Speaker 4: Yikes, I remember I lost twelve hundred.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't figure stuff out. Yeah, brain Free had
Speaker 1: a new song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get a brand new.
Speaker 1: Song every day. Set changes every day. On top of
Speaker 1: everything else, is he was bored to dad. So here's
Speaker 1: a question for you guys. You mentioned that new song.
Speaker 9: So how long would he give you guys to learn
Speaker 9: a new song soundtrack?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 4: I developed the rumble tank rumble technique on the base
Speaker 4: because I got tired of getting fine.
Speaker 3: So I started going, you know, in the beat with
Speaker 3: the drummer, and I started.
Speaker 1: Doing being like yeah, that's so weird because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: like held just trying to get through, like like a
Speaker 1: play that's broken play. And he loved it. He loved it.
Speaker 1: I mean when he hear that, yeah, that was like
Speaker 1: like okay, just.
Speaker 10: Rumbling and then we start a whole new song like that.
Speaker 4: You know, most of the stuff I play, if you
Speaker 4: listen on stage, ain't no notes.
Speaker 11: I know, Like that's amazing.
Speaker 3: I feel I can do spins and foot back flips.
Speaker 1: I can't believe, like I'm thinking like this is this
Speaker 1: is a new technilo. Because I tell my player Mark
Speaker 1: to do the same thing, like, listen, you're stolid, so
Speaker 1: U think while I have you So you're saying that
Speaker 1: at no point where you I mean, this is in
Speaker 1: the early dayes. Of course, the technology was not invented
Speaker 1: for perfection.
Speaker 5: Yet it was not the glitchy you know, things could
Speaker 5: be glitch.
Speaker 1: So every night that that when doves cry, solo had
Speaker 1: to be spot on and and and just how like
Speaker 1: well like when you heard it, you just thought like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: like how would you he said decide he would decide for.
Speaker 5: You or not always. But I know when I first
Speaker 5: heard that solo, I was scared out of my.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: There was a studio technique he used to create it was.
Speaker 1: That that wasn't it was too it was too quantized. No,
Speaker 1: not exactly.
Speaker 5: He never say yeah.
Speaker 1: There's I'm not supposed to tell that killing.
Speaker 5: No, I told his story before, but he played. But
Speaker 5: he could play that if he really wanted to. He's capable.
Speaker 5: But he could, I mean in real time he could have.
Speaker 5: But been in the studio. He used it to write
Speaker 5: it so he could really perfect it and write it
Speaker 5: just the way he wanted it, and then sped it
Speaker 5: back up again. So then I had to of course
Speaker 5: cop that solo and play it live.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And then of course it's just his problem, like
Speaker 6: Darling Nikki, like all photography. You know, it looks like
Speaker 6: one day, okay, Darling Nikki three four, and I'm just
Speaker 6: sitting there going, how are we going to do that?
Speaker 1: You know on the records.
Speaker 6: So it was like double kick drum next day, and
Speaker 6: it's like, well, that's not gonna work. So I figured
Speaker 6: out He said, all right, well you got to indite
Speaker 6: to figure it out.
Speaker 1: It's on you. And I'm like, how am I going
Speaker 1: to recreate Darling Nikki live? So when he just calls
Speaker 1: us songs of random, all the stuff is preprogrammed in
Speaker 1: your lin drum depends on the song. Some are live drum,
Speaker 1: some are played. So this is beautiful ones, you know
Speaker 1: automatically that's nine program nine.
Speaker 6: Or like right, but you're jumping way ahead. When we
Speaker 6: were rehearsing for the Purple Raine tour, the record is
Speaker 6: like this this you know, creative, overlayered, amazing thing. But
Speaker 6: to do it live, all these parts like he's talking
Speaker 6: about that, Matt was saying, there's tricks to everything he did.
Speaker 6: I mean he meticulously you know, whether it was us
Speaker 6: playing or him playing would kind of you know get it.
Speaker 6: You know, he was set up in Sunset Sound. He
Speaker 6: was just the wizard there and he was just completely
Speaker 6: you know, just.
Speaker 1: Just did you have those flans effects on your one
Speaker 1: your lin drum?
Speaker 6: And yeah, we were on through petals, you know, through
Speaker 6: you know, just boss delays and stuff and you know,
Speaker 6: just getting that's where all the loops.
Speaker 1: There wasn't anything like that.
Speaker 6: So Mountains is just the limb through all these boss
Speaker 6: delays into the you know, so everything was was new.
Speaker 6: But you know, he the technology was, as we discussed earlier,
Speaker 6: it was being developed and techniques. So like Darling Nicky,
Speaker 6: is that that double kicked room where he's just against
Speaker 6: his the other track, he's just going with his fingers.
Speaker 1: He could play with his fingers on that thing. I
Speaker 1: mean he could just go, I mean the buttons and
Speaker 1: he was just perfect. Everybody goes, okay, let's do Darling.
Speaker 6: Nicky and it's just like okay, okay, so you know
Speaker 6: then I'm gonna be fired. The final show up and
Speaker 6: I say it took the Box home, and me and
Speaker 6: the Box had that come.
Speaker 1: To Jesus moment.
Speaker 6: We really just kind of really got I just said, well,
Speaker 6: I'll just do this program going with a visual light
Speaker 6: and then get to the program data right, data. So
Speaker 6: during data I had to switch patterns. I had the
Speaker 6: one actually data, but and then I just.
Speaker 1: Go to and then it looks at me. So then
Speaker 1: I did I did it like he did it, which
Speaker 1: was the big kick from softer pad right. So I
Speaker 1: had a technique and then he came back to he goes,
Speaker 1: nice job, let me fix something.
Speaker 12: And then he puts them both on the loud kick.
Speaker 12: So when people heard it, stuff and the whole place
Speaker 12: was a kick drum. There's yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 12: It's like it was just weird things. Well you know,
Speaker 12: and I would die for you to speak.
Speaker 5: Getting back to Don Batts, he added MIDI to the
Speaker 5: lin so that we could connect it to my synthesizer
Speaker 5: and have the bass part play sequenced through the whole
Speaker 5: I was going to ask, how who handled you know
Speaker 5: that whole thing, But it was in the studio. Prince
Speaker 5: actually played that manually through the whole song. It was
Speaker 5: not sequenced.
Speaker 1: It was him on the.
Speaker 5: Overhind like he's talking about on the drum machine doing that.
Speaker 5: He did it in the studio and created that tight
Speaker 5: through the entire song perfect.
Speaker 1: It was many times you just felt like that's a
Speaker 1: musician and you're not. Many times Okay, so I kind
Speaker 1: of have to know, and I know everyone has like
Speaker 1: these Purple Rain questions, but surely life had to have
Speaker 1: been there must have been a sea change leading up
Speaker 1: to Purple Rain and then life after Purple Rain. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you guys took the Rolling Stones to Purple Radio?
Speaker 1: That was similar as you brought that up. What was
Speaker 1: could you describe the the the Rolling Stone La incident? Well,
Speaker 1: I want Mark to speak to that because that was
Speaker 1: just the first time on stage. Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was pretty interesting because I was scared to death.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there, but I knew the Rolling Stone, see
Speaker 4: you know, I knew that was rock and roll, bikers,
Speaker 4: Hell's angels.
Speaker 3: You know, And I was like, how is this gonna work?
Speaker 1: We sing it head jerky Jack you off.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is gonna be interesting. I think we're
Speaker 4: going to be dead after this. You're right, man, I'm
Speaker 4: telling you. We hit that stage and it just looked
Speaker 4: like cattle.
Speaker 1: Have you guys heard the tape? Yeah? It sounds good,
Speaker 1: but there's a guy. There's one tape I heard with
Speaker 1: the guy. Yeah, I look at that. Whoa, they just
Speaker 1: threw something.
Speaker 3: Whoa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not gonna last or something. But but it
Speaker 1: started with an orange that hit.
Speaker 10: His got stuck on the keys, the tuning keys. So
Speaker 10: I was so out of tune.
Speaker 13: I didn't even know how to tune a thing, you know,
Speaker 13: And so we're playing what song?
Speaker 1: Is that something? No, it was we came out of
Speaker 1: the game with Bambi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was why you want to cheat me so bad?
Speaker 1: I think? And I was way out of tune. Basse
Speaker 1: was out of tune.
Speaker 3: And I saw Jack Daniels bottle came up on the stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crash his head.
Speaker 6: He he just ducked his head in an empty Jack
Speaker 6: Daniels I just went like right, crash against the drum riser.
Speaker 1: And then I looked at Lisa. And then when I
Speaker 1: was looking at Lisa, things started coming like projectile incoming.
Speaker 1: I got hit with a bag of chicken. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like second way taking around to me.
Speaker 1: The second thing right, like you did know what was coming.
Speaker 1: The second night they brought stuffed them from Yeah. The
Speaker 1: first night it was like are they do. They hate
Speaker 1: us that.
Speaker 6: Much that they you know, they're just throwing their lunch
Speaker 6: at us. I mean, it's like where were these objects
Speaker 6: come went from?
Speaker 1: It was just like you can bring one to Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I mean. It's like, you know
Speaker 1: what it's like.
Speaker 6: It was just a but like Mark said, so it
Speaker 6: was like bikers and you know it's the Stones, but
Speaker 6: they were The doors were at six in the morning
Speaker 6: at the at the Rose ball it was the coliseum coliseum,
Speaker 6: and so they were there all day and then we
Speaker 6: went on it two in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: So it was like an all day Rolling Stones festival. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and j Giles and George Yeah, you guys were first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were meeting and yeah, we were just raw meat.
Speaker 1: So then so you say the stadium was school by
Speaker 1: then because yeah, and my physician like it's always influent
Speaker 1: like when we do, like Dave Matthews was twelve people.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people.
Speaker 5: There was at least you know, after sixty sixty thousand,
Speaker 5: it was a ninety thousand seat venue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just remember it looked like cattle and they
Speaker 4: had the fire hoses and they're spraying people down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was crazy and then there was a food fight.
Speaker 3: There was an actual food.
Speaker 1: Amongst themselves, like clouds just clouds. Yeah, so that was
Speaker 1: like the wrap show of the Yeah. But you know
Speaker 1: what you never hear about this. One thing I just
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 5: Say is that that later on during the Stone set,
Speaker 5: they actually threw must have been two dozen pairs of shoes.
Speaker 1: Up on ye love.
Speaker 5: When you think it was out of love they rescue,
Speaker 5: this was yeah, one was love one waste.
Speaker 1: Why were they throwing shoes though to get pick to
Speaker 1: pick it up? You know, just it was you know
Speaker 1: this they were aiming at our head. I know they
Speaker 1: were throwing nicely.
Speaker 5: I just thought it was odd that they shoes up
Speaker 5: there on stage at him. And then of course he
Speaker 5: just said, you know, I'm not a fing door Matt
Speaker 5: back to the audience.
Speaker 1: I mean, wait, you stayed to watch the show? Oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: Prince like literally he left too. I was going and
Speaker 1: went to Minnesota and had to call him. Mick and
Speaker 1: Dez said to call him, and and and and now
Speaker 1: with that without the technology like it's I don't I.
Speaker 6: Think it's like both on a phone technology back in
Speaker 6: the day where you used to both kind of put
Speaker 6: the phone up and both listen to the phone and
Speaker 6: and Mick, you know, was with with Dez and I
Speaker 6: know the management and but the story I remember most
Speaker 6: is that he had had enough and we couldn't end
Speaker 6: songs without his cues. So when he left, we left
Speaker 6: and he went down and he walked up the we
Speaker 6: we're playing and he's walking back up the big red
Speaker 6: carpet with the stones villages, and I see Bill Graham
Speaker 6: at the legendary promoter, like tear after him and say
Speaker 6: a few things and expressions. Who knows what he said,
Speaker 6: you know, the classic you'll ever work in this town
Speaker 6: again or whatever he said, and he just turned around
Speaker 6: and came back into the song, got on a.
Speaker 1: Plane, went to Minnesota. Mix.
Speaker 6: Do you want me to talk to the crowd, you know,
Speaker 6: because Charlie and Bill came back and they were great.
Speaker 1: You know, they were.
Speaker 6: Apologetic, apologetic, and you know that you know, our fans
Speaker 6: are routing stuff and they were apologetic or mixing the Prince,
Speaker 6: do you want me to say something to the crowd
Speaker 6: that I wanted you? You know, Mick was the reason
Speaker 6: why we did it. He loved Dirty Mind so much.
Speaker 6: And Prince said, I don't need my mom to go
Speaker 6: up there and tell anybody anything, you know, so he
Speaker 6: he he.
Speaker 1: He was indignant about.
Speaker 6: It, and but he came back, and that dressing room
Speaker 6: before the second was the most tense, thick air I
Speaker 6: ever had with him in all the years. That moment
Speaker 6: before the second Rolling Stone show was just we're gonna die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I got hit.
Speaker 3: In the head, remember the limbo.
Speaker 5: Prince almost got hit with glass.
Speaker 1: But then we go ahead.
Speaker 4: I just remembering the limo when we were leaving because
Speaker 4: I got out of there, and I remember he said
Speaker 4: he was so embarrassed, I think because that was my
Speaker 4: first show. Yeah he was, Yeah, he said, he says, Mark,
Speaker 4: it ain't like this, And I said, well, I said, friends,
Speaker 4: that's the Stones, and.
Speaker 3: You don't have to talk to me. I know how
Speaker 3: rowdy they get. And he says, no, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 4: When we hit our first show, you're going to see
Speaker 4: my audience. And he says, it's night and day from this.
Speaker 4: And I didn't know what to think of that, you know,
Speaker 4: because I haven't seen anything I come from the Chitlin circuit.
Speaker 6: So was he the same after that or was it
Speaker 6: like even more into title I usually talked to him
Speaker 6: at least every third or fourth day. I didn't talk
Speaker 6: to him for about him four weeks and he was
Speaker 6: just in the in the Purple House which became the
Speaker 6: Purple House later, but on Lake Riley, and he was
Speaker 6: down in the studio. And then he called me one
Speaker 6: day and he said, I want you to put some
Speaker 6: you know, the syndromes on a song. And we put
Speaker 6: syndrums on nineteen ninety nine and little word Corvette. And
Speaker 6: I was excited that, you know, he was in good
Speaker 6: spirits and he was ready to you know. Then we
Speaker 6: kind of went down south where it was safe and
Speaker 6: just and played and played and played gainst the rolling stars.
Speaker 1: It was food. We went back to find the love.
Speaker 1: You know, that is weird, you think, like a show
Speaker 1: in l A Like to me, that's like the best
Speaker 1: thing in the world.
Speaker 3: We man, we did Pittsburgh, We did the Stanley Theater.
Speaker 1: That was my first real Prince Frinch audience.
Speaker 3: And I'll never.
Speaker 1: Forget the love was different. It was, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is not so South. But we went to find the loves.
Speaker 6: But you know, eventually Atlanta, and you know, I mean
Speaker 6: Atlanta was another you know, Fox theater.
Speaker 1: You know, we just we did it.
Speaker 6: Whatever happened, he figured out who his audience was and
Speaker 6: it certainly became the Stones audience later.
Speaker 1: It just you know, he learned from all that.
Speaker 6: But the physical I mean it was definitely you know,
Speaker 6: this is like professional baseball football, you know, you know that,
Speaker 6: and we're at that standard. That was a loss and
Speaker 6: there was many w's to come, but you know, that
Speaker 6: was a big you know, forty one to nothing beat it.
Speaker 1: I almost think that maybe it's a good thing you
Speaker 1: guys went through that too. In my head, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's going to make.
Speaker 3: A stronger, more determined totally.
Speaker 1: That's what you had to go through that. I've never
Speaker 1: cried before, I mean like that. I mean it was terrible.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just really traumatic, to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, I was actually pretty shocked at what
Speaker 5: happened because I didn't.
Speaker 1: Come to it. We're you excited, like, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a dream? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 5: It was like amazing, I.
Speaker 6: Mean from I mean, you know, the Beatles, Stones and Sullivan,
Speaker 6: you know, the whole thing, and it was like this
Speaker 6: was you know, meet Charlie Watson.
Speaker 1: You know, everything was just but you know, well, so
Speaker 1: someone else and put it to me that and this
Speaker 1: this is like this person's theory on on being born
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight. At least were prints that even
Speaker 1: though Prince was technically a baby boomer, that the audience
Speaker 1: of baby boomer wasn't his audience. That technically he was
Speaker 1: the older brother the generation ex So all the kids
Speaker 1: and the younger siblings of the Rolling Stone audience would
Speaker 1: be Prince's right audience.
