QLS Classic: Jesse Johnson Part 1

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey,
what's going on? What's going on? Y'all? Uh? This is
QLs classic. My name is Quess Love. You're listening to
a classic episode of course Love Supreme. Um. Hey, what
can I say? Jesse Johnson from the time, Uh, you know,

(00:25):
of course purple episodes are my favorite. This is from
August one of two thousand eighteen. What makes this Jesse
episode uh so special in addition to his storytelling and
his amazing life, is uh the sneak guest that he
brought into the show that we weren't aware there were.

(00:47):
I wasn't where anyway. I hope you guys enjoy it. Uh.
This part one of a two part Jesse Johnson and
Uh of course Love Supreme QULS Classic. M H I
hope this works. Suprema Suprema roll call, Suprema Suprema road Call,

(01:16):
Subprema Suprema road Call, Suprema Suprema road Call. Yeah, what
I'm always getting into something? Why says I ain't right? Mhm?
Some could say, oh, don't go home with him, or

(01:39):
my bark's worse than my bite. All right, you can
trust me. Girl. A Gennifer never a gentleman, never tells
your secret safe on site. Hey, Jesse, Yeah, come in
last him go roll call Suprima Suprema road car. Sugar. Yeah,

(02:06):
I used to drive a Selca. Yeah, back when this
dude was making Shaka Delica su Prima road car su
Premuch Suprema road call was five. Was connected by my mother. Yeah,
I was sure today's guest was my father's brother. Suprema

(02:32):
roll call Prima roll call. It's and Jesse, Yo, just
looking for an excuse to go out call Supremo role
car roll car. Yeah, uh yeah, and yeah, I want

(02:59):
to picture roll. That's all ladies and gentlemen, clown and

(03:25):
early at the same time. That can't even y'all get
away with her think because she's right there. Those those
three seconds, those three seconds are the staple of the show.
It's a long story. Explain what that means. But ladies
and gentlemen, Uh, nothing cites us more uh than getting

(03:47):
one on one time. Uh. What I consider with any
purple disciple on quest love Supreme And this is no exception.
I'll bring up bad memory. I'm about to say pink
disciples can bring up bad memories of that shockedelic or
stuff nod y'all don't know the story behind the story

(04:08):
were truth? You had truth. Wait, we're gonna get to that.
Let me introduce you first. Anyway, our guest is a
master axeman, on par with some of the best brothers
to ever touch the guitar, from Eddie Hazel to Ernie Eisley,

(04:30):
brother Nelson himself, sigiotis Jimmy Hendrick's name him. Uh, I
turning anybody. Uh he's getting attention. Remember he said he's gay.
I'm like, I didn't even know he's gay. Attention Remember

(04:52):
he's gay? Some other thank you question, thank you this
it's actually my pleasure, man, It's it's good man. I
can't complain. And that's when people you know, I'm a
true New Yorker in a sense. When you asked me

(05:12):
how am I doing, I'm just like compared to who Yeah,
definitely ask you that. But well, thank you, man, I'm
glad you but I'm good. I mean, I really haven't
had a chance to chop it up with you since
uh well since you've been on the scene. Uh yeah, no,
that's why I this was with great timing. Huh. I've
done so much stuff together. We've never had it, but

(05:34):
we're always like jumping out of the plane with the
parachute on and hitting the ground running. Part of me
always knew that I'd have this platform one day, so
I think I wanted to save all of my fan
out movements for when the tapes are rolling, so I
can just ask any and everything, because I feel like,
I mean, after you broke my heart about the lynd
room seven seven story, broke a lot of heart. Yeah,

(05:57):
then I'm certain that just like fit the other were
you about to debunk? They always say the truth can
be heavy truth hurt yea? So uh well, yeah, I
guess I should say that we are recording at the
world famous ET Studios, the House of Jimmy and Uh

(06:19):
Alive and well in New York. We're actually in the
BA room, which you know, really, what do we do here? Steve?
We did, like send it on maybe one more gain
with I guess was in here, so a lot of
vocals and mixing in here, But Joan, I know that

(06:40):
at least know that attract send it on in here,
Like we started off in this room before we even
went to the Abram So like a lot of the
early stuff, I'm sure there's a real Superman lover on it.
Back when I think Kim and BB King we're supposed
to do what Superman love. We're talking about doing d'anzlos voodo.
But right, so, Jesse, you never recorded it here before.

(07:03):
I've came here a couple of times when he was
when d was working there, but I wouldn't come in
because it's like the headspace in here is like, you know,
I'm a Jimmy disciple, So it's like even now, it's yeah,
it's heavy because you depending on you know what you
feel and how you feel things, and I usually feel
what's going on and it's it's it's beautiful, but it's heavy.

(07:25):
I'll say that sixty sixty eight years later. Um, maybe
would you say that at least seventy of the studio
is still intact from the original plan of of Well,
first of all, it's fifty years that's what I'm yeah,

(07:46):
well technically opened in seventy um. But but there's there's
some gear at that's original se microphones. Um. But but
structurally it's mostly instructural exactly, you know, we can we
reiterate to everybody too, that you kind of grew up
in this building for some of the new Quest Loves
bring listeners as Sugar Steve. Actually, you know, I stole

(08:08):
Sugar Steve from Electric Lady Steve. I mean, I'm only
like the third most interesting person here, but since because
somebody might be listening, like, what the hell does Sugar
Steve know what? Actually he knows a lot. Yeah, I
mean I came up here as an intern, started cleaning
the toilets and then stay for about eight or nine years.
And um, wait, you were here eight years before no

(08:28):
I started basically when you when you came here, So
you were an intern when Voodoo started. Yeah, we told now.
I'm just kidding. I was an assistant engineer who cleaned
the toilets at the time. There was a cat here

(08:49):
named Jimmy that we swore was the actual ghost of
Jimmy Hendrix. One time he um, there was what was it?
He jumped on the board. Didn't If he jumps on
the console while you're mixing, it means it's like he
approves in the mix, you know. But there was one
time where he like we were looking for the source
of some feedback thing, and the cat actually jumped on

(09:10):
the board and pressed it, turned it off and pressed
some button and then we were forever convinced that that
was Jimmy Hendricks. Plus his name was Jimmy, which which
really helped. Yes, that helped Alright, So Jesse, uh always
start each show with this question where were you born? Uh?

(09:31):
Rock Island, Illinois? How far as that from all Town? Um?
Probably four or five hours from Chicago. It's between before
you hit Chicago, hit Rockford and some other Aurora, that
famous place from Wayne's World. Okay, so that he thought
he had my I play used to play in Aurora, Illinois,

(09:52):
games for Games for All, I think it's called games
Bro's something like that. I used to play all over
those places andized but Aurora. In the movie, he said
he thought he had Mono, but he just thought it
was bored in a roar. But Aroar was really like that.
But Peoria. I played one of those, uh you know
you've seen the storied uh h. Richard probably talked about

(10:15):
the pimp Yeah convention. I played one of those who
are Illinois for real and they they're real, Like the
dude comes into Pimp of the Year with the cup
and well, I was gonna say, you were born in
the sixties, so you were, yes, But I played with
I was so fortunate I played with these guys. Was

(10:35):
telling me one time that they were out Greens Band.
So as a drummer, David Govan, it's a brother Oscar
on guitar, brother Dennis on base. They were signing there,
all Greens Band. You know, you meet people and you know,
I'm in a little town. Came in and I'm like, yeah, yeah, right,
right right. And I remember playing at this bar midnight
specials on the TV and break and them cats was

(10:55):
up there playing without Green and I subsided the play.
I was fortunate enough as a young to play with
some real cats, you know, get to travel around and
just drop out of school and all that fun stuff. Well,
for a lot or I'm saying for a lot of us.
For me at least, like you think of Illinois, you
just basically think of Chicago. I grew up south Side Chicago,

(11:15):
grew up the two cities that I grew up, and
I was born in Rock Island, but I grew up
in south Side Chicago and one of the other roughest
places other than on the rough side of you heard
Quincy Jones talk about the South Side Chicago's joke it's
like escape from New York, cars on fire and stuff
in Jackson Park. It was really but He's St. Louis
was no joke. Yeah, I grew up in Saint Louis.

(11:39):
So I saw George. Um, I think the album might
have been like I can't but it was Jerome Brailey.
But it was years before the Jerome Braley had the
stuff that's on the mother George has on the Mothership
Connection album. But he was wearing that, so they were
coming off that thing, maybe the Chocolate City. But I
saw them. I was a little kid. I wrote three
busses to get to They played at East Side High

(12:01):
And when I would tell that story to George, George
would be like, oh man, you're telling your age. I'm like, no,
I was a little kid. I just was. I had
older brothers, so I was in the you know, they
exposed me. You know, I mean all that Donald Goin's
books and slams and in the great music, you know,
because I had I had, you know, seven older brothers,
who damn, you're the youngest of seven. No, I'm like

(12:24):
towards the end, but I you know, I got older
brothers though, so siblings in total? How many siblings in
total ship? Maybe I shouldn't cuss, right, it's a lot
of us. It was like twelve of us or something
because my father he raised everybody, but they were not
those my oldest cities are not his siblings and my

(12:47):
father I'm his oldest, and then I have a a
brother and a sister, and also are my father's father
was a man and he raised the other kids and
then we never you know, and like families, if you
got you can have twelve brothers and sisters, but they
all got different dads. But you never hear words like
that's my step sister, it's my half. It's like same here. Yeah, exactly.

(13:12):
So were you how did uh you develop your musical skills?
Was your family into music or no? But they my father, um,
he gave me the he it was a lot of
My household had a lot of like if I wanted
to play music, I had to be able to remember,
you know, you know what you wake up in the

(13:33):
middle of my boy, you can play and then you
and I had coming up and do this stuff like exactly.
And if you couldn't do that, he wouldn't. I wasn't

(13:54):
allowed to play something. So I was allowed to play
in bands at the early age. Because he had all
these thick records. I didn't know. I think, I forget
what they're called. But they looked like an album but
they're smaller, yes, but they had no names on them,
so they were that old. And he and you remember
the old record players because we haven't ruin all of
his records, where just slowing them down and learn that,
you know, learning all that, and so you slowed the record.

