QLS Classic: The Revolution

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.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is QLs classic. My name is
cors Love and we go back in the archives to
September two thousand and sixteen, some months after Prince's death,
the members of his legendary band The Revolution gathered together

(00:23):
and give us reflective moments of his life and his career.
We hope you enjoyed here. We are Supremama so prima
roll call so prema so prima role called Suprema so

(00:47):
so prima role call Sma sub prima role call. My
name is Questo. Shut up already, damn. This is a
special purple news for sport Dearly beloved, check this out.
This is Quest Love and your tune to a very
special episode of Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora. Right now,

(01:12):
I think it's about time that me and the whole
Team Supreme take a road trip up to Uptown, up
the mini wood of the Minneapolis, the home of the
legendary Prince Rogers Nelson. That's right, We're going on a
road trip, all of us, all of Teams Supreme, Fontigelow Sugar,
Steve Unpaid, Bill Boss Bill and now our recent edition

(01:34):
live this very special Minneapolis episode of Quest Love Supreme,
We're gonna talk to one of the hardest working bands
of all time. That's right, I say that the hardest
working band. No band has prepped more, rehearsed, more and
perfective more the Revolution Princess Band. That's right. We got

(01:54):
I know, you're like the Revolution exact. We got the
More We've got Bobblously got Round One, Dr Finck, Wendy Lisa.
We also got Dez Stickers, and we got Andre Simon,
and we got Susannah Milk, the subject of many a
Prince songs. So without further ado, we're gonna be right
back with Bobby z Brown Mark, Dr Finkes left Supreme

(02:15):
only on Pandora M Without further ado, Ladies and gentlemen, um,
I'll probably say probably one of the most influential group
members of of I don't know, I mean behind the
creativity and the work ethic. I know no other band
that's ever worked harder than The Revolution. We like to

(02:36):
welcome Bobby z U, Dr Fink and Brown Mark to
question are you good good? You're good? That's awesome. That's awesome.
So I have to you know, there's so there's so
many questions to ask, but I really would like to

(02:58):
start with the with the begin in at the very
beginning of how they came together, but even before then,
like what were your backgrounds? Like all of you from
Minnesota or I was raised here, born in Bronx, New York, Brown,
But no, I did not know when did you move here?

(03:19):
How old were you? I was about seven seven? Okay,
it's been a long time. So what what brought you here?
My mother, she just wanted to my my dad was
military and he's based out it he's from here, so, um,
this is where all his family was when they got married,
and then we came along. She just wanted us to
be closer to his family because he was always overseas. Okay,

(03:42):
so that's how we ended up here. What about you?
What's your your early you know you're well I was
born here, and Bobby and I were both born in
the suburb of St. Louis Park, which was one of
the the you know what we're called the Inner Ring suburbs,
like ten minutes from out in town, so you could
just you know, shoot downtown to Minneapolis really quick and easy,

(04:03):
and so we started with music pretty early. I mean
my parents had me studying piano at a very early age,
right around six, and studied classical really throughout through high
school and jazz and jazz came in about the age
of fourteen when I had demanded to be hooked up

(04:27):
with a jazz teacher here in town. You demanded, yes,
I did. I told my parents that I really want
to study jazz, so um they they We found these
really great teachers here that had studios downtown here in Minneapolis,
and they were called Wiggly and Associates. There's just two guys,

(04:48):
and Tom Wakland was my teacher. I credit him with,
you know, teaching me improv and improvisational techniques and all that.
And Les isn't used because most people, I would think,
would like, uh, like seed something influential rock and roll
and television and be like that's what I went. That
was there too, I mean definitely throughout all that. I

(05:10):
mean I was six when the Beatles came on Ed Sullivan.
I watched it live and then I was often running
from that too. That was huge influence on me that
that time. Yeah, both you and your brother. Yeah, that
was just gonna say, well, Matt mentioned St. Louis Park,
which was produced a lot of great people, Al Franken

(05:30):
and you know Wilson. It's just kind of a strange
outer rink suburb that really did produce a lot of fun.
But yeah, my brother David was kind of the godfather
of this whole thing because, uh, like Matt said, our
families knew each other. But David was before the Beatles

(05:52):
with Peter Paul and Mary the Case, the trio, you know,
the hippie folk thing that was just movement with the
anti war movement grew the folk music. Of course, Bob
Dylan came from here, and uh, but David was also
They created their own bands a whole so much scene
here with Soma Records was Amos spelled backwards and Amos

(06:15):
Hilcher own music Land, so they had a label with
the Chancellors and the high Spirits and and the trash
men with Surf and Bird, and you know, there was
the casting race with Liar Liar, and it was exploding
here in the in the late sixties, and those guys
eventually laid the kind of the fertile ground for the

(06:38):
musical Messiah to come and uh, you know Owen Husty
of course as part of that group and it. But
Matt and I had known each other because our families,
our mothers worked together very creative people. Man's dad was
very creative and actors and radio at skits and my
mother was very creative, and so Matt act it would

(07:00):
come to the house. Um when we were very young,
and my brother David was already showing us how to
polk holes and a player piano to make more notes
and so really yeah, so David's olden, David's eight years older.
See in my head, I always thought he was like
a little brother. Yeah, I didn't know that he's the

(07:23):
older brother, older than Steve's in the middle of four.
But when David met Prince, and Prince had worked with
a with a eight track, and then David was working
at Sound eighty and with the first digital actual um
I think multi track digital was three AM and they
gave it to Sound eight one of them anyway, So
all of that was the main that was the centerpiece

(07:47):
of the Minneapo. Yeah. It was her Pillofer, a big
jingle writer, a big orchestrator, and uh, he built this
incredibly beautiful facility for its time. Uh you know track
two inches and you know, incredible um drum boots and stuff.

(08:08):
You know, it was really it was something and um
Prince took to that like a fish to water, you know.
And Peppi Willy we recorded their studio beat too with
the Polydor deal with ten fifteen and those tracks that
played on. Any of you guys have any like lofty
goals of like world domination? Was it just like, hey,

(08:30):
we'll just started being maybe I'll go to College of
the Army and yeah, no, it's very definitely wanted to
you wanted to break out of Oh yeah, no question.
Did you feel there was a legitimate scene to to
nurture in Minnesota? Or was it like I gotta get
to New York or it was more about getting to
New York or l A and doing it. But we
I always thought you could still do it anywhere in

(08:51):
the country because you know, a lot of groups broke
out from different cities. But we we were really at
that time one of the groups that was able to
do it at that time, just because the Prince got
his deal with Warner Brothers. You know, for me, I
was on the I was like right on the cusp
of that generation gap. They were in a different generation

(09:13):
than me, and you say we're old. You know. It
was weird because the generation of musicians that I hung
out with, it was there. There was there was this
distinct border of the type of music that we um,
we approached. UM. But I just remember when I was
about seventeen, sixteen seventeen, I was determined there was nothing

(09:37):
gonna stop me. UM. I was in the studio by
the time I was sixteen years old, recording, trying to
start my own thing. Even though I couldn't even say
I didn't care. I was gonna do whatever it took
because I saw Prince did it, went in there and
did all the instruments, and I was like, wait a minute,
you know this can be done. And so I was determined.

(09:58):
So how how did into your Who's the first into
the radar? I was a runner for Hustany, had an
edgy ad agency. I just done it one summer from
my junior year and then in a senior year I
graduated high school and was inherited the job from Jeff Siegel,

(10:22):
who went on to do the Renaissance Festival here and
just an amazing talent. And he had created this yellow
excuse me, yellow paper delivery service, which just was kind
of an invoice that you turn it on a yellow
piece of paper on Friday, so it was you handled
in the hustiny. It was like fifty dollars a week

(10:43):
or something to drive around. And then I was in
this uh this band, Kevin Ottigarden. The KO band was
kind of a country rock band following Marshall Tucker and
all that stuff. Back then. Um, you know, my job
became kind of mixed because at the studio I was
walking from back room which the studio I have heard

(11:07):
to his moon sound. So Chris Chris would owned the
studio and photography studio, and I think he used it
to get girls mostly, but I'm a photographer English accent,
but he was very charming guy. And um so I
was with this band that we we're helping build in
the back room for free rehearsal. We were kind of

(11:29):
painting it or doing whatever, wrecking it, whatever we were doing.
And this one fateful day, I was just walking from
the back hall from Studio B to the front door
and I heard this sound coming out of the door
wide open studio A I just looked in there and
saw the frow first, and uh just heard this sound

(11:54):
and he was he was working on baby, and he stopped.
I got the half turned startled. Just the eyes move,
you know, more of a a different electricity current than
anything I've ever felt. And we're all on the same current.
He ran on a different electric current, so you could

(12:16):
just kind of tell as the personality, even though he
was shy that there was just so much going on
in there. And so I just sat down because it's like,
you know, he was just a guy recording at that point.
I just sat down and he just looked at me like,
you know, with that horrified look that we found out
later was you know, who are you and what are

(12:38):
you doing in my chair? You don't get out of here.
So I just sat there and then I just kind
of listening. It's just go ahead and play it. You know.
It's like that's amazing. You know what's going on here?
There's nothing, you know? I said, yeah, sure, And then
Chris moon walked and what are you doing in here?
It's you know this prince and everything. I said, oh okay,

(12:58):
I didn't know this was like nuclear you know, you
need a special you know, suit to get in here
and uh. And so that the laughter at the first
laugh I got out of him was the connection and
humorous kind of how I got into it. And then
I'd see him like every day until one day he

(13:20):
went with the hand you know, come in and he
goes sit down, and I was just like, okay, and
he goes, watch just I want you to make sure
that dry. I want you to hit record, and I
said okay. So I'm sitting there and I hit record
and he's out there in the drum booth and he's
putting down a drum track and I go, okay, well

(13:40):
it was interesting. It's like, where is he going? What
is he doing? Is this a drum track? Comes back
in the boot, picks up the bass. He's putting on
a bass track, and I'm going, that's pretty incredible. Picks
up the tar, does the keyboards, and I'm sitting there
pretty numb at this point, you know, watching all this
go down. And then he goes, I want you to

(14:02):
punch me on vocals, and you know, it's like, I'll
just hit record, you know, and he just recorded it.
Go stop, okay, go back to the next track. And
then the next track, so I kind of like got
in there a little bit there and then jed online engineering. Yeah,
of course, you know, I was like, you didn't realize
all the things were. So then I became Then the studio,

(14:24):
I met him, and then we were hired by Chris
Wain for slide shows because that's what the back the
work was. Back then, there wasn't any needle drop. There
wasn't any music, so you'd hire these musicians to come
up with you know, jams basically that had no publishing rights.
So me and Prince, my brother David, and the bass
player from this country rock band, Gary Lopak, we're doing
a thing and that's the first time I saw him

(14:45):
play an acoustic piano and look a regular upright piano,
and it was just like that was it. You know,
saw the panel and the panel was moving and it
was like a Max Flesh or Betty Book cartoon, and
with Cab calloway, the thing was just kind uh you
know those extra notes he kind of puts in those
cords and it was just kind of like, I've never

(15:05):
heard anything like that before this point. He was seventeen,
so slide shows like these events would happen well, you
know when corporate shows get together now they put together
slick video and stuffing about the color. Someone just tells
me and put the playlist together. So yeah, that then
the playlist, right, yeah, but it was that was the

(15:29):
beginning of of the friendship. And then Andre and or
the mix and then the three of us were the
three months Greteers for a while because they got obviously
some stuff happening with Morris. I came new to it
because the history from the whole the North Side, but
the flight time Alexander O'Neil and everything in Andre and
I was just kind of like then, you know, I

(15:51):
Prince wanted a uh, you know, a rock drummer, and
he said, I want you to spend sticks on fire.
I said, I'm not gonna sticks because I'll show you.
So he took it. He took you mother's finest and
the guy with spinning sticks on fire, that's right, okay,
you know, sparkling or whatever they were doing. And uh,

(16:12):
and then we walked away from He goes, what did
you think? And I said, you know, it's crazy rock band.
It's just you know, because he had these beautiful melodies too,
and then he had these big rock jams like Mandy.
It was kind of like what, you know, are your
mother's finest or are you Joni Mitchell or what? And
then we softly would Matt together and that was that
was achieved later with Wendy and Lisa. So the goals

(16:34):
were there for a long term. It's kind of a
combination of Mother's Finest, the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Matt.
But did he let you know that he wanted this
utopian poster group of white gummer and white keyboard playing
in the basic not in the beginning with Mac we
were looking for identities and costumes and we were out

(16:56):
with Rick and you know that it was it was,
you know, pretty chaotic, as was getting to the revolution
as far as the whole concept. But it's also the
look like between Meet the Beatles and Abbey Road. I mean,
there's a lot of things that go into that. The
success breeds more creativity, but there was an identity search,

(17:16):
you know by him in the beginning. You know, the
early costumes. You know, we're, for lack of a better word,
you know, we're not formed. And then of course the
the bikini briefs and okay, so I kind of want
to skip to the point where you guys are now
professionally hired. Um. I'll say that the one thing that

(17:40):
I witnessed that I now know is key and important.
Um is the only because you know, I'm like one
of those collectors that really gets all on the process
of how it gets done, not the final product. But
I know that you guys have put in endless hours

(18:02):
of preparation before you even hit a stage. Just the
amount of times that like when you hear the word
body heat be flat, like does it like you do hysterics, like,
because he'll just yell it at the most hit an
opportunity time and you guys are like instantly there. I mean,

(18:22):
I'm I don't want to go to the point where
you guys are already a perfective machine, like around four.
But just in the beginning, at what point did you
realize that, oh god, he really wants to do this
a twenty of take or until four in the morning,
or you know, oh so all of sound check, it's

(18:42):
going to go right before the show them answer Mark
and Matt get to that. But I'll just tell I
was already on that clock, you know, because I had
started so early that I already knew that it was
you know, we were jamming till dawn. It was already
like that from day one. So even in the beginning
before you guys, dawn, if they would move his furniture out,

(19:03):
jam put the furniture back, and they would open at eight,
nine am, and we would be done at six all night.
Not not that I think he would know about the
ten thousand hour perfection rule, but do you just think
that for him, playing was much better than socializing or
just was his was his life. Yeah, when I came

(19:25):
in and I was so stunned. Because of me, I
had a pretty busy schedule. You know, I was in
high school, got out at three thirty, had a job
four to nine thirty at the pancake house. That's where
I met him, Actually cooked him pancakes. That's it. I

(19:55):
was a young guy. That's a that's a you got yourself.
But you know, from nine from I got off at
nine thirty, I headed over the North Minneapolis to the
community Center. I rehearsed till one. So from about ten
to one, that's what I was used to when I
got in the band. We'd started ten am. We'd be

(20:17):
on a jam one groove until correct me if I'm wrong,
three four o'clock in the afternoon, trust me, I would
have to get a sandwich. Playing my base. I'd be
in the kitchen area opening up making a sandwich one
hand and playing with one hand because the groove couldn't stop.
If you stopped the groove, He's gonna be looking at you,
really or anything like that. He was a driver, man,

(20:41):
That dude was a driver. When y'all with jam like that,
would he use those as like basis for songs, like
with songs be born kind of in the moment that
vault just probably packed. Yeah, we jammed all the time.
Susan Rodgers would just he'd be like rolling tapes, yeah,
and he would just listen to it on long and
just pull stuff out of it during Bine came out

(21:02):
of stuff like that with Matt just jamming on something
and come onto the house. You know, just you could
tell that story. That's that's so weird because now I'll say,
in the early days of the Roots, like we would
jam that relentless. But then once I discovered it, like, oh,
I could just loop this because Torik would like right
in real time, like as we're jamming, like four hours later,

(21:25):
I'm like, all right, dude, we play the same loop
like was just listen, let's loop it, and to will
use that as a basis, but we'll do that in
real time. Is weird? Loop was? You know, was was
a limb pattern and there was no you know, everything
was pioneered. The drum machine arrived. I walked in rehearsal

(21:48):
and eating prairie and um. But I heard Private Joy
when he recorded it. That was I think one of
the first LM one tracks. And and he looked at me,
looked the machine, looked at me. Didn't saying that he's
looking at the team, you know, just give me that smile.
It's kind of like change. Yeah. And so I walked
into rehearsal and the thing was blasting away and I

(22:10):
went right up to Steve Farnoli and I felt like
a union auto worker or something and be all drummers
everywhere in the history of all drummers. This thing is evil,
you know, he mustard and he gave me the best
device I ever got. He looks at me, goes, it's here,
learn how to use it. That's what we did. And

(22:32):
then we had created Don bats who was working on
our our crew in our recent shows. Um, you know,
he created an interface with guitar pickups that we're using
for acoustic guitar interface with this spaghetti thing that they
created to interface with the outs of the limb to
trigger pads. Nobody even had that. That's what they say,

(22:54):
you did you, guys? Event at least did you guys?
Don bad was a genius, genius and he a prince
that you know, you want to him play pads and
John Donald was like, I have an idea, but you
know it was a jelope at best. I mean, it
would just kind of run and then work. And then
you know, when we did the American Music Awards, the

(23:15):
fact that it didn't double trigger was was you know,
because the double trigger it was your fault. It's not
it was always your fault. I was going to ask you,
all right, maybe I've used it three times in my life,
and we started using in the years because the vibration
of the monitors on stage in the base offset the

(23:37):
drum set. And I mean of the hundreds of hours
I've watched, I mean I've watched concerts just to see
how you react to stuff, to cues and all that stuff,
has there ever been a a faux pile, like, oh,
I don't have a job tomorrow, like oh like twenty
five times as water ever, still doing it as a machine.