Speaker 6: He wrote the Stevie Earthwind and Fire ride was where
Speaker 6: he went earth Wind and Fires audience. Obviously with Kavala Ruffalo,
Speaker 6: they knew how to do that, and earth Wind and
Speaker 6: Fire was had done such incredible you know with Doug
Speaker 6: Henting Magic, earth Wind and Fire really changed everything right,
Speaker 6: and then then you know it was it was just
Speaker 6: crossovers smashes, and that opened up you know us really
Speaker 6: in a way that we could uh kick going, but
Speaker 6: the way we did. But obviously, you know, at the
Speaker 6: midnight special and there was you know, there was a
Speaker 6: lot of TV that didn't go right until Saturday Night
Speaker 6: Live and that went right, and then all of a
Speaker 6: sudden we were, you know, more focused after all that.
Speaker 1: So when things are heating up. During the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine tour, I know that the time was, uh, the
Speaker 1: openness for you guys, what's the folk were really as
Speaker 1: tense as as it was as far as like to
Speaker 1: the where every guys cannot open forest in New York?
Speaker 1: Like were they Was it really that much of a threat?
Speaker 1: Or man?
Speaker 3: I can speak on this. I mean I used to
Speaker 3: have conversations with dude every night.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, friends, these cats are burning it up,
Speaker 4: as that they are burning up the stage.
Speaker 3: Dude, He's like, that only got nothing on us. You watch,
Speaker 3: you watch, And this was every night, and I think
Speaker 3: he started seeing it and it was.
Speaker 1: Like, was it really that? Because even though I've seen tapes,
Speaker 1: I've not seen audience reactions to the time. I think
Speaker 1: there's just no comparison.
Speaker 13: This is what I saw.
Speaker 4: Okay, this is what I saw. Prince was starting to cross.
Speaker 4: Prince was starting to cross. The time was still in
Speaker 4: that that that black audience.
Speaker 14: So that's what you saw, But that was the whole goal, like, Okay,
Speaker 14: this is me as the black group, and this is
Speaker 14: me you know exactly.
Speaker 1: I thought he wanted that, but he did.
Speaker 3: But the audience, you know, they come from the hood.
Speaker 4: They the time was like oh what the bird and everything,
Speaker 4: and so we were going more rock and roll, and so,
Speaker 4: you know, they are certain songs like let's work. You know,
Speaker 4: we would play certain songs because we had to. But
Speaker 4: he really wanted to do the little red corvettes. In
Speaker 4: the nineteen ninety he was changing.
Speaker 1: So there were points where the audience just wanted to
Speaker 1: like okay, okay, they're doing let me sit down.
Speaker 3: And it got tight. You could really see the shift.
Speaker 3: And that's when and he took them off the tour and.
Speaker 1: He had to. He had to. He had to. He
Speaker 1: had to, in my opinion, that's just my opinion, because
Speaker 1: he took them off in a market that my my
Speaker 1: relatives never got to see him, which was New York,
Speaker 1: and they were heated because they thought like we never
Speaker 1: got to see the time in their prime, like doing that,
Speaker 1: doing that, doing that period. So it was really tense.
Speaker 1: But the tension.
Speaker 6: At the end of the tour became really bad to
Speaker 6: the point where it was real. The food fight ensued,
Speaker 6: so I was just weird.
Speaker 1: Food fight. It's another show, but it was insane.
Speaker 6: So I'm standing at the stairwell in New Orleans at
Speaker 6: the Stanley Theater in New Orleans, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: Jerome looks at me with an orange in his hand
Speaker 6: and then.
Speaker 10: Just helps up.
Speaker 6: I have a light colored suito and I walked back
Speaker 6: dressing room and Prince, I mean, he says, what happened
Speaker 6: to you?
Speaker 1: I said, Jerome to sent me with an orange? And
Speaker 1: he went what? And it was like I just thought
Speaker 1: nothing of it. And to him that was like Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor shot, first shot been fire, and it.
Speaker 6: Was like he got so enraged that it just all
Speaker 6: I can tell you is is it turned into two
Speaker 6: days of complete chaos. Hotel rooms trashed. Uh, Jesse Johnson
Speaker 6: is a prisoner of war.
Speaker 1: It'll be a shamed the.
Speaker 5: Witch handcuff handcuffed to a cobra who had handcuffs.
Speaker 1: Chick.
Speaker 6: Chick had everything, brass, nuggles and guns, whatever you want,
Speaker 6: you know, was actually part of this as well. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Chick was there. Got Jesse Johnson, picked him physically up,
Speaker 6: carried him in the room and handcuffed him to.
Speaker 5: The because he was threatening Prince, you verbally threatening him,
Speaker 5: you know, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Jesse was so he didn't gonna kill you. Never saw them,
Speaker 6: so we had a room manager, nam Hewett. At that
Speaker 6: point he sent him out to the store camera with
Speaker 6: maple syrup and eggs and tooth based and Justin Johnson's
Speaker 6: being interrogated and they're probably maple syrup over his head
Speaker 6: while he's chained up and they're putting tooth based on him,
Speaker 6: and the time is hearing them that kind.
Speaker 1: Of prisoner in there. And so Jesse, jam and Lewis.
Speaker 6: Show up at the end of our set with shields
Speaker 6: and hefty bags suits.
Speaker 1: They made suits out of hefty bags with shower cats
Speaker 1: and they had eggs. So we were on the audience
Speaker 1: in the show they have no stage. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: having it all through sound check on stage. Jesse Johnson
Speaker 1: was captured on stage. He was bagged on stage and
Speaker 1: dragged off. Jerome was during the show, during their show,
Speaker 1: and then the rule was the time.
Speaker 6: Okay, so the time couldn't touch us. But Prince, I
Speaker 6: think Prince jumped up there as Jesse or something. They
Speaker 6: captured Jesse. He took him to the room and Prince
Speaker 6: waited for him while they chained him up. And then
Speaker 6: but the end of the story is Jesse breaks free.
Speaker 6: We want coat wrap like a monster. He breaks free.
Speaker 1: Walk and then Prince everybody scatters. We went outside jamming.
Speaker 6: Onis are waiting for us, pelting us with eggs. We run,
Speaker 6: Matt and I run into Roger's room and he's like.
Speaker 1: Going, what the heck's going on?
Speaker 6: Vacing See we're like outside and we just kind of
Speaker 6: He's like looking at him come out into the party.
Speaker 1: So we hide out in Roger's room for a minute.
Speaker 1: We come back out.
Speaker 6: They're still waiting. You know, they've got eggs, they got stuff.
Speaker 6: And then the end of it, Prince had sent Hewett
Speaker 6: out to get pies.
Speaker 15: Wait what Supermark is the late hour the hotel or something,
Speaker 15: and the car pies playing pies came in like in
Speaker 15: a movie and we had a pie fight, pie fight,
Speaker 15: and then but the Prince was done.
Speaker 1: So then he goes, come on, let's call to the hotel.
Speaker 1: He gets the hotel to open up.
Speaker 6: Jesse's room and we're hiding. Lisa and I and Prince
Speaker 6: are in Jesse's room with yellow mustard. Wow, Prince princess
Speaker 6: with yellow princess yellow mustard.
Speaker 1: This is gonna cost a fortune. I don't care. It's
Speaker 1: like putting yellow mustard all over his clothes. And all
Speaker 1: over everything.
Speaker 6: And then when we hear a noise outside and Lisa
Speaker 6: and I are in the closet and it wasn't Justice,
Speaker 6: So then we got out of the room.
Speaker 1: But he's putting yellow mustard on his door. It's a princess.
Speaker 1: I got to pay for this.
Speaker 3: It was like twelve fifteen, twenty thousand dollars in damage.
Speaker 1: Who had to pay for that? Let's m throws TVs out?
Speaker 1: This is nothing the tour.
Speaker 5: The tour paid for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean, was there at Kumbaya Mooman at
Speaker 1: the end or was that like the last Prince Time
Speaker 1: show ever? Jam us for out so not really. Me
Speaker 1: and Prince end up sitting in for them, you know
Speaker 1: during the Atlanta Ship stage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they were they weren't.
Speaker 1: There, so you guys were playing like backstage stage.
Speaker 3: I hit jams Terry's parks. Prince had jams first.
Speaker 1: It's it's a movie in itself.
Speaker 6: It's just really an amazing story, and uh it was
Speaker 6: war really yep yep yep.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I just want to thank you guys
Speaker 1: for I mean, I can go on forever and ever
Speaker 1: and ever and ever, but I really really just want
Speaker 1: to thank you guys for uh, everything that you've done
Speaker 1: for music and for you know, for for me personally.
Speaker 1: But ladies and gentlemen, you're you're very I.
Speaker 6: Just want to say thank you for being a disciple,
Speaker 6: and thank you for carrying our torch for us and
Speaker 6: in the love everything you've done to keep our name
Speaker 6: alive and be on our side.
Speaker 1: If we love you. From that, Bobby C. Brown, Mark
Speaker 1: and Doctor place each other, we'll be back. We're more
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme and we're broadcasting from Minneapolis, and we
Speaker 1: just wrapped up a great conversation with Mark, Bobby Z
Speaker 1: and Doctor Fink of the Revolution about a crazy food fight.
Speaker 1: I guess normally I would come with a real mushy, heartfelt,
Speaker 1: emotional intro, but based on what we just heard, I
Speaker 1: gotta cut to the chase. Lisa, could you please give
Speaker 1: us your account of the food fight in the Cincinnati
Speaker 1: the Lord. Sure.
Speaker 16: I mean it's such a story.
Speaker 1: I don't know how were you was just all women
Speaker 1: and children and Jesse.
Speaker 16: Yeah, women, children and Jesse.
Speaker 1: Please welcome the uses of all muses of all Now
Speaker 1: no like music just feels like assistance. I feel like
Speaker 1: you guys are really the epicenter that he came to.
Speaker 1: So no more muses ladies and gentlemen. Wendy Melbourne Lisa Coleman. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: I mean there's so many questions that I know you're
Speaker 1: tired of answering and whatnot, but just for formality's sake,
Speaker 1: actually no, there's a lot of your background before you
Speaker 1: even came to Uh, I guess under the Purple umbrella
Speaker 1: that I would like to know about. Both of you
Speaker 1: are first of all from LA correct, yes, okay, so
Speaker 1: how did how did you two meet? Like you two
Speaker 1: were childhood best friends? Correct?
Speaker 17: Yeah, Well, here's the story is pretty interesting where Lisa
Speaker 17: and I are a second generation LA musicians. Our fathers
Speaker 17: were studio cats. That's what they're called, right, They are
Speaker 17: part of the wrecking crew.
Speaker 2: And in the.
Speaker 17: Sixties and the seventies, being a studio musician was really
Speaker 17: a really respectable career. You know, you got your pension
Speaker 17: based on how many sessions you did. So when my
Speaker 17: father and her father, you know, were in their fifties,
Speaker 17: only fifties, and all of those cats were losing their
Speaker 17: gigs to machines and to single room producers, they started
Speaker 17: living off of pensions based on sessions, right, which really
Speaker 17: don't do now. Our families grew up together. We went
Speaker 17: to the same schools together, we had the same doctors,
Speaker 17: we had the same hippie friends, and the parents had
Speaker 17: the same drugs and the same the whole thing, right.
Speaker 17: So there were three kids on Lisa's side, three kids
Speaker 17: on my side, and we grew up together. Growing up
Speaker 17: in that kind of environment, we were very well versed
Speaker 17: with what it's like to be in the business, what
Speaker 17: it's like to be musicians, what the separation between entertainment
Speaker 17: and artistry.
Speaker 18: We knew the difference. So I think being hired by
Speaker 18: Prince that.
Speaker 17: I think that was an asset for him because we
Speaker 17: had a real we had already had a big definition
Speaker 17: of that in our own personalities by the time, at
Speaker 17: least I joined and Lisa joined, and you know, we
Speaker 17: had bands together with our friend with our siblings. There
Speaker 17: was an unreleased record on A and M. It's it's
Speaker 17: based off of a really horrible food substance, Waldorf Salad.
Speaker 17: It's we all went to a Waldorf school. We all
Speaker 17: went to Highland Hall, which was this Waldorf schools. A
Speaker 17: Stein in her education.
Speaker 18: It's real hippie like you get to crochet and do
Speaker 18: you're with me and make cut me. Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 1: Remember at the time you're making it like it was
Speaker 1: a lame thing, but at the time was like fun.
Speaker 18: Like the name of the band is lame Waldorf Salad.
Speaker 18: I'd have to say, my father rest in peace.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 17: So well, my father and her father are also the
Speaker 17: ones that were the band for the Partris family. My
Speaker 17: dad was a uh was Shirley Jones and Lisa's father
Speaker 17: was the little girl tambourine player in all the sessions.
Speaker 18: Wes Farrell was the producer on those things and.
Speaker 17: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and the Syden Marty Craft show,
Speaker 17: which I've told you about.
Speaker 16: You're gonna make my dad like freak out if he
Speaker 16: hears this. He's done.
Speaker 19: Your father did.
Speaker 17: All with the Seely Dan record, So your dad was
Speaker 17: much in mind at that time.
Speaker 16: Well though they were both cool. They did a lot
Speaker 16: of cool things.
Speaker 1: So what else, like go through the resume, like, what
Speaker 1: else is your father does?
Speaker 20: Well, my father really started on motown sessions and he
Speaker 20: I mean he played with everybody. I didn't even know
Speaker 20: what all he played with until recently when he tried
Speaker 20: to design a website and he was trying to write
Speaker 20: his discography and all the albums he's played on, and
Speaker 20: it was.
Speaker 16: Just sad immense.
Speaker 20: I mean almost every record that was on the radio
Speaker 20: in the sixties, like from sixty three on, my dad
Speaker 20: was on every song, you know, being a percussionist. Yeah,
Speaker 20: so back then it was like a percussionist was really
Speaker 20: a cool thing to be.
Speaker 1: I want to be on a.
Speaker 17: Phil Spector session as a percussionist. That's the wall of sound, right.
Speaker 20: I mean my dad also played on like Marvin Gaye,
Speaker 20: he played congas you know, on What's going On and
Speaker 20: that whole record, and yeah, stuff like that. When we
Speaker 20: went on tour with uh when I don't know what
Speaker 20: tour it was dirty mind, maybe with Prince in Detroit.
Speaker 20: They took us to the Motown mansion for a little
Speaker 20: tour and there was a picture of my father on
Speaker 20: the wall.
Speaker 16: My dad never knew that. His name's Gary, Gary L. Coleman.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 17: So you can go on the internet and see both
Speaker 17: of our fathers on the pet Sounds recording sessions. Because
Speaker 17: my father is doing all the he did played all
Speaker 17: the organ stuff, yeah, like good.
Speaker 18: Vibrations and all that kind.
Speaker 16: Yeah, there's great area.
Speaker 18: My father, young Michael, Michael Melbourn.
Speaker 1: I remember your father beaming with pride as he entered.
Speaker 21: Do you know it?
Speaker 17: On that very night when my father introduced us on
Speaker 17: the Grammys and my daughter happens to be one of
Speaker 17: the members of the Revolution, Prince looked over at me like, I'm.
Speaker 18: Going to kill you. Gonna kill you because normally I
Speaker 18: didn't do it.
Speaker 10: I didn't know, I know nothing.
Speaker 1: Normally, like you know, they would you know whoever, I
Speaker 1: think John Denver was still hosting at the time, like
Speaker 1: for for artists of you guys stature, Normally, I guess
Speaker 1: someone would big would do that. I was like, that's
Speaker 1: normally like a narrow staff member would just say what
Speaker 1: the rules and regulations were, like, not introduced the biggest
Speaker 1: act of the night. So I always wondered.
Speaker 17: My father was the president of the National Academy of
Speaker 17: Recording NARS and and that year, which is really funny
Speaker 17: because all of our Grammys and all of our plaques
Speaker 17: have my father's name.
Speaker 18: As the president of NERS. It's very trippy. It just
Speaker 18: is there's so many connections. So that night, my father,
Speaker 18: you know, the National Academy Recording Arts and sciences.
Speaker 17: Was like to welcome everybody to the Grammys tonight and
Speaker 17: blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 18: Which they normally do. And then he introduced the Prince
Speaker 18: and the Revolution.
Speaker 19: And it's special for.
Speaker 17: Me because my daughter happens to be a member of
Speaker 17: the Revolution and Prince.
Speaker 18: At the time.
Speaker 17: He would be like if he was like you know,
Speaker 17: I mean, there was this whole esthetic we had, like
Speaker 17: doude smile man, look bad ass and if there was
Speaker 17: any kind of cuddling cuddlingess when you needed to be,
Speaker 17: I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 18: You're don't blow the bubble bss, don't do it. I
Speaker 18: don't want to care about this at all.
Speaker 16: Yo.
Speaker 1: So okay, this is one. Do you remember anything about
Speaker 1: the Sunshine Superman sessions with Melbournmore at all?
