QLS Classic: Purple Roundtable

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

Ladies and gentlemen, What's Up?

This is Questlove, namesake of the Quest Love Supreme podcast, the award winning Quest Love Supreme podcast, No No, No, the Webby award winning Quest Love Yes, the three Times I'm in the room right now with Sugar Steve, the Multai Anyway, Welcome to QLs Classic and of course this is one of my favorite subjects ever to talk about. I love nothing else than to nerd out on Prince conversations with fellow Prince fans. We did this episode back in twenty eighteen, I believe, and I think and.

Add a bit of trivia Steve. We did this at the Record Plan was it or Sunset Sound. We did this in Studio two at Sunset Sound. I believe, the same room that Prince created a lot of nineteen ninety nine.

Special episode. So it's sort of a purple roundtable. Of course, you know, I got to have luminaries with me former QL site boss Bill ruth of Art, Prince's former chief of staff. Ruth is Art Duwayne Tadao, who wrote, in my opinion, probably two of the best kind of Prince anthologies as far as like his creative process.

You need to get those two books. These are must haves.

The first one Prints in the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions and his follow up book, Prince in the Parade and Sign of the Time Studio Sessions is kind of a daily diary of how Prince created those three masterpiece records and all the ensuing work he did in between for his protege's at the time.

Was Sheila E and the Apollonius six and whatnot. Last, but not least, that's you be talking.

World class photographer, and you know he's done stuff with Chappelle and done stuff with Lady Kravit's, but you know he's probably the biggest Prince fanatic and.

Collector.

He has just monstrous. I mean, just listen to the episode, y'all. It shouldn't be this long. Welcome to the Purple Round tae QLs Classic.

M You know, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes when the name of the show that you host has your name in it, sometimes you get to do things that you want. And we're going to do an off the cover episode of course Love Supreme right now, and we kind of have a saw, say a Purple Supreme team committee.

Yeah, we kicked everybody else out in the studio and.

Proem no no, no disrespect to our team Supreme. But you know, one of the I feel though, in my life the two most dangerous things to have as far as discussion concern is politics. Ever, yeah, politics pars in Purple, and I try and avoid both, uh at least with all my might.

But somehow I felt very safe. I will say that.

This is uh a rare.

Moment which I'm certain that in the company of Prince associates that I'm with that this is the moment in which I know the least about Prince, and I'm actually fine with that.

I'm actually fine.

So in our circle, of course, we have bost Bill uh, producer of course of Supreme UH.

And to his left we have Ruth.

I know I got it wrong, Arsati. I've never said your last name on life, even though I've known you for eons. Ruth is you know, Ruth has been P's right hand for a significant period of his life, I guess between the musicology period and up until thirty one twenty or a little bit after that.

Lotus Flower. So it was like almost twenty ten, like in the middle of twenty ten. So in Prince here is it have been like one hundred and forty four.

Yeah, and I as knowing you as I know you.

Well, Yeah, if you've seen the bit that I did about finding Nemo, Ruth was the person that had to make magic happen for me on my blind datement.

But yeah, Ruth is you know.

She she's a first hand witness to his hard work. And we're glad you're here. And to her left we have Dwayne Toddell, who too.

Doll, I said, you said you put the wrong and fastest on the wrong syllable.

With cactus.

Yes, all right, So, and you know there's I feel I feel like I'm always on dangerous the ground when I'm declaring anything prince wise, because it might be an over exaggeration or or you know, someone else will get offended.

But I don't, I don't know.

I just feel as though Dwayne's documentation of a Prince's work, not his life, but his work is personally one of my favorite A documents because, if anything, I'm more interested about his work habits than anything. So Dwayne just released his uh newest princi book uh entitled give him the title.

First book Princeton the Marine Eras Studio Sessions nineteen eighty three nineteen.

Eighty four, which he thoroughly. Yeah, I got questions for you, bruh.

And to his left Matthew Beton, Matthew Beton, the white guy.

From the Chapelle special with Them.

Book, Yeah, photographery Shortinar and I you know, I mean you, your degree of purplelogy is above.

You know, I bound, your presence, your knowledge is amazing.

So just briefly and going in a circle, you know, I'm just curious at people's beginnings.

So Bill, when did you When did I first discover Prince? Yea, this is no. This is actually a.