(14:19):
So he had all these collections. It was Lightning Hoppies.
I mean it wasn't into many years later later that
I realized it was Lightning Hopkins. But they had no
names on them. But I had to know all that stuff.
And that's why I could play Bottleneck and all kind
of tunings and Robert Johnson because he was like, if
you can play this, then you can go play. So
you're a true bluesman to through and through. But just

(14:39):
to please your dad like he was, she was. I
was so fortunate in the house growing up. I mean,
when I read your backstory, it's it sounds a lot
like mine, except for my parents were not musicians. But
they would promote shows. So and and as a little
kid growing up in a small town like Rock Island,
which is very predominantly Jewish town, which was a real,

(15:02):
real cool thing because I grew up inadvertently with a
lot of culture. Yeah, it was that I saw all
my friends I grew up, you know, mats of ball
and the whole shot, you know, with a lot of culture,
but not realizing it because you know, he's just a
little kid on it. But I would wake up some
mornings and there's a guy in the living room. I
was like, who's that. It was a cat named Major

(15:23):
Lance had a song called Monkey Time. So they would
put together shows like that. My father would, so he would,
I guess, be a quasi promoter, but he worked a gig.
He were a couple of jobs, but he would promote
these shows. And one day you wake up and it's
like Major Lance and living room and you know, Jimmy
mccrack and you know, different cats like that. So I

(15:44):
would really not realizing, you know, I'm not even in
school good yet. So but but they listened to the
between the two them that listen to everything. They loved everything.
So my vocabulary in my ears and so giant because
it was not so I the love of music. It's
just a love of music. But I love our styles.
This is a recurring theme on the show, either DJ

(16:06):
has become producers or if you're three or four years old,
like God's in the living room teaching you exactly. So, uh,
what was your band situation like in school? Like were
you forming bands? And no, I was really, you know,

(16:28):
I guess you're It was the weirdest thing. I was like,
of course, you you know, it's like a disease once
you discover music and you really get the jones because
it's like you see girls and you're just like, oh man,
she's so pretty. But love it. But you know, it
was like that during that time, and girls would say
you don't get high and I don't know, and they go, oh,

(16:49):
I can't deal with you. And it's always trying to
tell my kids. It's like I was always a straight dude.
I was always a nerd dude. I said, but look
what I did, and look what did I said. I
when I went back to the rock and the first
time I played the it was with the time it
was printing the time and we played Palmer Chiropractical Auditorium,
whereas where I grew up there and seeing then Lizzie

(17:12):
everybody at that place and a C. D. C here,
so here, I'm at this place and it's print in
the time. And and then when I went on my own,
I went back there and played where Hendrickson Zepplin played
at the Call Ballroom, so you know, and it's and
I just remember this girl, she was like miss Black
Quad Cities, and I remember she walked on. I was
sitting under the girl's porch in Davenport when she walked

(17:33):
up the stairs and I said, Hi, I'm sitting there
talking to something. And she walked up stairs a meet
with somebody, and I said hi, and she didn't even
speak to me. And then when I played there, she
almost got hit by a car running across the But
it's like, you know, I didn't say nothing, but you
just don't like see you just never know that, dude,

(17:53):
janitor and over to her cleaning the toilet. You just
come on, man, I know I did the same thing.
You don't, y'all don't even understand I cut I cut teeth,
if y'all y'all you know, for a second, didn't assistant
to I did all kinds of stuff because stuff like
the first job that you had. I okay, as I

(18:15):
wanted my first, my first real guitar. And what kind
of acts did you have as a kid? I had
like the regular tie skulls and the Strange series. I
was like exactly, and that twenty nine dollars of a
lot of lawns I mowed. And you know, when you're
a kid, you have a stack of twenty nine ones,

(18:36):
you just keep you taking up the drawer. And I
had the had I had to remember. I don't know
if you'll remember this because I'm older and y'all. Crystal
radio there was these things that you would sit in
the window. You build these little radios and they didn't
have batteries, but you sit them in the window and
they gather and store sunlight and did at night you

(18:56):
could listen to the radio. But that's what they called.
But they were called crystal radio back there. It was
it wasn't soldar head, like a little crystal in it
that would store sunlight and you'd build them from realistic
and before radio shocking all that, but yeah, that's how
I kind of started getting exploring different styles of music
and getting those jazz stations of blue stations that wasn't

(19:19):
even in the Yeah, I was gonna say how prevalent
was Was there a black radio station in East sat
As it was, because I'm always telling um My cousin
that it was black radio that broke um Ben in
the Jets was never a single, but it was a
DJ in East St. Louis name Jim Gates. It was

(19:41):
never a single black radio. This DJ that started playing it,
and at the time they were black radio, unlike I
don't know if because I was in the St. Louis
I would even when I lived in rock On and
I would go to my mother's in the summer and
hes St. Louis and my mother's I mean when I
talk about this, because I have a book, an audio
book that's come and out later in the year. But

(20:04):
she had a backyard and then it was a fence
dividing the backyards instead of an alley. So there was
there would be this guy every now and then sitting
on the back porch and a chair and playing guitar,
and I would go over sometimes I'm a young kid,
I go over and I go hot, you know, and
just watch him play guitar and you have a pipe
and he'd be plant and that cat was Albert King,

(20:26):
so he would go, you know, he would you know,
because his guitar is strung up like for me, but
he just turns it this way and plays it with
the strings upside down. So he would go. He would
show me things. And so when I older, when I
tell people, I know exactly what he's playing and how
he was tuned because he was like he would show me,
And so when I would go right, I knew exactly

(20:59):
what he was doing because I got to see him
do that when I was thirteen, and he would show
me stuff and he would and what it was. He
dated the lady behind living behind my mother, and I
remember it so brightly because at the time lou Brock
was the st As Cardinal, but he had these Dodge
dealerships and it was with lou Brock Dodgers right there,
and uh, I didn't realize that Albert King, but he

(21:22):
drove his own tour bus, so it'd be this every time.
They'd be this big bus. Yeah, it's just like. That's
why when I was telling somebody on the plane here yesterday,
I said, when I talk about my life. It's just
I was like, I'm lying, you know, because there's too much. No,
it's planet. Its just too much stuff lines up for me, Like, um,

(21:44):
you know you know my sister right swaying Carl, Well,
she's my place sister, but we like really closely, you know,
so swam That was her big joke. She's like, man,
he just got here, dude, famous because I came to
Minneapolis not knowing anybody. I'm staying at the y m C.
A like one of the village people, right, you know
why you didn't live anywhere you know you could they

(22:04):
would let you crash out. So I came to Minneapolis,
not not Ray, but I'm staying at the y m C.
I'm chilling April one by June. I'm in the stars
on that Dolm cover, Like wow. And I didn't know
anybody exactly. So what would happen is I was during

(22:25):
the day. I would go I would go walking around,
and so people would think I was somebody else. They
are you are you related to that? And I didn't
know anybody, and I go no. So I'd be walking
around and if you go back and there's a guitar
store there, I think it's still there. It's called Nute Coupe.
But if you go back and check out, there's old
ads that I did model for before I was ever

(22:47):
in the time, so you'll see you can look up
arr No, No, I just must have looked at just
walking around. No, not nothing. I didn't. I don't even
think I had any of that stuff with me then
because I had to when I joined this band, Enterprise,

(23:07):
I had to have all that stuff come up. That's crazy. So, uh,
what effect knowing that I believe you were born in
sixty what effect did watching? How did Hendricks enter your life? Well?
I was too young to have seen him so when

(23:30):
I got but I remember the day. I remember we
lived in It was in the St. Louis in the
basement apartment the day he died, because it came on
the television. Never forget it. But I didn't know who
he was. But I believe it or not, that same
day I knew who Bob Marley was because he wrote
a song. He wrote. There was a guy named Johnny
Nash that had a song called it was this that

(23:56):
You're Right quest You're Right? He had he had the
that song was out way back then. But that's who
wrote that, right and so, and it came out the
time there was I just remember this one song because
I used to just make me have. I didn't like
the song, but I was called I was a girl watcher,
girl watching every Yeah, watching girls. I didn't know the

(24:25):
real version later, but I knew. I didn't know the
real version until just now. So yeah, I said, I
you know I did. That's for some reason. You know,
certain things in your like you know, the day you
know Kennedy was this and the same thing. Wait, since
we're in a rabbit hole outside note, uh Run did

(24:46):
one solo joint that never quite made it in three
It was like run and Pop a Pop a round
large or something, and they covered I'm a Girl Watching
but that you've never released it because it was like anyway,
So no, that's I was just saying how certain things

(25:06):
become a snapshot in your life because you they're connected
with music. It's like the day Martin Luther King was assassinated.
I remember because one of the songs I love was
uh cat just recently passed away that I absolutely love
Hugh Mascala Grazing in the grass. And so I was
a young kid in uh St Louis and being fortunate

(25:27):
enough at that time, I met Martin Luther King as
a kid. You know, Malcolm X. I'm sorry, I'm gonna
need you not to pass by these moments, and I'm
gonna need you to kind of tell you. I'm telling
you when I elaborate everything you like. But it's like
those times, the times that you grew up in, and
you gotta remember, Malcolm X wasn't like the Malcolm X

(25:47):
that people know. He went, he flew, you know, they
he would be the guy that would come in and
open the other mosque. And so growing up um in
the Nation of Islam, so uh through my mother, So
I will you wait a minute, I got to I

(26:08):
got to experience all of that. Seriously. Yeah, That's the
reason why I'm like always was kind of really corny
and not in the drugs or drinking and all that
because in the Nation Islam. No, because I was just
raised to do that way, raised by a whole bunch
of women. My mom, her sister's Oh my god, your
mom was in the Nation was but your dad wasn't.
They were they were not married. Then they were like

(26:31):
she disappeared with all of us and it's a whole
another you're gonna say that for the book see what
you do. No, No, it's just it's just like would
go on and be probably everybody No no, like this
is a true music nerd trust but it's like but
it's like the all the moments that you live. And
because one of the things that when Quincy talked about,

(26:54):
we would go to school in South Chicago and coming home,
going to school and come was like a life and
death experience every day. That's how East St. Louis was.
How did you escape that? Though? Like did you have
like no, no, I was, I have no idea because
I because let me tell you how crazy it is now.
It's like, U, it's like my youngest child is fourteen,

(27:17):
and I can't imagine her walking from here to you know,
three or four or five blocks where I'm I'm nine
and I was you ever see those shows when the
kids go extra extra read out about with me and
a kid that lived upstairs from us in his apartment.
His name was Herman Uh. He passed away as a child.

(27:37):
He got hit by a car, unfortunately, but he was
like he had a gig selling this newspaper called The
by State defender. So I was so a hustler at
such a young I guess. So I was nine and
I had to lie until the guy was ten. And
so we would go after school and we would get
a whole stack of papers. He would get a whole
stack of paper. Crazy, how crazy this is. You can't

(27:59):
imagine and doing this with your kids? Are allowing your
kid to do this. But where I lived in East St. Louis,
we would walk across the bridge to St. Louis. When
you walk across the bridge in St. Louis, Missouri, now,
so we walk across the bridge men Herman. He was ten,
I was nine. We would get these stack of papers.
They were twenty cents apiece. We have to turn in
the diamond. Then we kept a dime. So we'd walk

(28:20):
across the bridge. At the end of the bridge, you
when you got across the bridge, you'd make a right
and uh. On one side was the Continental Trollways bus station.
On the side was the Farmer's market. So we'd be
this isn't at night and we're walking down there by
State Defender advice and we would sell everyone those papers.