(23:59):
Just off. First of all, maybe I'm a star turned
into Simon says, so he's hiding his stop on the
one cueues. Mark had to relay them to me because
he would so what he would go. He would just
lose himself or do it on purpose. I never really knew,
you know, it was like is he just messing with us?

(24:20):
Or he would just go way over the way to
the over there and then he looked at Mark and
go stop on the one you know full well I
can't see. Well, yeah, it would go you know yeah.
Besides that though, the biggest problems. He would hold his
hands up, fingers up in the air to give us
how many horn punches? And then it would if you
if you saw it sideways like that, you're like, you

(24:43):
couldn't see how many? And then you know, he could
tell if you weren't playing, if you weren't like, well,
I'm like, because I didn't see how many them? You
know things there was one there's were Bill and I
just discovered, uh was it? And New England somewhere the
Worchester mass show. Yeah, we know from a hundred that's

(25:07):
that's Atlanta. There's one, but there's one in Boston where
I think you have Bobby. I think you actually played
a little bit. Yeah, he did five extra Yeah it No,
the show was so loose, it was doing possessed. The
show was so loose that he actually said, Okay, I'm
gonna get you, and I'm gonna get you, and I
know I'm gonna get you, and I'm like and I'm like,

(25:28):
wait a minute, who challenges this band to mess up
at an actual show? You know? Yeah, Well, I'll say
one more technical glitch that used to take place for me. Uh.
We were using the first what are called MIDI Musical
Instrument Digital Interface switchers for the keyboards, you know, racks.

(25:48):
We'd have like racks of sounds. And if you were
making a program change in the middle of your song,
and there would be sometimes several if you were holding
down notes or a stain pedal and you made a
program change, the whole thing would just lock up in
the and whatever chord you were playing would keep playing
and you couldn't shut it off. So if you'd be

(26:10):
sitting there in the middle of the song and just
be end up doing this and then we'd have to
hit the panic button or the keyboard tech would have
to run over and hit the panic and make it
shut up. But then you had like nothing, and it
was a big It was a nightmare. So you had
to time your study your switches really, you know, quickly,
it just right, split second stuff, because it didn't the

(26:30):
technology hadn't caught up quite yet with Yeah. So then
so one one day I get called in the dressing
room after the show after one of those problems happened,
and Prince goes, what what happened during that song? And
I go, well, there's a technical issue and nothing I
can do about it. And he goes. All I could

(26:52):
say was I can't have that in my show. And
that was it. And I'm saying, well, I don't know
what else today we got this technical limitation. I'll do
my and then you just have to work with it.
You know. It happened on any song, It could happen
on any song. It didn't matter. That's what I liked
about him, though. Yeah, but he was okay, there was
a work ethic that he plays that you were not.

(27:13):
We would never get anywhere else he put. He trained
us we're like battle ready at any time. That's why
we could leave for twenty five years not see each other.
When we came back together and we hit the room,
it was we all just looked at each other and
started laughing because the energy, the power, everything was still

(27:34):
there and there was the sound that is so distinct.
I played with many bands since I left this band,
but nothing, there's nothing like it. I don't know why,
but there's a chemistry that we have that he developed
with us. It just it's there. It's prevalent. Was he
always the first to arrive, No year, No we waited, man,

(28:04):
I mean first of all going back to the again,
you know, and that was the first to arrive in
the last leave. But Wendy's story, you know, when she
told our recent shows about the freezing cold Purple ran
and his advice to you know, start your car, let
it run for three hours when we did the Capri Theater.
You know, it was just I drove him over and
you know, rusted out pinto station wagon. You know, he

(28:25):
just said, I want to put gas in your car,
run all day because he didn't want it to get cold.
He just wanted to make sure that was warm. It was,
so it was really I hear these exaggerating like you know,
Siberia and just kind of if you look at the

(28:47):
globe on the top. But yeah, I mean it gets
it gets. It's just gets purple here on the wetter Man.
But you know, I just want to go back to
the show. On top of all that stuff, there was audibles,
four or five, maybe six audibles that that I have
a tape called um ice Cream, which is a fifty

(29:07):
nine minute jam which is just working on the sixteen
bars of ice cream. We got it all right. Let
me explain though, when he's when he gets to confusion
at the end of the fifty nine minutes, that means
we had just done that for Confusion a month or
a week earlier, where we spent a hundred hours figuring

(29:28):
out these audibles. The audibles were extra hard to see.
They were a sleight of hand that there were a
stump on the foot, they were you know, a stripper
butt move. They were just all kinds of things that
you had to watch. Remember the napkin dropped. The napkin dropped,
you had to hit when it hit dam it still

(29:49):
keep the pace but makes the hit. There was fans
blowing everywhere, so the thing would kind of like be
on a journey on the way down. He had Alan
Lee's on the side of the stage. Just wait god,
and you know when he'd go, Bobby see two hundred
dollars when the friends are going it like that, just

(30:12):
gotta fire. Those finds were real. They were real. It
all depends what kind of Yeah, they were real, but
it all depends what kind of mistake. If you remember,
there was two kinds of mistakes, whether he was in
the spotlight or not in the spotlight. If he wasn't
not in a spotlight, changing over here and he heard it,
you could sometimes hear him laugh at you. But if

(30:33):
he was in a spotlight and you missed something, it
was usually a twohunter dollar yikes. Remember I lost twelve
hundred just couldn't figure stuff out. Brain song. Yeah, you
get a brand new song every days that changes every
day on top of everything else. As he was bored
to death, So isn't listening for you guys? You mentioned

(30:54):
a new song? So how long would he give you
guys to learn a new song? Sound chick, just sound check.
That's why I developed the rumble tech the rumble technique
on the base because I got tired of getting fine,
so I started going, you know, in the beat with
the drummers, and I started doing being it's like you
played but no melody. Yeah, that's so weird because I'm thinking,

(31:18):
like held, just trying to get through like like a
play and let's broken and play. And he loved it.
He loved I mean when he hear that, yeah that
even be like okay, Mark, just rum the rumble and
then we started holding song like that. You know, most

(31:40):
of the stuff I play, if you were listening on stage,
ain't no notes. Know that's like that. It's amazing. I
can do spins and foot back foot. I can't believe,

(32:01):
like I'm thinking, like this is this is a new
technique because I tell my player Marted to do the
same thing, like listen to this, you're sta uh fake
while I have you So you're saying that at no
point where you I mean this is in the early eighties.
Of course, the technology was not invented for perfection yet

(32:26):
it was not. They were glitchy, you know, things could
so every night that that when doves cry solo had
to be spot on and and and just how like
well like when you heard it, you just thought like, okay,

(32:48):
we like, how would you he said decide he would
decide for you or not always. But I know when
I first heard that solo, I was scared out of
my up. Well, there was a studio technique he used
to create it wasn't that wasn't it was two. It
was too quantized. No, not expect he never sequenced. Yeah

(33:12):
here he did very speed. I'm not supposed to tell
that eet ll right now secret. No, I told this
story before, but he played. But he could play that
if he really wanted to. He's capable. But he could,
I mean in real time he could have, but he

(33:34):
been in the studio. He used it to write it
so he could really perfect it and write it just
the way he wanted it, and then sped it back
up again. So then I had to of course cop
that solo and play it live. Yeah. Yeah, And then
of course it's just his problem. Like Darling Nick was
like all photography. You know, it's like one day, okay,
Darley Nick three four and I'm just sitting there going,

(33:57):
how are we going to do that? You know, on
the records, it was like a double kick drum the
next day and it's like, well that's gonna not gonna work.
So I figured out you said, all right, well you
got a night to figure it out. It's on you.
And I'm like, how am I gonna recreate Darlene Nikki live?
So when he just calls us songs of random, all
the stuff is pre programmed in your Lyne drump depends

(34:19):
on the song somewhere live drums some are played and
this is beautiful ones. You know automatically that's nine program
nine or like right, but you're jumping way ahead. When
we were rehearsing for the Purple Rain tour, the record
is like this this you know, creative, overlayered, amazing thing.
But to do it live, all these parts like he's
talking about that, Matt was saying that there's tricks to

(34:41):
everything he did. I mean he meticulously, you know, whether
it was us playing or him playing would kind of
you know, get it. You know, he was set up
in Sunset Sound. He was just the wizard there and
he was just completely you know, just just did you
have those flans effects on your when you're Lynne drumming? Yeah,
we were on through pedals you know, an through you know,

(35:02):
just boss delays and stuff and you know, just getting
that's where the loops. There wasn't anything like that. So
mountains is just the land through all these boss delays
and you know, so everything was was new. But you know,
he the technology was, as we discussed earlier, it was
being developed and technique. So like Darling Nikki is that

(35:23):
that double kickdrum where he's just against his the other track,
he's just going with his fingers and he could play
with his fingers on that thing. I mean, he could
just go, I mean buttons and he was just perfect, Okay,
let's do Darling Nikki. And it's just like okay, okay,
so you know then I'm gonna be fired. The final

(35:46):
show up the next day, it took the box home
and me and the box head that come to Jesus Mon.
He really just kind of really got. I just said, well,
I'll just do this program going with a visual light, uh,
and then get to the program data right, data. So

(36:06):
during data I had to switch patterns. I had the
one extra but and then I just go to and
then it looks at me so and then I did
I did it like he did it, which was the
big kick from softer Path, so it had a technique.
And then he came back. He goes, nice job, let

(36:28):
me fix something, and then he puts them both on
the loud kick so when people hearing it, stuff and
the whole was kicked from the people because yeah, that's
what I want, just like weird things well you know,
and I would die for you speak. Getting back to
don Bats, he added Midi to the lynn so that

(36:53):
we could connected to my synthesizer and have the base
part play sequence through the whole I was going to
ask how who handled you know, that whole thing, But
it was played in the studio. Prince actually played that
manually through the whole song. It was not sequenced. It
was him on the oberhind and did like he's talking

(37:16):
about on the dray machine doing that. He did it
in the studio and created that tight through the entire song. Perfect.
It was many times you just felt like that's a
musician and you're not. Many times okay, so I I
kind of have to know, and I know everyone has

(37:38):
like these purple Wing questions, but surely life had to
have been there must have been a sea change leading
up to Purple Rain and then life after Purple Rain.
I mean, did you guys took the Rolling Stones to
Purple Radio that I should simbolize you brought that up.
What was could you describe the the Rolling Stone l

(38:01):
a incident? Well, I want Mark to speak to that
because that was just that was your first time on stage. Yea, yeah,
that was pretty interesting because um, I was scared to death.
I'm sitting but I knew the Rolling Stone, see you know,
I knew that was rock and roll bikers, Hell's angels,
you know, And I was like, how is this gonna work?

(38:23):
We sing it hit jerky jack you off. I'm like,
this is gonna be interest. I said, I think we're
gonna be dead after this, right yeah, man, I'm telling you.
We hit that stage and it just looked like cattle.
Have you guys heard the tape? Yeah it sounds good,
but there's a guy. There's one tape for her with guy. Yeah,

(38:45):
I look at that. Whoa. They just threw something. Whoa. Yeah,
you're not gonna last or something. But that started with
an orange hit his great, great great fruit, I mean,
just great to the road. Got stuck on the keys,
the tuning keys. So I was so out of tune.
I didn't even know how to tune a thing, you know,

(39:07):
And so we're playing what song is that hun or something? No,
it was he came out of the game with Bambi. Yeah,
it was why you wan't treat me so bad? I think.
And I was way out of the basse, was out
of tune, and I saw Jack daniels bottle come up
on the stage crash his head. He he just ducked
his head in an empty Jack Daniels probably just went

(39:28):
like right crash against the drum riser. And I looked
at Lisa, and then when I was looking at Lisa,
things started coming like projectile incoming. I got hit with
a bag of chicken. I don't know. I mean, it's
like taking out to me. The second thing right, like
they didn't know what was coming. The second thing they

(39:49):
brought stop him front. But the first time it was
like they hate a step much. I think, you know,
they're just throwing their lunch at us. I mean, you know,
it's like where were these objects come from? It was
just like you can bring lunch to rolling Stones. I mean,
that's what I mean. It's like you know what it's like.
It was just like Mark said, So it was like

(40:09):
bikers and you know it's the Stones, but they were
The doors were at six in the morning at the
at the at the Rose Bowl, it caseum and so
they were there all day and then we went on
at two in the afternoon. So it was like all
day Rolling Stones Festival. You and Jay Giles bend right,
Jay Giles and George So you guys were first. Yeah

(40:32):
we were meat and yeah we were just meat. So
then so you say the stadium was schooled by then,
because yeah, well in my physician like, it's always influe,
like when we do like Dave Matthew shows twelve people. Know,
there were a lot of people, was at least half
there was a ninety thousand seed venue. Yeah, I just

(40:53):
remember it looked like cattle and they had the fire
hoses and they're spraying people down. Yeah, it was crazy.
And then there was a food fight. There was an
actual food amongst themselves. Yeah, looked like clouds, just clouds. Yeah,
so that was like the rap show of the day. Yeah.
But you know what you never hear about this. You know.