Story I love to tell and I hate telling stories about my life. My first memory ever is me in a pair of red Footy pajamas in the basement of my parents house in South ben Indiana, in front of the floor model television had the built built in stereo in it, and Little Red Corvette was playing on the radio. And that is my very first memory.

Really yeah, So did it affect you anyway or did you know you just remember that the song was on?

Was it like, oh shit?

I don't remember why I don't. I don't know why I remember that, but I just remember that moment. And then another one of my other early childhood memories is me and my sister at her friend Terry Hill's house listening to nineteen ninety nine and forty five.

How old were you in eighty two? Two going on three?

Oh, that's a early so you were three when you first? Yeah, okay, i'll see Ruth. Your first Prince encounter.

Encounter or memory memory? Well, I mean I grew up in church, so did I. I wasn't allowed to listen to any secular music. So I remember there's this kid I went to my school and he used to wear makeup and I didn't understand why you would wear makeup, And it was because he was a huge Prince fan.

What did you tell though? H? Yeah, I did well.

He just like rolled his eyes and I was like, what you were like masturbating in a bathtub? Like what are people supposed to think? I don't do those things anymore. I'm like, well you used to.

Uh probably Hearing Controversy was my first memory, but.

In time in eighty one, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then in college nineteen ninety nine was the album we used to play in our suite or quad and just it was before it really hit.

And it was fun.

Just kind of a bunch of us just listened to that, and also we go to dances. I was in college at the time when eighty two and that was the girls were listening to Prince, and I wanted to be around the girls. So I just said, I will learn to enjoy this music.

And I think you learned to do a little bit more than enjoy it, That's true.

True, And I and once I started seeing the depth of what he had, you know, backs of forty fives and stuff like this, and you know, you start to become a completist. And so I just ended up buying everything because old Horny Toad's on the back of this or something like that. So I just went nuts and then you know Perverrain and Pervrain was the date movie that summer.

Ah, I see, Matt Well.

I came to visit my mom here in la in eighty two because she moved here in eighty two. You I was from Paris. I was still living in Paris, and I went to Tower Records on Sunset and heard let's pretend We're married. So that's my first moment.

God, that was your introduction.

That's christ and I remember literally thinking, can we Carson here now?

Yeah?

Fuck Michael Jackson, That's what I remember thinking. I was such a Michael fan, and all of a sudden, I was like, what is this Forget Michael Jackson and I became hooked.

Yeah, that was my first.

Speak I didn't speak English like I do now, but I remember thinking like, Okay, this is cool. I went and bought the twelve inch and then it was all over from there. I wish I could say it was you know, for you, but that was my first real prince moment. That is a hell of a way to get I drove everybody crazy too with that song, because yeah, even my mom liked it, unlike she really like.

That was my first traumatic prince movement. Because punishment. No, but just the.

When I heard I want to fuck you so bad it hurts, Like, I ran in the studio and took that shit off with the I was like, yo, what hell?

Like I didn't know what I was getting into.

Like by that point, you know, he was, you know, well not safe to listen to, because my dad was like, you know, I don't trust that boy in a diaper.

You know, was I was nine years old, you remember that.

So that was like getting hooked on prints through that at nine years old and bringing it back to friends where they didn't really know what the hell he was saying anyway, yikes, And so they let me you know, that's crazy.

I guess I think I told her before, but.

I was.

It's nineteen seventy eight, so I was seven years old and my dad had just told my mom that her my grandfather had died, and so this is like the first traumatic experience of the household. And my mom like you just this blood curling scream and her on her knees, crying and crying and crying and crying.

So wait, I thought this was an ask rufus story.

No, no, no, no, this is uh She's like on her knees crying, and now I was crying that they had.

To go on the road. Oh, okay, that's right, that's right.

But my sister Drrin like instantly scooped me up and was trying to figure out a safe place for me to be because you know, I was like.

Oh, what's wrong, Mommy, what's wrong with mom?

And she just grabbed some headphones, plucked it into the stereo and said, here, put this on now at the time, and she turned up the volume.

At the time, I remember.

Street Wave by Brothers Johnson was on, but Doug Henderson, our afternoon DJ of WDSFM, debuted Soft and Wet right after that. And the first thing I thought about instantly was Larry Graham based on his synthesizer work. And well I later found out that he recorded did he record it the same studio as as.