(28:40):
Walk across the bridge the next day, give the guy
his half for the tent, then we get another stack.
We would do that every day. Imagine your kid, your kids,
but it was like, you know, helping her. How late
would you guys be out there till the papers were gone?
And y'all was mad late, Like the paper come out
in the morning, you'll sell you know, the bi state
And there was like some weird paper that just kind

(29:02):
of told about murders and killings. And because at that
time St. Louis, I think St. Louis, Missouri was the
murder capital of the state. And in that neighborhood that
was the murder capital, was where the Spinks brothers came from.
Oh yeah, because you there was Yeah, it was like

(29:23):
you didn't go in and that it was the projects
over there. And you would walk past this store that
was called Famous Bar Sticks and Fuller and all of
some store like that was really like the big Then
you got two blocks past that. Man, it was like
the White House back in the days. You remember, you
walked past the White House for about two blocks and
it was what's going on? What happened? St. Louis. So

(29:45):
a lot of cities like that. Were there any notable
uh peers or people that we were all day long,
because if you guys go look at the history of
Chuck Berry and all them. So East St. Louis, downtown
East St. Louis, there was a club. And I just
don't know how that I ain't dead or whatever. But

(30:05):
I was a kid. I was a little kid, wasn't
old enough, but I was so crazy with music already.
This club, Chuck Berry would play it and the club
had a back door. You would open the back door.
I remember hearing stories like Elvis used to do this
when he was a you know, a kid, he was
a little kid. He would do the gonna look in
the window at the you know, the duke joints, and
they would let him do that. And he was a

(30:26):
white kid, and I actually did that. I would this club.
You would open the back door and you could see
straight through the club to the stage, and I would
see Chuck Berry play. I would see the I would
just sit down and be like And so I was
really fortunate in the sense that I knew what I
was gonna do. And then what changed it. Parliament Funkadelic

(30:47):
played at um east Side High School. And then whenever
I would tell George, I was telling George just during
the graffiti bridge filming and he was like, what are
you showing your age? Just saying no, bro, I was,
I wouldn't even and I wouldn't in high school. I said,
it took the rebusses to get to that area. And
I said, I was so young and so little that
when the guy opened the door, he was like, who's

(31:08):
with you? And you know at the school and he
let me come in. So I'm sitting in the bleachers
watching them rehearse sound check and everything, and it was
I knew from that moment what else gonna do because
Michael Hampton walked in. It was back in the seventies
where there was these patch of jeans and Michael Hampton
walked in and he had a pig nos app on
east side and they had they all had some barrels

(31:30):
hanging off their back like real Mexicans, and it was
like and it was the only time I've seen during
the sound check, George Clinton played a black list, Paul
I played guitar, and this is the real And you
talked to George, George memory is frightening, like George remembers
any and George is mind blowing with that, like George

(31:54):
talked to me, why about three years ago, and oh,
I haven't seen you, says the blah blah blop. And
he was dead and and it was the last time
he saw me. Was that Paisley was filming. You know,
it's just mind one, but that show. I remembered it
because I'm dude, I'm a little kid. I'm like and
I took like two the transferred things to get there,

(32:16):
and so I to this day, I try to remember
how I got home because I'm a little kid and
just walking from that school back to where the bus
just just like sick with it as far as Mama
was like, no, I was actually living with some other
people ran away. It was like a foster kid at
that point time. It's another recurring So how did you

(32:45):
wind up in Minneapolis? Well, I was in in Rock Island.
Rock Island is a really very very very small town.
And at the end of the bridge, as this bridge
that it takes you from, you're in Rock, Illinois. When
you go a bridge in Downport Island, we read at
the foot of that bridge there's a um. You can

(33:06):
see it online because it's no longer there now, but
it's called the Yankee Clipper. It was a hardcore biker bar.
I mean, if you went in there black, you die.
You I'm not. I'm sure that the band the you
can look it up. The motorcycle group was called the
Grim Reapers. Seriously seriously, like yeah, no, seriously, you you

(33:27):
and he and it even worse. You had a chance,
you had a better chance, Like I learned something about
cats that were hardcore like that. Like I went in
there and I survived because I went in there and
cranked them. And the guy who places I took in
his band. The band was called Dealer, and the guy
who place I took, he was like an actual dealer
and he just got tired of plans, so I took

(33:49):
his He gave the job to me. And then and
the band was all all white band and um, the
club was like it was like it used to be
at one point in strip show. So you had a
the stage was like this, and when we were and
then it came out in a little you like that
because it was a strip joint and it was a
long stage like that, and then a bar ran and
I and when the singer, one of the guys in

(34:11):
the band was gay. And I never got any flat
because I played my butt off. You know, I went
in there and just popped it harder than it ever.
You know. I heard somebody kid guitar like that, and
and uh, when he would come up to sing, they
pelt him with so much stuff. And I was like,
so there's like the Blues Brothers where the chicken Well.

(34:31):
But but what I discovered at that young age is like,
you can be white, but if you're gay, they will
hate you more then they hate me. They don't, they
never because they loved me because I went in there.
And really, so does this mean that you would have
to go zero to one and automatically show your stretched
skills to let you let them know it's something happens

(34:54):
to you because you you in your mind know that
it's a It's it's hard to explain. It's like something
in your mind knows that it's like sink or swim,
and so you just dive right in swimming and you
don't know how to swim swimming. You know you're swimming.
And so at the end of that bridge, the town
is so small at the end of the bridge, saying
the Yankee clipper across the street, down across the street,

(35:16):
at the end of the Sheraton, the only big hotel.
You know. It was like the taj Mahal in this
little town. So across the bridge you take right now.
Are you ever heard of the r KO or Fium.
That's it right there, because you gotta watch out. I
gotta remember, Iowa is the rock and roll belt of
the United States. That's why the monsters of rock, all

(35:37):
of that stuff. Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, Iowa. That's why
my cousin always gets jealous because I've seen everybody grew
on them because that's where all the the continent, like
Van Halen. First Van Halen album. I saw them when
they had the exact clothes that are on the cover everything.
I saw all of that at Lanta Rhythm Section, the
Dubies when they had the Taking It to the Streets album.

(36:00):
Land over them second, I saw everybody, the cars, thin
Lizzie saw them all. And what what would happen is
a lot of big bands like Rush, let us come
in one time and watch them rehearse, because they would
come to the r K or from and a lot
of bands would rent that and rehearse there for a month,
Like Rush hears there for a month, and so you

(36:21):
need to come in and because you know you when
you're in an audience, that's when I kind of first
got the you know, you're an audience, everything looks like
shiny and then you get up there and his dude's answer,
all Nick and they wasn't as tall as you. You know,
it was my first time. Yeah, get into that. But
she's saying that Iowa was like mostly a starting point,
sort of like Michael Jackson starting off in Kansas City
or something like, you're saying that Iowa was just a start,

(36:43):
but it was Yeah, a lot of people you'd be surprised.
And then and then if you turned, if you went
across the Centeni Bridge right at that same you could
turn left this RK or from you turn this way
to the Call Ballroom. The Call ball Room is where
Zeppelin flew in from Minneapolis. That's where Amy pages Black
Beauty got stolen. And then the Sunburn's Less Paul that

(37:04):
you've seen him play forever, that's where he bought it from.
Joe Wash was at the Call Ballroom. So it's like
if you go look at it, and then they just
released the Hendricks at the Call Ballroom and a guy
that of course was older that was there. His name
is Jerry Wetzel. He told me everything had happened, and
that was a thousand years ago in the seventies. He
told me that like seven year said, I was a
kid in the music listening to those stories. Everything he

(37:26):
told me. They just released it last year, late last year,
the Hendricks at the Call Ballroom. Everything he told me
was that he said he came because the Call Ballroom
doesn't have a backstage and it's a stage. The stage
is covered. It cut into youth so you can stand
and went in at the stage and go class and
it's like, I'm like next to you. It's like, you know,
back then they built halls for real music. And so

(37:48):
everything he told me, he said, Hendricks Win. He came
on stage, he caught walked to the audience with the
police because there's no backstage, so you have to come
through the audience. And I played there when my first
album was out, so I was like, I can't tell me.
So he said, he came up and he was like,
you know, then he went he said, oh, you're experiencing man,

(38:13):
And he said when he started playing, he said, I
don't know what happened, but I was like completely on
of it. But I was just able to see a
lot of like that. And what ended up happening to
every band that even at the Big Iowa Jams and
the Credit Credit Island concerts, with all them they stayed
at that. They would come across the bridge, they had
that Sheridan and they would come to the Yankee Clipper

(38:36):
and I would jam with all of them, Molly Hatchett, everybody,
and they all said the same thing to me, and
I knew that's when I had to get my ass
out of there. And they are would alls, what are
you doing here? What are you doing here? And so
I didn't have money, you know, because when you're Midwest kid,
you think you gotta go to Hollywood, gotta go. And
I had the money to do that, so I I
they saved up money for me too. I gotta get

(38:59):
a bus too, And it's far as I could. But
that's how I ended up there. But nothing just like
that as far as I can go. I just knew
I need to be somewhere, and I knew nothing about
many I didn't know. And as a matter of fact,
when I met Prince, I didn't everybody. I just knew
he walked in the room and he was like, and

(39:22):
everybody changed, you know, the dude six eight four is
something everybody changed. And I was like, dude, must be.
And then the funniest thing about why he even came
over because he was buying uh, I had a little
color TV and you know, the first VCRs. He came

(39:44):
over to buy that from me for three hundred dollars.
And he had invited me through Morris because the band
and I joined Morris Day was the drummer Enterprise and
I never played a show with him because he and
he invited me to First Avenue. So I'm like, you know,
I don't know anybody and ship. So I'm like outside
the club and this girl just was just drop dead

(40:06):
gorgeous pulled me. My must have looked lost and she
just yanked me and I'd never forget her. Sandy so beautiful.
She yanked me in the thing and like you just like,
you know, just like I must look lost. It must
look like a tourist or something. And then I go
in and I watched Prince shows. This is a Dirty Mind.
He's getting ready leave for the Dirty Mind tour and

(40:26):
Morris so this is this is the April once. So
he so I I he advised me to the show
through Morris and I've never met him yet or nothing,
and so uh, Morris said, he he got your ticket.
I got on the first avenue, you know, see the show,
and I watched and I was like, is this's just amazing?

(40:48):
And what Morris was Bill Morris was the dude at
the video at the soundboard, videotaping all the shows. And
I didn't know at the time that they had this
whole thing going where, you know, he had these He
made some deal with Morris over the party up song.
And so the next day, Princess coming over to buy
this thing and this is eighty one, so it's three
hundred dollars. I'm at the y, so that's like three

(41:10):
million dollars, you know. So he comes over and it
was the only it's the last time I ever saw
with jeans on, because he was like, you know, it's
the whole kind of punk thing. He had the jeans on,
the thing that chest has on, the rude boy button
and all that, and this exact one exactly that came
from the auction Jamie I gave up. I set all

(41:33):
that stuff up, you know, no you don't understand it.
You haven't talked to d right, Okay, I'll talk to
you after the show. You gotta you don't understand what's
a game right to happen? Now, I gotta. I gotta
show you something. You're gonna lose your mind another house
at least. Figure. I'm gonna give you an inside thing

(41:55):
so that you will know what to grab this. I'm
just I'm gonna take you to something. Get that VCR man.
You know this is I just spent twenty because Jamie
Shoop is a very very dear friend of me, and
I've always been. She's always been an absolute dear person
to me because she was you never forget people that
were nice and generous and looked out for you when

(42:17):
they didn't have to, when you wouldn't nothing on, you
wouldn't anything on the bottom to shoe. And she was
that way to me. Taught me. I mean, I every
time I go check in at the airport, is that
she's the reason how to do that? You know? I
went up to the when I was telling my cousin,
I went up to the gate in l A yesterday
and I said, oh, can you I got in line

(42:37):
and the girl, So can you just check my um
boarding past and make sure I'm okay? She said, why
wouldn't you be? And I was like, I'm thinking myself,
and I can funk up anything. I've been at the
airport at the gate and missed the fly because I
just I, yes, I I don't be paying it, engtioned anything.