(41:14):
One thing I just wanted to say is that that
later on during the Stone set, they actually threw it
must have been two dozen pair of shoes up on. Yeah,
but love when you think it was out of law
because there was rescue. This was one was love. One
was why were they throwing shoes though to get picked

(41:37):
to pick it up? You know, just it was you
know this they were aiming at our heads. I know
they were nicely. I just thought it was odd that
they was up there on stage at him, and he
of course he just said, you know, I'm not an
effing doormat back to the audience. Yeah, I mean, wait,
you stayed to watch the show? Oh yeah, sure, prince
like literally he left too. I was gone, and he

(42:00):
got on to play and went the Minnesota and Mike
had to call him. Mick and Deaz said a column
and and and now without without the technology, like it's
not I think it's like both on a phone technology
back in the day where you used to both kind
of put the phone up and both listen to the phone.

(42:20):
And Mick, you know, with was with with Dez and
I know the management and uh, but the story I
remember at most is that he had had enough and
we couldn't end songs without his cues. So when he left,
we left and he went down and he walked up
the we're playing and he's walking back up the big

(42:42):
red carpet with the Stones villages, and I see Bill
Graham at the legendary promoter, like tear after him and
say a few things hand expressions. Who knows what he said,
you know, the classic you'll ever work in this town
again or whatever he said, and he just turned around,
came back into the song, got on a plane, went
to Minnesota mixer. Do you want me to talk to

(43:05):
the crowd, you know, because Charlie and Bill came back
and they were great, you know, they were apologetic and
you know that, you know, our fans are rotting stuff,
and they were the Prince, do you want me to
say something to the crowd that I wanted you? You know,
Mick was the reason why we did it. He loved
dirty minds so much. And Prince said to him, I
don't need my mom to go up there and tell

(43:25):
anybody anything, you know. So he he he was indignant
about it. And he came back, and the dressing him
before the second was the most tense thick air I
ever had with him in all the years. That moment
before the second Rolling Stone show was just We're gonna die. Yeah,

(43:50):
well I got hit in the remember the Prince almost
got hit with glass, but then we go ahead. I
was just remembering the limbo when we were leaving because
I got out of there, and I remember he said
he was so embarrassed. I think because that was my
first show. He wasn't. Yeah, he said, he says Mark
and he liked this. And I said, well, I said,

(44:11):
Princess the Stones and you don't have to talk to me.
I know how rowdy they get. And he says, no, no,
you don't understand. When we hit our first show, you're
gonna see my audience. And he says, it's night and
day from this. And I didn't know what to think
of that, you know, because I haven't seen anything. I
come from the Chitland circuit. So it wasn't even the

(44:31):
same after that, or was it like even more? Usually
talked to him at least every third or fourth day.
I didn't talk to him for about him four weeks
and he was just in the in the in the
Purple House which became the Purple House later but on
Lake Riley, and he was down in the studio and
then he called me one day and he said, I
want you to put some you know on the syndromes

(44:53):
on a song. And we put syndromes and little with Corvette.
And I was excited that, you know, he he was
in good spirits and he was ready to you know.
Then we best kind of went down south where it
was safe and just played and played and play gets

(45:17):
the Rolling Stones. Yeah, good, we do. We went back
to find the love you know, started that is one
of them. You think, like a show in l a
like to me, that's like the best thing in the world.
Hap we did Pittsburgh, we did Stanley Theater. That was
my first French French audience, and I'll never forget the

(45:40):
love was different. It was, oh man, this is what
he meant. Not so south. But we went to find
the loves. But you know, eventually at Lanta, and you know,
I mean Atlanta was another you know, Fox Theater. You know,
we we just we did it. Whatever happened, he figured
out who his audience was and it certainly became him
the Stones audience. Later it's just you know, he'd learned

(46:03):
from all that. But the physical I mean it was
definitely you know, this just like professional baseball football, you know.
I mean, you know that and we're at that standard.
That was a loss and there wasn't many w's to come,
but you know that was a big you know, forty
one to nothing beat it. I almost think that maybe
it's a good thing you guys went through that too.

(46:23):
I don't know, my head is like, Okay, that's gonna
make a stronger, more determined totally. That's sort of thing
you have to go through that. I've never cried before,
I mean like that, I mean it was terrible. I
mean it was just traumatic, to tell you the truth. Yeah, yeah,
I was actually pretty shocked what happened because I didn't
leading them to it. Were you excited? Like yeah, that

(46:46):
was are you kidding me? And it was like amazing, man,
I mean, you know the Beatles Stones at Solivan, you know,
the whole thing. And I was like, this was meet
Charlie Wattson. You know, everything was just but you know, well,
so someone else and put it to me that, um
and this this is like this person's theory on on

(47:07):
being born in At least were prints that even though
Prince was technically a baby boomer, that the audience of
the baby booming wasn't his audience that technically he was
the older brother the generation X, so all the kids
and the younger siblings of the Rolling Stone audience would
be Prince's audience. He wrote the Stevie Earthworn and Fire

(47:34):
Rode was where he went Earthworn and Fire's audience. Obviously
with Cavala Ruffalo, they knew how to do that, and
Earthword and Fire was had done such incredible you know
with handing magic and Earthword and Fire really changed everything.
And then then you know it was it was just
crossover smashes and Matt opened up, you know, uh uh

(47:57):
really in a way that we could uh're going but
um the way we did. But obviously, you know, the
Midnight special and there was you know, there was a
lot of TV that didn't go right until Saturday Night
Live and that went right, and then all of a
sudden we were you know, we're focused after all that.
So when things are eating during the tour, I know

(48:21):
that the time was the openings for you guys. Um
was the folk were really as ten says as it
was as far as like you to the point where
like you guys cannot open for us in New York
like were they was? It really that much of a
threat or and then I could speak on this. I mean,
I used to have conversations with dude every night. I'd

(48:41):
be like, friends, these cats are burning it up as
that they are burning up the stage. Dude, He's like that,
don't got nothing on us. You watch, you watch, And
this was every night, and I think he started seeing it. Yeah,
it was like it wasn't really that bunch because even
though I've seen tapes, I'm not seeing audience reactions to

(49:04):
the time. There's just no comparison. This is what I saw. Okay,
this is what I saw. Prince was starting to cross.
Prince was starting to cross. The time was still in
that that that black audience. So that's what you saw.
But I think that was the whole goal, Like Okay,
this is me as the black group, and this is me.

(49:25):
You know, I thought he wanted that, but he did.
But the audience, you know, they come from the hood.
They the time was like, oh what the bird and everything,
and so we were going more rock and rule and
so you know, they are certain songs like let's work.
You know, we would play certain songs because we had to,
but he really wanted to do the Little Red corvettes

(49:48):
in the nineteen nine he he was changing, so there
were points where the audience just wanted to like, okay, okay,
they're doing let me sit down, and it got tight.
You could really see the shift. And that's when and
he took them off the tour and he had to.
He had to. He had to. He had to, in
my opinion, that's just my opinion, because he took him

(50:09):
off in a market that my my relatives never got
to see him, which was New York, and they were
heated because they thought like we never got to see
the time in their prime, like doing that, doing that,
doing that period. So it was really tense. But the
tension um at the end of the tour became really

(50:31):
bad to the point where it was real The food
fight ensued. So I was just weird, It's another show,
but it was insane. So I'm standing at the stairwell
in New Orleans, at the Stanley Theater in New Orleans,
and um, all of a sudden, Drome looks at me

(50:51):
with an orange in his hand and then just help,
I have a light colored suit. I don't know what
dress dressing on principle to mean, Is this what happened?
To you, I said, Jerome to sent me with an
orange and it went what And it was like I
just thought nothing of it. And to him that was
like Pearl Harbor first shot shot, the first shot in fire,

(51:16):
and it was like he got so enraged that it
just all I can tell you is it turned into
two days of complete chaos, hotel rooms trashed. Uh Jesse
Johnson as a prisoner of war. It will be a change.

(51:37):
Hand Hauff handcuffed to a cob who had the handcuffs.
Check everything, brass knuckles and cuffs, whatever you want was
actually part of this as well. Chick was there, got
Jesse Johnson, picked him physically up, carried him in the

(51:58):
room and handcuffed him to the because he was threatening Prince,
you know, verbally threatening him. You know. Yeah, Jesse was
so heated up, gonna killing you number so that we
had a row manage him. Hewitt at that point he
sent him out to the score Cameraica maple syrup and
eggs and toothpaste, and Jess Johnson's being interrogated and they're

(52:19):
parting maple syrup over his head while he's chained up,
and they're putting toothpaste on him. And the time is
hearing that that kind of prisoner in there. And so Jesse,
jam and Lewis show up at the end of our
set with shields and hefty bags suits. They made suits
out of hefty bags with shower cats and they had

(52:39):
so we were on the audience. Notice in this now
they have later later the later. Yeah, it was having
it all through a sound check on stage. Jesse Johnson
was captured on stage bag on stage and track up.
I thought Jerome was pulled him off and during the show,
during their show, and then the rule was the time

(53:01):
to get drunk, so the time couldn't touch us. But Prince,
I said, Prince chumped up there as Jesse or something.
They captured Jesse, took him to the room and Prince
waited for him. I like chained him up and then
but the end of the story is Jesse breaks free.
We will rap like a monster breaks free off the

(53:24):
walk and then Prince everybody scattered offside. Jenn Lewis are
waiting for us, pelting us with the eggs. We run
from Matt and I run into Roger's room and He's like,
what the heck is going on? Fake? And see We're
like outside and we just kind of it's like looking
at come out into the party. So we hide out
in Roger's room for a minute. We come back out.
They're still waiting, you know. They got eggs, they got stuffed.

(53:48):
And then the end of it, Prince it sent hewittt
out to get pies. Wait, what super wark is open
that late hour? The hotel or something in that car
the pies. Pies came in like in a movie, and
we had a pie fight, pie fight, and then but
Prince was done, so then he come on, let's go

(54:09):
to the hotel and you gun still hotel to open
up Jesse's room and we're hiding. Lisa and I and
Prince are in Jesse's room with yellow mustard. Prince princess
with yellow us the princess yellow mustard. This is gonna
cost a fortune. I don't care. He's like putting yellow
mustard all over his clothes and all over everything. And
then when we hear a noise outside and Lisa and

(54:32):
I are in the closet, it wasn't justice. Then we
got out of the room and he's putting yellow mustard
on his door. As the princess pay for this. It
was like a twelve fifteen, twenty thousand dollars in damage.
Who we had to pay for that. Let's have them
throws TVs out. This is the tour paid for it. Yeah, So,

(54:53):
I mean, was there a kumbayam moment at the end
of it? Was that, like the last Prince Time show ever,
Jam and lo us for our so I'm not really
me and Prince end up sitting in for them, you know,
doing the atlanticship stage. Yeah, because they were they weren't there,
so you guys were playing like stage stage. I hit jams, uh,

(55:15):
terries parks, Prince had jams parts. It's it's a movie
in itself. It's just really an amazing story. And uh
it was war really yep yep. Yeah. Well, you know,
I just want to thank you guys for I mean,
I can go on forever and ever and ever never,
but I really really just want to thank you guys

(55:37):
for uh everything that you've done for music and for
you know, for for me personally. But um, ladies and gentlemen,
you're you're very I just want to say thank you
for being a disciple and thank you for carrying our
torch for us and in the love everything you've done

(55:59):
to keep our name alive and be on our side.
We love you that obviously, John Ware and Dr fel
Blas and we'll be back were more quest Love Supreme
and we're broadcasting from Minneapolis, and we just wrapped up
a great conversation with Mark, Bobby Z and Dr Fink

(56:20):
of the Revolution about a crazy food fight. I guess
normally I would come with a real mushy, heartfelt, emotional intro,
but based on what we just heard, I gotta cut
to the chase. Lisa, could you please give us your
account of the food fight? Lord? Um? Sure, I mean

(56:44):
it's such a story. I don't want to know. How
are you were? You was just all women and children
and Jesse. Yeah, women, children and Jesse. Please welcome the
uses of all muses of all now don't know like
muses just feels like assistance. I feel like you guys

(57:05):
are really the epicenter that he came to. So no
more muses, ladies and gentlemen. Wendy Melbourne, Lisa Coleman, Okay, So,
I mean there's so many questions that I know you're
tired of answering and whatnot, but just for formality's sake, Um, actually, No,

(57:29):
there's a lot of your background before you even came
to uh. I guess under the purple umbrella that I
would like to know about. Both of you are first
of all, from l A. Right, yes, okay, so how
did how did you two meet? Like you two were
childhood best friends? Correct? Well, here's the story is pretty interesting.

(57:51):
Were Lisa and I are second generation l A musicians
where our fathers were studio cats. That's what they're called, right,
they are part of the wrecking crew um. And in
the sixties and the seventies, being a studio musician was
really a really respectable career. You know, you got your

(58:14):
pension based on how many sessions you did. So when
my father and her father, you know we're in their fifties,
only fifties, and all of those cats were losing their
gigs two machines and two single room producers, they started
living off of pensions based on sessions, right, which really

(58:36):
don't do now. Our families grew up together. We went
to the same schools together, we had the same doctors,
we had the same hippie friends, and the parents had
the same drugs and the same the whole thing. Right,
So there were three kids on Lisa's side, three kids
on my side, and we grew up together. Growing up

(58:58):
in that kind of environment, we were very well versed
with UM, what it's like to be in the business,
what it's like to be musicians, what the separation between
entertainment and artistry. We we knew the difference. So I
think being hired by Prince that I think there was
an asset for him because we had a real UM.

(59:21):
We had already had a big definition of that in
our own personalities by the time, at least I joined
and Lisa joined UM, and you know, we had bands
together with our front with our siblings. There was an
unreleased record on A and M was It's It's a

(59:43):
based off of a really horrible food substance, Waldorf salad.
It parent we went we all went to a Waldorf school.
We all went to Highland Hall, which was this Waldorf school.
As a Stey in her education was real hippie, like
you get to crochet and do you with me and

(01:00:05):
make cut me? Yeah? I mean, I mean, but at
the time you're you're making it like it was a
lame thing. But at the time was it like fun.
Like the name of the band is lame Waldorf salad.
I'd have to say my father rest in peace. Okay.

(01:00:26):
So well, my father and her father are also the
ones that were the band for the Partridge Family. My
dad was was Shirley Jones and Lisa's father was the
little girl tambourine player and all the sessions. West Farrell
was the producer on those things, and yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:00:50):
and the Side and Marty Croft Show, which I've told
you about. You're going to make my dad like freak
out of here's this he's done on Your father did
with the Seeing Dan records. So your dad was much
than mine at that time when though they were both cool,
they did a lot of cool things. So what else,
like go through the resume, like what else has your

(01:01:12):
father done? Well, my father really started on uh motown sessions,
um and he I mean he played with everybody. I
didn't even know what all he played with until recently
when he tried to design a website and he was
trying to write his discography and all the albums he's

(01:01:32):
played on, and it was it was just immense. Yeah,
I mean almost every record that was on the radio
in the sixties, like from sixty three on my dad
was on every song, you know, being being a percussionist. Yeah,
so back then it was like a percussionist was really

(01:01:53):
a cool thing to be. I mean, on a Phil
Specter session as a percussionist, that's the wall of sound
and I'm like, oh god. I mean my dad also
played on like Marvin Gaye, he played Conga's you know
on What's going On and that Hell record. Yeah, stuff
like that. When we went on tour with U when
I don't know what tour it was a dirty mind

(01:02:14):
maybe with Prince were in Detroit. They took us to
the Motown mansion for a little tour and there was
a picture of my father on the wall. My dad
never knew that his name is Gary, Gary L. Coleman. Amazing. So, uh,

(01:02:34):
you can go on the internet and see both of
our fathers on the pet sounds Um recording sessions because
my father is doing all the he did, played all
the organ stuff, yeah, like good vibrations and all that
kind of Yeah, there's a great father. Michael, Michael Melvoin.