Graham Central Station? They both recorded that record planning.

Yeah, so that sort of worldly synthesizer, like, that's the same synthesizer that Graham Centers Central Station with youth. And so I always made the association that this has to be Larry Graham associated because of this worldly synthesizer thing, and the whole.

Tell me do you love me? Like I twenty years earlier with that.

Yeah, no, I just felt that like it It didn't knock me out or anything like. It wasn't like a moment because even then, like I was lukewarm on Prince, like my sister and her girlfriend's thought he was like cute and all that stuff. But you know, it wasn't until I did the The Time association. I Love the Time, and then it was like, oh, they sound like, oh, I get it their associate with him, and then that's how I got in the prints.

So I kind of had to catch up.

I'm not one of those people like, yeah, I've been down with Dirty Mine since nineteen eighty, Like, you know, I kind of had to go backwards. So it's kind of weird that the album that I take advantage of the most, which like because everything's so incredible, like controversy always gets lost in the sauce, but all of us are saying, practically half of us the saying controversy was the the thing that pulled us in.

When I first heard Controversy, I was before I liked funk music, but I was a fan of like Kiss and the biggest thing, you know, the dirtiest thing they were saying is Christine sixteen exactly, and so it's like that's all I knew, And I was like, oh, I saw you walking home from school that day, you know, which is you know, looking back, it's really kind of bubbleguming. But at the time in Lectrius, you know, you don't realize how letrous Chiane Simmons was.

But I just found out Christine sixteen.

It's a sample for what's tone looks second single that's Christine sixteen.

Yeah, yeah, like I found out a year ago.

I was like, yeah, no controversy was I said, definitely got my interest that the riff that you hear that ended up being in the family stuff. It's the same, you know that, the same thing that he used over and over. But I remember hearing that when I was running track, and that was one of these things that I would use as a metronome when I was running.

Really yeah, I did pole vault in high school. I know five six.

I can see it as I did do it.

So we're in Sunset Sound Studios right now, and which is why, you know, I guess Bill and I thought that it would be cool to sort of have this meaning because this is the place where a lot of his key songs and his songwriting and his craftsmanship.

Really came to light.

So one, why did you when did this? When did it come from? An idea? Oh, I should document the creative and to you actually getting into it, Like, what was the.

You're talking to me? I assume yes, I'm sorry the audience can't see.

Sorry.

I used to work for a magazine called Uptown and with Pere Nilsen, and we we wrote The Vault, the book The Vault, and we thought wouldn't it be cool to expand that, you know? And I came just a lot of the information for the Vault was from here Sunset Sound, and I came here and asked them.

You know, can I get the work orders?

Just arrogant that question, I guess, and they said yes, and they let me zerox. And the funny thing is, as I'm Xeroxingdom, I'm thinking at any time they're going to come in here and say, who the fuck are you?

Yeah, I was gonna say, even with the Vault, like how did you get information?

That's the thing I just I asked and they said sure, and I when I got them, they said, you know, there's certain things we don't want you to show in here, and I thought, that's fair. You're giving me eight hundred pages of documents. And as I got him, I'm like feeling like maybe I should go to my car fast just in case.

In the party. Lie said, but that's the guy who is he?

Right?

And so I got him and they've been great. They they I started looking through him, and they're not always as accurate as you as you want. Sometimes Prince would just say what's your middle name and he'd write down Colleen or something like that, So that's not always as detailed as you want. But there's a lot of great stuff, like in this room. I was looking through the things to see what was done here. I don't think he

We're in studio one S one versus.

He just basically mostly worked in three and two. Two was the one he did a lot of stuff in, but three became its own. It's its own Uh, it's it's self contained. It's got a bathroom and all this stuff. So when he was doing most of his big stuff, he would be there. So nobody goes into three. Two people you know, see and then you see the basketball court run in between the two. So he'd go out

We still can't get in the Studio three studio book today.

But did you guys go to Studio two?

No, no, we didn't go too is.

Open seriously, you should look. We went over there earlier while you guys were yacking early.

And it was great. It's I've been a couple of times.