(43:00):
And so I was just went up to the thing
and shoulder and now I'm gonna tell you how how
the stupid it gets. I wanted to think of shoulder
the things. She goes, why wouldn't you be okay? Yeah,
you're fine. Why wouldn't you be okay? You know, pretty
pretty sister? You know. She's like, why wouldn't you be okay?
And I was like, I didn't say that, but I'm thinking,
I said, because I actually did say because I can

(43:21):
mess up anything? And she said, no, baby, you're good,
You're good. You're good. But when I went sat down,
I told you about I couldn't find my boarding something.
It was like the code had inside pocket and I
put it in there and thought, I'm like, asking, have
you seen a board? That's how I'm telling you. I'm
a I'm gonna query. Come on, man, I'm right now.

(43:48):
I can just you still be thinking. You'd be thinking
about I don't know what everything, but I made it.
I already knew early in life. I made a point
that I would be good at a whole bunch of stuff,
but I know it would be great at one thing song.
And this life is a lot of you at the
time that you don't have to know these things. This
is great for the most part, Thank God, I have
a lot. I mean, for what I've accomplished, I never
They've never been a part of my dreams. I just

(44:11):
wanted to be around the corner playing guitar at some
pub or something. So what if I accomplished You have
no idea? Yeah, I was gonna say, one, have no
idea any of that. Were there any other black people
in your Midwestern before you got to Minnesota? Um No,
that had the same no no, Because that was the

(44:31):
whole thing that That's why I ended up playing at
that biker bar with the white cats, because all the
brothers that I knew that were the top cats, they
had jobs because they wanted to have They had Lincoln
and I would they'd give me whenever they came and
pick me up for the gig. They get a job
and get your card, and I was like, you know,
that wasn't my thing, and I wanted to play with

(44:52):
you and your next I would be versaying, where I
get a Toxico? They would pick me up, but they
would gripe about picking me up. But the thing was
that they worked it up. I mean that it made
more money and they worked. They worked straight. So the
music thing was kind of a hobby where to me,
I wanted it to be six nights a week, and

(45:13):
then you know, at the time, unfortunately, at that time
it was like White Cats was the ones. It was
like they were working six seven nights a week, and
I'm like, I'm gotta go mess with Day's mother. I
guess because these brothers wanted to have Lincolns and none
of the White Cats they had Lincolns, a Cadillacer, big ship.
They just loved, like me, Hey, hey, we're making ten

(45:34):
and eighty one. I I think I had a ten
thousand dollar year. You couldn't tell me I wasn't rich.
The journey, it sounds kind of like we had Michael
McDonald here too, who was also from St. Louis. And
it is interesting because you mentioned the Dubie Brothers in Iowa,
So I was like, damn it, y'all had parallel journeys
going on, and then y'all did y'all ever crossed paths?
And that's no. He he had just I think taken

(45:56):
it to the streets was his first Dubis record, right, yeah,
because the other cat who really founded the Dubies with that,
Tom Johnston, he quit because he didn't like where it
was gone with the Michael McDonald's stuff. So no, I
never I never met him because I liked the other
Dubie you know, the Dubie Brothers, O Water and all
that ship and that I don't know whatever that was.

(46:18):
That's as much as I'm gonna play, so you want to,
So I gotta just say this to you. That was
when I went, when Prince came over. This is how,
This is how our relationship was founded. For this is
why we This is where I lived with him, and
we were the cool up until I left. Because he

(46:42):
came over to pick up that thing and he sat
down and everybody changed and stuff. All of the hardest brothers.
Why you big You know we stole that from another
base player named Jeff mcgragor. But he was a wonder
why are you big streets of San Francisco knows having
you know, that's where we got all that. Why you
well even he changed when Prince walked down. Everybody, Prince

(47:03):
and what's going on? You know? And he came and
sat out. He said, don't yeah, black leather jacket on.
It was like I said, last time, first and only
time I ever seen with jeans on. After that, he
has been decked every since. He never heard it. But
he I set across from him, probably where that is,
and I said, hey, man, I saw your show. No
he said. I said, hey, man' jesse and he said Prince.

(47:27):
And I was like, whoa man? Because I can't even
do it. His monotone. He would never think he could
sing his eyes off because he spoke it was one note, Hey,
how you doing? I can't even do it. It was
just so low and yes, And I just freaked out
and I said, man, I thought you was gonna go high.
That is Prince, and he just kind of started laughing

(47:48):
a little bit. And Morris is standing more. The only
person that really remembers his Morris is is standing where
Princess City. Morris is standing right here at Morris Day.
That's who I know. I don't. I don't know who
print says or nothing about him or anything. So I
just knew he must have been somebody. He must have been,
like I saw the show tonight before, but I still
didn't know anything about because you know, how segregated the

(48:09):
rock and roll So none of this hits. None of
his radio I don't. Yeah, none of the black rock
Iron has no black radio, zero zo. That's why I
knew the Dubies and Zeppelin and everything else like that,
because there's no black radio. So when he hit, you know,
it was right towards the disco. So I was fortunate
enough to miss that whole disco because I was rock

(48:31):
and roll thing. So he I said, yeah, man, I
saw your show. I said, thanks to inviting. It was
really cool, man, I really dug it. So you really
did Hendrix Hunt. I never watched him, and I stood up.
I was like you, I swear that, I said, every
move and Morris is standing behind him, and Prince looked

(48:56):
at me and he fell on the floor. Carry ain't
He fell on the floor, just laughing his ass up.
And that was like relationship was we was never know.
You know. That's why when you would see me out
in l A during that hold, you always see both
of us together all the time, because I didn't have that,
Oh man, you know, because he would walk in the

(49:18):
club and chicks with be all on him and ship,
and I just go hang over here for a minute
til he was a cool and then we just hang
out and he's like, man, you know, when I walk
in the club with other people, I won't say that.
He said, they wouldn't come near me. The rest of them.
I asked, are your prints? I ain't. No, you know.
I was never tripping like that because if being so broke.

(49:40):
But I never equated his wealth or ship with what
I should be making because I knew that I'm broke.
I'm in the time, I got gold platinum, I'm broke
as the mom like, I ain't pay attention, I'm so broke.
But I knew that that was his ship. You did
what I'm saying, Like a lot of people don't realized that,

(50:00):
Like somebody just I saw somebody on Twitter and I
couldn't bring myself to just break the hart. But they said,
oh man, I don't know what the question was because
I don't really know how that ship works, but I
just see that reply and he said my favorite without
a doubt. Seven seven. You know, jelly Bean on drawing
on base, I can't do it. It's like, dude, that's

(50:22):
that's all prints. I hate to tell you and David
Garibaldi on the program, but you know you just just god,
I can't run nobody's strangle. I'm gonna be thinking that,
but that's what I mean. It was all his stuff.
So but I knew that I knew within myself I
had talent because I'm I'm horrible when it comes to
learning songs off of records and ship like that. When

(50:44):
you when I met you for the first time and
with DS thing, I was like, and I was telling you, dude,
I never played any music before that. I didn't have
a hand, and you know, creating and creating this is
just crazy. And plus you know, d the biggest thing,
well for you would probably is normal, but that the's timing.
And he would tell me the hours that you and him,

(51:07):
that you and Peno would argue him and go, that
ain't the one and he would y'all. He was telling
he said, if Peter would be like that, ain't the one.
That ain't the one, but you know how he's won
now his one is now at two or three or something,
and you ain't if you like, if you're playing Lady
or something and you daydream for half a second, you

(51:29):
gotta stop because his his whole. That's what's beautiful about
his music though, because it's like, uh, it's the same
thing with prints, Like a lot of people always see
him trying to figure out what Prince did on the
keyboards and what they don't know. You ain't never figure
that ship because he took the overheim a pedal board
and until anything, and he just wants something that he

(51:54):
never It's crazy. There was no rules to how he
how he did anything. You know, he had a little
bit of theory behind him, but it was all guttural.
It was all instinct. It was just like you know
that we related really and intellectually. We related to a
great deal of stuff because the dude was like so smart,

(52:16):
you know, I qi it was really really smart dude.
But I learned records how to make because I've never
been in a studio until I met him, So I
learned how to make a record, like how Chris Moon
taught him. That's how I were you there at the
infamous uh Perkins restaurant, UH dinner. I hate to break

(52:37):
it to you, my man, it wasn't Perkins. All right, well,
I'm gonna take you back Sambos. Y'all don't remember Sam Bows,
Get you a Sambos Burger and my yes, it was
called We had Minneapolis had the last Sam Bows on
Lake Street. That ship wasn't no Perkins, that was Sambos

(53:01):
on Lake Street. And I remember Morris and I wrote
motorcycles and shipped together so that Morris was going to
the meeting with because the way the time actually came
together was nothing like all this stuff that people make
up and say, and wasn't anything like that. The time
was Morris day and I. If you see the ascetate
which I owned today, it says the Nerve. Oh, I

(53:23):
remember that, and it's just Morris and I and what
we were we will be the Black Hall and Oates.
So it's the album that y'all know would get it
up cool all of that, but it was just Morris
and I Nerve. It was the Nerve. And so when
Prince went to used the name, but it was owned
by some people. But but but dig this though, catch

(53:44):
this though the time was owned forever until nine. He
didn't buy the name until he leased the name. It
was owned by a two white cats in North Carolina somewhere.
They owned it all those years, and we he's just
leasing it, really yeah, and then he bought the rights.
When I knew the rights was up, I was on

(54:05):
the phone with Terry. That's why I remember. I had
just moved to our Tuki, Arizona from Minneapolis, and I
remember being on the phone with Terry. It was like
ninety seven because I just dropped that bear in my neck,
his soule thing, and and I was like, man, just
by it. By that, you know it's and he and
then print bought it, damn exactly. But it was like

(54:30):
we didn't on them. But but then that all the
flight time thing and all that stuff, how people try
to tell it didn't come together like that. It was
just at the last minute because Prince was on a
dirty mind tour and so Morris when he left, he
had at you know, laugh row and jeans. I never
saw him look like that again. When he came back,
he was a totally different cat. Not feathered. No, he

(54:54):
came back from the Dirty Line tour and the album
that you know what they have that album, the first
album was called the Time, it was called the Nerve.
But when he came back and the Prince would call
me and told this girl that I lived with at
the time, um she They would answer the phone. You know,
I was standing at the crips. She would answer the