(01:02:55):
I remember your father beaming with pride as uh he
entered you know it on that very night when my
father introduced us on the Grammys and my daughter happens
to be one of the members of the revolution. Prince
looked over at me like, I'm going to kill you,
going to kill you because normally I didn't do it.

(01:03:17):
I didn't know, I know nothing, because mysteries. I suppose
they normally, like you know, they would you know whoever.
I think John Denver was still hosting at the time,
like for for artists of you guys stature normally like
someone would big would do that. I'm just like that. Normally,
like a narrow staff member would just say what the
rules and regulations were, like, not introduced the biggest act

(01:03:39):
of the night. So I always wondered. My father was
the president of the National Academy of Recording Nearest and
and that year, which is really funny because all of
our Grammys and all of our plaques have my father's
name as the president of NERRIS. It's very trippy. It's

(01:04:03):
just there are so many there's so many connections. So
that night, my father, you know, the National Academy Recording,
Arts and Sciences, was like to welcome everybody to the
Grammys tonight and Barbara, which they normally do, and then
he introduced Prince and the Revolution and special for me

(01:04:27):
because my daughter happens to be a member of the
Revolution and prince at the time. He would be like
if he he was like you know, I mean, there
was this whole aesthetic we had, like dude, smile man,
look badass. Mr. If there was any kind of cuddle
cuddlings when you needed to be I want to kill you.

(01:04:52):
You don't blow the bubbleness, don't do it. I don't
want to care about this at all. That yo, So okay,
this is one. Do you remember anything about the Sunshine
Superman sessions with Melboimore at all? Remember very much? So really,
what's what's the story behind that? Wait? Before you get
into the story, let's let's sing out Melbourmore is Sunshine

(01:05:13):
Superman with you, Wendy and your twin sister Susannah singing
in the children's course. That was Belbimore Sunshine Superman on

(01:05:33):
Quest Love Supreme. We're here with Wendy and Lisa, Princess
Band the Revolution. I don't know for me with with
Sunshine Superman, I mean just as a digger, as as
a create digger. Well no, I mean like the way
that you know hip hoppers discovered stuff is look up
the most unusual things. Ever, and then that's how we

(01:05:55):
dive into the pool of music to research. So you
get these albums, you're like, okay, I'm gonna that, and
then you know, some producers actually read the credits and
see who else is on it, and I kept seeing
Meloy and then you know, and then there's not very
many melvoyins. We're all very closely related. I know this now.

(01:06:16):
So I guess I got to bring you guys to
Middle America. How did you why did you leave l
A to to go to Minnesota? Like how did your
pets even cross? Or I guess Lisa, you were first. Yeah,
well it is. It is kind of strange growing up
in l A and Hollywood and being born to the

(01:06:39):
into the music business. You know, like that was the
steel mill, you know our town. You know, they grew
up in Hollywood, went to Hollywood High you know, my
dad worked in the studios, all local, you know, we
it was all right there. And uh, and then I
moved to Minneapolis to make it big. I'm so lucky.

(01:07:03):
I mean, did you go there specifically to work with
Prince or was like let me let me It was like,
are you kidding? Because it's like funky town just came out.
It was about getting out of it. It's like, take
me to someplace else. Uh no, Um, it was just
through his management company. He had a female cubart player, Gail.

(01:07:26):
And so how did Owen Hunty know to seek you out?
By that? Owen had just been fired and he had
a new management Farnoli and can we probably st Steve Farnoli,
Bob Cavolo and Joe Luffalo. So it was m Cavolo, Ruffalo, Farnoli.

(01:07:50):
So it's only three. I always thought it was like
four or five names. Well, it sounds like it has
a lot of and Guido and you don't want to
know the other guy exactly. We don't talk about those guys.
So they so well, they were just looking for another girl.
And a friend of mine who was my best friend
in school, she had run away from home and got

(01:08:14):
a job at their company secretary and she heard about
it and she was, oh, my god, Lisa would be perfect.
And she told me about it. She said, Prince is
looking for and I was Prince, No, I didn't. When
did you first hear of Princess? I? When I and
I was I left My was the summer of seventy seven,

(01:08:38):
and I went my sister and I escaped our houses
in the middle of the night and we went to
the Starwood, which is an old club here in town.
You could look it up and they had to place.
They had two. There was a disco and then there
was a live stage. So the live stage you'd see
like secret concerts of Devo and you'd see you know,
I mean that's I saw amazing performances there. But in

(01:09:01):
the disco that's where I was. And this one night,
the DJ puts on soft and wet and I'm but
I'm like, I literally ran up to the booth and went,
who's that girl? And the guy looks in paintings. That's

(01:09:26):
not a girl. It's Prince. He's seventeen. He's from Minneapolis.
From that moment on, I knew and studied everything. And
then finding out that this one got the job playing
with him, I was like, you're kidding me? Do you

(01:09:46):
know who he is? Now? And then she's I'm in
the kitchen of the Coleman's house in Hollywood Hills and
Lisa has a cassette. She's just come back from Minneapolis,
comes back with a cassette of Head and puts it
on in the kitchen, so that when that song came

(01:10:07):
on and I was listening to it, I was like
crushed with envy and pride, and I like she was perfect.
She was the perfect addition to his. She was so
schooled and highly cultured. And to hear her voice say

(01:10:27):
I'm just a virgin and I'm on my way to
be with you could tell it wasn't It was uncomfortable
for her to say the way she speaks, it was
so innocent sounding. But behind that voice, if you listen carefully,
that's a really serious person saying that. And I got
that from it, and I was like, this just makes

(01:10:48):
this whole song that freakier. This is correct. It was
almost so dangerous to me. It's like, oh my god,
It's not like some weird prostitute sounding person like this.
It was a trip that's weird, like you had, and

(01:11:08):
I had a moment of how to not get him
on it's weird, like everyone has a soft and wet story.
I'ment a discovery of this guy. So uh, I mean,
obviously I know that Gail Chapman left the band under

(01:11:32):
tints uh kind of this under under this tension of
having this sort of prosial line. Well, yeah, I mean
religion sometimes, I mean can oppress people from doing certain things.
So did you were you automatically told from the gate
like we are trying to push boundaries never seen before

(01:11:57):
and that sort of thing, Like did you realize that
you would be there? No? I just I didn't. I
don't think between Prince and myself, I think it was
a different kind of relationship. It wasn't really that um like,
we didn't really conceive of anything first. We sort of

(01:12:18):
just explored it and then conceived, you know, you know
what I mean. So it was back and forth. But
I did see that in what he was doing, and
I loved it. I loved that it was outrageous and
you know, but you didn't see his stars Born post
during the house, did Yeah? Yeah? Yeah. When I first
flew out to meet him and he picked me up

(01:12:39):
at the airport and it was pretty funny and yeah,
yeah yeah, I was like, I have a manager his
car service pick you like, so there's no no, no.
He his little Fiat and we drove to his house
and I even like smoked a cigarette in his car,
Like mind if I smoke and he was I'm sure.

(01:13:01):
He wanted to say you're fired. He let me smoke
and I used to smoke and um. Yeah. So we
got to his house and it was it was a
trip because I didn't know what he was about, you know,
and he didn't know what I was about. And we
were looking at his just and like what are you about?
And he pointed downstairs. I go down there, there's a
piano and and then I was looking at the posters

(01:13:23):
on the wall. There was like Chris Chris Stopper sending barrowstrics.
It's a little bit like I'm certain that somebody put
that up there for him, Like I can't see him
doing his own housework. Oh that's not true. He did
a little bit. Oh yeah, he was like exactly that

(01:13:49):
that was and he like just putting things on wall
like it's spray paint, pieces of paper. The extra meticulous.
He seemed like he was somebody was extra meticulous. Later on,
later on he was in the beginning that he was
he was he was sloppy. He was sloppy. Yeah, you know,
it's messy. I have pictures of the but you know,
and that, yeah, you know, it's funny because I ended

(01:14:13):
up doing it and making Friday sandwiches. He one of
his last piano concerts, he he talks about meeting Lisa
for the first time the second to the last performance
of his Knees. He says, in that very moment where
he points down and says, you go downstairs, he calls
Steve Farnol and he says, I don't think this is

(01:14:35):
going to work out. Really, yeah, I don't think this
is because there was something about the way I didn't
look him in Yeah, something was weird to him. And
then and then he says he's not supposed to look
me in the eyes. Oh, he didn't know exactly. So
what is it ends up happening is he says, you know,

(01:14:56):
go downstairs, and then he calls Fernoli and the funny says,
I you're gonna get her. I gotta get her out
of here. I don't think get her a flight home.
I don't think this is gonna work. And as he's
saying that, she's down stairs and she opens the piano
and she just starts playing. And if anybody in here
has ever heard Lisa play by herself? And what what
comes out between Sauti and hinder Myth And he said

(01:15:21):
i'll call you back. So you had a classical background,
I mean when when did when did you first start
playing piano as soon as I could reach it. Yeah. Yeah.
It was just in the house, you know. And my
mom was a singer, and she'd have piano players come over.

(01:15:41):
And there was this guy, Dick Gray, who was very
depressed man, but played so beautifully and would accompany my
mom was she would practice, and she was a jazz singer,
and I would just watch and I look at the
shapes and I just always and I still have that
in my mind, like shapes, its shapes, you know, sounds

(01:16:03):
like yeah, yeah, I was about to say the performance
and this, Yeah, so when you heard sounds, you saw shapes. Yeah.
Well it's it's kind of funny because Prince always said
that your sound always added a lot of color to
his music exactly. Yeah, yeah, so I just, yeah, it's
really visual, you know. And and and that's how I
would try to recreate it when after they would finish

(01:16:26):
and I go to the piano and trying to make
shapes again, you know. Usually well every virtual also, I know,
at least in pop music, you know, they have this
higher education first, like they like the Motown guys were
jazz musicians, this pop stuffs whatever and yeah jazz. So
did you feel as though or did your family make

(01:16:49):
you feel as though like you're kind of lowering yourself,
like you could be the next you could be on
this level of classical music. Yeah, a little bit. My
father had a bit of that, because he really did.
He did a lot of times, you know, he said,
you got the talent to be a concert pianist, you know,
And I really I saw that for you and your future,

(01:17:11):
and you know, I would marry the conductor and you know,
all this stuff. And I was like, damn, no, I'm
going to be the conductor. You don't understand, you know.
And and it was and he shouldn't, he knows, I mean,
and my mom knew the truth because I grew up.
I mean I didn't. I didn't know, and I didn't
care what I would play. I just wanted to play,

(01:17:32):
and I wanted to play everything forever, and they got
me lessons and and I was just, you know, lucky
to be advantaged the way I was that they supported
me playing it, you know, at all. And uh, And
it was just my house and my brother, my brother
and sister were both musicians. My sister was a guitar
player and my brother was everything cellist. Here's a nice

(01:17:55):
little tidbit as well as that Lisa's father, Gary was
friends with Tom over time and they had some of
the first since in the house and at Lisa also
learned all of her skills with an arpent hundred in
the house, and so Gary was doing a lot of
music concrad in his tonic. He was a composer yea

(01:18:18):
to a tonal composer. And Lisa learned all of her
tape skills and marking and patching, and yeah, we had
we didn't you know synthesizers were if they were just
like modular things that you had to patch together and
then we would cut tape and little pieces and flip it.
And my dad taught me. Yeah, she was a team,

(01:18:39):
like a young team learning that stuff. So by the
time that Oberheim came, when you were able to actually
play chords on it and like one noted exactly, Oh
my god, then you know she was a perfect person
for Prince perfect. Yeah, And in that way, my dad
was right because he said, if you have the skill
and then you have this knowledge, you're gonna do something. Okay,

(01:19:00):
So I have to jump ahead a little bit. Uh
Rick James's street songs, and Rick and the at least
the David Ritz edition of his autobio autobiography talks of
stealing uh your keyboards and they're already made patches to
record street songs. Um. So by that point was the overheim, like,

(01:19:27):
how much programming did you like? Now? Of course, if
you have a Triton or whatever, it's like ready made
and you know, the kind of does have to work
for you at least to get the patch sound you want.
But how did you have to pre program the stuff
that specifically to get that? Well, to be honestly, at
the very beginning, it was it was actually really cool

(01:19:49):
to just have the big fat, kind of like sloppy
sounding you know, whatever the presets were when they were
first coming out with presets, you know, and they just
had a sound. And the only thing that we used
to do is just like just turned the filter off.
So there's no grand design, like you just know in
the beginning there kind of wasn't. It was just and

(01:20:12):
it just had a sound of its own. It was
just as we would as we progressed and started learning
more than we would kind of tweak the sounds and
make more sounds. Um. But in the beginning, no, it
was really like, that's why you can get an Oberheim
now and it sounds like, you know, good at whatever
c one and it's those those those horns you know,

(01:20:32):
were you so? Did you? Did? You guys discover that
your equipment was stolen to make this record? And every
time you listen to super Freak like that's well no,
I mean my purple ring guitars work ripped off. That
pissed me off? Really yeah, my purple ones? Wait? Who

(01:20:56):
how there was no other opening act? But you guys
well were loading the trucks and someone was I so
they knew instantly price listen. So another theme that uh

(01:21:23):
I noticed that's recurring is the meticulous hours of and
relentless hours of practice that you guys have had to
um put in. And I guess the ongoing joke, at
least for all the things that I've collected, was that
if there's anyone that's an expert at James Brown's body heat,

(01:21:44):
it's you. That's when you said body heat, it was
like a fat yeah, I d like slowly I turned
step by step, Well, I would assume that he was

(01:22:06):
working out stuff in his head in real time, but
he'd have us not move for four hours and he'd
be practicing dance moves. Really yeah, we were Macheese, were pressco.
He'd say, okay, go and then don't don't move, and
he'd be doing well. I kind of wanted there was

(01:22:30):
a period at least that I knew, uh, somewhere between
late controversy, no even I'll say between late where his
dancing was sort of awkward. I eve a dirty mind thing,
like it was more like a big Jagger thing. And
then I guess the first time I realized like, oh god,

(01:22:54):
this this guy's inherited the baton from James Brown's Tammy
Show was uh. I guess when you guys released the
Baby Baby I'm the Star video clip from Maryland and
I actually saw you guys as the new JPS. Like,
was that just the relentless hours of rehearsing and you know,

(01:23:15):
as someone mentioned something about that, and I have to
say that this is all a maturity thing, you know,
And in those specific years, he became mature and he
felt very comfortable in his body, and the band that
was behind him was relentlessly in tune to every movie made.