But it's just you go in the room and you think this is where Prince, you know, not just Prince. This is the van Halen the doors. Led Zeppelin had so many bands recorded here.

This is in Princess kind of.

A footnote on all the stuff that they done it. This is a long term studio. These do Disney stuff here, right, So this is this is and and so I interviewed most of the engineers that worked here, Peggy McCreery and Coke Johnson and Susan Rodgers as you know Susan, and they kind of told me the stories and I started realizing this is a book. And a couple of years ago my wife said, are you gonna shitter?

Get off the pot?

Basically, you know, are you gonna write a book or not? And I thought, yeah, I did. And I got finished with a book about a month before Prince passed. I finished it in March of twenty sixteen, and I thought, this is great. I'm all excited. And then Prince passed and I literally thought, do I bother? Because I didn't want to seem like an opportunist, and so I got in touch with a lot of people I interviewed and they said, no, this is history.

You should put it out.

And so I found a publisher and found a guy to write the forward for me.

And I tell you I'm s debt.

Yeah, I'm still heartbroken about Miko's comments to you.

Oh I know, he's like, see me, he was coming whose quest? I never met him. And he's it in all caps too.

Yeah, so small man, I'm like, yo, dog, I'm like your biggest champion. I was rooting for you during that fight.

But he was uh so yeah, when when You've got attached to this, it sent it through the roof because you open so many doors.

This is an honor.

I know I'm saying this brown nosing right here, but it's an honor to share the cover with you because, uh you know, it's honestly the the connections you have. And you know, any documentary you look at about MJ or Prince you're in and and so it's.

Any music documentary.

Yeah, I know. So, so I'm just hoping to ride your tail music music.

Yeah, I think it's important, like to me.

And again, I know that Prince's life is an obsession to a lot of people. But for me, the thing that I want people to take away from it, which is why I'm so obsessed with all the rehearsal stuff and all the sound check stuff and all you know, the work order things and those you know, how many

When I remember when was it cam that gave you the couple sheets of this somebody one of the guys that have several guys that worked on this with me, And the comment I got from you was holy shit, because you saw the stuff for August of eighty three, and that gave me so much hope because you're writing a vacuum and you never know if people are going to enjoy this. Not been a fan. Here's the thing,

On the Chocolate Box.

So weird, we're having a brd off.

Yeah, And so who was your first boot leg?

Oh god, it was probably the Chocolate Box, or or it was a Royal Jewels Maybe what.

Was your first boot leg?

I feel like vital it was charade was going. I remember my friend Benjamin barn.

It never gave it back and I was super pissed because I paid, like, you know, one hundred bucks for and you didn't think.

That you'd ever hear it again.

Bill, mine was the ninety three Bagley's Warehouse after show because from ninety three Sacrifice of Victor.

Anyway, I love, I love. I loved his guitar solo on the Ride.

I saw it late night on BT once and I had to find out, you know, if that audio was anywhere, and I got on like the Paisley Park, well, the PPML.

I remember the PPML very well, and I remember AOL used to have the chats Sunday Night Paisley.

I'm gonna like said, the Paisley Park chat room is actually how I got my first job in New York.

Really. Yeah, we'll tell that story later, but really there's.

A lot of guys together jobs from that because but Sam Jennings used to be a collector and he was the same way he.

Ended up working with Prince.

Yeah.

Bill and I have kind of this joke with each other. He's mad at me because like in my head, I always closed the door after eighty eight, like there's only room in my heart from seventy eight to eighty eight. No, I mean, I have everything, and I acknowledge that there's there's greatness even after eighty eight. But for me, just you know, the things that I hold near and deer are just seventy eight eighty eight.

There's a big butt after eighty with you, and he.

Yeah, he always like puts something in my face like, yeah, this is ninety four, you know, and I'm like, no, here's the.

Thing is I had to write about those, it would be a little tougher for me because my heart is eighty to eighty one into eighty eight and maybe even a little bit of eighty nine Love Sexy Tour Ending. But after you know, Batman, I'm like Graffiti Bridge. I was like, you know, in Diamonds and Pearls, he was trying to be pop, and it was it's good for whatever.

It's enough.

I mean, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Four hundred songs are enough to write, and.

I was and I was totally good with that amount. And if I just had to focus on that amount, I'd be good, you know. But the you know, the guy's got another thirty years after that, so.