(55:15):
phone and it's Prince Jesse there. And they would earn
her friends were free. They'd be like, oh my gods,
and they would go who and her friends like who
is he? And she would always and this is a true,
honestly got story, stack of bibles. He would go, what
did you come here for? I scuse I'm gonna be famous.
She would laugh, Oh my god, She'd fall on the

(55:38):
floor crying, And that should have been a sign I
didn't pay attention. Story short, but yeah, he would call
and say stay there, stay there, stay in Minneapolis, stay
in Minneapolis, stay, don't leave, don't leave. We're gonna get
your call. Like I was just gonna. I was just

(56:00):
send up the fucking starving to death, the many outs
because we would play a weekend MS who and talked
about that. So you play a weekend and make thirty
five dollars. You remember them days you make you in heaven.
It was like we would go to white and White Castle.
It was like like l A, Like there was a
time in l A that I'd be at the studio
and then you see the White Castle here and you

(56:21):
would see a purple pink Bentley so would be Paris,
Hilton would be in line. It was like that kind
of how in an out burger. But White Castle was
that back in the day on Lake Street. So after
the club's closed, Prince everybody was in that ship. It
was like because it was the joint, it was like

(56:42):
the joint, so we were all you know, it was
a joint. So thirty five dollars was like gets some
white Castle. You know, you could take about five and
get about thirty and White Castle exactly. So he would
call and say, don't don't leave, stay there, you know,
and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that,
We're gonna do this, and we're gonn I said, I
have a car, We're gonna get your car, which she

(57:03):
never did, but in a way they later on they did,
but it didn't have no air in it. So but
I had a great stereo. I think I told that
story online about the Jungle of Song. I would play
him songs and he would like, oh my god, go morrise,
you gotta hear this and eat and Morris and Jimmy
Jam are the only two people I know when they
cried the tears start, they literally aren'tquiet. And he kept

(57:27):
doing that. But most people you know and be like, oh,
they ain't playing nothing, but I didn't. I just kept
playing the songs for him til one day, it was
after acting class before we started proplaying, and said, hey, man,
I want to play you something. So he I want
to go listen to it in his car because he
got air. It's a summer jay my car, no air
a hundred and eighty degrees. He go, But I had

(57:48):
the stereo over everybody. I had the bomping ship over.
So he's listen to it in your car. And I
was trying to give him the cassette so he could
listen to it later. And it was right after acting
class and he caught me and go, well, cool, let's
just listen to it now. And I'm like, oh shit,
you know, I was been laughing at so I it
was a jungle, right, you know exactly as you know it. Yeah,

(58:12):
I put it on the thing because I get sick
of motherfucker's telling me your boy said that in Billboard,
Nelson George. So when I met him the first time
here in New York on the island, it was a
press release party for my first record, and he was
in his name was on a card and I was
looking this way and the girl was I w with
wit said, ain't that the guy in Billboard that said this?

(58:36):
And this is honest? I got you. I said, yo, man, hey,
then do you really think you're gonna sit here on
my ship? And he made him leave. Wow. The article,
he said, uh, it was really it was really just
he said, I didn't probably didn't write ship and the

(58:56):
princess probably put my name on it for the blah
blah blah blah blah. And you just don't say that
unless you talk to the people, because you back in
the day, he had an article in Billboard and had
a little picture of him. Yeah, but I didn't a
little blood really remember it, Like I mean, I remember
reading the article, but the girl remembered the face, and
I was like I was a member. It was some
place here and and then it was like a really

(59:20):
popular Chinese place because they had brought squab, which I
didn't know it was pigeons. It wasn't it was before that. Yeah,
Nelson looked like um. And also I didn't lose brother
was the sergeant. Remember I was just telling Diana today

(59:40):
and I was like, damn, you know men, I was
always a never industry cat, but the industreets cat. And
I said so, I didn't because Prince wasn't even that
dude though, right Like he wasn't not not for another
I'm gonna say, not that nice, but he wasn't the
one that just throw somebody's name on a song that
they had nothing to do. It's a nice No, he was. No,

(01:00:01):
it wasn't a nice thing. It was like it wasn't
known they're on the publishing record. I didn't wanted to
make it seem like he did everything. But my I
don't even think Jungle Loves said my name on the
record though I think it. No, you know why, No,
I'm gonna blow y'all away. I'm gonna bloy I got
a piece of something you I ain't never seen I have.

(01:00:22):
You know, back in the day when you would do
a record. They do all the artwork for y'all, you know,
you know mare, They then they sent you the record
and you have to look at the and look at
all the writing. Well, I have that in the very
the ice Cream Castle album. I'm produced by Jamie Starr,
co produced by Jesse Johnson. And the same thing with
if you got the first pressing of the Sheila E record,

(01:00:43):
first records exactly and now and then after that, No,
it came out, it came out years ago, came off
years ago. Because he was Prince was vindictive when you
left him, and it was a real bullshit because I stayed,
you know, I mean, I was just telling Inger today.
When I left after finishing Purple Rain and all that,

(01:01:04):
my check was like three d thirty dollars. I wouldn't
make it, no, and I this is my question, and
I got kids, so you so as far as dedication
and all that pass? Wait? Wait wait wait, wait, hang on, yes,
hundred thirty nine dollars, bro, Wait, am I sitting in
the room cheesecakes, three kids? Like we put the whole

(01:01:30):
cheer with Hi, I'm Rid, you said, Ingrid, And I
was like, wait a minute, and I put my glasses on, Like, well,
I think that was one of the things that she
was so not knowing that You've been sitting at the
same freaking time and hello, how are you? Yeah, I could.

(01:01:53):
I can't touch the cheesecake because I've been sugar free
for thirty six days. There you go. Came the way
from Minneapolis for you today, That's right. So I had
to break it. Just yes or I'll eat. I just
want to say I'm aquarious as well. So you know
what I was saying. We're kind of all over the
place sometimes, are you just make sure yes, we're all together? Y. Wait,

(01:02:23):
this is freaking me out because I didn't know that
was English. Yes, that's why I was, like I said
on this. I met her on the set of said I.
I said I would never be there. I would never
go I never went to Paisley. I said I never
go there and never go down too, and paid to
be in that online and so I got paid for
a week a Grafity vision. I barely made it three

(01:02:45):
days and we got into it and I had to leave.
Wait all the shooting was just three days. No, I yeah,
my shooting yeah for whatever I'm in the movie was
three days because I it was it was like all
this time when by from Purple Rain to now and
I hadn't seen you know, like Prince would call me
up with and play he was. I was telling my

(01:03:07):
cousin Day had a weird sense of humor, Like he
called me up long after I was going I think
my first album was about the drop of where I
can't remember, but he called me. I mentioned a song
today and I was like, you know, and and he
would all and he was always like he could call
you and you and it, and I'm like, real, it's like, man,
you get this number and he and he igno, but

(01:03:30):
he ignores that, and he I mentioned this song today
and I go, what are you talking about? Raspberry Barret
and click good he hangs up. It's like gonna listen
to the song. And I had moved the opposite of everybody.
So I'm in this area called Blaine. It was nothing
out there but cows and ship me so old man
Johnson's farm exactly so. And then the other one was

(01:03:51):
I mentioned I wrote a song about you, and I
was like, I didn't know it. At the time. I
was living in Paris and I were criss crossed a lot,
and I was like, eighty nine, maybe that one wrote
a song about you. Send me his tape, Bob George. Wait,
you know that there's a part of the song that
the girl's got a cone out of all that ship.

(01:04:12):
He that's his sense of humors. So I had to
call it, Yeah, that's that's funny. But we would there's
things that we would like, can you explain the reference?
Like how is that about you? How is that cop you?
Or the dude? The dude when he goes can we
just dance or what? I don't. I don't know. But
he because his nickname for me for a period time

(01:04:32):
was here comes Jesse, I'm okay Johnson, because you know
what was the tie. We was just some street dude.
And so whenever we would running and stuff and I
would get that, I would get called all the time.
I'd be at that we've been an in store signing
and that's some girl you can I be like, bitch,

(01:04:53):
you know. I was just like when it was that
twenty year you don't you don't you know, you just
like you're fighting. You don't care because I come from
me Saint Louis were girls girls kick your ass. It
ain't like, it ain't like how it is now. You
were I grew up going to school. Good girl, you
like me, don't you. This girl used to sit behind me, Betty,

(01:05:13):
and you're my boyfriend. And she was a twin. She
was a twin and her brother just to describe him,
they looked just like his nickname was big Fake. I
wasn't trying to so I used to be terrified at
this girl. But I've seen girls just beat now so so.

(01:05:34):
But it would we be in an instore, you know,
at a full instore, and then I signed something. I
didn't act funny or nothing, but I signed something this
girl be like, and I just immediately I just beat you.
What the fun do you think you will beat you?
You know, it would happen in hotels and I you know,
because we would go up come back from a show

(01:05:55):
and go up to our room and get changed, and
she didn't come down the lobby and for like, can
never meet anybody. You know, it would be on my
own vanity, and we were like best friends. So she'd
come down on my arm like because she was a
perfect no, she's a perfect complete killer blocker. Because girls

(01:06:17):
would come up to me and she wasn't you know.
We were like brother and sister. Were all our relationship
to the day she died, she was we were the
super tight It's like on me and Jamie and and
and she would be the whole. She had been all
over the world and seen in places we had never been.

(01:06:38):
So when she came on on tour and was seeing
his stuff for the first time, she was like completely
really enthusiastic and excited about it because she had she
had been, you know, modeling and been all over the place,
but she had never experienced adelation like that before. And
so when we we we'd go in the lobby, we'd
go up and get changed, and then we get it.
I try to sneak my door, never gonna get It's like,

(01:07:06):
and she'd be on your arm literally girls. And then
she would point, you know, how y'all do women y'all
see y'all see stuff we don't see, like she's fun
look at her nails, like you don't even see you
don't even care, That's what she would say, stuff like
she's not even pretty territorial opt it's like, what are
you doing? You know? So that and I could never

(01:07:28):
say to her, no, you know, because she was like,
we guarded them, you know her, Susan. We would like
that I was like their big brother, because Susan to
this day, and if you talk about Susan, talk to
Susan Mooncy, she'll tell you how how often her and
Prince were together and I was always with them, And
she said, she remembers me looking at my watch it
where do you gotta go? You know, because Minneapolis, you know,

(01:07:52):
it's like ninety below, there's this much snow. So when
you would go way out to chan Hassan, where Prince live,
you pack a suit case because you wasn't trying. I would.
I had never lived in a city with freeways before,
so Rock Island is that little, it's that small. So
when I came to Minneapolis driving, it was like you
would see where you needed to be and you couldn't

(01:08:14):
get to it, and I would. I would just I'm
telling you, honestly, God, it was like scared, shameless. It
was like so big and intimidating for years to me.
And now you live in l A, I can imagine.
But now I got GPS that ship because I'd be daydreaming,
you know. And that's where I listened to music. In
my car and and I'm because I was telling Ingrid earlier.