(01:23:38):
And that was countless hours of not moving and giving
him as much confidence in safety in that environment to
perfect that thing. It's like he was on the high wire,
you know, and we were like the balance, you know.
We we gave him the underneath to keep him up there,

(01:24:00):
you know, and he could just spin around on it,
and we just never kept never looked away, you know,
we kept our eyes on him in that that we
just became a body. There's there's probably, ah, I guess
out there in the in the in the atmosphere. It's
probably i'll say, maybe eighteen or nineteen hours of the

(01:24:23):
morphing of Baby I'm a Star from when you guys
were first rehearsing it for the show, and it sounded
very much like the album version and then suddenly like
the bpms get high, and then suddenly you hear like
the cues come in. And I mean, at what point
did you realize that, you know, with with the idea

(01:24:44):
of him stopping and all these cues that had to
have been a nightmare at least tour wise, and not
made it. It made it the job at hand, and
it we were it was you know, if you choose
to take this mission, you know what I mean, we

(01:25:05):
were there and ready to do it, and like what
else you got try and stump the bad exactly. But
at the same time, you know, every time we'd add
some kind of like if we put mutiny into something,
or if we took a groove from somewhere else and
you know, like tapped it in, it was every time
we were dialed in in a groove, we looked forward

(01:25:29):
to getting to that spot where that groove would have
it could happen because and then he would start doing
a little yeah you do that, and it was almost
like that thing that happens when you're when you first
hit mocked two or three and you just yeah, you
feel like the groove actually sits so tight you feel

(01:25:52):
like you're in slow motion when the groove is that good.
And everyone looked forward to that moment, and every time
he wanted to push it and do more it, more
of it, we had the runners high with him. So, Okay,
I know I'm asking like a lot of privileged questions,
like the only only stuff that I've heard like the

(01:26:13):
average person has an art um, But I kind of
have to wonder if this is true. Um so if
I tend to notice that better, the best shows ever
are always the shows with the least or in the
cities with the least expectations. So I'll say that you know,
a town like Providence, Rhode Island, of I mean, as

(01:26:37):
a person who's heard maybe least of all the Purple
Wing concerts and like studied meticulously, I noticed that some
of the smaller cities, you guys, were just like in
this incredible zone. But I would listen to a New
York show or in l a show and I'd be
like a man, they didn't they didn't do it like that.

(01:26:57):
So I can only imagine and I only haven't talked
to Alan noticing that, like Michael Jackson might be in
the artist. I was just going to say, it depends
who's on the list. Who was on the guest list,
So there was a lot of people on the guest list.
The show became really mannered, intense. It was like you know,

(01:27:18):
if it was you know, like it was Kalamazoo Michigan,
you guys at the time, because it was for the fans.
I mean, it was more it didn't and it wasn't
because it was famous people. It was more like we
found it than the suits. Yeah. Really yeah, well you
two also hold that I guess the distinctive dubius honor

(01:27:39):
of sort of crossing over from his stage world into
his studio, which I guess the folklore is that you
know that that was Fort Knoxer, you know, just like
no one gets influenced into didn't. It's true. There was
just a small group of people that how are you

(01:28:01):
able to even gain trust on that level? At least
two play him things like here, listen to this and
listen to this, and he was offered it. I mean, well,
he said, I need inspiration, would you no? No, no, no, no,
I mean for me if you don't mind, because I
was there early on and even you know, like I
lived in his house, you know, in early early days,

(01:28:22):
and you know, he'd take a nap or something, and
like I'd be in the studio messing around, and he said,
one time, I remember that piece of music I did
for Miles, just my stepdad. It was just for fun.
Uh and um, he was taking a nap and he
was hearing me play and everything, and he was just
like that was I had the best dreams. And you

(01:28:43):
know that was so beautiful and and so he knew
what we had, you know, and we can stop you
one second. You said the most amazing thing Prince left.
Oh yeah, oh no, it was just he blinks. That's
really funny something in his eye for a second. This

(01:29:05):
is this is something people don't know, but this is
really really cute. So in his bedrooms there, you know,
because he sleeps, it slept at funny hours. So you know,
the rooms were black, but the blankets and the comforters
were about three ft deep, right, like just so he'd

(01:29:28):
like you you just see like a little tube of
like an imprint of a little on the bed just
at c and just maybe a tiny little pillow imprint.
But this is tube. I mean it was he was
that sounds he was a tender button. I thought it

(01:29:50):
was like the intercover with like the watercolors. Well you
know on his windows. I was leaving in the bathtub,
you know he was he no, he was, no, he
was kitty with all My little pony, yeah, Lisa and
I used to call him my little pony. Did he

(01:30:11):
hate that or like no, he hated it, but he
loved it. Who you know, and girls girls love ponies.
Cut never mind must change itself. So I mean at
the at the rate where you know, I guess late

(01:30:38):
eighty four mid. I mean, you guys were pretty much
a Lennon McCartney combination together. I mean, could you speak
going on just at the point where you were full
fledged collaborators, And it became apparent that he really relied

(01:31:00):
on us for a certain thing when he would be
sending just a master with just a scratch vocal and
a piano idea and say finished this trust and so
a lot of Sign of the Times was done that way.
So just scaled he was really he was more you know,

(01:31:21):
making the movies and getting you know, he was getting
his head into other things. Relationship was like that, right, Yeah.
What's weird was that you guys weren't using patches. You
guys were those were Middle Eastern like yeah, we would
get yeah whatever. Brother was also like a proficient my
brother with Arabic instuments. The song we Can Funck was

(01:31:45):
David's song. Around the World Day was David and his
you know, arab and varsity influences. So we used that stuff.
You know, that's amazing, um, okay, I know, and and
private I always asked about the Japanese weren't running. But um,
I guess in the past few months, I guess the

(01:32:10):
video has finally surfaced. The smashing of the guitar. He
told me when you saw the smashing, we just me
and Lisa and Bobby looked at each other and went,
it's over. It's over, because why would he destroyed because
he was already piste. He was pissed anyway, there was
something happening, and he was pissed, and there were more

(01:32:31):
people on the stage, like Sheila's band was on the stage.
He looked at me a couple of times during really
pivotal sections and said layout. And when he says layout,
you're out. It's not good. When Prince right, when he
looks at you and doesn't want you to play, he says,

(01:32:52):
lay out. And when he said I was like, Oh,
this is not good. What's going on? And then he
looked at Miko and said turn me go up, and
I was like, Oh, there's something happening here. And then
when we played Purple Rain that night and he smashed
the guitar, I was just wow, really is this happening.

(01:33:17):
I think it's happening. And we got off stage and
I was panicked. I felt it. I felt it big.
At least, it's like, stop overreacting, stop over reacting, Donna done,
And I said, no, no, I'm telling you, this is it.
It's done. We all flew back to our homes and
Prince flew back to l A had at rental there.
It's a funny story. We flew back again, and he

(01:33:39):
called us two days later to go to the rental
and pulled us into the room and said, I'm going
to be going in a different direction and I can't
ask you guys to where nipolis bras and crotchless panties,
which he drew that yeah, true there, and we went,

(01:34:01):
that's true. You know something. Letting somebody goes probably or
at least reprimanding someone is that's one of them the
hardest things I have to do. And I hate I
can't stand it. No, I mean, I'm amazed that he
even he it was okay, It was incredible that he

(01:34:22):
had that, and that that he what he said was
the way for him to feel comfortable enough to let
knew that willis and I would go, well, you're right,
we won't do that. He knew that that was his
inn and I understood that was his way of saying it,
and I knew ultimately that wasn't the truth. He just

(01:34:44):
was ready to take full control back and felt like, yeah,
spend myself. It was just turning into it was almost
and did you guys go straight into your solo album
right away? Me and Bobby and Lisa, we went, yeah.
I have to say that you know more more than

(01:35:08):
I think. The album came out with August thirty one
of seven I'm sorry, Like album came out of the
same day that Michael Jackson's Bad came out, and I
distinctly remember listening to their record more than like, you know,

(01:35:29):
the whole world was waiting for Bad, and I was hilarious,
Wait what happened? She heard Bad on the radio? She
called me from on the freeway. I had one of
those phone with the big her on the phone after
I heard Bad on the radio whatever, and I was like,

(01:35:51):
here's the single bo Do Do Do Do Do Do?
Wait for it, Lisa, keep that in your head but
put him together and that It was like, you're kidding me,
because this is a musician joke, like circus music, circus

(01:36:13):
because of music. It's something that we joked about years
prior as it being like a jo musician. Yes, the
thing that goes like this, this is a single, and
when you're both like it's a it's a smash, smash

(01:36:33):
my circus music. Give the people bothing? Well, exactly real quick.
Both of you were there for a meeting between Michael
and Prince right, not me? No, we were. We weren't there.
He came back, No, we were. No. That was different
was that when he wanted when he when Prince got
the call to sing on the world, No on dad,

(01:36:58):
and he's like, the first line, your bud is mine. Okay,
who's seeing that one? On the interview with Chris Rock
was like, imagine me saying your blood his mind right,
exactly right, I'm gonna happen. I'm not seeing it to
you and you're not seeing He was like, so how

(01:37:18):
did I mean not how did it feel to you know,
start creating music on your own without his input? In put?
I mean, what were those first if you you know,
I've loved everything that you guys have done, uh in
your soul west Wing, like everything blot legs out there
and with these Yes, that's funny, that's here's the thing.

(01:37:47):
And I said this at his one of his memorials.
Um everything that I played then and still play now,
I say to myself, I wonder if you'd like it
really to this day, I still do it. So he

(01:38:08):
was sort of a measure of my push and my standards.
That's a hell of a standard to have. It's an
amazing standard to have me. I'm sure you feel exactly
the same way. Hell yeah. I mean, you know, I
don't know why no one's just call me because you're

(01:38:34):
not no, but I mean it's it's mean to you
maintained an identity. You maintained You're not an imitation. There
are plenty of people out there that are fanatics for
him and have emulated and learned everything, and they do
not have an identity. There's appreciation and then there's invitation

(01:38:55):
exactly you know, Okay, we're you guys are aware of Okay, Okay.
I work with a lot of hip hop, which I
mean those hip hop kids. Um, I mean, you know,
we we want to have an aesthetic in the nineties,
like you know, no biting allowed, no copy and like

(01:39:15):
you know, do your own thing individually now like everything
is just derivative of each other. But um, were you
guys aware of the ready for the world. And but
I don't know. As soon as I heard oh Sheila,
I was like, oh my god, here we go. But

(01:39:37):
the thing is is that I feel like I always
felt that this wasn't just like oh let me, let
me copy prints or whoever. The I just feel like, Okay,
you guys just happen to have the blueprint and these
are the new set of rules. So the way that
Cameo made ship in the comedy like that was out
the windows, and now this is this is the standards.

(01:39:58):
So yeah, it's just like pink sho lists, you guys
like laughing at like, you know those groups in the
early eighties that were like only some, only some. But
for the most part, I got it. You know. It's
just like everything. You know, chick singers in the sixties
don't sound like chick singers in the eighties. Chick singers

(01:40:19):
now with all that melisma and that and the mid
range stuff is like what everyone sounds like that now
and that's just standard. So that's just how we Yeah,
it's a human thing, how we evolve. Kind of hundred
monkey were you guys? This was accepting in this politically

(01:40:40):
correct no, No, we were No, we were cocky kidding
me well, because at one point, I, until I started
hearing the rehearsal tapes, I didn't even know if you
guys were even aware of modern music. But then I
would hear like rehearsal teams in here, like oh, okay,

(01:41:02):
he doesn't know about talking heads, and well, I'm I.
You know, I have to say, I'm the Lendy's always
I'm informed. I'm the DJ, I know, I know everything.
And when I when something was good, I pulled him
aside immediately. I mean I played him slave to the

(01:41:25):
rhythm and said, you have to listen to what happened
with these chords right now, right now. Steve Lipson, Trevor
Yes co produced it, but Lipson and Bruce Willie did
those yeah, And that was important for me to make

(01:41:49):
sure he heard that. When when I remember, after we'd
broke in the band up and um do the Right
Thing had just come out, and Lisa I went to
Minneapolis and I was a fanatic for the main title song,
and ah yeah, and I um I put it on

(01:42:10):
there and at Paisley and he wait, he were still friends,
and he seemed visibly angry at the track, and it
was because he was so uneasy I think with Chuck
D and what that the cadence of Chuck's voice being

(01:42:35):
in that lower sort of demanding frequency kind of freaked
him out. It didn't seem it was like why are
you Why am I being assaulted with that? And everybody
assumed it was played in the room. Everybody's getting up
and dancing, and I think it's like the metal people
when they hear Nirvana, they oh my god, it's changed.

(01:42:56):
And I think that he knew it changed right there.
He knew it, yeah, but he also he had a
different goal, you know, and I think he sometimes maybe
found it hard to when when the weight because I mean,
come on, Chuck D. That was genius and he knew it,

(01:43:19):
but it was it was It was almost the antithesis
of what Prince was trying to do, Like he was
aiming at your grandmother now, not at your kids. Chuck
D was aiming at the kids. And then Prince came
back with sexy motherfucker house quake and he's like, I
can do that. I could suck you up. Often times,

(01:43:44):
like you know, there's syndromes and people kind of embracing
things that they normally would resent in the first place,
and then wind up embody you met, just youth. Just
you know, time goes by and you go, I get it.
I totally get it. Um. Well, okay. On on a

(01:44:06):
final note, I would just like to know, uh, with
the reunion of the group and carrying out the mission, Um,
how how's this process been bringing the band? It's like
the Blues Brothers. Wow, it's paint blood on your thumb,
it's blood on. Lisa described me and Bobby and Matt

(01:44:33):
and Mark as five people jumping out of an airplane
with our parachutes on, trying to do formations after learning
each other's hands. Someone went down there too far on it,
trying trying to find formation. I have to say that
I haven't seen the show, um, especially when when April

(01:44:58):
came on. I mean I told you, I ran out
of there like I couldn't take it. Some people cried,
some people crying. I was like, well, I really want

(01:45:22):
to thank you too, uh for for everything that you
guys represent. I mean you know, I mean you you
would think the smallest sound bite would mean nothing, but
it's just like you know, you read like, oh okay,
she's in Jody Mitchell. Now I'm at the library skilling
all the Johnny Mental records, and I'm hearing that you're

(01:45:42):
playing more chords with your fingers, and now I'm making
my keyboard players play like nine notes with just five
fingers and Lisa just three on each. And I've always
told you, like you know, you're the air parent to
Jimmy Chank Nolan of the JPS, and it's it's you
two are definitely one of my favorite people ever, and

(01:46:04):
I thank you so much for doing the show with us,
and and just on a on a on a note
for you, you have been the greatest champion of him
in such a beautiful, respectful, intelligent way, and you have
such a way of pointing out just the right stuff

(01:46:26):
that would be would help the listeners understand him and
what his musical influences. And you know, look, the Revolution
wasn't you know. We're not, you know, a bunch of
Juilliard grads where we were a band that was meeting
potatoes and clocked really well, but we were an entity

(01:46:48):
and to have you validate that for us is really
lovely for us. I'm on it, ladies and gentlemen, Lisa
and Wendy. We're in the road broadcasting from Minneapolis, where

(01:47:11):
we just finished talking to some core members Prince's former
band of Revolution. Now let's chop it up with Prince's
original guitarist as Dickerson an original basis, Andre Simone, give
it up, lazy and gentlemen, thank you. Um. Yeah, So
we've been pretty much just reminiscent telling stories, and I'm

(01:47:34):
kind of interested in everyone's beginnings before uh, they arrive
in Minnesota and sort of develop, uh I guess, or
become a part of the movement that will become the
movement that will influence a lot of people. Now, of course, Andre,
I know that you're probably key to the very beginnings

(01:47:57):
of Prince's life. Um, as far as his h musical
movement is. Um, but what was what was your musical
background as far as your family is concerned, and before
you guys developed what you did, like, what was childhood like?
And you were born in Minnesota, Okay, my dad was

(01:48:18):
a musician. That was my musical background into my family,
my brothers and sisters. I was the youngest of six,
and um, you know, they all had various musical you know, tastes,
and that had a lot to do with you know,
just my person, um, my personal kind of perspective on music.