You know, so Ruth, I have to ask.

Because during this particular period that we're talking about, I know that a lot of his time and a lot of his hours were in the studio and he kept tireless hours of working around the clock or whatever. What was his regiment from when did you first come aboard?

Right?

As a musicology tour started twenty four two in three, two thousand and four, and he, uh, you know Dave Hampton, I think you know the engineer. He created this mobile recording studio for him, so as he came into la we would run out of places and he would be up to all hours of the night. But specifically, one memory I have that stands out. Uh we were it was we were on a break from musicology and we were in Minnesota and it was like the dead of winter.

The entire building was was miked, right, Yeah, so there was a rumor to that.

Yeah it was Mike, but it wasn't on and there were no cameras there. There were never any surveys cameras. But he would creep up on you and no listen. He would I was. I was like, I was like, there was like a Smashing Pumpkins gold album or something on the wall. I'm like, Smadhing Pumpkin, what are they doing there? And then I hear they recorded and I was like, I screamed, and I'm like, why doesn't somebody put a cow bell on you? And he's like, never mind.

Like just now now you have to find that house?

Yeah? No, I was like, I was like, no, pressure here, Like I have no pressure at all. But yeah, we ended up we ended up moving into that house and it was the start of like this whole era of like house parties and madness and I hate it every minute of it.

Parties.

You were hustling like who's in town. I'm like, like I know, like I knew anybody that group of church, Like I barely knew who people. When you guys are speaking about bootlegs, it was all swakily to me, I don't know what chea I was talking about.

Can I ask you a question?

Okay, you were talking about something and I want to see what your take on this is a lot of people have said that Prince had an energy that he could either radiate attention that you had to stay at pettige, or he could be under the radar completely like all of a sudden, like you said, just show up.

Yeah, I mean he was. It was interesting in clubs because you could see him walk into a club and you couldn't see him, but you could see the gravitational pull of people just like it was like he drew energy and attention and he would also take your soul, so like if you were if you like talk to him like sometimes you would talk to you and you get a lecture for three hours and I'd.

Walk out the three You're lucky.

That's a that's a light night.

Yeah, it's the story behind that.

What's the I mean, you know what it's it's like the whole be careful of your Yeah, like I caught I mean I joke and say that, you know when black men find religion like lay low for like at least three to five years because that's all they want to talk about and then they cool off a little bit.

So yeah, I caught him right and period.

Man.

And then first it was like you just walk right into the trap. Like the first night, I think it was me who want to American Idol, the guy with the fake afros that Justin.

He came in second he didn't win.

Well yeah, well Justin loves what Justin Kelly? Yeah, yeah, it was like Kelly, Justin, me and Common.

At as a random dog. We were in Harlem, somee some Harlem, resting in a random place. Yeah, Justin Kelly Clarkson Quest and Common walking to it's almost yeah, And it started there and we thought we escaped it. And then the next night that's when he came to Electric Ladies Studios.

We were working on Common.

Jimmy was a rock star, and he heard the mix and then almost borderline started quasi mixing. He's like, no, no, no, turn up his voice and turned this down.

And then.

And then no, I mean he was cool. And then he worked on Star sixty nine and then the only way I can describe it is the front cover of the Who's the Kids Are all Right?

Remember the four of them sleep on it? That was me Blau Common and.

Ah, it was a fourth person I forget. But we were just sitting on the floor and he was like talking to us like a coach.

Like if you imagine.

Remember those Tom and Jerry cartoons where you only see the mom's like Niees Thomas or even Muppet babies, we only see the nannies knees. Like we're all sitting on the floor and he's just walking back and forth like a coach, uh, talking about anyone's best.

Have you've seen this happen before, haven't you.

Blau was new to this and he's you know, Bla was Muslim at the time, so it's just like Muslim versus a. Jehovah's witness it was two am, and then it was like six am, and I just thought like, man, it's like you've been waiting all your life to be friends.

With this guy.

Like you guys didn't say anything.

I started snoring and he's still.

And I'm like, sleep at me and snoring, like.

I grew up in church. So he couldn't go far. He could not go far. He was like, don't start. I'm like no, no, no, no, no. He's caughting some stuff at it.

Yeah.