Speaker 18: Remember very much?
Speaker 1: So really, what's what's the story behind that? Wait before
Speaker 1: you get into the story, Let's let's set out Melbournmore's
Speaker 1: Sunshine Superman with you, Wendy and your twin sister Susannah
Speaker 1: singing in the children's course. That was Melbournemore Sunshine Superman
Speaker 1: on Quest Love Supreme. We're here with Wendy and Lisa
Speaker 1: Princess Band, The Revolution. I don't know. For me with
Speaker 1: Sunshine Superman, I meant just as a digger, as a
Speaker 1: great digger. No. I mean, like the way that you
Speaker 1: know hip hoppers discover stuff is look up the most
Speaker 1: unusual things ever, and then that's how we dive into
Speaker 1: the pool of music to research. So you get these albums,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, okay, I'm gonna that, And then you know,
Speaker 1: some producers actually read the credits and see who else
Speaker 1: is on it, and I kept seeing hmm, melvoy Melvoint,
Speaker 1: oh crap, and then you know, and then.
Speaker 17: There's not very many Melvoin's. We're all very closely related.
Speaker 1: I know this now. So I guess I got to
Speaker 1: bring you guys to Middle America. How did you why
Speaker 1: did you leave LA to go to Minnesota? Like how
Speaker 1: did your paths even cross? Or I guess Lisa you
Speaker 1: were first.
Speaker 16: Yeah, well it it is.
Speaker 20: It is kind of strange growing up in LA and
Speaker 20: Hollywood and being born to the into the music business.
Speaker 20: You know, like that was the steel mill, you know,
Speaker 20: our town. You know, I grew up in Hollywood, went
Speaker 20: to Hollywood High.
Speaker 16: You know, my dad worked in the studios.
Speaker 20: All local you know, it was all right there and uh,
Speaker 20: and then I moved to Minneapolis to make it big.
Speaker 16: So lucky.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you go there specifically to work with
Speaker 1: Prince or was like let me let me.
Speaker 17: Know.
Speaker 16: It was like are you kidding?
Speaker 20: Because it's like funky Town just came out. It was
Speaker 20: about getting out of there. It's like, take me to
Speaker 20: someplace else. No, it was just through his management company.
Speaker 20: He had a female keyboard player, Gael.
Speaker 1: And so how to own hunt, you know, to seek
Speaker 1: you out.
Speaker 20: Well, by that Owen had just been fired and he
Speaker 20: had a new management Farnoi.
Speaker 1: And can we probably say their name because.
Speaker 18: Steve Farnoli, Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo, so it was
Speaker 18: Ruffalo fern So it's only three.
Speaker 1: I always thought it was like four or five.
Speaker 18: Well, it sounds like a lot of.
Speaker 16: Guido, and you don't want to know the other guys.
Speaker 18: You don't talk about those guys.
Speaker 20: So they so, well, they were looking for another girl
Speaker 20: and a friend of mine who was my best friend
Speaker 20: in school, she had run away from home and got
Speaker 20: a job at their company, you know, secretary, and she
Speaker 20: heard about it and she was, oh, my god, Lisa
Speaker 20: would be perfect and she told me about it, and
Speaker 20: she said, Prince is looking for and I was Prince.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No I didn't. When did you first hear of Princeville? Oh?
Speaker 16: When I was seen, and I was.
Speaker 17: I left my It was the summer of seventy seven
Speaker 17: and I went My sister and I escaped our houses
Speaker 17: in the middle of the night and we went to
Speaker 17: the Starwood, which is an old club here in town.
Speaker 17: You could look it up and they had two places.
Speaker 17: They had two There was a disco and then there
Speaker 17: was a live stage. So the live stage you'd see
Speaker 17: like secret concerts of devo and you'd see you know,
Speaker 17: I mean, I saw amazing performances there. But in the
Speaker 17: disco that's where I was. And this one night, the
Speaker 17: DJ puts on soft and wet and I'm.
Speaker 18: I'm thirteen, spok, but I'm like.
Speaker 17: I literally ran up to the booth and went, who's
Speaker 17: that girl?
Speaker 18: And the guy looks at paintings. That's not a girl.
Speaker 18: It's Prince. He's seventeen. He's from Minneapolis. From that moment on,
Speaker 18: I knew and studied everything.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 18: Finding out that this one got the job playing with him,
Speaker 18: I was like, you're kidding me. Do you know who
Speaker 18: he is now? And then she's I'm in the.
Speaker 17: Kitchen of the Coleman's house in Hollywood Hills, and Lisa
Speaker 17: has a cassette. She's just come back from Minneapolis, comes
Speaker 17: back with a cassette of Head and puts it on
Speaker 17: in the kitchen. So that when that song came on
Speaker 17: and I was listening to it, I was like crushed
Speaker 17: with envy and pride and like she was perfect. She
Speaker 17: was the perfect addition to his. She was so schooled
Speaker 17: and highly cultured. And to hear her voice say I'm
Speaker 17: just a virgin and I'm on my way to be wet,
Speaker 17: you could tell it wasn't It was uncomfortable for her
Speaker 17: to say.
Speaker 18: The way she speaks, it was so innocent sounding.
Speaker 17: But behind that voice, if you listen carefully, that's a
Speaker 17: really serious person saying that. And I got that from it,
Speaker 17: and I was like, this just makes this whole song
Speaker 17: that freakier.
Speaker 18: This is great. It was almost so dangerous to me.
Speaker 17: It's like, oh my god, it's not like some weirdstute
Speaker 17: sounding person.
Speaker 1: He was like this sound like acture sounded real. It
Speaker 1: was that's weird, Like you had a pride and I
Speaker 1: had a moment of how to not give It's weird,
Speaker 1: like everyone has a sophoment story, a moment of discovery.
Speaker 1: This guy so uh, I mean, obviously I know that
Speaker 1: Gail Chapman left h the band under tints uh kind
Speaker 1: of this under under this tension of having this sort
Speaker 1: of closure line. Well, yeah, I mean religion sometimes, I
Speaker 1: mean can impress people from doing certain things. So did
Speaker 1: you were you automatically told from the gate like we
Speaker 1: are trying to push boundaries never seen before and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, Like did you realize that you would
Speaker 1: be the No?
Speaker 16: I just I didn't. I don't think.
Speaker 20: Between Prince and myself, I think it was a different
Speaker 20: kind of relationship. It wasn't really that like we didn't
Speaker 20: really conceive of anything first. We sort of just explored
Speaker 20: it and then conceived you know, you.
Speaker 16: Know what I mean. So it was back and forth.
Speaker 16: But I did see that in what he was doing,
Speaker 16: and I loved it. I loved that he was outrageous and.
Speaker 18: You know, but you didn't see his stars Born.
Speaker 1: Poster in the house he had the Stars Born first.
Speaker 16: Yeah.
Speaker 20: Yeah, when I first flew out to meet him and
Speaker 20: he picked me up at the airport and it was
Speaker 20: pretty funny and yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 1: Then I was like, have a manager's car service pick
Speaker 1: so there.
Speaker 20: No, no, no, his little Fiat and we drove to
Speaker 20: his house and I even like smoked a cigarette in
Speaker 20: his car, like mind if I smoke, and he was like,
Speaker 20: I'm sure he wanted to say, don't smoke, lef he
Speaker 20: smoked and he used to smoke.
Speaker 1: And yeah.
Speaker 20: So we got to his house and it was it
Speaker 20: was a trip because I didn't know what he was about,
Speaker 20: you know, and he didn't know what I was about.
Speaker 20: And we were looking at the dressing, like what are
Speaker 20: you about? And he pointed downstairs. I go down there,
Speaker 20: there's a piano and and then I was looking at
Speaker 20: the posters on the wall.
Speaker 16: There's like Chris Christophers and.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit like what, I'm certain that
Speaker 1: somebody put that up there for him. I can't see
Speaker 1: him doing his own housework.
Speaker 18: Oh that's not true.
Speaker 1: He did a little bits.
Speaker 16: Oh yeah, he knew what he was like exactly that was.
Speaker 16: And he was like just putting things on the wall
Speaker 16: like it's spray paint, pieces of paper.
Speaker 1: Was he extra meticulous?
Speaker 18: He seemed like he was somebody that was extra meticulous.
Speaker 16: Later on, later on he was in the beginning, he
Speaker 16: was he was sloppy. Yes, he was sloppy.
Speaker 18: Yeah, you know it's messy.
Speaker 16: I have pictures of the launy.
Speaker 18: But you know in the yeah, you know it's funny because.
Speaker 16: I ended up doing it and making Friday sandwiches.
Speaker 17: He one of his last piano concerts, he talks about
Speaker 17: meeting Lisa for the first time the second to the
Speaker 17: last performance of his Knees.
Speaker 18: He says, in that very moment where he points down.
Speaker 17: And says, you go downstairs, he calls Steve Farnolan and
Speaker 17: he says, I don't think this is gonna work out. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 17: I don't think this is because there was something about
Speaker 17: the way.
Speaker 16: And I didn't look him in the Yeah, something was
Speaker 16: weird to him. And then and then he says, you're
Speaker 16: not supposed to look me in the eyes. Oh, he
Speaker 16: didn't know exactly.
Speaker 17: So what is it ends up happening is he says,
Speaker 17: you know, go downstairs, and then he calls for only
Speaker 17: and the phoney. He says, you get a gator, gotta
Speaker 17: get her out of here. I don't think get her
Speaker 17: a flight home. I don't think this is gonna work.
Speaker 17: And as he's saying that, she's downstairs and she opens
Speaker 17: the piano and she just starts playing. And if anybody
Speaker 17: in here has ever heard Lisa play by herself and what, yeah,
Speaker 17: what comes out between Sawtee and hinder myth And.
Speaker 18: He said, I'll call you back.
Speaker 1: So you had a classical background. I mean when when
Speaker 1: did you first start playing piano?
Speaker 20: As soon as I could reach it. Yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 20: was just in the house, you know. And my mom
Speaker 20: was a singer and she'd have piano players come over.
Speaker 20: And there was this guy, Dick Gray who was very
Speaker 20: depressed man, but played so beautifully and woul.
Speaker 16: Accompany my mom was.
Speaker 20: She would practice and she was a jazz singer and
Speaker 20: I would just watch and I look at the shapes
Speaker 20: and I just always and I still have that in
Speaker 20: my mind, like shapes.
Speaker 16: It's shapes, you know, what sounds like.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say these former centers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when you heard sound, you saw shapes. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well it's it's kind of funny because Prince always said
Speaker 9: that your sound always added a lot of color to
Speaker 9: his music exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 20: Yeah, so I just yeah, it's really visual, you know,
Speaker 20: and and and that's how I would try to recreate
Speaker 20: it when I when after they would finish and I
Speaker 20: go to the piano and try to make shapes again.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Usually, well every virtual as I know, at least in
Speaker 1: pop music, you know, they have this higher education first,
Speaker 1: like they they s like the Motown guys were jazz musicians.
Speaker 1: This pop stuffs whatever.
Speaker 16: Yeah, jazz.
Speaker 1: So I did you feel as though or did your
Speaker 1: family make you feel as though, like, uh, you're kind
Speaker 1: of luring yourself like you could be the next you
Speaker 1: can be on this level of classical music.
Speaker 20: Yeah, a little bit. My father had a bit of
Speaker 20: that because he really did. He did a lot of times.
Speaker 20: You know, you said you got the talent to be
Speaker 20: a concert pianist, you know, and I really I saw
Speaker 20: that for you and your future, and you know, I
Speaker 20: would marry the conductor and you know all this stuff,
Speaker 20: and I was like, Dad, no, I'm going to be
Speaker 20: the conductor. You don't understand, you know. And it was
Speaker 20: and he shouldn't. He knows, I mean, and my mom
Speaker 20: knew the truth because.
Speaker 16: I grew up.
Speaker 20: I mean I didn't, I didn't know, and I didn't
Speaker 20: care what I would play. I just wanted to play,
Speaker 20: and I wanted to play everything forever, and they got
Speaker 20: me lessons and I was just, you know, lucky to
Speaker 20: be advantaged the way I was that they supported me
Speaker 20: playing it, you know, at all. And it was just
Speaker 20: my house and my brother, My brother and sister were
Speaker 20: both musicians. My sister was a guitar player and my
Speaker 20: brother was everything cellist.
Speaker 17: Well, here's a nice little tidbit as well as that
Speaker 17: Lisa's father, Gary was friends with Tom ober Time and
Speaker 17: they had some of the first since in the house
Speaker 17: and at Lisa also learned all of her skills with
Speaker 17: an our twenty six hundred in the house, and so
Speaker 17: Gary was doing a lot of music concrete in his sectonic.
Speaker 18: He was a composer, Yeah, yeah, a total composer.
Speaker 17: And Lisa learned all of her tape skills and marking
Speaker 17: and patching.
Speaker 20: Yeah we had we didn't, you know, synthesizers were They
Speaker 20: were just like modular things that you had to patch
Speaker 20: together and then we would cut tape and little pieces
Speaker 20: and flip it.
Speaker 16: And my dad taught me.
Speaker 1: Earlier.
Speaker 18: Yeah, she was a team with like a young team
Speaker 18: learning that stuff.
Speaker 1: So by the time the Oberheim came when you were
Speaker 1: able to actually play chords on it and like one
Speaker 1: noted right exactly. Oh my god.
Speaker 17: Then I know I knew how she was the perfect
Speaker 17: person for Prince Perfect.
Speaker 20: Yeah, And in that way, my dad was right because
Speaker 20: he said, if you have the skill and then you
Speaker 20: have this knowledge, you're going to do something.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I have to jump ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1: Uh Rick James's street songs, and Rick and the at
Speaker 1: least the David Rich edition of his autobiography talks of
Speaker 1: stealing your keyboards and there already made patches to record
Speaker 1: street songs. So by that point was the overheime, like
Speaker 1: how much programming did you like? Now? Of course, if
Speaker 1: you ever tried or whatever, it's like ready made and
Speaker 1: you know it kind of does have to work for
Speaker 1: you at least to get the patch sound you want.
Speaker 1: But how did you have to pre program the stuff
Speaker 1: specifically to get that?
Speaker 16: Well, to be honest, at the very beginning, it was.
Speaker 20: It was actually really cool to just have the big fat,
Speaker 20: kind of like sloppy sounding you know, whatever the presets
Speaker 20: were when they were first coming out with presets, well,
Speaker 20: and they just had a sound.
Speaker 16: The only thing that we used to do was just like, wow,
Speaker 16: just turned the filter up.
Speaker 1: So there's no grand design like you just.
Speaker 20: No, in the beginning there kind of wasn't It was
Speaker 20: just yeah, and it just had a sound of its son.
Speaker 20: It was just as we would as we progressed and
Speaker 20: started learning more than we would kind of tweak the
Speaker 20: sounds and make more sounds. But in the beginning, no,
Speaker 20: it was really like, that's why you can get an
Speaker 20: Oberheim now and it sounds like you know, you're to
Speaker 20: whatever ce one and it's those are those horns?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 16: Weren't you right?
Speaker 1: So did you? Did you guys discover that your equipment
Speaker 1: was stolen to make this record and every time you
Speaker 1: listen to super Freak like.
Speaker 17: That, well no, I mean my purple rain guitars were
Speaker 17: ripped off.
Speaker 18: That pissed me off. Really yees wait who.
Speaker 1: Whoa how there was no other opening.
Speaker 17: Act but you guys, well, and we were loading the
Speaker 17: trucks and someone was eyeing, so they knew instantly the
Speaker 17: price listened.
Speaker 1: So another theme that uh I noticed that's recurring is
Speaker 1: the meticulous, uh hours of and relentless hours of practice
Speaker 1: that you guys have had to put in. And I
Speaker 1: guess the ongoing joke, at least for all the things
Speaker 1: that I've collected, was that if there's anyone that's an
Speaker 1: expert at James Brown's body heat, it's you guys.
Speaker 16: Just when you said body heat, it was like a.
Speaker 19: Flat like slowly I turned step by step.
Speaker 1: Well, I would assume that he was working out stuff
Speaker 1: in his head in real time.
Speaker 18: But he'd have us not move for four hours and
Speaker 18: he'd be practicing dance moves.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, really yeah, we were machine.
Speaker 20: We were the little presscoa. Okay, go and then don't
Speaker 20: don't move, and he'd be doing well.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to There was a period at
Speaker 1: least that I knew this, uh, somewhere between late controverty
Speaker 1: no even I'll say between late nineteen ninety nine tour
Speaker 1: where his dancing was sort of awkward. I eve a
Speaker 1: dirty mind thing like it was more like a big
Speaker 1: Jagger thing. And then I guess the first time I
Speaker 1: realized like, oh god, this this guy's inherited the baton
Speaker 1: from James Brown's TAMMI show was I guess when you
Speaker 1: guys released the baby I'm a Star video clip from
Speaker 1: Maryland and I actually saw you guys as the new
Speaker 1: JBS like, was that just the relentless hours of rehearsing,
Speaker 1: and you know.