(01:48:39):
What did your father play? Okay? Was he? I mean
what was the environment like in Bobby and think explained,
uh sort of explained how they grew up in the
suburbs of Minnesota. And I didn't realize that there was
such a deep music culture here, I mean as far
as them explaining what the folk music was like. But

(01:49:01):
I mean what area was your father in that we
are the projects projects are pretty much all the same
all around the country. So so how did I know that,
you know, music was very regional. Um. You know, now

(01:49:22):
with the internet, you know, someone in Siberia can get
a reference that came from southern Georgia that you know,
in lightning time. But I mean, how how did culture
and what was hip and what was not hidden? What
was you know, how how did you discern what was what? Well?

(01:49:42):
I mean you know again, um, and I don't I
probably don't have to tell you this. I mean, you know,
being black period, you know, um in America is an
interesting you know, just reality. And so being black and
a predominant, very predominantly society, you know, and and obviously

(01:50:03):
during the time that I was growing up and becoming
conscious and understanding what was going on in the world.
You know, it's a very very um, you know, moving
experience because music is unbelievable, I mean because your motown
you know obviously, um James Brown, you know, and then
you know, obviously you know the Beatles, and you know,
Jackson found a lot of a lot of stuff was happening,

(01:50:25):
and a lot of people were saying some very very
um interesting stuff, you know. And for you know, my
my family was very very militant, very much you know,
into the community. So just I mean, I think that
combination really had a lot to do with, you know, musically,
a lot to do with at least where I came from,
where my family was coming from, because we were you know,

(01:50:46):
I had a cousin that was in the music. He
was in a band, and that's how he even got
exposed to a band. You know, my cousin was in
a band. We you know, I went to go seeing
rehearse when I was like, you know, a kid, and
that's how I even knew how you conducted rehearsals. So
I brought that you know attitude towards when we started that.
So your your band experience. Uh, I was assume in school, like,

(01:51:08):
what was the first band that you joined or formed?
We started grant cent so grandson towards your first That
was all of our first bana, well, me and Prince
and Charles. You know, how did she too me to
even know that you had something in common? You know,
like I said, I came from the projects my mom
um ah um, you know she was, I guess at fifteen.

(01:51:33):
You know, I had her first child at fourteen whatever.
But you know, my dad was very old fashioned. They divorced.
She wound up going back to school college, got a degree, um,
and I wound up getting a really good job, moved
our family out of the projects into an upper middle
class black neighborhood, and I had to go to a
different school, and so um, I just you know, the

(01:51:56):
new school was like, you know, I didn't know anybody there, right, literally,
I just they line you up and put in the gymnasium.
They lined everybody up, and it was just a line
of dudes, and I didn't know anybody. And I just thought,
I don't know any of these dudes, and I don't
even know if I like any of them. So I
looked down the whole line and then I saw this
one dude. They looked a little bit like me, and

(01:52:17):
I thought, I go stand next to him. So I
stood next to him and I said, you know, my
name is Andre. You know, he's like, my name is Prince,
I said, you know. So we started talking. I said,
what do you do? He said, I do music? I said,
so do I said, what do you place? It played piano?
I said, oh, I played bass, you know, and so
we should hook up. My dad has you know, like
a piano and you know, a little uh um. I

(01:52:41):
didn't have a base at the time, so he said
his dad has a little U four string acoustic guitar
kind of bass slash whatever. So we went over there
and that's that's how we hooked up. Yeah. Wow, everyone's
bass story minister starts with just for string. Brown Work
was saying that he ordered a base in the series
catalog and broke two strings. Two strings were broken, so

(01:53:03):
that's he came from from based by default. Um was
the name Prince a usual thing. And in the sixties,
like you know, you know, it wasn't John or Thomas
or you know, like mostly among probably small four lad animals.
But his dad's stage name was Prince Roger. Now, but

(01:53:28):
you didn't think that was unusual that that's your name, Prince,
like you know, he wasn't relentlessly teased for having you know,
well I don't, I mean, you have that well you
can't ask him, but um, I have no idea, but
I know that in in that community, in that neighborhood,
we had Caesar, you know, we had so unusual names
were just started. There was a lot of very sort

(01:53:50):
of you know, um regal names. And then you know, yeah,
so at what point did you two start playing together
to know it Okay, we gel and maybe we should
do something right then? Yeah, that was That was because
when we went over to his dad's house and we jam,
you know, we were like we hit it off. I
mean because it was it was the first time I

(01:54:11):
ever met anybody that had the same passion about music
that I did before that. I am you know, you know,
I would tell anybody, you know, look, you know, I'm
gonna be uh, I'm gonna be a superstar. I'm gonna
be you know, Jackson five. I'm gonna do this, I'm
gonna do that, And people would laugh at me. And
when I would say it to him. He was like,

(01:54:32):
it was like, yeah, let's do it. So anyway, so
was there a a thought to make it happen in
Minnesota or did you to think that, Okay, well we
have to go elsewhere and let's go to Los Angeles
and there we'll make it as musicians. Like no, I
don't know, Well it wasn't that, you know. I mean,
I think the reality is, I don't think kids think

(01:54:53):
like that because we were like thirteen fourteen. Maybe, um,
you don't think I don't think you think like that.
I think you just put together band because I think
at the time that was what was going on. I mean,
there was a lot of really cool bands, you know,
Like I said, my cousin was one of the He
was a drummer from one of the dopest bands in
the in the city and he was unbelievable drummer. And

(01:55:14):
then you know you got other things like the Elks
and stuff like that that we're all those were big
things for you know, young kids who want to be
a musicians. So but I think you just, you know,
the attitude was that you gotta start here first, you
gotta start putting put a band together. And you start,
I mean, you know, does knows this stuff? I'm sure
you did the same thing. You gotta put a band
together and then you gotta you know, then you gotta

(01:55:35):
know move from there. So does were you born in Minnesota? Like,
what's your I was born in St. Paul, Hi. So
it was life different in St. Paul than it wasn't
Minneapolis or was it really a twin city? And it's
definitely twin cities thing, you know. St. Paul was sort
of the more provincial, you know, twin sister of Minneapolis,

(01:55:56):
but but less so then you know what I mean,
there was a lot more similarity I think between the
cities and then Um, but my folks had moved up
from from the South. They were from Clarksville, Tennessee. My
dad moved up to go to art school and then
basically yeah, yeah, his older brother was at the U
of m Um and it was in his like his

(01:56:18):
senior year or something, so he brought no, No, he was,
he was in his doctorate, That's what it was. And
he brought my dad up because my dad wanted to
come up here to go to art school. So he
convinced my mom to marry him. Brought her up and
so I was born and raised up here. Really, so
what's your musical angle, your connection, Like, what was your

(01:56:40):
first moment in discovering music? And well, my dad was
a musician. He was a sax player, and he quit
to raise the family. So he actually joined the navy,
was actually in the ship's band, played saxon the navy,
and got out and you know, started working two or
three jobs. So one of my earliest memories is hearing
waking up in the middle of the night hearing music
when my dad was working like sort of second shift

(01:57:03):
post office. He would get off work and um, I
remember one night waking up hearing music and kind of
creeping halfway down the stairs so I could see what
was going on in the living room and there's like
four cats playing saxophone in the living room at you know,
two o'clock in the morning. Well that's because my dad
would get off work, you know, wide awake work with
some other guys that were all some musicians, and it

(01:57:25):
would be like, well, it's coming over to my place
and we'll jam. So they would jam like in the
middle of the night. When I was a little kid,
So to me, music was just something that was just
there and that was that was what people did. He
had a huge, huge record collection and you know that
whole thing. So knowing your your your history and your

(01:57:45):
your vocabulary and knowing how much of a shredder you
are and and the rock influence, um am, I just
assume that you chose that particular route to go straight
rock to adapt into the environment that you were in,
or like did it does naturally speak to you, like
what he just spoke to me, It chose me. I

(01:58:06):
mean we when I was until I was in fourth grade,
we lived in the inner City. Then my dad it
was really he really felt it important to move us
out into a better school system. So um but even
while we were still you know, in the hood, it
was it was guitar that spoke to me. I remember

(01:58:27):
going through my dad's record collection and he had this
King Curtis single and I flipped it over and played
the B side and it was just raucous, like rock
and roll thing, and I was like mesmerized. I mean
I would listen to it over and over again. So
I just always felt like rock chose me. I didn't
choose it, you know, it was it was in my

(01:58:49):
DNA somehow some way. What were the early bands that
you joined before I started a slew of bands. My
first one, I was fourteen years old, um, and and
I had to pay to get in my first gig.
We played like the ninth grade dance, you know, Junior
High had at in but you know it was like

(01:59:11):
all like Grand Funk Railroad and you know that whole
thing and the first several dance because I was in
I formed or was in like nine different bands before
the audition at Dell's Tyre Martin you know, all those
years later. So um, you know it was always about
power trios in the beginning, you know, playing a whole
lot of like Black Sabbath and led Zeppelin and Deep

(01:59:33):
Purple and you know, anything with long guitar solos in it.
That's what it was about. So okay, Well, did to
hear this this this tale the Two Cities? I mean,
how expansive that your vocabulary? And this is for Andre
and and does I mean how expansive digit vocabulary have
to be? Uh, in order to get these sop hop

(01:59:56):
gigs and whatnot? Like you know, would you say that
you're would you have to adapt to whatever environment you
were and if you knew that it was a high
school for you know, black kids, you would know what
the black stuff was. And then if you mean, was
it integrated audiences. But that pointly was in in my

(02:00:17):
background because we we had to literally go from playing
little tiny towns you know, East Crevice, Iowa at the
Team Center, you know where we would go from playing
Oh yeah, I was. My folks used to have to
write me notes to get me out of school early
after high school so I could go. We found a dude,

(02:00:37):
they could drive, and we would go and we would play.
So we would have to go from like playing you
know in Emerson Lake and Palmer song to an average
white band song to you know whatever. So it was
definitely about that. But again I had grown up seeing
that because in the Twin Cities at that time in
the sixties, there were multi racial bands that there were
bands that that had you know, blacks and whites and

(02:01:00):
Hispanics and and everybody. Some of the most popular bands
in town were multiracial, and you know, so in this market,
it was just it was just a different thing. Now
you had to play with the people's music. But that's
just the way it was. So was it as utopian
for you andres well, wasn't just straight life, no, no, no,

(02:01:24):
we know we played Phone R and B and we
played in the hood. We played at one of the
clubs called a Bucket of Blood Blood. We literally my
brother and I mean, you know, because like I said,
we came from the other side of the town and
so we were playing at um, you know, clubs where
you know, people would getting shot stabbed. You know, my

(02:01:45):
brother was there with his girls, and you know, it
was just it was it was a different reality, you know. Um.
And then my mom you know, would get a lot
of our a lot of our gigs and so you know, um,
and then you know, we played at barbecues. We played
it back ares, you know, we played it, you know,
anytime somebody was, you know, having to get together. You
know sometimes they even be you know, parties people have

(02:02:07):
down their basement. They'd want somebody to play. And we
you know, so we you know, it was it was
it was another reality. Okay, So at the rate where
I kind of want to push it up a little bit,
um that you guys paths Cross, because I assume that
in Prince's first incarnation of the band included both Dez

(02:02:31):
and Andre Andre is definitely the o G because you
guys started out in school together, right, But I mean
at the rate where when he got a deal, Like
how big of a deal was that once it reached
the local Minneapolis circuit, like one of us is going
to make it or that. That's like was it a
big deal or was it just like okay, yeah, it

(02:02:54):
was a big deal. Absolutely, it was a big deal.
I mean it was like, um, this is we you know,
what we had worked for and built up to. I mean,
was it was it awkward? Though? I mean, because I
don't know if I'm pretty sure that with anyone it's
like okay, if we get there first, then I'll pull

(02:03:14):
you with me and that sort of thing. But this
is clearly like, okay, one of you is going to
be the the focus in the center of it, as
opposed to it being a group situation. You know, It's interesting.
I I I heard, hum, I guess there was a
documentary with Chris Moon because our band, you know, we
had won a Battle of the Bands, and one of

(02:03:37):
the prizes was free recording studio time. Um and I
think maybe seventy five dollars or something like that. But UM.
So that's that's really kind of how it happened. You know,
I know that it's you know, there's all sorts of
different stories and everybody's got the myths and all that,
but the reality is that's what happened. And Chris Moon,
you know, UM heard us playing was trying to figure

(02:04:00):
out how he could getting you know, getting involved with
this this band because at the time we were hot.
We paid the dudes and worked our way up, and
everybody was you know, I'm really talking about us. I
mean at the time it was as a band, um,
and it wasn't like oh just this guy or oh
just do guy or or whatever. Um. But um, because

(02:04:21):
he came in and if you watch the documentary, says,
you know, I went up to you know, because he
came up to me and he asked me, and I said,
you need to talk to my manager. And then he
went to Prince, he said, because he said he looked
like he'd be the you know, easiest guy to sort
of deal talk to. I would like to know, at
what point do you really push the envelope, because you

(02:04:42):
guys weren't just an average group. I mean, your your
television debut caused many many. Uh yeah, I mean I
remember seeing a thing was was Midnight Special before after

(02:05:03):
American Bandstand. They were real close together. I remember I
remember Midnight Special and just the utter tone and discussed
my dad had about it, you know, and all he

(02:05:25):
took away from it was no, no boy should be
wearing no diaper, no stage like you guys just looked
like nothing ever, one like who's I mean, how are
you guys like with a straight face, like Okay, we're
just gonna do things that we've never done before. I mean,

(02:05:46):
how is that even come to fruition? Like you know,
I think a lot of what that that sort of
natural chemistry between you and Prince when you just first
saw each other in school that day. I mean I
think that actually kind of play itself out in the
band a lot. Absolutely well. It wasn't like you know,
we we do. You guys even stood out even in

(02:06:07):
the local localization of Yeah, no, I mean we were
you know, it's like, who is your closest competition band
wise and nobody in a second No, no, no, I
just meant in terms of when you I'm talking about
in terms of Grand Central, what other band would you?

(02:06:31):
Um uh, Sunny Thompson their band. They had the most
unbelievable band in the city at the time. Bar I mean, like,
I mean, I would go see them. I mean I
was you know, I was extremely cocky. You know, I
was like, I you know, my attitude about being a
musician because I really felt like, if you really do

(02:06:53):
what you're supposed to do, practice and play and all
that kind of stuff, then you know, you pay the
costs to be the boss. So I would talk a
lot of trash and just you know, it was basically
in my nature at the time. You know. Um, you know,
Prince was a little more laid back, but I was
probably the opposite of that. So I was always talking trash.
But the one band and I didn't talk. You know,
I went I remember going to one of their gigs,

(02:07:14):
you know, thinking about I went there specifically to talk
trash so we could That's how I would get gigs,
and I went there specifically, you know, to talk talk trash.
And I went there and I was like, because Sonny
was killing it in the drummer and the Randy Barrow,
but the drummer was Joe Lewis is still a friend
of mine. I mean, Joe Lewis is just I mean,
he was the coolest drummer ever because he would do

(02:07:36):
all of this stuff that you know, you know, all
the funky stuff, all the funky licks, but he just
always had this rock and he had this fro and
he just looked like I mean, it was the seventies
and it was just he was the epitome of a
cool drummer. And so I was just blown. I'm that
just that, And I went back and said, we got
up our game, you know, and so and that wasn't

(02:07:57):
even you know, distance, and that was like a distant
way beyond our whole thing. That's when I was like,
we gotta up our games. So anyway, Um, there's one
particular project I would like to talk about that never
really came to light unless you're deep in the bootlegs circle,
and that's the Rebels. Um, what was the was the

(02:08:19):
Rebels just like a weekend idea, like, hey, let's just
for starters. You guys record at the speed of sound,
and you know, the entire project can be done within
a week. So to even have that much output in
in such a little time, like, what was the beginnings
of the Rebels or the idea of it or was

(02:08:40):
that just a folklore that's only in Minnesota fan music. Mine,
it's real, But I can I can tell you what
the real give me the real. I mean it was
like you know what I mean, I know the folklore,
but what was the what was the basis? The real
deal is is he had a band of very talented musicians,

(02:09:03):
you know, and you know we had done some stuff,
you know, and we probably could have gone off and
done other things. So rather than have us scramble out
in the different areas and go do solo things here
and our own thing, then it might be a good
idea to give them something to occupy themselves. So then
this is keeping from moonlighting. It's kind of like it's

(02:09:24):
kind of like the same theory that some parents use. Well,
we'd rather have you have the party here. We'll get
the alcohol and make sure that you don't leave that.
But it was still fun. I mean, you know we
had I mean, we had so much fun. And that
was that was you know, I got to know, there's
a whole lot better And why didn't guys come out?