So then there was a period where he was like Debo and Friday to me, Like there was a good part of two thousand and one to like two thousand and three where I would just run the other way.

I'm like, wow, you're running from your idol. Like I just can't.

I mean, I just couldn't. I couldn't take another because he just wear you out. And you want to know things like so the Lynn drumm you used on What's.

Up with the Editor at the end of I don't want to lose you? Right, exactly exactly. He don't want to talk about that.

So and that's the thing when when the Night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, when Chappelle, me and Neil Brennan went to see him perform at the after party. Were you there doing the Spirit? Were we friends then? Were in that hotel or that?

But I wasn't you. We hadn't met yet.

Yeah, I was about to say I would have remembered you.

And you know, he invited us to the hotel thing, and so I didn't realize that the elevator opens up inside the apartment.

So I'm thinking that, okay, we're going to a hotel. Elevator is going to open.

We'll be in a hallway and then we'll knock on the door and YadA, YadA, YadA. So in typical television sitcom fashion, my back is to the elevated door, and I'm trying to.

Give Dave and Neil advice.

A seventeen second crash course run, which I said, guys, wait, I just thought of something. Look, he's really really big on religion, so you know, because the thing was like Neil was just like, hey, like okay, this is going to be like I was like, no, like that prince you're thinking of, like he doesn't exist a moren it's religion.

You know.

They laughed, like religion.

I'm like, no, I'm dead serious, like matter of fact, I said, we need a safe word.

So the elevator doors closed.

I said, look, we need a safe work because what you guys don't know is that he's going like really big on religion and stuff and don't curse and da da da da da da da da.

And the door is open.

And I swear to God it and like they yeah, he was like continuum mirror.

He was right behind me and it was.

But the thing is that what I didn't know about Dave is Dave lives for an audience, like the most awkward. I went, Dave with me in any he can talk you out in any situation.

I think Dave could talk. He could.

I'm about to give me the helter Skelter reference. What's his name who just recently done? He could talk Charles Manson off of death Row and out of it. He can talk out of any situation. And we walked into what looked like to be a prayer meeting.

It was like the.

Crams his then wife, her Canadian family, and well her family is from Canada, right, her family and instantly like I'm trying to give the eye like and Dave was one of those people. Is where it's like if you tell him no, it's a yesday.

He got right. He had a captive.

Audience, and then I just once religion started, then I just inched my way out of it and left. But those guys stayed till like seven in the morning, and.

I would have stuck around to watch Prince and Dave Chappelle talk about her religion. I can only imagine what that conversation was like, Man, I just interesting.

Yeah.

I mean I used to listen to it as a fan, you know. I'd be like, Okay, I'm such a Prince fan. I'm going to let him talk to me for three hours about this stuff, you know. But I remember there was a moment at that house, the thirty one to twenty one house, where we were talking about you know, not religion, talk about music and something else, and he's like, follow me. I'm like, I finally orright, Prince said follow me,

He's got the.

Symbol pillows and the purple Da da da, and then he opens a closet and hands me like a bible and all this stuff. And I was like, man, I thought he was gonna give me an ascetate.

Or I wish you have, you know, and.

I've been saving.

Yeah, and he's like, I want you to read this to your kids because we're that's why we were.

Talking about my children.

And I'm like and I was like, well, I'm Jewish and I don't really do religion. And the next day the next day, maybe Ruth, you gave him my address. The next day people came knocking on the door.

Listen. I had a Jehovah when my door, and I had boxes of bibles and tracks, and I was I had been into I had got into a really big fight with prince and I was like, oh we're here. I'm like, you know what I work for, Jehovah's Witness. Wy don't you come in the back and take your boxes. I'm about to burn that will And she was like what, oh no, and no, I'm like you can bring your supervisor. You could come and talk to me about church and like Bible and stuff. I know my Bible, but you like.

Wait.

But they came in. They got the boxes of tracks.

Was there, ever, what was the end game to.

His religious talk or his wanting to convert, Like, was there, well, was there one person that was like, okay, like I'm Jamie Fox, Yes, I'll come with you the kingdom?

Was he? Like? What was the.