Speaker 17: If someone mentioned something about that, and I have to
Speaker 17: say that this is all a maturity thing, you know,
Speaker 17: And in those specific years, he became mature and he
Speaker 17: felt very comfortable in his body. And the band that
Speaker 17: was behind him was relentlessly in tune to every movie made.
Speaker 17: And that was countless hours of not moving and giving
Speaker 17: him as much confidence and safety.
Speaker 18: In that environment to perfect that thing.
Speaker 16: It's like he was on the high wire, you know,
Speaker 16: and we were like the balance, you know.
Speaker 20: We gave him theoph underneath to keep him up there,
Speaker 20: you know, and he could just spin around on it
Speaker 20: and we just never kept never looked away, you know,
Speaker 20: we kept our eyes on him.
Speaker 16: And that that we just became a body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's probably i guess out there in the
Speaker 1: in the in the atmosphere, it's probably i'll say, maybe
Speaker 1: eighteen or nineteen hours of the morphing of Baby I'm
Speaker 1: a Star from when you guys were first rehearsing it
Speaker 1: for the show and it sounded very much like the
Speaker 1: album version. And then suddenly, like the BPMS gets hired,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you hear like the cues come in,
Speaker 1: and I mean, at what point did you realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, with the idea of him stopping and all
Speaker 1: these cues that had to have been a nightmare at
Speaker 1: least tour wise.
Speaker 16: And no not, it's kind of the contrary.
Speaker 1: It made it.
Speaker 17: It made it the job at hand, and we were
Speaker 17: it was you know, if you choose to take this mission,
Speaker 17: you know what I mean, we were there and ready
Speaker 17: to do it.
Speaker 16: Yeah, and like what else you got trying stumping bad exactly.
Speaker 18: But at the same time, you know, every time we'd
Speaker 18: add some kind of like.
Speaker 17: If we put mutiny into something, or if we took
Speaker 17: a groove from somewhere else and you know, like tacked
Speaker 17: it in. It was every time we were dialed in
Speaker 17: in a groove, we looked forward to getting to that
Speaker 17: spot where that groove would happen.
Speaker 16: It could happen because and then he would start doing
Speaker 16: the little yeah do that.
Speaker 17: Whenever it was dial it was almost like that thing
Speaker 17: that happens when you're when you first hit mocked two
Speaker 17: or three and you just you're it's like, yeah, you
Speaker 17: feel like the groove actually sits so tight you feel
Speaker 17: like you're in slow motion. When the groove is that good,
Speaker 17: and everyone looked forward to that moment, and every time
Speaker 17: he wanted.
Speaker 18: To push it and do more and more of it,
Speaker 18: we had the runners high with him.
Speaker 1: So it okay. I know I'm asking like a lot
Speaker 1: of privileged questions, like the only only stuff that I've heard,
Speaker 1: like the average person hasn't heard. But I kind of
Speaker 1: have to wonder if this is true. So if I
Speaker 1: tend to notice that better, the best shows ever are
Speaker 1: always the shows with the least or in the cities
Speaker 1: with the least expectations. So I'll say that you know
Speaker 1: a town like Providence, Rhode Island, of I mean, as
Speaker 1: a person who's heard maybe at least seventy percent of
Speaker 1: all the Purple Rine concerts and like studied meticulously, I
Speaker 1: noticed that some of the smaller cities, you guys, were
Speaker 1: just like in this incredible zone. But I would listen
Speaker 1: to a New York show or an LA show and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, ah, man, they didn't they didn't do
Speaker 1: it like that. So I can only imagine and and
Speaker 1: only having talked to Alan noticing that like Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: might be in an artist, I was just.
Speaker 17: Going to say, it depends who's on the list, who
Speaker 17: was on the guest list, So there was a lot
Speaker 17: of people on the guest list.
Speaker 18: The show became really mannered, intense.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, if it was you know,
Speaker 1: like it was Kalamazoo Michigan. You guys had the time
Speaker 1: because it was.
Speaker 16: For the fans.
Speaker 20: I mean yeah, it was more we didn't and it
Speaker 20: wasn't because it was famous people. It was more like
Speaker 20: we found it them in suits.
Speaker 1: Yeah really yeah, Well you two also hold that I
Speaker 1: guess that this distinctive doubIe signer of sort of crossing
Speaker 1: over from his stage world into his studio, which I
Speaker 1: guess the focal is that you know that that was
Speaker 1: Fort Knox or you know, just like no one gets
Speaker 1: influenced into and it didn't.
Speaker 18: It's true, there was just a small group of people.
Speaker 1: How are you able to even gain trust on that
Speaker 1: level at least to play him things like here, listen
Speaker 1: to this and listen to this.
Speaker 16: He just offered it. I mean, well he.
Speaker 1: Said, I need inspiration.
Speaker 20: No no, no, no, no, I mean for me, if
Speaker 20: you don't mind, because I was there early on and
Speaker 20: even you know, like I lived in his house, you know,
Speaker 20: in early early days and you know, he'd take a
Speaker 20: nap or something like, I'd be in the studio messing
Speaker 20: around and he'd said, one time, I remember that piece of.
Speaker 16: Music I did for Miles, just my stepdad. It was
Speaker 16: just for fun.
Speaker 20: And he was taking a nap and he was hearing
Speaker 20: me play and everything, and he was just like, that
Speaker 20: was the I had the best dreams.
Speaker 16: And you know that was so beautiful, and so he
Speaker 16: knew what we had, you know, and.
Speaker 1: I can't stop you one second. You said the most
Speaker 1: amazing thing what Prince left?
Speaker 20: Oh yeah, oh no, it was just he blinks, that's
Speaker 20: really funny, got something in his eyes for a second.
Speaker 18: This is this is something people don't know, but this
Speaker 18: is really really cute.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 17: So in his bedrooms they're you know, I mean because
Speaker 17: he sleeps slept at funny hours. So you know, the
Speaker 17: rooms were black, but the blankets and the comforters were
Speaker 17: about three ft deep, right like just so he'd like
Speaker 17: you you you just see like a little tube of
Speaker 17: like an imprint of a little bag on the bed.
Speaker 18: In his little just maybe a tiny little pillow imprint,
Speaker 18: but this is tube. I mean, it was he was
Speaker 18: that sounds he was a tender button.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like the nineteen ninety nine intercover
Speaker 1: with like the neon lights and watercolors.
Speaker 16: Well you know on his crow in the bathtub.
Speaker 18: Yeah, you know he was, Oh no, he was.
Speaker 16: He was kitty with little pony.
Speaker 18: Yeah, Lisa and I used to call him my little pony.
Speaker 18: Did he hate that or like, no, he hated it,
Speaker 18: but he loved it.
Speaker 20: Who you know, and girls, girls love ponies, cute ponies.
Speaker 20: Never mind must change itself.
Speaker 1: So I meant at the at the rate where you know,
Speaker 1: I guess uh laid eighty four, mid eighty five. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys were pretty much a Lennon McCartney combination together.
Speaker 1: I mean, could you speak of an on just at
Speaker 1: the point where you were full fledged collaborators.
Speaker 17: And it became a parent that he really relied on
Speaker 17: us for a certain thing when he would be sending
Speaker 17: just a master with just a scratch vocal and a
Speaker 17: piano idea and say finished this.
Speaker 18: Trust And so a lot of Sign of the Times was.
Speaker 16: Done that way.
Speaker 20: So just scale he was really he was more you know,
Speaker 20: making the movies and getting you know, he was getting
Speaker 20: his head into other things.
Speaker 1: Strange relationship was like that right. Yeah, what's weird was
Speaker 1: that you guys weren't using patches. You guys were there's
Speaker 1: we played those were Middle Eastern like.
Speaker 16: Yeah, we would get yeah, I mean whatever.
Speaker 18: Brother was also like a proficient So the song we
Speaker 18: Can Fuck was David.
Speaker 17: Song Around the World Day was David and his you know,
Speaker 17: Arab and Farsi influences, so we used that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, that's amazing. Okay, I know in private, I'll
Speaker 1: always ask about out the Japanese run. But I guess
Speaker 1: in the past few months, I guess video has finally surfaced.
Speaker 1: The smashing of the guitar. He told me, when you
Speaker 1: saw the smashing, we just.
Speaker 18: Me and Lisa and Bobby looked each other and went,
Speaker 18: it's over.
Speaker 1: It's over, because why would he destroyed because.
Speaker 18: He was already pissed. He was pissed anyway. There was
Speaker 18: something happening and he was.
Speaker 17: Pissed, and there were more people on the stage, like
Speaker 17: Sheila's band was on the stage. He looked at me
Speaker 17: a couple of times during really pivotal sections and said layout.
Speaker 17: And when he says layout, you're out.
Speaker 18: It's not good. When Prince.
Speaker 17: Right, when he looks at you and doesn't want you
Speaker 17: to play, he says layout. And when he said I
Speaker 17: was like, Oh, this is not good. What's going on?
Speaker 17: And then he looked at Miko and said turn me
Speaker 17: go up.
Speaker 18: And I was like, ooh, there's something happening here. And
Speaker 18: then when we played Purple Rain that night and he
Speaker 18: smashed the guitar, I was just wow, really is this happening.
Speaker 18: I think it's happening. And we got off stage and
Speaker 18: I was panicked. I felt it.
Speaker 17: I felt it big, and Lisa, it's like, stop overreacting,
Speaker 17: stop overreacting.
Speaker 18: Done it done? And I said no, no, I'm telling
Speaker 18: you this is it. It's done.
Speaker 17: We all flew back to our homes and Prince flew
Speaker 17: back to La had a rental there. It's a funny story.
Speaker 17: We flew back again and he called us two days
Speaker 17: later to go to the rental and pulled us into
Speaker 17: the room and said, I'm going to be going in
Speaker 17: a different direction and I can't ask you guys to
Speaker 17: wear nipoles, bras and crotchless panties.
Speaker 16: He drew that true, and we went that's true.
Speaker 1: You know something. Letting somebody goes probably or at least
Speaker 1: reprimanding someone is that's one of the hardest things I
Speaker 1: have to do, and I hate I.
Speaker 18: Can't stand it.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I'm amazed that he even.
Speaker 15: He it was.
Speaker 17: It was incredible that he had that and that that
Speaker 17: he what he said was the way for him to
Speaker 17: feel comfortable enough to let He knew that Willis and
Speaker 17: I would go, well, you're right, we won't do that.
Speaker 17: He knew that that was his in and I understood
Speaker 17: that was his way of saying it, and I knew
Speaker 17: ultimately that wasn't the truth. He just was ready to
Speaker 17: take full control back and felt like I've spread myself
Speaker 17: to Yeah. Yeah, it was just turning into it was
Speaker 17: almost eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Wow, and did you guys go straight into your.
Speaker 18: Solo album right away? Me and Bobby and Lisa, we went, yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to say that you know more more than
Speaker 1: I think. The album came out with August thirty, first
Speaker 1: of eighty seven. I'm sorry, I like the album came
Speaker 1: out the same day that Michael Jackson's Bad came out,
Speaker 1: and I distinctly remember listening to their record more than like,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole world was waiting for bed and.
Speaker 16: I know it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Wait what happened.
Speaker 16: She heard Bad on the radio. She called me from
Speaker 16: on the freeway.
Speaker 18: I had one of those phone with the big phone
Speaker 18: on the phone after I heard bad on the radio whatever.
Speaker 17: And I was like, here's the single, but wait for it, Lisa,
Speaker 17: keep that in your head, but.
Speaker 18: Put them together.
Speaker 16: And that was I was like, you're kidding me.
Speaker 18: This is a musician joke, like circus music. Circus music.
Speaker 17: It's something that we joked about years prior as it
Speaker 17: being like a joking musician yes, thing that goes like this,
Speaker 17: this is a single, and we're both like, it's a
Speaker 17: it's a.
Speaker 16: Smash, smash my circus music.
Speaker 18: Give the people what they want exactly real quick.
Speaker 1: One of both of you were there for a meeting
Speaker 1: between Michael.
Speaker 13: And Prince right, not me, No, we were.
Speaker 16: We weren't there. He came back, No, we were.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 18: That was different was that when he wanted when he
Speaker 18: when Prince got the call to sing on No.
Speaker 20: And he's like the first line, your buddy is mine. Okay,
Speaker 20: who's seeing that one?
Speaker 22: On an interview with Chris Rocks, Like imagine me saying
Speaker 22: your blood is mine?
Speaker 1: Right going to happen? I'm not singing it to you
Speaker 1: you're not seeing it. He was like, so how did
Speaker 1: I mean not how did it feel to, you know,
Speaker 1: start creating music on your own without his input? In put?
Speaker 1: I mean, what were those first? If you know, I've
Speaker 1: loved everything that you guys have done in your west Wing,
Speaker 1: like everything. There's even west winging boot legs out there,
Speaker 1: and with the Yes, that's that's funny, that's all that's
Speaker 1: obsessed with your fan base.
Speaker 18: Here's the thing.
Speaker 17: And I said, this is one of his memorials. Everything
Speaker 17: that I played then and still playing now. I say
Speaker 17: to myself, I wonder if you'd like it really to
Speaker 17: this day, I still do it. So he was sort
Speaker 17: of a measure of my push and my standards.
Speaker 1: That's a hell of a standard to have. That's an
Speaker 1: amazing standard to have.
Speaker 18: Well, I'm sure you feel exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know why
Speaker 1: no one's just called.
Speaker 23: You because you're not no, but I mean it's it's
Speaker 23: I mean to me, the you maintained an identity.
Speaker 18: You maintained identity. You're not an imitation.
Speaker 17: There are plenty of people out there that are fanatics
Speaker 17: for him and have emulated and learned everything.
Speaker 18: And they do not have an identity.
Speaker 16: There's appreciation and then there's imitation exactly right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's actually okay, I have to ask what
Speaker 1: did we you guys aware of? Okay, Okay, I work
Speaker 1: with a lot of hip hops, which I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know those hip hop kids. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we we once had an aesthetic in the nineties, like
Speaker 1: you know, no bite allowed, no copy and like, you know,
Speaker 1: do your own thing individually. Now like everything's just derivative
Speaker 1: of each other. But were you guys aware of the
Speaker 1: ready for the worlds And but I don't know.
Speaker 18: As soon as I heard oh Sheila, I was like,
Speaker 18: oh my god.
Speaker 16: Here we go, Here we go.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that I feel like I
Speaker 1: always felt that this wasn't just like oh let me,
Speaker 1: let me copy prints or whoever this. I just feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you guys just happen to have the blueprint and these
Speaker 1: are the new set of rules. So the way that
Speaker 1: cameo meds should in the comedy, like that was out
Speaker 1: the windows and now this is this is the standard.
Speaker 18: So yeah, it's just like pink se elists, you.
Speaker 1: Guys like laughing at like, you know, those groups in
Speaker 1: the early eighties that were like.
Speaker 18: Some of them, only some really only some, But for
Speaker 18: the most part I got it. You know, it's just
Speaker 18: like everything.
Speaker 17: You know, Chick singers in the sixties don't sound like
Speaker 17: chicks singers in the eighties. Chick singers now with all
Speaker 17: that malisma and.
Speaker 18: The and the mid range stuff is like.
Speaker 17: What everyone sounds like that now, And that's just a
Speaker 17: standards just.
Speaker 20: How we Yeah, it's a human thing, how we evolve
Speaker 20: kind of a hundredth monkey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, were you guys this accepting in this politically
Speaker 1: correct patient now?
Speaker 16: No, No, we were, No, we were cocky kidding me.
Speaker 1: Well, because at one point, I, until I started hearing
Speaker 1: the remsal tapes, I didn't even know if you guys
Speaker 1: were even aware of modern music. But then I would
Speaker 1: hear like rehearsal taps in here, like, oh, okay, he
Speaker 1: doesn't know about talking heads, and well, i'm.
Speaker 16: I you know, I have to say, I'm the Wendy's always,
Speaker 16: I'm I'm the DJ.
Speaker 18: I know, I know everything.
Speaker 17: And when I when something was good, I pulled him
Speaker 17: aside immediately, I mean I played him slave to the
Speaker 17: rhythm and said, you have to listen to what happened
Speaker 17: with these chords right now right.
Speaker 19: Steve Libson, Trevor Yes.
Speaker 17: Co producer, but Bruce Lipson and Bruce Willie did those, Yeah,
Speaker 17: And that was important for me to make sure he
Speaker 17: heard that.
Speaker 18: When when I remember after we had broken the band up.