(01:08:35):
I've been all over the world with no cell phones
or or pager. You know, we usaid now people can't
even on my phone batteries tart, you got a church,
you know, I started paying where I'm like, I my cousin,
the slash manager is always mad at me because I'm
always turning all my ship off. I was gonna say,

(01:08:56):
we we went to um the Minneapolis for the super Bowl,
and it's like, thank God for GPS, because I was
trying to figure out I mean, even me driving all points,
you know, I did the whole tour of Minneapolis and
all that stuff. Like even with GPS and security, like
I still felt like I just trying to imagine what

(01:09:19):
was it to drive forty years ago, thirty years ago.
And and if you're people, and if you're you know,
he always seems like he's in thought, always thinking about
music or something music relate. And if your people watch
your two and Minneapolis is a really beautiful city. It's
like it's so clean, you go, oh my god. And
and and it's even most cities like go see the

(01:09:41):
sky or whatever. But so when I yeah, it's I
I'll kill somebody if I don't have GPS that just
say do turn right here. And you I don't know
if y'all know ways, but ways your own voice in it. No, no,
they added that. So I mean I going there and
I'll mind ship fool, what do you I perpectly it's

(01:10:05):
so excellent, will ride with me? The more you just
miss I got all of my daughter the fourtune years
she is in the car right because it's like, dude, really,
I told you I put on my own but no,
going back to when I we were doing um good

(01:10:27):
pretty Bridge and I met England the first time I
remember talking to because she has that she has this
heaviness tour. Even even back then as a young lady,
she just had this heaviness tour like she her mind
always looked like she was in thought, like she was
some she I always took it like she really a member.
I always told you that my cousin I was like
always saw like she went into none it. I thought

(01:10:50):
I was bad because I was just out there going
ship over with yeah, but it was all that time
passed and it was the same kind of thing was happening.
And so if that easily bored you didn't how bad
were the rehearsals, because I know that, like you guys
were one of the tightest but musical. Here's that I
came up like that whole a lot of all that

(01:11:11):
stuff because I grew up with the James Brown thing
and all that, so all of that when I was
doing all that horn stuff and all of that stuff,
I was at all the horn parts. I was coming
up with a lot of those arrangements and a lot
of the steps because I played guitar, and so when
somebody else would trying to come up to soun I'm like, yeah,

(01:11:32):
I'm not doing that ship because I can't sing and
play and do all that dumb ship at the same time.
So as a when you're playing and somebody, oh, get
this stuff, it's like, yeah, but you're not playing nothing.
So I'm not even paying on attention to that. So
I would come up with a lot of carp you
because I knew that it would be simple, like if
we were just doing this or something, a simple move
like that, but if you've got three cats doing it tight,

(01:11:53):
it looks really cool and if the whole stage is
gonna I knew that, so I would come up with
a lot of the core geography, and like when we
would do the chili sauce across the stage, came with
all that ship and so we do it around so
you could play. And then you worked so hard on
it a rehearsal because you would want it to be
where you didn't think about nothing. Because the singing play

(01:12:13):
at the same time and instrument there's a middle brain
you gotta find. So when people go how do you
do that? You as you know, you can't think about
one or the other. He he'd be playing, he'd he'd
be playing drums and singing, and he'd be talking at
the same time. Man, I saw him session murdering and

(01:12:36):
he was eating something and I'm like, and he kept
going he was and then he was doing and then
he would switch off credit and I was like, that's
a bad dude. But he knows that it's a middle brain.
If you think about one or the other, you're gonna
mess up. So it's a place, right I mess up. Yeah,

(01:12:57):
it's like you, but you go to a place that
does exist. It's just like an inner blank space and
you can almost see yourself in front of you doing
with you. But you know you, but if you think
about singing, or if you think about plant, you're gonna mess.
Like Jones calls it the alpha state, Yeah, where you
just don't don't think about it, do it. So we're
gonna get in a whole graffiti Bridge chapter because well, yeah,

(01:13:23):
I'm That's when I met Ingrad on the side, and
I forget who introduced me to it, but I didn't.
I just asked her today did she ever live in Minneapolis?
Because I didn't think she was from Minneapolis or even
lived there. She said she lived at twelve years but
I never thought that, but she heard her baby was
like he wasn't that old. He was like what eight monter?

(01:13:43):
Was he older than that? But he But I knew
she had and I just a dark kid, so I
my kids were kids then at the point in time too.
I think her son and my daughter, the Isabella is
around the same age. But I was talking about that.
But she was talking to me and she was really
super nice. But I'm standing next to her and I'm
facing her, but she rarely ever did that. She would

(01:14:05):
occasionally did her as she would talk and have a
full tilt conversation with you, but she wasn't. She was
really nice, but I was like, okay, so maybe I'm
bucking her and was talking about stuff. And then eventually
I walked away. I'm on stage shooting now a scene,
and then I watched Prince walk over to her and
do the same thing. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,

(01:14:29):
So tell the people what were you thinking? Angry? What
was going? Well, let's see, I had met Prince a
few years earlier, so I had made this record with
him that hadn't been released, and so this is a
few years later, and so when I got back into
this scene, I was kind of over it on it,
so I knew I was right. I was a little

(01:14:52):
bit of a you know, like Okay, I'm gonna do
this movie, but you know, I like, y'all just saw
since you're here, y'all, No, she really you saw it
all over her. I have I not told you that?
I told my cousin and I was like, going, she
she wasn't impressed by not not nothing any of us.
Can I can I ask the side question? This is

(01:15:13):
this is a side detour, but I think Bill and
I at least would like to know what was said
to him. Oh, what did you say to him that
made him cancel canceled the Black album. I didn't say

(01:15:33):
anything to him. I think he was looking for a
signed you know, and when yeah, you know. So it
wasn't a conversation. It was because he didn't talk to
me about it. I had no idea about this Black
album or anything that was going on in his head
that night. He just had this. He was on this.
He had these questions in his heart, in his mind,

(01:15:54):
I think, and the night that I met him, he
felt like there was a sign. And yeah, the sign was,
don't put out that ship to send the only good
rappers to dead rappers and do what you normally do.
Put that ship on the time out, but let us be,
let us let the time, let me and more some
terry beef with Motherfucker's ship to do it. It was

(01:16:17):
like when that ship said we don't like new waves,
ain't none of I don't that ain't me on there,
and that's all Prince voice that I know. But you
that ship was ain't that Andre. We don't like the way,
and that ship ain't got nothing I got. But I
gotta go box with Motherfucker's now, and I ain't got
nothing to do with that ship on that record, but

(01:16:37):
that at this point he just left right now here
left with yo. I never put you but that I
heard that when you heard it. Okay, the record again
about I don't like new wait, I ain't on none
of that. Damn. He was being petty. I'm not getting
shot or some ship. Yeah, I'm because you think someone

(01:17:01):
had an album out around the same time called Living
in the New Wave. That was his whole That was
his whole thing, His whole thing was in my mind,
I'm thinking like, well, is he talking about the talking
heads or think like the actual legit new wave but
legit that was the whole thing about legit new wave
band they didn't call themselves that did what I'm saying.

(01:17:21):
It was just press was calling him mad, but so
you never said that he was. He was bucking a
shot at Andre and not was he ever nice to
anybody who heard he was he? I don't know. I
think that when I left, my record got dropped. I mean,
just like he was vindictive on that ship. And then

(01:17:41):
John when I played their December when was that December
seventeen seventeen, John, what's his name? John? You know the
John John Breen goes well, you know, he was always
fiercely he was like, he was always fiercely competitive. I'm
like that ship ain't fiercely competitive. That's some bullshit. He

(01:18:02):
did a lot of when I left. He did a
lot of stuff that people just don't know, Like the
whole Chokodelic thing. I I think it's whole. We were,
Oh my god. We used to ride around um l
A with the remember the garbage cam back Seville does
this kind of like to be with. We prints the
room and it was we had the biggest hat. Song

(01:18:22):
could barely fit in the car. It was like something
from I'm Gonna Get You Suck Leaning. He was leaning
his way. I'd be leaning and we would and and
there's a ride going on. Was our bible. Was our bible.
It was like day and day out, that's all. And
so when I got the opportunity, which didn't have anything
to do with me, John McClean put the whole thing together.

(01:18:43):
Because John McClean, I was always always recorded in Minneapolis,
so I wouldn't be in l A because I didn't
want record people coming over. And there's this thing I
never I didn't have budgets when I recorded I recorded
on what it's called a fund because when I signed
with the label, I knew enough by then because I
was broken up and had got you know whatever initiated.

(01:19:06):
Let's just say that he knew how to do yes exactly,
how to at least construct a deal. And so when
I did, I signed as a production company, not as
Jesse Johnson. So that's why I could go. If you
look at that period, I'm on all kinds of stuff,
doing everything everywhere. But when I so, John was my

(01:19:27):
and R guy, John McClain was my and our guy,
and m he signed me the only artists I think
he'd signed at that point in time. But he would
fly in when I say I'm done. You know I'm mixed.
I'm done, and so he would say, he said, okay, man,
he said, you're a nice worker. Don't play ship you
don't like. And one of the songs right Crazy was

(01:19:50):
in the songs I didn't like? Why do you specifically
ask you for what you don't because he knew that
I would because the way he set it up for
me to record it, because I was recording on a
fun and not on p O s. Nobody knows what
I'm recording so when you're gonna record an eight song album,
you know, he knows I'm gonna record twenty songs, songs,
and so he would go, okay, yeah, I play him song.

(01:20:12):
He go, you got a nice record here, and I'll
play me the ship you don't like. And one of
the songs I played him was Crazy and he's that's dad,
he's I'm gonna take that to l A. I'm gonna
put Slide on there. And I couldn't picture it. I couldn't.
I was like, what man, man he was like, and
I couldn't picture it. I couldn't picture it, and he

(01:20:32):
was like, so he did. That whole thing had nothing
to do with me. I didn't see fly until I
went to LA to do the video for Crazy, and
that's when we recorded his parts. Away from You, A
guy named Billy Valentine got all the vocals and everything
on Slide in l A. He did all of that
and Slide. I guess when he's you know, Slide was
the pioneer that slowing the tape down and singing if

(01:20:56):
you won't man this day, that's where that sound comes from.
And so I get up if I do it now? People?
It was it was like Prince like the funk out
of here. It's like Sly was the inventor of so
much of that ship and so uh that Prince he
took that really in a weird way. And it was

(01:21:17):
and and and um uh. This last thing, I had
a celebration in Minneapolis and some psychic lady said, you know,
Prince loves you or something sent the message saying that
or whatever. But they had a second reader at or
somebody said something. I get that a lot. But he
called me when we were in when I was saying

(01:21:39):
some stuff with that something was not right. And I
was in a I was in for eleven days rehearsal
with D in New Zealand, and then we went to
the Gold Coast Byron Bay to for the festival. And
when I was there, we had got their day off
and then we played. And the first day we played,
when I came back to the room, because I don't

(01:22:00):
take any of my I don't take phones or anything
with me. I leave everything at the hotel. I don't
take anything because motherfucker's would be stealing. So I leave
everything at the hotel and completely disconnected. And I kind
of wan't need that anyway. But when I got back,
he there was a girl that I can't say her
name as an unusual name, but she uh work for him.