(02:09:46):
Is one of the funniest dudes on the planet Earth.
He kept me and Stitch especially that project go ahead.
I'm sorry, Yeah, why didn't it come out? It was
a decision that was never really clear, really articulated to us,
you know what I mean, which happened from time to
time subsequently because those songs weren't complete. That there's at

(02:10:08):
least five or six that oh yeah, it could have
easily been on the Dirty Mind record. Yeah, that it
was a record, and they had the different personalities of
the different members of the band because everybody wrote stuff
and everybody brought things to the table, and that was
his His vision was that everybody contribute, you know, so
personally maybe you know something I know, but I don't
know what happened to it. Who always in this band?

(02:10:30):
Who exactly were the members? It was the band? Yeah,
and I Gil Chapman was a keyboard player at the time,
and uh, it was the same band. But I guess
Prince would have lessened his role and made it less
about him and more about a band unit. At least
that was the idea, I assume, yeah, And I think
what happened because the record company when they got it,

(02:10:53):
they wanted to thrill you or kill you to be
the single, and thatbly might have been, you know, because
the whole life. The whole idea was to get the
band and occupy them until we did the next to
already finished, you know, his next record to put out
a single with one of the band members, you know,
their song as the lead single. It could maybe be successful,

(02:11:17):
which would change sort of, you know, you could lose
a certain amount of control, you know, possibly, But you know,
I think the thing is is that the bottom line
is I think everybody at the time, we're very dedicated
to his thing, to his project. I know I was.
So it was like I mean, and I only found
that out through obviously through the management because you know,

(02:11:38):
the Manasical was constantly talking to me, because you know,
Prince wasn't a big talker. I know. It has to
be weird to mix friendship with business, and it's like,
at one point you guys are best friends, but then
like clearly someone has to be it. Oh, and that
could make it awkward. Um. Probably the most notable thing,

(02:12:01):
at least for both of you, is that, um, both
of you stepped away from the camp and left camp
right at the moment when the I guess the climax
or the explosion. At least for what you guys have
been relentlessly doing all these endless hours of rehearsal for

(02:12:24):
and you know we we've already discussed the rolling Stone situation. Uh,
what's happened in L A H and another segment um,
But at what point? I mean, I'm not saying for
regrets or anything like that, but I mean, how hard

(02:12:45):
was the decision, at least for both of you to
step away at the times when you both did to
to pursue your own career in your own interest. I mean,
for me, it really wasn't hard at all. Because the
day that I auditioned at Dell's Tire Mark, the influous
fifteen minute audition, Prince and I went out in the
parking lot. He asked me some very deep, very career

(02:13:08):
minded questions for a young man of that age, and
basically said, you know, he posed it to me this way.
Would you be willing to come help me do what
I do? And then when the time comes, you know,
you help me make this thing work, then I'll help
you do what you do. So we had a deal

(02:13:28):
from the beginning that at some point I was going
to go back to being a front man, to be
in a band leader guy. So he came to me
after and said, look, here's the deal this film. I
need a solid three year commitment do the films. And

(02:13:49):
at that point in time, I just couldn't get my
mind around three more years. So the other option was
management will take you on right now and we'll get
your record. You can go do your thing. It just
for me, it really really felt like I need to
do this now. So it was it was not hard
at all, and I was back out on the road
within you know, four months. I was out solo shows first,

(02:14:13):
then on the Rebel Yeltour with Billy Idol's special guest
out there. Yeah remember that, uh, Dre, I guess it
should also be noted. I mean, you've done a lot
of work, uh, since you're probably the most notable, is
uh your production for Jody Watley's first three first three albums.

(02:14:36):
What was that transition like? And I mean what was
the feeling too? I mean really really truly scored. I
mean because this wasn't just like you know, throw it
on the wall and see if this you know type
of I mean, this is really impactful and it was
Grammy nominate, well it won, you know, So what was

(02:14:56):
that just process like? Well, I have to agree with
that as it was easy easy to leave that situation,
not just because it's like, you know, my whole thing was,
you know, three albums, you know about it. You know
that should give you enough time for your thing to
jump off. And you know, then I wanted because I
never thought about being anybody's band, so um so. And
then I did the solo stuff and I did Space

(02:15:17):
music and the record company didn't get it and they
didn't promote it. So I went and said, if you
guys are not going to promote it, wy, don't you
just drop me. They wouldn't drop me. They heard Kelly's
eyes and didn't feel like yo like and so I mean,
but that's that was it. And so they wouldn't let
me off the label. So I quit recording UM, and
so I thought, well, I gotta make some money. And
I met Jody when I was doing on the video

(02:15:41):
for Finance Electric UM, and you know, we wound up
hanging out and I was like, you are really really talented.
You should you know, and she had some some stuff
that she was working on UM and I was like,
I'd love to, you know, shoot you some tracks, and
I shout, I think five tracks and she wrote lyrics

(02:16:03):
to him and I guess the rest is history and
he started looking up. That's amazing. I wish I had
more time because I have so much more I want
to ask, but I want to thank you dezon Andre
for being on the show, and we'll be back with
Susannah Melvoin. Wow. What can I say about our next guest?

(02:16:23):
One of my favorite favorite people ever? Um, I can't
say enough about Susannah Melvoine, twin sister of Wendy Melvoyne
and member of the family uh Seminole group whose record
like had tremendous influence on me, and not to mention

(02:16:45):
just her presence alone is inspired so much life changing material. Uh.
Welcome Susannah Melvoying to Quest Love Supreme. Susanna, Yes, Susanna,
how are you? I'm good? I had to know growing
up in such a musical family in California. And first

(02:17:12):
of all, do you play any instruments? Because I'm curious
about siblings who, uh where one particular sibling picks up
an instrument and the other doesn't. I know that Alan
Leeds his brother Eric is a monster saxophonist, but doesn't
necessarily he doesn't play instruments himself, like, are you do

(02:17:32):
you play any instruments? Well, I, like many singers, I
can play the guitar, I can play piano, but that's
not the that's not what I do, Okay, So yeah,
I know I was well, well, Wendy was guitar lessons,
I was ballet answer and then we were both session

(02:17:52):
singers as kids because of my dad. So I mean,
in did you have any does I used to become
singing yourself? Where you were? You just you just happen
to have a good singing voice. And that was that,
and you know, I never thought of anything else ever

(02:18:12):
I had. I was terrible in school. I was great
in art, and I was horrible in school, and I
was thankful that. I was like, I don't need to
go to school anyway because I have this other thing
I want to do and that's all I know how
to do. That's but that's what I do. That's what

(02:18:32):
I was born into. Wendy and I and Eve and Lisa,
all of our families grew up together. Our parents were
session players and their wrecking crew, and we just we
were just in music all the time. We went to
schools where you know, I had to play recorder and
nursery school, and you had to play violent in second grade,
and you were we were. Wendy and I were in

(02:18:55):
all state choruses, and it says, you know, we just
that's what we did. And but there was a time
when your sister mentioned something when she talked about her
first encounter with Prince, and she said, it's so as
a matter of fact that it didn't even hit me
to question it. She said, we were thirteen years old

(02:19:16):
inside of a nightclub, and I'm like, wait, what was
the karting policy that developed physical kind of both It was,
you know, four those times where you know, I don't
know how we got away with it, but Dad, we're
going out tonight. How old are you thirteen? Yeah? So
I was picking us up. We're going to go to

(02:19:37):
the star Wood and he told the truth right straight up,
straight up, like we're going to library. No, no, no, no, no,
I went to church. Just need to see the Thanksgiving
purple range that I got on plegment. This was crazy.
Wendy and I would go at the thirteen year old
girls and we would we were the only I don't

(02:20:00):
know how it happened, but when you and I were
the only girls at thirteen who were not going out
to do dope or we were going out to dance.
That's all Wendy and I wanted to do. We were
kids that we were so heavy into disco. We were
just such dancers. We would just we were doing the line,

(02:20:20):
we were doing the hustle, we were doing everything. We
were doing all this new stuff. We went to school with.
We went to this crazy little art school and the
Jackson five had gone to this school. Michael had graduated already,
but Randy was in a grade or grade or two
ahead of us. And we'd sit in the parking lot
and we do line dances together and do all that,

(02:20:41):
you know, just crazy. It was all about us dancing
and are you gonna go to Xenons tonight? Are you
gonna go to blah blah blah, We're going to We're
going to start wars on Saturday. Rust is an amazing
thing when it works out perfectly well. When you've got
kids that come home and they're not, you know, ft
up and they've just been dance all night, there's something

(02:21:01):
that you know and if your kids are sort of
straight up, I guess we were, you know, or my
my father was a knuckle head. So did you just
prints at the same time that Wendy Madam Moore? Did
you come in later? When do you realize, like, oh god,
there's another one of you. I was working when I
got out of high school, and um, this was right

(02:21:21):
before I got the gig with Quincy. I was working
for David Geffen. Got out of high school. I got
a gig answering the phones at Geffen Records, the David
Geffin Company, and after a while I'd be like to
have a cup of coffee company. You have a cup
of coffee company, David Effing company, have a cappaa company.
It was just running, running, running anyway, Christmas party night whatever.

(02:21:41):
I'm seventeen years old, Christmas party for Warner Brothers, and
I already know Lisa's got the gig already. Um like, hey,
my sister got Wendy and I've been listening to those records.
We've been dancing at the star Wood too. You know,
I want to be your lover and all of that.
We're like, who is this woman? Um, so I you know,

(02:22:08):
I get this silly outfit on this my first time,
Like you're going to go to a really big corporate party,
and I just was like, oh God, I can't believe
I'm gonna do this. I had my hair permed and
it looked like a poodle and it would just like
the whole thing would move at once with the wind,
and I it was a silly, little black thing. I
just felt ridiculous. And I walk in and there's Prince

(02:22:29):
and Vanity standing at the wall, two of them together,
Me and my little litle self. Hi, I'm Wendy's twin sister, Susannah. Um,
I just wanted to meet you and say hi, and
you know, not no clue that like this guy's best songs.
And he he gave me that sweet little smile and

(02:22:56):
he said, Whendy's your sister, right, And I said mm hmm,
Lisa's my sister too, and he was like oh. And
then Vanity lean stand. She grabs my face and she goes, oh,
you're so cute lookouts and I was like, great, okay, fine,

(02:23:21):
aren't you cute? Cut to purple rain rehearsals. She's out
the door, walking out the door, the last day of
her gig. She's out. It's like, we got to find
another lead. And here comes Susannah walking in to rehearsal
and she came right up to me, You're gonna have

(02:23:41):
the best time ever here. Wow. And I literally I
was like, I kind of gave her like, why do
you keep talking to me like this? And I could
see him and he looked over and he was like,
he's took his head. He went like that. And that

(02:24:03):
is funny because Dez had his birthday party. He and
shortly like within that weekend. It was in August, and
I went to his birthday party and I'm sitting on
the couch and incomes Prince. He comes walking in, he
jumps on the couch, sits next to me, and he goes,

(02:24:25):
did you dream of me last night? And I said,
just so happens I did? And I had uh huhh.
And you know there's other stories, but that's when it
all started. That's when it all started. Then then Prince
had heard my demo. So we used to have used

(02:24:46):
to go to the airport and pick him up in
Lisa's car and he comes stay with us at our
The three of us lived in his teeny little house
on Melrose, and so we would go pick him up
in Betty Flounder. That was Lisa's car, and so it
would be when Dean Lisa, we'd have Betty Flounder and
no Betty was around through all the purple rain, and
even you remember Betty Flounder was like an old Buick

(02:25:07):
fifty six fifty seven Buick salmon colored. So we'd all
go to pick up prints with Betty Flounder. He called
her Betty. We were all like in Betty Flounder, and
he'd come and stay with us. I got two questions.
I got two questions. And I don't know is the
fact that I come from and the era of music
that was just so overdone with budgets and whatnot. But

(02:25:32):
I would think during this time period, like like you
guys are picking each other up from the airport. First
of all, Prince was taking a plane. Because in my head,
I'm like, oh, he took a plane by himself, and
we go pick him up at the airport and he
comes stay with us, and my cats would jump all
over him and he'd be on the couch and he'd
be like, cats, what do you least we're a baseball

(02:25:53):
cat something to what? For four? Was this post? This? Okay?
So at LEAs in our heads because I'm thinking, like,
this guy cannot step out the door without getting mobbed.
And I know that some of that stuff is, you
know what we just saw growing up his kids. But

(02:26:15):
he could take the plane and maybe one or two
people be like, oh there's Prince and yeah, yeah, particularly
with the three of us, and I'll pick you up
from the airport. But the time you need to be
here and we'd be there and pick him up, and
there's no person sign like Prince Nelson, not during this time. No,
But I imagine his flying outfit is different from his

(02:26:36):
perfect you know what I mean, Like his whole look
is different from his hole was always different. But he
was this is a beautiful kid, you know, he was
a beautiful kid. I mean, and he would you know,
just wear you know a vintage old you know, Grandpa
coade and he looked so beautiful in it. And he'd
wear his you know, his jeans and need wear you

(02:26:57):
know whatever top I mean, and that's he'd just come
out that I mean, there was no it wasn't like
who's that weirdo? Was just like, who's that cutie pie?
And he'd be so confident, he'd be so happy to
be coming and hanging, and there was it. I just
can't imagine him flying commercial or him a Pinto or
that's the sort of thing. Oh no, you not many

(02:27:21):
people know how important this particular period of time was
for him and for us because this was like this
we became. It's so interesting because talking about it now,
but but we became like pals, but most completely deep,
Like you know, not many people know that. Like he's

(02:27:44):
sleeping on the couch and our cats are running and
jumping on him, and he's saying, can somebody get the
cats off me? You don't imagine prince sleeping on a
couch in a household. I'm gonna say that right from
the JOm. No you don't. But then it's that's what
it all. No, but I'll tell you a really funny story.