Speaker 17: And Do the Right Thing had just come out and Lisai,
Speaker 17: I went to Minneapolis and I was a fanatic for
Speaker 17: the main title song and ah, and I put it
Speaker 17: on there and at Paisley and he.
Speaker 1: Wait, you were still friends, yea, And.
Speaker 17: He seemed visibly angry at the track, and it was
Speaker 17: because he was so uneasy I think with Chuck d
Speaker 17: and what that The cadence of Chuck's voice being in
Speaker 17: that lower, sort of demanding frequency kind of freaked him out.
Speaker 10: It didn't seem it was like why are you?
Speaker 18: Why am I being assaulted with that?
Speaker 17: And everybody as soon it was played in the room,
Speaker 17: everybody's getting up and dancing, And I think he really
Speaker 17: it's like the metal people when they hear Nirvana, they
Speaker 17: oh my god, it's changed.
Speaker 18: And I think that he knew it changed right there.
Speaker 16: He knew it, yeah, But he also he had a
Speaker 16: different goal, you know.
Speaker 20: And I think he sometimes maybe found it hard to
Speaker 20: when when the weight would because I mean, come on,
Speaker 20: Chuck D, that was genius and he knew it, but
Speaker 20: it was it was the It was almost the antithesis
Speaker 20: of what Prince was trying to do, Like he was
Speaker 20: aiming at your grandmother, now not at your kids.
Speaker 16: Chuck D was aiming at the kids.
Speaker 17: And then Prince came back with sexy motherfucker house quake,
Speaker 17: and yeah, it's like I can do that.
Speaker 16: I can fuck you up.
Speaker 1: Like you know, there's syndromes of people kind of embracing
Speaker 1: things that they normally would resent in the first place
Speaker 1: and then wind up embodying that it's just youth.
Speaker 18: Just you know, time goes by and you go get it.
Speaker 18: I totally get it.
Speaker 1: Well, okay. On on a final note, I would just
Speaker 1: like to know, uh, with the reunion of the group
Speaker 1: and carrying out the mission, how how's this process been
Speaker 1: bringing the band? It's like the Blues Brothers. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: blood on your.
Speaker 16: Thumb, It's blood on your thumb.
Speaker 18: Lisa Lisa.
Speaker 17: Lisa described me and Bobby and Matt and Mark as
Speaker 17: five people jumping out of an airplane with our parachutes
Speaker 17: on trying to do formations.
Speaker 19: Each other's hands, and someone went down there too far
Speaker 19: and we're trying.
Speaker 1: To I have to say that I haven't seen the show,
Speaker 1: especially when when April came on. I mean, I told you,
Speaker 1: I ran out of there like I couldn't take it.
Speaker 18: Some people cry, some people cry, I.
Speaker 1: Was like, I need to run out. Well, I really
Speaker 1: want to thank you to uh for for everything that
Speaker 1: you guys represent. I mean, you know, I mean you
Speaker 1: you would think the smallest SoundBite would mean nothing, but
Speaker 1: it's just like you know, you read like, oh okay,
Speaker 1: she's in joy Menchell. Now I'm at the library skilling
Speaker 1: all the joy Mental records and I'm hearing that you're
Speaker 1: playing more chords with your fingers, and now I'm making
Speaker 1: my keyboard players play like nine notes with just five
Speaker 1: fingers and.
Speaker 18: Lisa, Lisa does three on each.
Speaker 1: And I've always told you, like you know, you're the
Speaker 1: heir apparent to Jimmy Chank Nolan of the JVS, and
Speaker 1: it's it's you two are definitely one of my favorite
Speaker 1: people ever, and I thank you so much for doing
Speaker 1: the show with us.
Speaker 18: And just on a note for you, you.
Speaker 17: Have been the greatest champion of him in such a beautiful, respectful,
Speaker 17: intelligent way, and you have such a way of pointing
Speaker 17: out just the right stuff that would be would help
Speaker 17: the listeners understand him and what his musical influence is.
Speaker 18: And you know, look, the Revolution.
Speaker 1: Wasn't you know.
Speaker 17: We're not, you know, a bunch of Julliard grats. We
Speaker 17: were a band that was meat and potatoes and clocked
Speaker 17: really well, but we were an entity and to have
Speaker 17: you validate that for us is really lovely for us.
Speaker 1: Wow on it, ladies, and gentlemen, Lisa and Wendy, we're
Speaker 1: on the road broadcasting from Minneapolis where we just finished
Speaker 1: talking to some core members a Prince's former band of Revolution.
Speaker 1: Now let's chop it up with Prince's original guitarist Deus
Speaker 1: Dickerson an original bassist, Andre Simone. Give it up, ladies,
Speaker 1: and yeah, So we've been pretty much just reminiscent telling stories,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of interested in everyone's beginnings before they
Speaker 1: arrive in Minnesota and sort of develop, I guess, or
Speaker 1: become a part of the movement that will become the
Speaker 1: movement that will influence a lot of people. Now, of course, Andre,
Speaker 1: I know that you're probably key to the very beginnings
Speaker 1: of Prince's life as far as his uh musical movement is.
Speaker 1: But what was w what was your musical background as
Speaker 1: far as your family's concerned, and before you guys developed
Speaker 1: what you did, Like, what was childhood like? And you
Speaker 1: were born in Minnesota?
Speaker 24: Yeah, okay, Oh, my dad was a musician. That was
Speaker 24: my musical background. And to my family, my brothers and sisters,
Speaker 24: I was the youngest of six, and you know, they
Speaker 24: all had various musical you know, tastes, and that had
Speaker 24: a lot to do with uh, you know, just my
Speaker 24: pers my personal kind of perspective on music.
Speaker 1: So what did your father play base? Okay, was the
Speaker 1: d d D? I mean, what was the environment like
Speaker 1: in Bobby and and Fink explain, uh, sort of explained
Speaker 1: how they grew up in the suburbs of Minnesota. And
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that there was such a deep music
Speaker 1: culture here. I mean as far as them explaining what
Speaker 1: the folk music was like. But I mean, what area
Speaker 1: was your father in.
Speaker 24: That we are the projects projects are pretty much all
Speaker 24: the same all around the country.
Speaker 1: So so how did I know that, you know, the
Speaker 1: music was very regional. You know, now with the internet.
Speaker 1: You know, someone in Siberia can get right a reference
Speaker 1: that came from southern Georgia that you know, in in
Speaker 1: lightning time. But I mean, how how did culture and
Speaker 1: and and what was hip and what was not hit
Speaker 1: and what was you know, how how did you discern
Speaker 1: what was what? Well?
Speaker 24: I mean, you know again y and I don't I
Speaker 24: probably don't have to tell you this. I mean, you know,
Speaker 24: being black period, you know in America is an interesting
Speaker 24: you know, just reality, right, And so being black and
Speaker 24: and a predominant, very predominantly society, you know, and and
Speaker 24: obviously during the time that I was growing up and
Speaker 24: becoming conscious and understanding what was going on in the world,
Speaker 24: you know, it's a very very you know, moving experience.
Speaker 24: Cause music is g is is unbelievable. I mean, cause
Speaker 24: you Motown, you know obviously M James Brown, you know,
Speaker 24: and then you know, obviously you know the Beatles, and
Speaker 24: you know Jacksonville. Well a lot of n lot of
Speaker 24: stuff was happening, and a lot of people were saying
Speaker 24: some very very interesting stuff, you know. And for you know,
Speaker 24: f my my family was very very militant, very much
Speaker 24: you know, into the community. So just I mean I
Speaker 24: think that combination really had a lot to do with,
Speaker 24: you know, musically, a lot to do with at least
Speaker 24: where I came from, where my family was coming from,
Speaker 24: cause we were you know, I had a cousin that
Speaker 24: was in the music. He was in a band, and
Speaker 24: that's how he even got exposed to a band. You know,
Speaker 24: my cousin, uh was in a band, so we'd you know,
Speaker 24: I went to go see and rehearse when I was like,
Speaker 24: you know, a kid, and that's how I even knew
Speaker 24: how you conducted rehearsals. So I brought that you know
Speaker 24: attitude toward uh when we started a band.
Speaker 1: So your your band experience, Uh, I would assume in school, Like,
Speaker 1: what was the first band that you joined or formed?
Speaker 24: We started Grand Central?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the fir Grand Center was your first.
Speaker 24: That was all of our first band? Yeah, R well,
Speaker 24: me and Prince and and Charles you know stuff.
Speaker 1: How did you two meet to even know that you
Speaker 1: had something in common?
Speaker 24: You know, I, like I said, I I came from
Speaker 24: the projects.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 24: My mom uh, you know, she was I guess at fifteen,
Speaker 24: you know, had a first child at fourteen whatever. But
Speaker 24: you know, my dad was very old fashioned. They divorced.
Speaker 24: She wound up going back to school college, got a degree,
Speaker 24: and uh wound up getting a a a really good job,
Speaker 24: moved our family out of the projects into a an
Speaker 24: upper middle class black neighborhood. And I had to go
Speaker 24: to a different school, and so I just, you know,
Speaker 24: the new school was like, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 24: anybody there, right. Literally, I just they they line you up,
Speaker 24: they put you in the gymnasium. They line everybody up,
Speaker 24: and it was just a line of dudes, and I
Speaker 24: didn't know anybody, and I just thought, I don't know
Speaker 24: any of these dudes, and I I don't even know
Speaker 24: if I like any of 'em. So I looked down
Speaker 24: the whole line, and then I saw this one dude
Speaker 24: that looked a little bit like me, and I thought,
Speaker 24: I'll go stand next to him. So I stood next
Speaker 24: to him and I said, hey man, I'm My name
Speaker 24: was Andre, you know. He's like, oh, my name is Prince,
Speaker 24: I said, you know. So we start talking.
Speaker 1: I said what do you do?
Speaker 24: You said, I do music. I said, oh, so do
Speaker 24: I I said what do you place it? I played piano.
Speaker 24: I said, oh, I played bass, you know, And he
Speaker 24: said we should hook up. My dad has you know,
Speaker 24: like a piano and you know, a little I didn't
Speaker 24: have a bass at the time, so he said his
Speaker 24: dad has a little, uh, four string acoustic guitar kind
Speaker 24: of bass slash whatever. So we went over there and
Speaker 24: that's that's how we hooked up.
Speaker 18: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, everyone's f bass story in Minnesota starts with just
Speaker 1: four string, right. Frown Mark was saying that he ordered
Speaker 1: a a base in the series catalog and broke two strings.
Speaker 1: Two strings were broken, So that's he came from from.
Speaker 1: Faced by default, was the name Prince a usual thing
Speaker 1: in in the sixties, like you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't John or Thomas or you know, like.
Speaker 24: Mostly among probably small four layen animals. But his dad's
Speaker 24: stage name was Prince Roger.
Speaker 1: But you didn't think that was unusual that that's your name, Prince,
Speaker 1: like you know, he wasn't relentlessly teased for having.
Speaker 24: You know, well, I don't know, I mean you have
Speaker 24: to well you can't ask him, but I have no idea.
Speaker 24: But I know that in that community, in that neighborhood,
Speaker 24: we had Caesar, you know, we had.
Speaker 1: So unusual names were just starting.
Speaker 24: Yeah, there was a lot of veryous sort of you know,
Speaker 24: regal names and then you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at what point did you two start playing
Speaker 1: together to know that that, okay, we gel and maybe
Speaker 1: we should do something right then? Yeah, that was.
Speaker 24: That was cause when we went over to his dad's
Speaker 24: house and we jammed, you know, we were like, we
Speaker 24: hit it off. I mean, cause it was it was
Speaker 24: the first time I ever met anybody that had the
Speaker 24: same passion about music that I did before that. I
Speaker 24: you know, tell you know, I would tell anybody you know, look,
Speaker 24: I I you know, I'm gonna be i'm'a be a superstar.
Speaker 24: I'm gonna be you know, Jackson five, I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I'm'a do that.
Speaker 24: And people would laugh at me. And when I would
Speaker 24: say it to him, he was like, it was like, yeah,
Speaker 24: let's do it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so was there a a a thought to
Speaker 1: make it happen in Minnesota or did you two think that, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we have to go elsewhere and let's go to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and there we'll make it as musicians.
Speaker 24: Like no, no, no, no, Well it wasn't that, you know,
Speaker 24: I mean, I think the the reality is, I don't
Speaker 24: think kids think like that. Cause we were like thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 24: Maybe you don't think I don't think you think like that.
Speaker 24: I think you just put together band cause I think
Speaker 24: at the time that.
Speaker 1: Was what was going on.
Speaker 24: I mean, there was a lot of really cool bands,
Speaker 24: you know. Like I said, my cousin was one of
Speaker 24: the he was a drummer from one of the the
Speaker 24: the dopest bands in the in the city. And he
Speaker 24: was unbelievable drummer. And then you know, you had other
Speaker 24: things like the Elks and stuff like that that were
Speaker 24: all those were big things for you know, young kids
Speaker 24: who wanna be a musicians. So but I think you just,
Speaker 24: you know, the attitude was that you gotta start here first,
Speaker 24: you gotta start, put put a band together, and you start,
Speaker 24: I mean, you know does knows this stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you did the same thing. You gotta put
Speaker 1: a band together.
Speaker 24: And then you gotta you know, then you gotta you know,
Speaker 24: move from there.
Speaker 1: So it does. Were you born in Minnesota, like, what's.
Speaker 13: Your I was born in Saint Paul, Ah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was life different in Saint Paul than it
Speaker 1: was in Minneapolis or was it really a twin city?
Speaker 13: And I I I it's definitely a twin cities thing,
Speaker 13: you know.
Speaker 25: Saint Paul was sort of the more provincial, you know,
Speaker 25: twin sister of of Minneapolis, but but less so then,
Speaker 25: you know what I mean. There was a lot more
Speaker 25: similarity I think, between the cities then. But my folks
Speaker 25: had moved up from from the south. They were from Clarksville, Tennessee.
Speaker 25: My dad moved up to go to art school and
Speaker 25: then basically cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, His older brother was at the U of M.
Speaker 25: And was in his like his senior year or something,
Speaker 25: so he brought no, no, he was, he was in
Speaker 25: his doctorate, that's what it was. And he brought my
Speaker 25: dad up because my dad wanted to come over here
Speaker 25: to go to art school. So he convinced my mom
Speaker 25: to marry him, brought her up, and so I was
Speaker 25: born and raised up here.
Speaker 1: Really, So, what's your musical angle, your connection, Like, what
Speaker 1: was your first moment in discovering music?
Speaker 13: And well, my dad was a musician.
Speaker 25: He was a sax player, and he quit to raise
Speaker 25: the family. So he actually joined the navy, was actually
Speaker 25: in the ship's band, played sacks in the navy and
Speaker 25: got out and you know, started working two three jobs,
Speaker 25: so one of my earliest memories is hearing waking up
Speaker 25: in the middle of the night hearing music. When my
Speaker 25: dad was working like sort of second shift post office.
Speaker 25: He would get off work and I remember one night
Speaker 25: waking up hearing music and kind of creeping halfway down
Speaker 25: the stairs so I could see what was going on
Speaker 25: in the living room and there's like four cats playing
Speaker 25: saxophone in the living room at you know, two o'clock.
Speaker 13: In the morning.
Speaker 25: Well, that's because my dad would get off work, you know,
Speaker 25: wide awake work with some other guys that were also musicians,
Speaker 25: and it would be like, well, just come on over
Speaker 25: to my place and we'll jam. So they would jam
Speaker 25: like in the middle of the night when I was
Speaker 25: a little kid. So to me, music was just something
Speaker 25: that was just there and that was what people did.
Speaker 25: He had a huge, huge record collection and you know
Speaker 25: that whole thing.
Speaker 1: So, knowing your history and your vocabulary and knowing how
Speaker 1: much of a tredder you are in the rock influence,
Speaker 1: am I'd just assume that you chose that particular route
Speaker 1: to go straight rock to adapt into the environment that
Speaker 1: you were in, or like, did it just naturally speak
Speaker 1: to you, Like, well.
Speaker 13: It just spoke to me. It chose me.
Speaker 25: I mean when I was until I was in fourth grade,
Speaker 25: we lived in the Inner City. Then my dad it
Speaker 25: was really he really felt it important to move us
Speaker 25: out into a better school system. So but even while
Speaker 25: we were still you know, in the hood, it was
Speaker 25: it was guitar that spoke to me. I remember going
Speaker 25: through my dad's record collection and he had this King
Speaker 25: Curtis single and I flipped it over, played the B
Speaker 25: side and it was this rocous like rock and roll thing,
Speaker 25: and I was like mesmerized. I mean I would listen
Speaker 25: to it over and over again. So I just always
Speaker 25: felt like rock chose me.
Speaker 13: I didn't choose it. You know, it was in my
Speaker 13: DNA somehow, some way.