(01:22:21):
So she's like, oh, Prince wanted to talk to you,
has something for me. And I haven't talked to Prince
in a thousand years. So he's like, you wanted to
he has something for you and he wanted to tell you.
And he's like, you know you need to do you
you need to you know, this is her message, and
you know, Google transcribes the message. And the only person

(01:22:43):
I ever played the message for was D, and he said,
you know, you need to do Jesse and these other
people you're dealing with their they want to be you,
they want to be me, or they want to be
Morris and they you know, he said all this stuff
like that they're beneath you, and you know, I don't
know who he was really talking about. And the only
person I ever played it for was D, and he
was like, who you thinking, sounding like I don't know,
I know, but I don't know anyway, But then you know,

(01:23:07):
baby knows Prince. You know, you call the number and
it's like a burner, you know, it's like doesn't exist.
Number back, but it's number self destructed and exactly. And
so that was the last thing I had interaction with him,
and that was God was that seventeen? Yeah, seen, we

(01:23:31):
were there because Karina was there too, sho. You know,
you know Corna in the documentary, so she was there too.
But yeah, the only person I played that ship for
his date. But uh, we just said a d is
D'Angelo for all the listeners because I don't know they
might Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Wait, Okay, we this is
the most jumping ahead of time. We gotta go back
a little bit. Yeah, we gotta go back a lot

(01:23:52):
of it because I want to hear at least. Okay,
so when you at least developed the first record, he
was lide. Thing really messed him up because the thing
about it with Prince I learned a lot every almost
everything I learned about when I got into time, Like he,
I wasn't afraid to do anything like you you know,
we would we like people think we're trying to look
like girls, but we were. Who was trying to really

(01:24:14):
look like was little Richard because you know, if you
look at the photos, little Richard, he was pretty as right.
And so you know in princical, you gotta do this,
and you you know, put because I never wore makeup
or had foundation on her island. But he was like whatever,
you know he was he just like knew that. I
was like fearless. And then when you feels like that,
it helps that you have somebody alongside with you that

(01:24:36):
thinks like minded, that ain't just like, ain't no tripping.
They don't trip about the ship, you know. And and
people are like, yeah, I think that gay, and I'd
be like, dude, you you better hope you gay like
he gave man mom, only maybe a proctologist might see
more crack, like whatever, what the funk ever funk out

(01:24:56):
here with that bullshit? But they would always say that
about me. But see, but James Brown told me, when
they start calling you, yeah, that's when you know you
made it, you know, because and when that comes from
the oh man they were remember as a kid, it
was like James and Bobby Birds getting married and all.
And so when the signs of making fresh and game,

(01:25:16):
then um, you start getting shoot a lot grew up. Yeah,
Or your sister like in my case, was like threatened
to cause you and wants money, or she's putting it
out a story of your lot. Really, yeah, I just know.
I told you all today, I said, I saw the
episode of Say Yes to the Dress. I just told

(01:25:38):
him yes. Then I said, but yeah, no, but shut out.
But going back to the Black album, I just that
that that that one song would have caused a lot
of problems in the l A that only de rapper
is No, that's a song that's dead on it. Only

(01:25:58):
your rapper is a dead rapp And I was like
that ship going up on a time record. Now we
beefing and shot and got ship to do with that song. Man.
But you know I was long gone after that. But
but I'm just saying, dude, dude was vindictive when you left,
and you didn't do anything wrong you. I went and
made it on my own merits. I wrote every song
I ever did, or what every song was mine because
if I would have even attempted to steal something as

(01:26:21):
he didn't, you know, he didn't play that, he would
sue the pants off you because he had the bread
to do that. So I never went into anything like
that with him. And I had just never signed releases
or something. So when I left, lawyers were telling me
man he Owes you millions of dollars and you can
do and I never did. Any got your freedom because

(01:26:41):
you got your published in for Junglelob right, No, I
mean I did, but I there's prices that myself and
Morris had to pay if we were leaving. But I
was never in a contract, but we still there was
prices you have to pay. So if you left, then
you had to develop something. So whatever. Okay, I gotta ask,
where is that the board because I knew that you purchased.

(01:27:04):
Oh yeah, I bought it. But it was really fucked
up because I'm I just left. I'm on my own.
I'm I'm he know how poor I am. And he's
doing dress rehearsals and just give it to you, Like no,
it's just like this motherfucker's e and I he's doing
dress rehearsals at uh uh St Paul Center or something, yeah,
the same Paucific Center. And I go over there and
I got a check for eighteen thousand. You know, that's

(01:27:27):
like nine million dollars to me. So I would just
gave you the board, like no, But he was real
hardcore funny about it. Messed up because the only person
standing in the room when it went down with out elites.
But I walked in the room and I said, you know,
I want to get that board. There was a Soundcraft
B three great board. We did a lot of ship
on it, Vanity at the time, we did a lot

(01:27:47):
of great stuff on that. All the Purple Rain was
done on that board. Board. Yeah, so we I go.
I give him a check for that, which was like
killing me because because my fun my album, my first album,
fund was one and they pay it to you in thirds.
You know, you get a third when you start, third
when you mix, and the other remaining third when you hand.

(01:28:08):
But people think that's a lot of money, but they
don't realize it's working capital. It's not. It's like you
get maybe get to get twenty out of it if
you're lucky. If you're lucky. But I was really good.
And because all the control is in your hands to
to to to to you know, to make sure you
come in you know you you do right with the money.
So and so I go over to buy it, and
I bought a board. But it was garbage. It was

(01:28:30):
a Soundcraft. And when I started recording, it was like,
oh and I already and and I had already lined
my way into the record. You know the record deal.
They said, you, we don't know about this. You produce records.
Oh yeah, of course I know what I'm doing. Ain't
clue what I'm doing. That was at least happening now

(01:28:51):
the oxually Susan. Then Susan didn't come with me until
until I did the Love Struck song. That's well, that's
the Susan I'm talking about. And that's what question real quick?
When did the Janet Jackson trucks come in? Is this
before you got signed? After? That's after? But I was
before my record ever came out because I was a
John McClain project too. So I I bought that board.

(01:29:12):
I had to take the other board back. It was garbage.
It was I don't know what I paid for nine
thousand or something. I took that ship back and I
was like, all right, I was panicking. I had to
make something happen. So I knew Princess Selada board and
I called him and he was like, yeah, yeah, da
da da da. And I didn't even say nothing, like, man,
why don't you just give it much? Motherfucker? I ain't
even get into it. I just said, Okay, where do
I need that went over to the same as everything

(01:29:34):
to check and Alan Leads was in the room and uh,
and I said, you know, you should be the nicest
people anybody ever met. And he goes, why do you
say that? And I say, because everything you've ever dreamed
of is happening for you in the way that you
dreamt of it happening, meaning a crossover, right right, a crossover.
That's why when the Time play seven seven and stuff live,
white people be like, oh, what the fund is that?

(01:29:56):
And then the black people and be like because they
knew all the time ship before that. But if you
ever see the audience, the white kids only the white
folks only know that shipped from the Purple Rain. They
think that's the only Time record that's say. And so
I got to see that in two thousand and eight
when I performed that run in Vegas with him, and
it's like you said, seven seven and the Walk and

(01:30:18):
all that ship, And it's weird. How now people don't
they don't like something and they know, you know, we
like something, we go mass cool, let me go see
these other records, and then we might end up. There's
times we go damnish it all, man, I'm records one
right yet, you know, but we'll go back and find
out everything. And so when I bought the board he said,

(01:30:39):
I said, yeah, you should be the nicest person anybody
ever meet. And I'm meaning this because I love prints
even to the day they died. We were the best
of friends. We had a major love for when and
I lived with him, I lived with him. I lived
him all of it. And when we finished Purple Rain,
I was living at that house. And then when he
went to la it was cold blooded to he went
to l A, I said. And on the rap night,

(01:31:01):
I said, Prince, can I stay at your house and
use the studio? He said yeah. But when I went there,
I said, can I just used the studio Because I
knew he was going to l A to you know,
wrap the film and do whatever. I went there. He
took all It was just a take machine and the
board and the speakers. So I had to go on.

(01:31:25):
And that's where it's Susan. I met Susan. And you've
seen Susan say, how if it wasn't for Jesse, I
wouldn't got the gig Because I'm the one that came in.
I knew everything. But you couldn't never say nothing around Prince.
I remember at Sunset Sound he plugged in harmonize and
I said, what does that do? Don't worry about that.
And that's all you. I knew right then and there. Okay,

(01:31:45):
he ain't supposed to you ain't supposed to know that ship.
But I was always had big eyes and ears open.
And so when he when she came in, she came
from Crosby Stillson Nash, so she never was around, no thumping, bumping,
And I said, look, this is the drum machine he uses.
This is how he likes his kicking cute, this is
what he uses on the base. And I showed her

(01:32:05):
all that stuff. And so when he came in for
the first time and finally called her, she knew all this.
So all the outboard gear that he would have in
his drum machines too. He took all that ship to
l Ah and he didn't tell He said, oh yeah, sure,
I asked, was actually shocked? Was at the wrapper? I
was like, because I had been standing there, but for
some reason, it's weird as hell, I Jamie. She was

(01:32:28):
asking me, you know, like, uh, the top of your
she said, all the time you spend at Prince House.
Why did you just sleep in the living room on
the couch? And I said this bedroom that he had
other bedrooms in there, and his bedroom was on the
lower level. And then after Jamie had remodeled, had the
whole house remodeling at the Westlake Speakers and was but

(01:32:48):
I and she said why didn't you? She find asked me,
why was you ever sleeping in them by the beadles?
I said, because that best friend had them flowers and
shipped on it and ruffles. That ship freaked me out. Man.
But but let me tell how futuristic this cat was.
Because I didn't know any of this stuff. But he
would take me in the bedroom like Owen if you've
seen Twitter, And I said, yeah, Prince had a I said,

(01:33:11):
he had a stock of rejection letters because the one
that Owen published is one of them. But he had
a bunch of them because he showed them to me.
The only reason why I know, because he showed them
to me. But how ahead of himself he was, you know,
he in one of the bedrooms, he opened up the
door to the closet to show me, and he had

(01:33:32):
every outfit from the what was the first album call
for you for you. He had all of the whatever
he had on on their leather jacket, the bell bottoms
of shoes here, everything he kept everything he had to get.
He just had that foresight or something and he had
and he was showing it to me. But I didn't
know what this stuff was on some big gas platform

(01:33:52):
shoes one am I supposed, but he had everything from
every album up until you know, this is like after.
But he was showing me just like and that's where
he had the whole stock of rejection letters. And he
was like, look what this guy said, Look what this
guy said, look at it, and they were at all.
I was like, I don't hearing and then yeah, but

(01:34:14):
but but it to me was showing you how you
you had a belief in yourself. You ain't really well wait,
I still didn't get the question answer. Where is the
board now, John McClean, it's upstairs and Marvin's women John

(01:34:37):
had it. Marvin's board and Prince's board is in that
same upstairs up and where Mar's bedroom is. Yes, it's upstairs.
And if you walk in, if you walk upstairs and
you see the bed, you know how he has had
that secret door that opens John McLean. Yeah, but what
did I buy? I bought the TS the Giant one
fifty six input and all that automation because I had

(01:34:58):
the two machines and stuff by the inside outgrew it.
But but my it was nicer after I bought it
because I had a p I okay, five bees installed,
had a roll like six of them installed in its like,
and it was a great console though it was small.
It smacked it, It really did. And that's why when

(01:35:20):
he I was just keeping it and then he said
I'll buy that, and then he bought it for what
I paid for a way back then. But he had
Soundcraft come out and recap everything. We fresh everything. So
it's like, man, and it's just sitting there, but it's
all connected and everything, but it's just sitting there and
it's the five that we caught all that stuff in.