(02:28:06):
So one of the nights he's there, Um, we lived
in this aty bitty place and it didn't have bathroom door.
It had one of those sort of saloon doors. It
was horrifying, and it was in my bedroom and so
it's like if anyone needed to do their business, it
was like, Okay, everybody's gonna get out of the house now, right,
or nobody's gonna be around just like just yeah, just

(02:28:30):
hear anything. It's like just horrifying. So I'm in that
room and Lisa, when what am I supposed, you know,
if I need to what you know, if I need
to She said, well, just tell her to leave the room.
So nothing went further than that, but he did come

(02:28:51):
into my room and he sat on my bed and
I was on one side of my bed and I
had this really crappy mattress and it had a huge, huge,
deep dent in it. And he said, he went, you
sleep in this thing? He said, do you have a job?
And I was like, and he's like, can't you get
yourself a new mattress? How do you sleep in that?

(02:29:14):
I said, I sleep on that side. I don't sleep
in the hole. But I came home the next day
from working for Deffen Records, David Geffen, and there was
a huge mattress at my door. So I was like, so, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(02:29:39):
that would have been like that for me or for us.
But that's that's so funny you should say that. I mean,
it would just never occurred to me at that point
that like he was actually courting me in any way.
I just you know, it was just like this is
a really sweet gesture. And I heard that demo. He

(02:30:00):
heard that demo in that house, this one of these
particular things. And he said, well when he said, can
we play him the demo? And I said, no, don't
play him anything. God, don't, don't blame him. It was
so flipped out because I loved everything he done, and
I was working with Quincy. I was doing like, you know,
session work, and you know, just it wasn't that And

(02:30:25):
I said, I want to hear it. And so I said, okay,
I'm leaving the house. So I left the house, came
back and he came right up to me and he said, um,
you want to come and do what we're doing, because
wouldn't you rather do that? And I said yes and
uh and he said, well I think I think you'd

(02:30:47):
have a really good time. We wait, okay, Before I
let you go, I just had to ask one, Oh God,
what a bummer that I'm just talking about this? No, no, no,
I know, because there's so much more, but I would
like to discuss. I know that he would often communicate
with cassettes, which I mean blows in my mind. I mean,

(02:31:09):
if I'm in the studio making a song, I'm thinking, like, Okay,
how can this be hit? How can like I'm not
just going to make like a song aimed at one person,
like instead of us talking out a problem or whatever.
Like here's the thing. I mean, how many cassettes have
you received of like just stuff for like here this
for you, like like of just customade songs, because that's

(02:31:34):
me is an amazing aren't too? Um none? Even? I
mean the tapes that I would get, The tapes that
I would get were on the floor of my car.
He wouldn't hand them to me. They'd be dispersed at

(02:31:55):
the bottom of the car, and so I'd be like
or like these it for you or never put them
in your hand their mind. Now, No, I don't mean
just that he just left there specifically for me. Well,
I know that he made Lisa songs strange ways of
saying I love you, like they had an argument whatever,
And he didn't say now anything anything that we did anything.

(02:32:18):
He would specifically say, let's go in the studio, you
and me, we're going in. Just we're going in, you
and I were going in, and then you're going to
hang here until you I'm ready to have you come
and sing your vocal and this is what we're doing,
and this is what I'm thinking about. And then that
would be and then we'd listen to everything together in

(02:32:38):
the car and that would go on for days and days,
and then we did go in and do more over
jobs or do you know it just be like that?
But I was It was never. It wasn't. It wasn't
that much. It wasn't that disconnected, like here's your tape.
It was like, we let's go. We're doing this. Yeah,
we're doing Not that I'd even collaborate, but it was

(02:33:00):
like there, you know, I need you by my side
because I'm gonna have you do this, but you're gonna
be with me from the get go. I'm not going
to call you. At some point, you're gonna come in.
You know, you're gonna be with me before we go.
I gotta ask her the Starfis and Coffee story. All right,
for our listeners, could you please please please give us

(02:33:23):
the genesis of the Starfis and Coffee story. During the many,
many car rides together, he would have, you know, occasionally
asked me, um, wait before you say that. You see
car rides? Were you just driving around the city listening
to music. We lift in the car, lived in the car.

(02:33:43):
We would drive everywhere for any reason all the time,
from vanilla milkshakes to going to Minnie Halla Falls and
drinking that milkshake, then getting back in the car, listening
to the music, listen to our music and talking, going
to the lake, sitting at the lake, going back in
the car, listening to more music. No, because he wasn't

(02:34:04):
listening to it, like listen, how badass I am, although
I'm sure he was doing that. It was work, you know,
like we're listening to it, does it sound right? What's
it sound like? In the car when we put something
else on. And there were other there were times when
we would listen to other records, you know, and it
was the kind of records that he'd never heard before
that you know, I had introduced him to, or Wendy

(02:34:25):
and Lisa had introduced him to. And so we would
listen to those records and you know, sonically and you know,
the audio the became audio files like how does it sound?
And what was going on with those records? So but
these this there were many of those rides, and you know,
we would talk about our histories and our secrets and
you know, what was it like here? And would you

(02:34:46):
do with that? And I'm going to take you over
to where I grew up and what was it for
you guys? And I would tell him about this one
story about this girl Cynthia Rose, who Wendy and I
were in school with from nursery school up into sixth
grade and back in this particul the time. You know,
nobody knew what autism was, but she was incredible and

(02:35:07):
just the most extraordinary girl. And he would ask me
on occasion, like, tell me about Cynthia, tell me about
this this story, and so we would tell her, I
tell him and we'd laugh because I would get to
the part where she would say she'd rocked back and forth.
She was like, what would you have a breakfast this morning, Cynthia?
She was like, I had starfish and Peevie. Yeah, star

(02:35:30):
wish and you know what my favorite number is, It's
twenty and she I mean, this was on for years
and she and I loved her. I thought she was
the sweetest cook ever, and you know, I just like
that she was. It was just anyway. UM So this
one particular day and I would I want to say

(02:35:52):
something in the fall of um we were at the
house and we were in the kitchen and he came
up stairs from he said, kick, can you you tell
me the whole story of Cynthia again? Can you tell
me the whole thing with Cynthia Rose? Because can you
write it down? And I was like sure, And so
in detail, I'm writing him about you know who the
class was. There was Kevin and Lucy and you know,

(02:36:14):
Wendy and myself, and there were many other kids. And
there's Cynthia and there's my teacher, Miss Kathleen, and doing
the whole day what it was like to be with her,
to watch her do her And he was like okay,
And then I wrote down you know, and then she
would sing a star fishing and then he was he

(02:36:34):
took it. He was like, m okay. He runs downstairs
and the study comes back up and he says, um,
starfish and peep, that's gotta go. He go, Do you
mind if it's coffee? Because he goes, He goes, do
you mind if it's coffee? Because I don't think I
can sing peepee. I was like, it's all good, go ahead,

(02:36:57):
you do what you gotta do, which and it was
so I was sweet. It was like yeah, of course
you're not gonna sink peepe um. So he goes down
to in the studio and like six hours later, seven
hours later, I mean it's like early in the morning.
He comes up and he says, come down. And actually
it was Susan who came to get me, and Susan

(02:37:17):
Rodgers and brought me back downstairs. And he was standing
at the console, exhausted and sweet little smile on his face,
and he goes here it is and he just pressed
play and starfish and coffee was there, and yeah, you're welcome.
I have so much more, but I got to wrap
it up another time. Yes, there's plenty more. Susanna Melvoine,

(02:37:41):
thank you so much. I have to say that was
an edgy location. We learned a lot about Minnesota and
and what it had to offer, and that was like
a PhD. That was a doctor of course, and all

(02:38:03):
things Prince Minnesota, like I don't think we need. It
was Kurby Puckett and Kirby's dead. Actually, thank you, Kirby's dead.

(02:38:23):
So when you were like I learned that I'm a
lazy bastard. I thought I was lazy just being your
friend for the last few years. But now that I
really learned about Prints and his work, I fink I
need to get my ship together. It was a lot
of stuff, but at the end of the day, it's
about me something. I'm paid Bill. Why is everybody from

(02:38:44):
Minnesota in a fucking musical family? Every one of them
was like my dad played the bates, my mom did this,
and I was just like my parents were doctors, like
I did this is like I thought to myself. I
was wondering, like what it would be like to grow
up because you did grow up in a musical family,
Like what that's like? And how that because like music
wasn't in my house. I didn't live in that world,
like I had to go find it myself. It wasn't

(02:39:04):
on me, Like I didn't learn the church, I didn't
do anything. I don't know. It's just music. The way
they were presenting it was like music was like an
option in my case, like my I don't know if
my my mom was probably Jedi mind tricking me into
music to keep me off the streets, really to keep

(02:39:25):
me from getting my asswop by the neighborhood kids. But
like Wendy and Susannah growing up in like the Wrecking
Crew house like they it was. That wasn't option it
Just like I'm amazing that they told the truth like
we're going to night Yeah, yeah that was. And the
fact you've had parents that would be cool enough to
be I mean I worked in the nightclub, but I mean,

(02:39:46):
you know my parents, like they put me in the
nightclub to keep an eye on me, to keep me
from wanting to go to the nightclub, which you know
it didn't work. That's what I felt like, must be nice.
I didn't want to say, like Pashtag, must be nice.
Is there anything that we didn't cover? Bill? I mean,

(02:40:09):
you and I probably the biggest Prince fans that we know, Like,
did we missed something? There was one thing I really
wanted to talk to Matt and Body about, and that
was the bullhorn incident on the plane when that led
to the when when they all got taken up taking
taken to jail. There's so much that I wanted to
ask about, but we just didn't have enough time. We

(02:40:29):
need to do like four hours actually, I mean we
had like forty two different Yes, there's a lot of
people in here, yeah, yeah, Susanna a little crowd. We
pulled this ship off the start, I mean to our
supreme leader. Yeah, that sounds very Jimmy Jon get props

(02:40:56):
to the funeral. I just think that at least with
Susanna alone, like you know, there's a lot that I
wanted to go into, but you know, I felt just
too soon, but like a lot like the Beautiful Ones,
like all those songs were about her, but didn't feel
ill to you yet that you know, even when Wendy
was here. And I think a couple of other band

(02:41:17):
members the way that they feel about you and what
you've done that well, yeah, I mean, I just it's
again like okay, so I were any of you in
the car with no it was I was in the
car with my and Gretchen from Princess last night and
this weird Prince fan stopped the car and like actually said,

(02:41:39):
you know, he starts a sentence with I have a
hundred thousand dollars and I want to give it to
you just so I can tell you my life story,
and exactly I said it, bird bade him. Yes, I know.
Steve's like, I mere, you over exaggerate everything. Well it's
probably like grant or no, And it just hit me

(02:42:07):
like yo, Prince has the weirdest even watching that audience.
Uh that when we went to see the Revolution show,
he has the weirdest looking audience. I might just might
have been arms length with my audience as well if

(02:42:27):
that were my Familyase, I'm not saying like, I'm not
saying anything. There's a guy with the onesie with like
all these images of all the body. No, it's just
I know that Prince fans can seem weird, and I
know that Prince also felt a certain way about his
male fans, I mean any any because like he had

(02:42:52):
the whole thing about the word fan how he hated
the word because it was short for fanatic. Yeah, it's
it's just you know how like the Tricks Rabbit always
had to conceal his excitement for tricks without you know,
and then he get busted by the kids, and hey, guys,
just really me, like, I don't ever want to be
that guy, Like okay, I gained your trust, let me not.

(02:43:14):
Let you know, like the only indication that they really
have gotten that, it's like, oh a mirrored his level
of fandom might be average, you know, more than the
average person was. Just like the demos, I started pulling
up in their present. Well, I mean I've I've learned
that you gotta be cool in those situations. I know,

(02:43:35):
for me, like fans be thinking like, oh man, if
I mentioned that Japanese B side you have, and you'll
know we're like organics. Yeah, that's in order to like
the way to gain. I think it's like, wait, wait

(02:43:56):
before you answer, are you sure you want to give
this this away before everybody starts trying to do even no,
trust me, even if I gave it away, people will
still they'll still they'll still I think for me, and
I mean from for me maybe different. I think there's
a fine line. You know what I'm saying, Um for
me is if I meet quote unquote a fan, Um,

(02:44:17):
the last thing I want to talk about this music.
And I think this is just something for you know,
wheneverever person you're meeting in that field. You know what
I'm saying. If it's uh, you know, if their actors, uh,
sports people, whatever, that person has been talking about what
they do all day every day, you know what I'm saying.
If I'm Michael Jordan's you know what I mean, I

(02:44:38):
don't want to talk about basketball. You know what I'm
saying from Kurry, I don't want to talk about you
know you ain't talking. But other than that, you know,
I mean, I think you know there that being a
artist or being a famous person. Let's let's be clear

(02:44:58):
to me about fame. You know what I'm saying. I think,
like my theory on famous is that it's kind of
like jail, right, you know what I mean, It's like
whatever year, like how you know, people say whatever year
you go to jail in whatever age you are, that's
the age you stay. You don't really develop past that point,
you know. I mean I think ever heard that and

(02:45:18):
looked at each other like wow, if you strike and
find it out. But so it's like I think fame
is the same way. I think whatever year, however age
you are, that when you pop, like when you just
become the man or the woman whatever, that's kind of
you kind of live in a state of arrest of development.

(02:45:39):
So to me, the thing that is most uh endearing
is when you meet people and they just talk to
you just like regular people. You know what I'm saying, Like,
I don't want you see that post or whatever, like, yo,
you see that ship on Instagram? Did you see the
twerking chick, like we can just talk about just regular ship,
you know what I mean. But it's we that's a

(02:46:00):
hard mettle to do because I have people in my
life that do the opposite, like a mere I'm gonna
let you know you ain't ship, just to let you know.
I don't want to get people. I got you. Yeah yeah,
and then they gotta go right now the people to
trying to just take it too far, just be yeah,

(02:46:23):
but that's that's being super obvious that it's an issue.
But you're doing like I have. Probably this room is
isn't normal? Yeah, I mean that's why I'm not saying
I gathered you here like a master playing like please
get your kool aid on the way up, put all

(02:46:47):
your Nike couch wearing purple tooth. I think they were
I think, wait, did they take that Nike off the
more your place because not a fun I think they
might have went up in sales calls everything else's play. Well,

(02:47:07):
we we a thank you to Sugar Steve you a
little found this episode. Absolutely still shout out to Henley
Audio of thank you and you had link great job,
great thank you, thank you. Because I'll be honest, I
thought we were all just gonna have to turn on
our That was my first plan when you said this, Yeah,

(02:47:30):
I said, everybody bring an iPhone. Um. I thought it
was interesting. Um, everybody who was interviewed that you were
sort of pressing them on when Prince would make them,
you know, stand there and loop some music for an
hour or two hours whatever while he practiced dancing, and
nobody seemed to resent any of that. Everybody saw that
there was a purpose behind it, and it kind of
took pride in it. Like if you told me played

(02:47:52):
drums four hours, you just sit there and watch me
or whatever. You're crazy, But you know, everybody seemed to
see the method to his madness, you know. Yeah, so
that was pretty cool. Well, and going to the hotel kids,

(02:48:13):
thank you? Sa al Right, Well, this is an amazing,
amazing episode of Quest Love Supreme. Hope you guys join
us next time. Uh on behalf of Quest Love Fonte
Bill both unpaid and Boss Bill Layah Steve. Hope you
join us next Wednesday for another episode. Uh I guess

(02:48:36):
what one pm and uh ten am Pacific Standard time,
Pacific Pacific. Yes specific, this is of course Love signing off.
Of course Love Supreme Thank you very much. Cours love

(02:48:58):
Supreme Products enough I Heart Radio. This classic episode was
produced by the team at pan Door m HM. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows

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