Speaker 1: What were the early bands that you joined before.
Speaker 13: I started a slew of bands?
Speaker 25: My first one, I was fourteen years old and I
Speaker 25: had to pay to get in my first gig. We
Speaker 25: played like the ninth grad dance, you know, Junior High had.
Speaker 13: The first gig.
Speaker 25: But you know it was like all like Grand Funk
Speaker 25: Railroad and you know, that whole thing, and the first
Speaker 25: several lands.
Speaker 13: Because I was in I formed or was in like
Speaker 13: nine different bands.
Speaker 25: Before the audition at Dell's Tire Mart, you know, all
Speaker 25: those years later, so you know, it was always about
Speaker 25: power trios in the beginning, you know, playing a whole
Speaker 25: lot of like Black Sabbath and led Zeppelin and Deep.
Speaker 13: Purple and you know, anything with long guitar solos in it.
Speaker 13: That's what it was about.
Speaker 1: So okay, well to hear this, this this tale the
Speaker 1: Two Cities, I mean, how expansive did your vocabulary And
Speaker 1: this is for Andre and I mean how expansive did
Speaker 1: your vocabulary have to be in order to get these
Speaker 1: soap hop gigs and whatnot? Like, you know, would you
Speaker 1: say that you're would you have to adapt to whatever
Speaker 1: environment you were in. If you knew that it was
Speaker 1: a high school for you know, black kids, you would
Speaker 1: know what the black stuff was. And then if you
Speaker 1: I mean, was it integrated audiences?
Speaker 25: By that point was in my background because we we
Speaker 25: had to literally go from playing little tiny towns you know,
Speaker 25: East Crevice, Iowa at the teen Center.
Speaker 13: You know where we would go from playing huge traveling.
Speaker 13: Oh yeah, I was.
Speaker 25: My folks used to have to write me notes to
Speaker 25: get me out of school early all through high school
Speaker 25: so I could go.
Speaker 13: We found a dude that could drive, and we would
Speaker 13: go and we would play.
Speaker 25: So we would have to go from like playing you know,
Speaker 25: an Emerson Lncoln Palmer song to an average white band
Speaker 25: song to you know whatever.
Speaker 13: So it was definitely about that.
Speaker 25: But again I had grown up seeing that because in
Speaker 25: the Twin Cities at that time, in the sixties, there
Speaker 25: were multi racial bands. There were bands that had you know,
Speaker 25: blacks and whites and Hispanics and and everybody.
Speaker 13: Some of the most popular.
Speaker 25: Bands in town were multi racial, and you know, so
Speaker 25: in this market, it was just it was just a
Speaker 25: different thing.
Speaker 13: Now you had to play the people's music. But that's
Speaker 13: just the way it was.
Speaker 1: So was it as utopian for you? Andrea's Oh was
Speaker 1: it just straight?
Speaker 24: Like no, no, no, We you know, we played phone
Speaker 24: R and B and we played in the hood. We
Speaker 24: played at one of the clubs called a Bucket of Blood.
Speaker 1: It was called Bucket of Blood.
Speaker 24: We literally my brother, I mean, you know, because like
Speaker 24: I said, we came from the other side of the
Speaker 24: town and so we were playing at you know clubs
Speaker 24: where you know, people were getting shot stabbed.
Speaker 1: And you know, my brother was there with his girls,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was just it was.
Speaker 24: It was a different reality, you know. And then my
Speaker 24: mom you know, would get a lot of our a
Speaker 24: lot of our gigs and so you know, and then
Speaker 24: you know, we played at barbecues, We played it back
Speaker 24: as you know, we played it, you know, anytime somebody
Speaker 24: was you know, having to get together. You know, sometimes
Speaker 24: there even be you know, parties people have down their
Speaker 24: basement and they want somebody to play and we you know,
Speaker 24: so we you know, it was it was, it was
Speaker 24: another reality.
Speaker 1: Okay. So at the rate where I kind of want
Speaker 1: to push it up a little bit that you guys
Speaker 1: paths cross because I assume that in Prince's first incarnation
Speaker 1: of the band included both Des and Andre.
Speaker 25: Well, Andre is definitely the og because you guys started
Speaker 25: out in school together.
Speaker 1: Right, But I mean at the rate where when he
Speaker 1: got a deal, like how big of a deal was
Speaker 1: that once it reached the local Minneapolis circuit, like one
Speaker 1: of us is gonna make it or that that's like
Speaker 1: was it a big deal or was.
Speaker 24: It just like okay, yeah, it was a big deal. Absolutely,
Speaker 24: it was a big deal. I mean it was like
Speaker 24: this is what we you know, what we had worked
Speaker 24: for and built.
Speaker 1: Up to I mean, was it was it awkward though,
Speaker 1: I mean, because I don't know if I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that with anyone it's like, okay, if we get there first,
Speaker 1: then I'll pull you with me and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But this is clearly like, okay, one of you is
Speaker 1: going to be the focus in the center of it,
Speaker 1: as opposed to it being a group situation.
Speaker 24: You know, it's interesting. I heard a I guess there
Speaker 24: was a documentary with Chris Moon, okay, because our band,
Speaker 24: you know, we had won a Battle of the Bands
Speaker 24: and one of the prizes was free recording studio time
Speaker 24: and I think maybe seventy five dollars or.
Speaker 13: Something like that.
Speaker 24: But so that's that's really kind of how it happened,
Speaker 24: you know, I know that it's you know, there's all
Speaker 24: sorts of different stories and everybody's got the myths and
Speaker 24: all that, but the reality is that's what happened. And
Speaker 24: Chris Moon, you know, heard us playing. He was trying
Speaker 24: to figure out how he could get in, you know,
Speaker 24: get in involved with this this band because at the
Speaker 24: time we were hot. We paid the dues and worked
Speaker 24: that way up and everybody was you know, really talking
Speaker 24: about us. I mean at the time. It was as
Speaker 24: a band, right, and it wasn't like oh just this
Speaker 24: guy or oh just that guy or what oh whatever,
Speaker 24: But cause he came in and if you watch the documentary,
Speaker 24: he says, you know, I went up to you know,
Speaker 24: cause he came up to me and he asked me,
Speaker 24: and I said, you need to talk to my manager.
Speaker 24: And then he went to Prince, he said, cause he said,
Speaker 24: he looked like he'd be the you know, easiest guy
Speaker 24: to sort of deal talk to you.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I would like to know at what point
Speaker 1: do you really push the envelope, because you guys weren't
Speaker 1: just an average group. I mean, your your television debut
Speaker 1: caused many many Uh yeah, I mean I I remember
Speaker 1: seeing a thing. It was Midnight Special before or after
Speaker 1: American Bandstand. They were real close together, close to the well.
Speaker 3: I remember.
Speaker 1: That whole story. I remember Midnight Special and just the
Speaker 1: utter tone and discuss my dad had about it, you know,
Speaker 1: and all he took away from it was no, no
Speaker 1: boys should be wearing no dipe on no stage like
Speaker 1: you guys just looked like nothing ever on, Like who's
Speaker 1: I mean, how are you guys like with a straight face?
Speaker 1: Like Okay, we're just gonna do things that we've never
Speaker 1: done before. I mean, how has that even come to fruition?
Speaker 1: Like who you know?
Speaker 25: I think a lot of what that that sort of
Speaker 25: natural chemistry between you and Prince when you just first
Speaker 25: saw each other in school that day. I mean I
Speaker 25: think that actually kind of play itself out in the
Speaker 25: band a lot.
Speaker 13: Absolutely well, it wasn't like you know, we we.
Speaker 1: So you guys even stood out even in the local
Speaker 1: localization of Yeah, no, I mean we were. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, who is your closest competition band wise and
Speaker 1: nobody who's in second?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, I just meant in terms of when you
Speaker 1: I'm talking about in terms of Grand Central, what other
Speaker 1: band would you Okay?
Speaker 24: Uh, Sunny Thompson their band, They had the most unbelievable
Speaker 24: band in the city at the time, bar and I
Speaker 24: mean like, I mean I would go see them. I
Speaker 24: mean I was, you know, I was extremely cocky. You know,
Speaker 24: I was like, I you know, my attitude about being
Speaker 24: a musician because I really felt like, if you really
Speaker 24: do what you're supposed to do, practice and play and
Speaker 24: all that kind of stuff, then you know, you pay
Speaker 24: the cost to be the boss. So I would talk
Speaker 24: a lot of trash and just you know, it was
Speaker 24: basically in my nature at the time, you know, you know,
Speaker 24: Prince was a little more laid back, but I was
Speaker 24: probably the opposite of that. So I was always talking trash.
Speaker 24: But the one band and I didn't talk. You know,
Speaker 24: I went I remember going to one of their gigs
Speaker 24: a you know, thinking about t I went there specifically
Speaker 24: to talk trash so we could that's how we would
Speaker 24: get gigs mm And I went there specifically, you know,
Speaker 24: to talk talk trash. And I went there and I
Speaker 24: was like, cause Sonny was killing it and the drummer
Speaker 24: and then Randy Barber.
Speaker 10: But the drummer was.
Speaker 24: Joe Lewis is still a friend of mine. I mean,
Speaker 24: Joe Lewis is just I mean, he was the coolest
Speaker 24: drummer ever because he would do all of this stuff
Speaker 24: that you know, you know, all the funky stuff, all
Speaker 24: the funky licks, but he just always had this ram
Speaker 24: and he had this fro and he just looked like
Speaker 24: I mean, it was the seventies and it was just
Speaker 24: he was the epitome of the cool drummer. And so
Speaker 24: I was just blown. I'm that just that, and I
Speaker 24: went back and said, we got up our game, you know,
Speaker 24: and so and that wasn't even a you know, distance act.
Speaker 1: That was like a distant way beyond our whole thing.
Speaker 24: And that's when I was like, we got out our game.
Speaker 1: So anyway, there's one particular project I would like to
Speaker 1: talk about that never really came to light unless you're
Speaker 1: deep in the bootleg circle, and that's the Rebels. What
Speaker 1: was the was the Rebels just like a weekend idea, like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just for start as you guys record at the
Speaker 1: speed of sound and you know, the the entire project
Speaker 1: can be done within a week. So t to even
Speaker 1: have that much output in in such a little time, Like,
Speaker 1: what was the the beginnings of the Rebels or the
Speaker 1: idea of it? Or was that just a folklore that's
Speaker 1: only in Minnesota fan music? Mind? It's real?
Speaker 24: But yeah, I can I can tell you what the
Speaker 24: real give me the real I mean, like you know,
Speaker 24: I mean, I know the folk lore, but what was
Speaker 24: the what was the basis? The real deal is is
Speaker 24: he had a band of very talented musicians, you know,
Speaker 24: and you know we had done some stuff, you know,
Speaker 24: and we probably could have gone off and done other things.
Speaker 24: So rather than have us scramble out into different areas
Speaker 24: and go do solo things here on our own thing,
Speaker 24: then it might be a good idea to give them
Speaker 24: something to occupy themselves.
Speaker 1: So this is keeping from moonlighting.
Speaker 13: It's kind of like it's kind of like the same
Speaker 13: theory that some parents use.
Speaker 25: Well, would rather have you have the party here, We'll
Speaker 25: get the alcohol and make sure that you don't leave
Speaker 25: the house.
Speaker 1: But it was so fun.
Speaker 24: I mean, you know, we had I mean, we had
Speaker 24: so much fun. And that was that was you know,
Speaker 24: I got to know Des a whole lot better.
Speaker 1: And does why didn't you guys come out?
Speaker 24: Dez is one of the funniest dudes on the planet Earth.
Speaker 24: He kept me and Stitch especially that project go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yeah, why didn't it come out?
Speaker 25: It was a decision that was never really clear articulated
Speaker 25: to us, you know what I mean, which happened from
Speaker 25: time to time subsequently, because.
Speaker 1: Those songs weren't complete. There's at least five or six
Speaker 1: that oh yeah, it could have easily been on the
Speaker 1: Dirney Mine record.
Speaker 25: Yeah, it was a record, and it had the different
Speaker 25: personalities of the different members of the band because everybody
Speaker 25: wrote stuff and everybody brought things to the table, and
Speaker 25: that was his His vision was that everybody contribute, you know,
Speaker 25: so personally maybe you know something I know, but I
Speaker 25: don't know what happened to it.
Speaker 1: Who always in this band? Who exactly were the members?
Speaker 1: It was the band, yeah, Andre and I. Gail Chapman
Speaker 1: was a keyboard player at the time, and it was
Speaker 1: the same band. But I guess Prince would have lessened
Speaker 1: his rule and made it less about him and more
Speaker 1: about a band unit. At least that was the idea,
Speaker 1: I assume, yeah, And I think.
Speaker 24: What happened because the record company when they got it,
Speaker 24: they wanted thriller or killer to be the single.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
Speaker 24: That probably might have been a b you know, cause
Speaker 24: the whole life, the whole idea was to get the
Speaker 24: band and occupy them until we did the next to
Speaker 24: already finished, you know, his next record, to put out
Speaker 24: a single with one of the band numbers, you know,
Speaker 24: this song as the lead single. It could maybe be successful,
Speaker 24: which would change sort of, you know, you could lose
Speaker 24: a certain amount of control, you know, possibly, But you know,
Speaker 24: I think the thing is is it bottom line is
Speaker 24: I think everybody at the time were very dedicated to
Speaker 24: his thing, to his project. I know I was to
Speaker 24: So it was like, I mean, and I only found
Speaker 24: that out through obviously through the management, cause i'd you know,
Speaker 24: the manager was constantly talking to me because you know,
Speaker 24: you know, Prince wasn't a big talker.
Speaker 1: I know, it has to be word to mix friendship
Speaker 1: with business, and it's like, at one point you guys
Speaker 1: are best friends, but then like, clearly someone has to
Speaker 1: be the forty nine fifty one percent of it all
Speaker 1: and that could make it awkward. Probably the most notable thing,
Speaker 1: at least for both of you is that both of
Speaker 1: you stepped away from the camp and left camp right
Speaker 1: at the moment when the I I guess, the the
Speaker 1: the the climax or the explosion at least for what
Speaker 1: you guys have been relentlessly doing all these endless hours
Speaker 1: of rehearsal for. And you know we we've already discussed,
Speaker 1: uh the Rolling Stone situation, what's happened in LA and
Speaker 1: uh another segment. But at what point I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying for regrets or anything like that, but I mean,
Speaker 1: how hard was the decision at least for both of
Speaker 1: you to step away at the times when you both
Speaker 1: did uh to to pursue your own career in your
Speaker 1: own interest.
Speaker 25: I mean, for me, it really wasn't hard at all
Speaker 25: because the the day that I auditioned at Dell's Tire Mart,
Speaker 25: the infamous fifteen minute audition, Prince and I went out
Speaker 25: in the parking lot. He asked me some very deep,
Speaker 25: very career minded questions for a young man of that age,
Speaker 25: and basically said, you know, he posed.
Speaker 13: It to me this way.
Speaker 25: Would you be willing to come help me do what
Speaker 25: I do? And then when the time comes, you know,
Speaker 25: you help me make this thing work, then I'll help
Speaker 25: you do what you do. So we had a deal
Speaker 25: from the beginning that at some point I was going
Speaker 25: to go back to being a front man, to be
Speaker 25: a band leader guy. So he came to me after
Speaker 25: nineteen ninety nine and said, look, here's the deal this film.
Speaker 25: I need a solid three year commitment to the films. Yeah,
Speaker 25: and at that point in time, I just couldn't get
Speaker 25: my mind around three more years. So the other option
Speaker 25: was management will take you on right now and we'll
Speaker 25: get your record.
Speaker 13: Do you can go do your thing?
Speaker 25: It just for me, it really really felt like I
Speaker 25: need to do this now. So it was it was
Speaker 25: not hard at all, and I was back out on
Speaker 25: the road within you know, four months. I was out
Speaker 25: solo shows first, then on the Rebel Yel tour with
Speaker 25: Billy Idol the special guest out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I remember that, uh, Dre, I guess it
Speaker 1: should also be noted. I mean, you've done a lot
Speaker 1: of work, uh since your actually probably the the the
Speaker 1: most notable is uh your production for Jody Whitley's uh
Speaker 1: first three, first three albums. What was that transition like?
Speaker 1: And I mean what was the feeling to I mean
Speaker 1: really really truly score. I mean because this wasn't just
Speaker 1: like you know, throw it on the wall and see
Speaker 1: if this you know type of m I mean, this
Speaker 1: was really impactful and it was Grammy nominated, well it won,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so what was that just process?
Speaker 15: Like?