(01:35:40):
And I'm just like, really not a collector of anything.
You're not sentimental, Okay, I gotta ask you, how did
you manage to escape the dressing room from the food
fun It was the handcuffed like what they everyone everyone's

(01:36:01):
account of the food fight in in Cincinnati was that
your your anger. But I was not to take that
that entire coat right there. It wasn't because if you
if I was really angry like that, I gotta still
pipe in my hand. It's been I've been on death

(01:36:21):
row right now, so obviously wasn't. It was just like
you know you uh. But it scared me that day
because Prince when I when I took that thing down,
everybody in that room, his band members, everybody fled like roaches.
Cut the light time. I was like, you can see

(01:36:42):
because there's somebody with shooting pictures and you can see
just the and I was yeah, and I was running
behind Prince, and like say, if you opened the door,
you know most it was a it was a big,
big gass arena place, so they have fire doors. So
when he opened the door, Bobby z or somebody ran
through the door before Prince, and so the door was closing,

(01:37:04):
but Prince was busy doing this and and then he
hit the edge of that door, and I kind of
stopped because I thought he had hurt himself. He had
that ship hard, but he blam and then rolled around
the door. And I'm like, I would have been dead
if I hit the door like that. But no, I
wasn't like that. But we had it was a but
was it funny? Though? I just I just got the concert,

(01:37:25):
so I have him taking you both from the stage.
But what you know, what you didn't see is he
was running. You don't see how giant the stage is.
The stage is like ten. He was running so hard
and then Roger Troutman's uh drums, big gass drums set

(01:37:45):
zapps gys at this point, yes, it was before the vanity.
It was before the first was the controversy to him.
But that drum set is sitting there, giant, immaculant. He
was running and he couldn't stop, and he knocked that
hole stage for We got got him good because he

(01:38:13):
used to do less work and he got that whatever
he used to say, I'll do use whatever the words
and he and then he would always pull out this
pair of underwear and due this like pull out a
pair of draws and they're like, man, I went on
a special hunt. I got a pair of draws that

(01:38:34):
you you know, you could put him on a car
like a brawl. And I put that and I paid
the production manager. I put that ship in his because
when he would come off, he would change and put
on the same kind of the same exact jacket, put
that ship in the pot, and he goes, oh, Dad,
you in and he's like, and you gotta see it.

(01:38:56):
It might even be on the tape to heare, but
you see I meany it's like a magician pulling. And
he's like, and he does this, and he looks at
the production matter because the production dude was from here,
and he looked at him and he's like, he was
so so he could do that ship, but he couldn't
take this ship back. He was like, and I didn't

(01:39:19):
think he'd be that hot about that, you know, he
pulled that ship on these big astraws, and he was.
But the fact that you have to see him going
after you and and then he had to nerd a
dude like and he was hot. And I was on
the side of the stage. And so that was the

(01:39:44):
day before the food fight. And so the food fight
was the actual because that that day that I did
that wasn't the end of It was the day before this.
So then that's how it was the end. And so
after the thing with me, when they got me, you
saw the door constable, he saw the time members with
juice bags on their head and took green garbage bags,

(01:40:06):
put holes in them and had him all life suits him.
And now you saw them out there just hot and
ready to kill until Morris. We caught Matt Fink and
you know, you so they were so angry that they
were this close to him and could hit him. It
was like, was just off completely, It was just off.

(01:40:27):
I mean, I'm like, because Terry's like, he's just so
close and then he the egg breaks in his head
because he's gone, and then musicians shouldn't be sports people.
He's picking the egg off the just like revenge time.
And the only person that wasn't food fight. They ran

(01:40:50):
up on him, but he was never part of it.
I never said more than he's up to him than
all the years around. It was Dickerson. But yeah, we
caught ma faint somewhere man and it was not good.
It wasn't pretty. Yeah, we were you know, you just
don't need a lot for the time to be mad.
We ain't paid and you know we're you know, we're

(01:41:12):
going back to the you know, it wasn't a lot
at the end of the day when y'all at least
scale like the other the other musicians that you were
touring with up like Roger Trout that we don't know
nothing about no scales and ship that's something we just
you know. But no, you in all, honestly you can't.
The reason why you never hear me bitch and moan
about it because it's like you're there by choice, so

(01:41:33):
you know nobody you do, dude, No, because what you
learned and what an experience I couldn't buy with all
the money in the world. So when I look at it,
and I've always looked at it's like what if I
got paid away more money? But I would have never
been in that inner. That's why when a man was
sitting here and he was laughing about cleaning the toilets,
which you don't know, dude, would call me in the

(01:41:54):
middle of the night. I lived down you know those
apartments that you see from the freeway, they're in different colors,
and see the square was that's where I lived, and
that's where they used to film The Merry Time Morrishaw
really yeah, and it's but I used to live there
and to get in Michael, you call me at any
hour and I would go drive way out there because

(01:42:14):
it's the studio. And then the girl I was dating
with like I think you guys are having a fair
and I'm like the funk out here. You know how
to make records, call me too, but this is my call.
This is one that always trying to make you know.
And seriously, that's exactly what came out of my mom
like going, I'm sorry, but he went and out over
you because sign came here with my mom on you

(01:42:36):
and and listen to some records or whatever. And the
three genos back then was still three channels right now.
But I'm like ship this is and so he would
call me out there and Morris is the Morris is
the witness to this. But Morris, you know in the
studio they had that really long cue tip but you
clean the head. So every time stop using those those

(01:43:01):
not for that. He would be mad, like Morris man,
would you stop you? So? But this we were this
is doing, um what are you according the bird? I
think that with the bird original bird. And he called
me out and he called me, I'm alright, drive way

(01:43:23):
up there in the middle of like I'm thinking I
would recorded something. They got me out there because the
machine broke and I meant to rewind it by hand.
He called you, yes, because he knew. He was like
just on pay the dudes to be in this moment
because you know them two grew up together as kids.
Morrison and so Morrison. He said that the board he

(01:43:45):
would be krying because I'm like, man, fuck, fuck is
why you had me call man? You need to call back?
Why give you the hands up? No? Because he because
they're hilarious. They're the funniest dudes. They are the funny.
Morris is probably one of the funniest dudes you ever meet.
And he's off the cuff with it. Like on stage

(01:44:07):
even that Running Vegas, a girl came up and had
this top on and she had you know, was like
tied in the back of the boat and just all
the top of his head. He got where he touches string.
He's like, I'm about to go from PG the double
D the ship that just immediately he don't think about
it and he just fat and I'd just be like,

(01:44:27):
I can't even I tell you we you know, we
see each other. We'll see each other now and before
we say anything, we just look at each other and
start crying, just start laughing because we know. So Morris
isn't the same for everybody who never met more is
he is purple R's funnier than because all that stuff

(01:44:48):
was written, all that stuff was written by friends. But
Morris is, Morris is funny as hell. He so funny
as cats ever. Man, all right, so are you about
to change the topic? Is actually want to um? There's
a photog going around of Morrison Prince and Princess and
Jamie Starr mode um where he's doing that. No, that's

(01:45:08):
just the polls. They would never they would never like that.
Well no, no, no, no, no, I'm just asking, like
you know, would he would? Jamie Stark character appeared in
the studio time whenever that was some ship that was
just print. I only seen them about get Ready knock
Up one time, and I was just so happy. I
was like in the middle. It was on the set

(01:45:35):
of Purple Rain and Morris came in and he was late,
and he wasn't late because y'all don't even know man,
You don't even know man. He would We would be
on the set every morning at five thirty, but we
weren't shooting being dressed. No, I wouldn't. No, hurry up
and wait. Just didn't want us to be doing anything else,

(01:45:55):
So you'd be on the set every day, full makeup,
dress and ain't shooting nothing, just had just so he
would know where it's Jesse. I know where he's over there. Okay,
you know that kind of ship. And and so Morris
was like, yeah, man, you know what fun this ship?
And so Morris walked in one day. It was so
it was so amazing because he was always like my idol,
because he he came in high collar, clean his hell

(01:46:18):
as Scoto just looked amazing, hair laid, everything, came in
clean his hell and Prince and it was when you
worst walking the first avenue, you know, you can either
go that way, if you go this way, there's a stairway.
So that's full of extras. And Prince walked up to him,
which he was used to doing and saying stuff him in.
Morris never would say anything in front of everybody, but

(01:46:44):
he this morning when he wasn't at one, because he
walked up to it. Man, you know, you're like, and
the thing about it, he's doing this, you know, you're like,
and what the fun? I was like, it's about time.
And then when they made it to the dressing room

(01:47:06):
with that, then Prince came into addressing room, man and
Morris's immediately was like and then being jumped and he's
like bringing the ship man morsels get ready, and I
was like, I'm standing at that going because that's what
he with. Me and Jerome used to fight all the
time when because when Jerome got when Jerome came around,
he wasn't in the band. He was like the road

(01:47:28):
he dude. So he would be mad all the time.
You'd see him and he'd beat moving to zuecases and
roadk He'd be mad all the time. He was always
mad at me for something he didn't even know me,
but he and so we fight all time. I said,
you know what, mom, Todder you muscle heead motherfucker, let's
do this ship and Prince used to be the always
be the one long let him fight, LETI fight. So
that was my opportunity to instigator. Yeah, and being jumped

(01:47:51):
in can go friend as they let Nis had his
ship out. I just want to know who said I
will fuck you up more said so sorry y'all, So
sorry to cut y'all so short, but you know there's
more to come next week or on our special interview
with Jesse Johnson. Uh tune in next week when Jesse

(01:48:13):
will talk about those purporting deleted scenes that we didn't
get to see touring with Luther Androws and Roger Troutman
and Larry Troutman. Also, we'll talk about a Pet Prince
demos going up from auction. Uh, it'll be a blast, y'all.
Trust me and trust me you want to come back
next week for part two of our interview with Jesse

(01:48:34):
Johnson on Quest Love Supreme. See event cors. Love Supreme
is a production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts

(01:48:58):
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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