Speaker 24: Well, I'd have to agree with that as it was
Speaker 24: easy easy to leave that situation, not just because it's like,
Speaker 24: you know, my old thing was you know, three albums,
Speaker 24: you know about it. You know, that should give you
Speaker 24: enough time for your thing to jump off, and you
Speaker 24: know then I wanted because I never thought about being
Speaker 24: anybody's band so so, and then I did the solo
Speaker 24: stuff and I did space music and the record company
Speaker 24: didn't get it.
Speaker 13: And they didn't promote it.
Speaker 24: So I went and said, if you guys are not
Speaker 24: gonna promote it, why don't you just drop me.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't drop me. They heard Kelly's eyes and didn't
Speaker 1: feel like, yo.
Speaker 24: This isn't like and so I mean, but that's that
Speaker 24: was it, and so they wouldn't let me off the label.
Speaker 24: So I quit recording, and so I thought, well, I
Speaker 24: gotta make some money. And I met Jodie when I
Speaker 24: was doing the video for Fans Electric, and you know,
Speaker 24: we wound up hanging out and I was like, you
Speaker 24: are really really talented.
Speaker 1: You should you know.
Speaker 24: And she had some some stuff that she was working on,
Speaker 24: and I was like, I'd love to, you know, shoot
Speaker 24: you some tracks, and I shout up, I think five tracks,
Speaker 24: and she wrote lyrics to him, and I guess the
Speaker 24: rest is history.
Speaker 1: And he started working on That's amazing. I wish I
Speaker 1: had more time because I have so much more I
Speaker 1: want to ask, but I want to thank you Des
Speaker 1: and Andre for being on the show. And we'll be
Speaker 1: back with Susannah Melvoyn Wow, What can I say about
Speaker 1: our next guest? One of my favorite favorite people ever.
Speaker 1: Can't say enough about Susannah Melboyn, twin sister of Wendy
Speaker 1: Melvoy and member of the Family Seminal Group, who's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five record Like had tremendous influence on me, and
Speaker 1: not to mention just her presence alone is inspired so
Speaker 1: much life changing material. Welcome Susannah Melvoy to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 13: Susanna's Pajamas.
Speaker 1: Yes, Susanna, how are you?
Speaker 16: I'm good?
Speaker 1: I have to know growing up in such a musical
Speaker 1: family in California. And first of all, do you play
Speaker 1: any instruments? Because I'm curious about siblings who where one
Speaker 1: particular sibling picks up an instrument and the other doesn't.
Speaker 1: I know that Alan Leeds's brother, Eric's a monster saxophonist,
Speaker 1: but doesn't necessarily he doesn't play instruments himself. Like, are
Speaker 1: you do you play any instruments?
Speaker 18: Well, I, like many singers, I can play the guitar,
Speaker 18: I can play piano, but that's not the that's not
Speaker 18: what I do. Okay, So yeah, no, I was well,
Speaker 18: while Wendy was playing guitar lessons, I was ballet answer,
Speaker 18: and then we were both session singers as kids because
Speaker 18: of my dad.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, in did you have any design I
Speaker 1: used to become singing yourself? You were you just you
Speaker 1: just happen to have a good singing voice. And that
Speaker 1: was that.
Speaker 18: And you know, I never thought of anything else ever
Speaker 18: I had. I was terrible in school. I was great
Speaker 18: in art, and I was horrible in school. And I
Speaker 18: was thankful that. I was like, I don't need to
Speaker 18: go to school anyway, because I I have this other
Speaker 18: thing I want to do, and that's all I know
Speaker 18: how to do. That's that's what I do. That's what
Speaker 18: I was born into. Wendy and I and even and Lisa,
Speaker 18: all of our families grew up together. Our parents were
Speaker 18: session players and they were wrecking crew, and we just
Speaker 18: we were just in music all the time. We went
Speaker 18: to schools where you know, you had to play recorder
Speaker 18: and nursery school and you had to play violin in
Speaker 18: the second grade, and you were we were. Wendy and
Speaker 18: I were in all state choruses. And it says, you know,
Speaker 18: we just that's what we did. And but there was
Speaker 18: a time when.
Speaker 1: Your sister mentioned something when she talked about her first
Speaker 1: encounter with Prince and she said, it's so as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact that it didn't even hit me to
Speaker 1: question it. She said, we were thirteen years old inside
Speaker 1: of a nightclub. I'm like, wait, what was the carning
Speaker 1: policy or y'all that developed physical? Yeah, I was going
Speaker 1: to say kind of both. It was you know, before
Speaker 1: those times where you know, I don't know how we.
Speaker 18: Got away with it, but dad were going out tonight.
Speaker 18: How old are you thirteen?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 18: So as I was picking us up, we're going to
Speaker 18: go to the Starwood and uh oh he told them
Speaker 18: the truth right straight up? Oh, straight up, like we're
Speaker 18: going to library.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no no. I went to church to
Speaker 1: sneak to see the Thanksgiving purple range that I got
Speaker 1: a busman.
Speaker 19: Oh, this was crazy.
Speaker 17: Wendy and I would go at thirteen year old girls
Speaker 17: and we would We were the only I don't I
Speaker 17: know how it happened, but Wendy and I were the
Speaker 17: only girls at thirteen who were not going out to
Speaker 17: do dope or we were.
Speaker 18: Going out to dance. That's all Wendy and I wanted
Speaker 18: to do. We were kids that we were so heavy
Speaker 18: into disco We were just such dancers. We were just
Speaker 18: we were doing the line, we were doing the hustle,
Speaker 18: we were doing everything. We were doing all this new stuff.
Speaker 18: We went to school with. We went to this crazy
Speaker 18: little art school and the Jackson five had gone to
Speaker 18: this school. Michael had graduated already, but Randy was in
Speaker 18: a grade or grade or two ahead of us. And
Speaker 18: we'd sit in the parking lot and we'd do line
Speaker 18: dances together and do all that, you know, just crazy.
Speaker 18: It was all about us dancing and are you going
Speaker 18: to go to Xenons tonight? Are you going to go
Speaker 18: to blah blah blah, We're going to We're going to
Speaker 18: Star Wars on Saturdays.
Speaker 1: Is an amazing thing when it works out perfectly well.
Speaker 18: When you've got kids that come home and they're not,
Speaker 18: you know, effed up and they've just been dancing all night,
Speaker 18: there's something that you know, and if your kids are
Speaker 18: sort of straight up, I guess we were, you know,
Speaker 18: or my my father was a knucklehead.
Speaker 1: So did you just meet Prince at the same time
Speaker 1: that Wendy Metmore did you come in later? When do
Speaker 1: you realize, like, oh god, there's another one of you.
Speaker 18: I was working when I got out of high school.
Speaker 18: And this was right before I got the gig with Quincy.
Speaker 18: I was working for David Geffen. Got out of high school,
Speaker 18: I got a gig answering the phones at Geffen Records,
Speaker 18: the David Geffen Company, and after awhile, I'd be like,
Speaker 18: have a cup of coffee company, Have a cup of
Speaker 18: coffee company, David Effen Company, Have a cup of coffee company.
Speaker 18: It was just running, running, running anyway. Christmas Party nineteen
Speaker 18: eighty whatever. I'm seventeen years old, Christmas party for Warner Brothers,
Speaker 18: and I already know Lisa's got the gig already, Like, hey,
Speaker 18: my sister's got gigging Wendy and I'd been listening to
Speaker 18: those records. We'd be dancing at the Starwood too. You know,
Speaker 18: I want to be your lover and all of that.
Speaker 18: We're like, who this woman? So I, you know, I
Speaker 18: get this silly outfit and my first time, like you're
Speaker 18: gonna go to a really big corporate party, and I
Speaker 18: just was like, oh God, I can't believe I'm gonna
Speaker 18: do this. I had my hair permed and it looked
Speaker 18: like a poodle and it would just like the whole
Speaker 18: thing would move at once with the wind and it
Speaker 18: was a silly little black thing. I just felt ridiculous.
Speaker 18: And I walk in and there's Prince in Vanity standing
Speaker 18: at the wall, two of them together. Me, my little
Speaker 18: little self. Hi, I'm Wendy's twin sister, Susannah. I just
Speaker 18: wanted to meet you.
Speaker 19: And say hi.
Speaker 16: And you know, no clue that like, And.
Speaker 18: He gave me that sweet little smile and he said,
Speaker 18: Wendy's your sister, right. I said, Lisa is my sister too,
Speaker 18: and he.
Speaker 1: Was like oh.
Speaker 18: And then Vanity leans down, she grabs my face and.
Speaker 16: She goes, ooh, you're so cute.
Speaker 10: What theouts are?
Speaker 18: And I was like, great, okay, bye, are you cute?
Speaker 18: Aren't you cute? Cut to Purple Rain rehearsals. She's out
Speaker 18: the door, walking out the door, the last day of
Speaker 18: her gig. She's out. It's like, we gotta find another lead.
Speaker 18: And here comes Susannah walking in to rehearsal and she
Speaker 18: came right.
Speaker 1: Up to me.
Speaker 16: You're gonna have the best time ever here.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 18: And I literally I was like, I kind of gave
Speaker 18: her like, why do you keep talking to me like this?
Speaker 18: And I could see him and he looked over and
Speaker 18: he was like took his head like that. And that
Speaker 18: is funny because Des had his birthday party and shortly
Speaker 18: at like within that weekend. It was in August, and
Speaker 18: I went to his birthday party and I'm sitting on
Speaker 18: the couch and incomes Prince. He comes walking in, he
Speaker 18: jumps on the couch, sits next to me, and he goes,
Speaker 18: did you dream of me last night? And I said,
Speaker 18: just so happens I did, and I had uh huh.
Speaker 18: And you know, there's other stories, but that's when it
Speaker 18: all started. That's when it all started. And then Prince
Speaker 18: had heard my demo. So we used to have we
Speaker 18: used to go to the airport and pick him up
Speaker 18: in Lisa's car and he comes stay with us at
Speaker 18: our when the three of us lived in this teeny
Speaker 18: little house on Melrose, and so we would go pick
Speaker 18: him up and Betty Flounder that was Lisa's car, and
Speaker 18: so it would be Lisa, we'd have Betty Flounder, and
Speaker 18: no Betty was around through all of Purple Rain, and
Speaker 18: even you remember, Betty Flounder was like an old Buick
Speaker 18: fifty six fifty seven Buick salmon colored, so we'd all
Speaker 18: go to pick up Prince with Betty Flounder. He called
Speaker 18: her Betty. We were all like in Betty Flounder, and
Speaker 18: he'd come and stay with us.
Speaker 1: I got two questions, huh, I got two questions. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if the fact that I come from
Speaker 1: and the era of music that was just so overdone
Speaker 1: with budgets and whatnot, but I would think during this
Speaker 1: time period, like like you guys were picking each other
Speaker 1: up from the airport. Oh yeah, First of all, Prince
Speaker 1: was taking a plane. Because in my head, I'm like, oh, he.
Speaker 18: Took a plane by himself. We go pick him up
Speaker 18: at the airport and he comes stay with us, and
Speaker 18: my cats would jump all over him and he'd be
Speaker 18: on the couch and he'd be.
Speaker 1: Like, least were a baseball caategory something to what you
Speaker 1: was like, what eighty for four? Was this post post purple?
Speaker 1: So okay, so at least in our heads, because I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: this guy cannot step out the door without getting mobbed.
Speaker 1: Now I know that some of that stuff is, you know,
Speaker 1: what we just saw growing up as kids. But he
Speaker 1: could take the plane and maybe one or two people
Speaker 1: be like, oh, there's.
Speaker 18: Prince and yeah, yeah, particularly with the three of us, and.
Speaker 1: I'll pick you up from the airport.
Speaker 18: But time you need to be here, and we'd be
Speaker 18: there and pick him up.
Speaker 1: And there's no prince sign like Prince Nelson, not during
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 25: No.
Speaker 21: But I imagine his flying outfit is different from his
Speaker 21: you know what I mean, Like his whole look is different.
Speaker 18: Who was always different? But he was a this is
Speaker 18: a beautiful kid. You know, he was a beautiful kid.
Speaker 18: I mean, and he would you know, just wear a
Speaker 18: you know, a vintage old you know, grandpa coat and
Speaker 18: he'd looked so beautiful in it. And he'd wear his
Speaker 18: you know, his jeans, and he'd wear a you know,
Speaker 18: whatever top I mean, and that's he just come out
Speaker 18: like that. I mean, there was no it wasn't like
Speaker 18: who's that weirdo? It's just like who's that cutie pie?
Speaker 18: And he'd be so confident and he'd be so happy
Speaker 18: to be coming and hanging and there was it.
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine him flying commercial or him all
Speaker 1: the time a Pinto or that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Oh no, you.
Speaker 18: Not many people know how important this particular period of
Speaker 18: time was for him and for us because this was
Speaker 18: like this we became. It's so interesting because talking about
Speaker 18: it now, but we became like pals, but deep, like
Speaker 18: you know, not many people know that. Like he's sleeping
Speaker 18: on the couch and our cats are running and jumping
Speaker 18: on him, and he's saying, can somebody get the cats
Speaker 18: off me?
Speaker 21: You don't imagine prince sleeping on a couch in a house.
Speaker 21: An I'm gonna say that right from the job.
Speaker 1: No you don't.
Speaker 18: But then it's that's what it all threw. No, but
Speaker 18: I'll tell you a really funny story. So one of
Speaker 18: the nights he's there, we lived in this eighty bitty
Speaker 18: place and it didn't have bathroom door. It had one
Speaker 18: of those sort of saloon doors. It was horrifying, and
Speaker 18: it was in my bedroom and so it's like if
Speaker 18: anyone needed to do their business, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 18: everybody's going to get out of the house now, right,
Speaker 18: or nobody's gonna be around.
Speaker 1: Here anything.
Speaker 18: It's like just horrifying.
Speaker 19: So I'm in that room and.
Speaker 18: Lisa, when what am I supposed to you know, if
Speaker 18: I need to what you know, if I need to,
Speaker 18: she said, well, just tell her sleep the room. So
Speaker 18: nothing went further than that.
Speaker 17: But he did come into my room and he sat
Speaker 17: on my bed and I was on one side of
Speaker 17: my bed and I had this really crappy mattress and
Speaker 17: I had a huge, huge, deep dent in it.
Speaker 18: And he said, he went, you sleep in this thing?
Speaker 18: And he said do you have a job? And I
Speaker 18: was like, and he said, can't you get yourself a
Speaker 18: new mattress? How do you sleep in that? I was like,
Speaker 18: I sleep on that side. I don't sleep in the hole.
Speaker 16: Right.
Speaker 18: But I came home the next day from working for
Speaker 18: Deaf and Records David, and there was a huge mattress
Speaker 18: at my door.
Speaker 22: So it was like, so, yeah, yeah, you're a good lady,
Speaker 22: because I would have been like that for me or
Speaker 22: for us.
Speaker 18: That's that's so funny you should say that.
Speaker 17: I mean, it just never occurred to me at that
Speaker 17: point that like he was actually courting me in any way.
Speaker 18: I just, you know, I was just like, this is
Speaker 18: a really sweet gesture. And again he heard that demo,
Speaker 18: he heard that demo in that house, this one of
Speaker 18: these particular things. And he said, well, when you said up,
Speaker 18: can we play him the demo? And I said, no,
Speaker 18: don't play him anything. God, don't don't blame in. It
Speaker 18: was so flipped out because I loved everything he'd done.
Speaker 18: And I was working with Quincy. I was doing like,
Speaker 18: you know, session work, and you know, just wasn't that
Speaker 18: And I said, I want to hear it. And so
Speaker 18: I said, okay, I'm leaving the house. So I left
Speaker 18: the house, came back, and he came right up to
Speaker 18: me and he said, you want to come and do
Speaker 18: what we're doing, because wouldn't you rather do that? And
Speaker 18: I said yes and uh, and he said, well, I
Speaker 18: think I think you'd have a really good time.
Speaker 1: I said, wait, okay. Before I let you go, I
Speaker 1: just had to ask.
Speaker 18: One, Oh oh god, what a bummer that I'm just
Speaker 18: talking about this?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I know, because there's so much more,
Speaker 1: but I I would like to discuss. Yeah. I know
Speaker 1: that he would often communicate with cassettes, which I mean
Speaker 1: blows my mind. I mean, if I'm in the studio
Speaker 1: making a song, I'm thinking like, Okay, how can this
Speaker 1: be a hit? How can like I'm not just gonna
Speaker 1: make like a song aimed at one person, like that's it.
Speaker 1: Instead of us talking out a problem or whatever, like
Speaker 1: here's the thing, I mean, how many cassettes have you
Speaker 1: received of like just stuff for like here just for you,
Speaker 1: like like of just custom made songs because that's me
Speaker 1: is an amazing aren't too.
Speaker 16: None?
Speaker 15: Even la?
Speaker 18: I mean the tapes that I would get, the tapes
Speaker 18: that I would get were on the floor of my car.
Speaker 18: You wouldn't hand them to me. They'd be dispersed at
Speaker 18: the bottom of the car, and so'd be like.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, like these are for you or never put
Speaker 1: them in your hands.
Speaker 16: There mine now.
Speaker 1: No, I don't mean like songs just made that he
Speaker 1: just left there specifically for me. Well, I know that
Speaker 1: he made Lisa song strange way of saying I love you,
Speaker 1: like they had.
Speaker 18: An argument, whatever, and no anything anything that we did.
Speaker 16: Anything.
Speaker 18: He would specifically say, let's go in the studio.
Speaker 1: You and me.
Speaker 18: We're going in.
Speaker 1: Oh so you were there, just we're.
Speaker 18: Going in, You and I were going in, and then
Speaker 18: you're gonna hang here until you're I'm ready to have
Speaker 18: you come and sing your vocal and this is what
Speaker 18: we're doing and this is what I'm thinking about. And
Speaker 18: then that would be it. And then we'd listen to
Speaker 18: everything together in the car and that would go on
Speaker 18: for days and days and then we'd go in and
Speaker 18: do more overdubs or do you know it just be
Speaker 18: like that? But I was it was never, it wasn't
Speaker 18: It wasn't that much. It wasn't that disconnected, like here's
Speaker 18: your tape. It was like, we let's go.
Speaker 1: We're doing this.
Speaker 18: Yeah, we're doing Not that I'd even collaborate, but it
Speaker 18: was like there, you know, I need you buy my
Speaker 18: side because I'm gonna have you do this. But you're
Speaker 18: gonna be with me from the get go. Now, I'm
Speaker 18: not gonna call you at some point you're gonna come in. No,
Speaker 18: You're gonna be with me.
Speaker 1: Before we go. I gotta ask her the Starfish and
Speaker 1: Coffee Store. Okay, all right, for our listeners, could you
Speaker 1: please please please give us the genesis of the Starfish
Speaker 1: and Coffee Store.
Speaker 18: During the many, many car rides together, he would have,
Speaker 18: you know, occasionally asked.
Speaker 1: Me, wait before you say that you seen car rides?
Speaker 1: Or you just drive around the city listening to music.
Speaker 18: We'd live in the car, lived in the car. We
Speaker 18: would drive everywhere for any reason all the time, from
Speaker 18: vanilla milkshakes to going to Minnie Haha Falls and drinking
Speaker 18: that milkshake, then getting back in the car, listening to
Speaker 18: the music, listen to our music and talking, going to
Speaker 18: the lake, sitting at the lake, going back in the car,
Speaker 18: listening to more music. No, because he wasn't listening to it,
Speaker 18: like listen, how badass I am, although I'm sure he
Speaker 18: was doing that. It was work, you know, like we're
Speaker 18: listening to it. Does it sound right? What's it sound
Speaker 18: like in the car when we put something else on?
Speaker 18: And there were other there were times when we would
Speaker 18: listen to other records, you know, and it was the
Speaker 18: kind of records that he'd never heard before that you know,
Speaker 18: I had introduced him to, or Wendy and Lisa had
Speaker 18: introduced him to. And so we would listen to those
Speaker 18: records and you know, sonically and you know, the audio
Speaker 18: the became audio files, like how does it sound? And
Speaker 18: what was going on with those records? So but these
Speaker 18: this there were many of those rides, and you know,
Speaker 18: we would talk about our histories and our secrets and
Speaker 18: you know, what was it like here and would you
Speaker 18: do with that? And I'm going to take you over
Speaker 18: to where I grew up and what was it for
Speaker 18: you guys? And I would tell him about this one
Speaker 18: story about this girl Cynthia Rose, who Wendy and I
Speaker 18: were in school with from nursery school up into sixth
Speaker 18: grade and back in this particular other time. You know,
Speaker 18: nobody knew what autism was, but she was an incredible
Speaker 18: in just the most extraordinary girl. And he would ask
Speaker 18: me on occasional way, like, tell me about Cynthia, tell
Speaker 18: me about this story. And so we would tell I'd
Speaker 18: tell him and we'd laugh because I would get to
Speaker 18: the part where she would say, you know, she'd rock
Speaker 18: back and forth. She was like, would you have a
Speaker 18: breakfast this morning, Cynthia?
Speaker 19: She was like, I had.
Speaker 18: Starfish and Peevie.
Speaker 19: Yeah, starfish and peep.
Speaker 18: And you know what my favorite number is, It's twenty
Speaker 18: and she I mean, this was for years, and I
Speaker 18: loved her. I thought she was the sweetest coop ever,
Speaker 18: and you know, I just like that she was. It
Speaker 18: was just anyway, so this one particular day and I would,
Speaker 18: I want to say some in the fall of eighty five,
Speaker 18: we were at the house and we were in the
Speaker 18: kitchen and he came upstairs from the stud he said,
Speaker 18: can you you tell me the whole story of Cynthia again,
Speaker 18: can you tell me the whole thing with Cynthia Rose.
Speaker 18: He goes, can you write it down? And I was
Speaker 18: like sure, And so in detail, I'm writing him about
Speaker 18: you know who the class was. There was Kevin and
Speaker 18: Lucy and you know, Wendy and myself and many other kids.
Speaker 18: And there's Cynthia and there's my teacher, Miss Kathleen, and
Speaker 18: doing the whole day, what it was like to be
Speaker 18: with her, to watch her do her And he was
Speaker 18: like okay, And then I wrote down, you know, and
Speaker 18: then she would say a starfish and then he was
Speaker 18: He took it and he was like okay. He runs
Speaker 18: downstairs and the studio comes back up, and he says
Speaker 18: starfish and peepe. That's gotta go. He goes, do you
Speaker 18: mind if it's coffee? Because he goes, he goes, do
Speaker 18: you mind if it's coffee? Because I don't think I
Speaker 18: can sing peepe. I was like, it's all good, go ahead,
Speaker 18: you do what you gotta do, which and it was
Speaker 18: so sweet. It was like, yeah, I of course you're not.
Speaker 18: I gotta sing peepee. So he goes downstairs the studio
Speaker 18: and like six hours later, seven hours later, I mean,
Speaker 18: it's like early in the morning and he comes up
Speaker 18: and he says, come down, and uh, actually it was
Speaker 18: Susan who came to get me. And Susan Rogerson brought
Speaker 18: me back downstairs and he was standing at the console,
Speaker 18: exhausted and sweet little smile on his face, and he goes,
Speaker 18: here it is and he just pressed play and starfish
Speaker 18: and coffee was there, and yeah.
Speaker 13: Thank you for that.
Speaker 18: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: I have so much more, but I gotta wrap.
Speaker 16: It up another time.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's plenty more, Uh, Susannah melvoyn Uh, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I have to say. Uh, that was an
Speaker 1: edgy location. We learned a lot about Minnesota and and
Speaker 1: and what it had to offer, and.
Speaker 3: That was like a pH d. That was a doctor
Speaker 3: of course, and all things Prince Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Like. The only thing we needed was Kirby Pucket.
Speaker 26: And Kirby's dad. Actually, oh, yeah's stead Kirby's dead.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 21: Learned that I'm a lazy bastard. I thought I was
Speaker 21: lazy just being your friend for the last few years.
Speaker 21: But now that I really learned about friends in his work, I.
Speaker 1: Need to get my ship together.
Speaker 22: It was a lot of stuff, but at the end
Speaker 22: of the day, it's about me, Like, yeah, shit.
Speaker 1: Together, I'm paid Bill.
Speaker 27: Why is everybody from Minnesota in a fucking musical family?
Speaker 27: Every one of them was like my dad played the dance,
Speaker 27: my mom did this.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, my parents are doctors, like
Speaker 1: I did this is like I.
Speaker 27: Thought to myself, I was wondering, like what it would
Speaker 27: be like to grow up it because you did grow
Speaker 27: up in a musical family, Like what that's like and
Speaker 27: how that because like music wasn't in my house. I
Speaker 27: didn't live in that world. Like I had to go
Speaker 27: find it myself. It wasn't on me, Like I didn't
Speaker 27: learn it at church, I didn't do anything.
Speaker 15: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It just music. The way they were presenting it was
Speaker 1: like music was like an option in my case, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know if my my mom was probably Jedi
Speaker 1: mind tricking me into music to keep me off the streets,
Speaker 1: really to keep me from getting my ass whoop by
Speaker 1: the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 27: Like Wendy and Susannah growing up in like the Wrecking
Speaker 27: Crew house, like it was that was an option.
Speaker 1: It just well, I'm amazed that they told the truth
Speaker 1: like We're going night and the fact you had parents
Speaker 1: that would be cool enough to be you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I worked in the nightclub, but I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents, like they put me in the nightclub to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on me, to keep me from wanting
Speaker 1: to go to the nightclub, which you know, it didn't work.
Speaker 3: That's what I felt.
Speaker 1: I like, wow, yeah, that must be nice.
Speaker 22: Yeah, it's I didn't wanna say.
Speaker 1: Like wow, hashtag must be nice. Uh is there anything
Speaker 1: that we didn't cover? Built? I mean, you and I
Speaker 1: probably the biggest Prince fans that we know, Uh, like,
Speaker 1: did we missed something there?
Speaker 9: There was one thing I really wanted to talk to
Speaker 9: Matt and Bobby about, and that was the bullhorn incident
Speaker 9: on the plane when uh oh that led to the
Speaker 9: wh when when they all got taken taken taken to jail.
Speaker 9: There is so much that I wanted to ask about,
Speaker 9: but we just didn't have enough time.
Speaker 14: We need to do like four hours actually, I mean
Speaker 14: we had like just forty different Yeah.
Speaker 28: Yeah, Susanna, I'm proud off I mean to our supreme leader.
Speaker 28: Yeah that sounds very Jenny Jones.
Speaker 1: I just think that at least with Susannah alone, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot that I wanted to go
Speaker 1: into but you know, I felt it was too soon,
Speaker 1: but like a lot like the Beautiful Ones, like all
Speaker 1: those songs were about her, but didn't feel ill to
Speaker 1: you yet that you know, even when Wendy was here.
Speaker 1: And I think that a couple of other.
Speaker 22: Band members the way did they feel about.
Speaker 1: You and what you've done? That was real? That was
Speaker 1: really well yeah, I mean I just it's again like okay,
Speaker 1: so I were interview in the car with No. It
Speaker 1: was I was in the car with Maya Gretchen from
Speaker 1: Princess last night and this weird Prince fan stopped the
Speaker 1: car and like actually said you know, he starts the
Speaker 1: sentence with I have one hundred thousand dollars and I
Speaker 1: want to give it to you just so I can
Speaker 1: tell you my life story. And well exactly I said
Speaker 1: it verbatim. Yes, I know Steve's like I me or
Speaker 1: you are exaggerated.
Speaker 13: Well, it was probably like.
Speaker 1: No, and it just hit me like, yo, Prince has
Speaker 1: the weirdest even watching that audience. Uh that when we
Speaker 1: went to see the Revolution show, he has the weirdest
Speaker 1: looking audience. I might just might have been arms length
Speaker 1: with my audience as well. If that were my Familyase,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying like, I'm not saying anything. There's a
Speaker 1: guy with the ones he wo like all these images
Speaker 1: of his body. No, it just I know that Prince
Speaker 1: fans can seem weird, and I know that Prince also
Speaker 1: felt a certain way about his male fans, I mean, any.
Speaker 9: Fans in general, because like he had the whole thing
Speaker 9: about the word fan how he hated the word because
Speaker 9: it was short for fanatic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just you know how like the trick
Speaker 1: rabbit always had to conceal his excitement for tricks without
Speaker 1: you know, and then you get busted by the kids,
Speaker 1: and hey, guys, it's really me like, I don't ever
Speaker 1: want to be that guy, Like okay, I gained your trust,
Speaker 1: let me not let you know, like the only indication
Speaker 1: that they really gotten that. It's like, oh, mirror, his
Speaker 1: level of fandom might be average, you know, more than
Speaker 1: the average person was. Just like the demos that started
Speaker 1: pulling up in their present. Well, I mean I've I've
Speaker 1: learned that you gotta be cool in those situations. I know,
Speaker 1: for me, like fans be thinking like, oh man, if
Speaker 1: I mentioned that Japanese b side, you have and you'll
Speaker 1: know we're like organics. Yeah, yeah, that in order to.
Speaker 14: In order to like to the way to gain the
Speaker 14: I think it's like, wait, wait, wait before you answer,
Speaker 14: are you sure you want to give this this away?
Speaker 1: Before everybody starts trying.
Speaker 8: To know even though trust me, even if I gave
Speaker 8: it away, people will still okay, they'll still they'll still
Speaker 8: fu I think for me, and I mean for me
Speaker 8: and maybe different, I think there's a fine line.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: For me is if I meet quote unquote a fan,
Speaker 8: the last thing I want to talk about is music.
Speaker 8: And I think this is just something for you know,
Speaker 8: whatever person you're meeting in that field, you know what
Speaker 8: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: If it's uh, you know, if they're.
Speaker 8: Actors, uh, sports people, whatever, that person has been talking
Speaker 8: about what they do all day every day, you know
Speaker 8: what I'm saying. If I'm Michael Jordan, you know what
Speaker 8: I mean. I don't want to talk about basketball.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. From K I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about you know, he ain't talking saying ship.
Speaker 1: But other than that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 13: I think you know there that being a an artist
Speaker 13: or being a famous person.
Speaker 1: Let's let's be clear to about fame. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 8: I think, like my theory on famous is that it's
Speaker 8: kind of like jail, right, you know what I mean,
Speaker 8: It's like whatever year, Like how you know people say
Speaker 8: whatever year you go to jail in whatever age you are,
Speaker 8: that's the age you stay.
Speaker 1: You don't really develop past that point, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I think that, oh wow, you striking. But
Speaker 1: so it's like I think fame is the same way.
Speaker 8: I think whatever year, however age you are, that when
Speaker 8: you pop, like when you just become the man or
Speaker 8: the woman whatever, that's kind of you kind of live
Speaker 8: in a state of arrested development.
Speaker 10: So to me, the thing that is most endearing is
Speaker 10: when you meet people and they just talk to you.
Speaker 1: Just like regular fucking people. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to like.
Speaker 8: Or whatever, Like yo, you see that on Instagram and
Speaker 8: you see the twerking chip, Like we can just talk
Speaker 8: about just regular ship.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. But it's weird. That's a
Speaker 1: hard middle to do because.
Speaker 13: I have people in my life that do the opposite, Like.
Speaker 1: A mere I'm gonna let you know you ain't ship,
Speaker 1: just to let you know, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah, and then they got people right now,
Speaker 1: the people to try to just take it too far.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, but that's that's being super obvious that it's
Speaker 1: an issue. But you're doing like I have. Probably this
Speaker 1: room is is as normal as Yeah. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why I'm not saying I gathered you here like a
Speaker 1: master plan, like please get your kool aid st put
Speaker 1: all your Nike culture purple. I think they were I
Speaker 1: think they were hail o. Wait did they take that
Speaker 1: Nike off the off your place? Because not I think
Speaker 1: they might have went up in sales calls. Everything else's
Speaker 1: but well we we thank you to Sugar Steve you
Speaker 1: a little found of this episode.
Speaker 29: Shout out to Henley audio of thank you, Andrew Handlenk,
Speaker 29: great job, great job, thank you.
Speaker 1: Because I'll be honest, I thought we were all just
Speaker 1: going to have to turn on.
Speaker 29: That was my first plan when you said this, Yeah,
Speaker 29: everybody bring an iPhone. I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 30: Everybody who was interviewed there you were sort of pressing
Speaker 30: them on when Prince would make them, you know, stand
Speaker 30: there and loop some music for an hour or two
Speaker 30: hours whatever while he practices dancing, and nobody seemed to
Speaker 30: resent anything. Everybody saw that there was a purpose behind it,
Speaker 30: and they kind of took pride in it.
Speaker 3: Like if you told me play.
Speaker 30: Drums four hours, you just sit there and watch.
Speaker 1: Me or whatever.
Speaker 30: You're fucking crazy, but you know, everybody seemed to see
Speaker 30: the method to his madness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was pretty cool. Well and going the hotel,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, this is an amazing, amazing episode of
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme. Hope you guys join us next time.
Speaker 1: Uh on behalf of Quest Love Fante Bill both unpaid
Speaker 1: and Boss Bill Layah Steve. Hope you join us next
Speaker 1: Wednesday for another episode. Uh I guess what one PM
Speaker 1: and ten a m specific standard time specific specific, yes, specific.
Speaker 1: This is Quest Love signing off Quest Love Supreme. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Quest Love Supreme. It's a production in
Speaker 1: our iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team
Speaker 1: at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.