So so part of the you know, not to clown on any religion or anything, but part of you know, what they do is is they have to log in hours. So your name at two's name, my name is in a calendar. It says Ruth four hours, a mirror two hours or twenty hours, you know, and it would say he would write everybody's name down this calendar, so it was kind of a log book of how many people he spoke to about, you know, the religion and all that. So it's kind of like it is to convert people.

Swing me into this kingdom hallway.

Oh all the time. And I used to look at him. Okay, so no diss to Jehovah's witness, but I am gonna kind of diss. Their music is awful. It's all. It's Bible verses with no no melody. It's like they sing and Jesus came to the crap like it is. Like I would look at Prince like I'm like, how are you even listening to this? And he wouldn't sing it. He would just look at it and he would just kind of have his little finger with his little pinky finger up and like follow the words in the hymn book.

Is it true that he wrote a bunch of songs for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

He has like I don't know that he did, but I know that he wrote like a lot of songs with overtures of you.

Know, but I heard like that he actually has songs in like a in the Hymnal or Jehovah's witness Hymnal.

I could imagine like after spending.

Time, did you have an option to not go? Was have had go? I'll stay behind her?

Yeah, but you.

Know I.

Think that uh, like you know, I wasn't going to church at the time, and like when I was in Minnesota, I would just go because it's Minnesota. There's there's nothing to do, so it might as well go to Kingdom Hall and you know, just see, Yeah, I was very curious about the religion itself, you know, coming up in church, so I was curious to see what their belief systems and how they believe. And you know, I've met a

He went.

By brother nilson brother, we're his brothers and sisters. I'm like, yeah, no, I don't. I don't think so, oh no, we're Jehovah's witnesses. And they wanted to get in based on that alone, and I was like, okay, now you know.

Oh I would have fell for that hook line to thinking like oh.

Okay, yeah.

And I was like that's cool, be good.

I see so uh Dwayne, yes, sir. Yeah.

So in your in your research, how were you able to find out as far as like the length of time that songs were spent? Like this is one thing to see the work order. And I guess I should explain to our audience that, I mean, now, because half the stuff is done on computers and personal studios. People

The how did you work on that song on the mirror?

Yeah, exactly, Like so all my time and all the that I met and you're whatever, I'd like call from the studio that sort of thing. So assistant engineer's job was to keep meticulous detail of what we did and how long we lily gagged and all those things. So what I can I assume that these work orders were in the same way.

Yeah, A lot of times they would have you know, and then like you said, this is also the work orders are placed to hide things. They would be the tattle things, but they'd also be like there's times that he may worked in two or three songs, and they just were just scrambling through things and just he would write down a title. Often I would have to go back to I went to the Library of Congress, went to the unions that had musicians unions, because Eric Leeds

People.

You know, when I first started doing the interviews in like the early mid nineties, I remember asking some of these people and they're like, I didn't think that some.

Prince nerd would be.

Coming in and asking me about something ten years ago. Now I'm asking them, They're like, I didn't know some prince near becoming and asking me about stuff having thirty years ago so right, And memories get a little faded. The you know, you work on stuff for five six years with him, guy, you're not gonna remember specific dates.

We were going to.

He used to be married to Peggy McCreery and they did a lot of such together. But he lives down there. Then Dave Knight, David Knight became Dave the Blade and he was one of the engineers here and also at Sunset.

What's the other studio that you have?

They have another studio here, yeah, Sunfactory, So he did stuff there. He's interviewed in the book as well. I used closed by Dev Leonard from other sources of the books that he was interviewed or things like that too. But I wanted to interview him but just didn't work out.

I'm curious about the live shows that were.

Sound trucked.

Oh yeah, like the or the thirty minute I Would Die for You, which obviously went to the soundtrack. Are there any studio loggins for those sessions, and if that's the case where the Purple Raine shows also recorded.

Purple Raine shows were all recorded for the most part city well pretty much as far as I know, they're mostly recorded.

Uh so there's there's here's the thing.

He's got vaults of stuff that well as first, I've got tons of cassettes and stuff like this. The engineers in the book talking about how everything was recorded to maybe down to a cassette. So it may be already mixed. You just got the mix of that. He may not have a twenty four track recording left of all those things. But from what I understand, he has tapes of of every rehearsal, every sound check, and he'd have six or seven tapes running the day and not labeled, you know,

So how I used to think that was a storage closet.

Have you physically seen the bout?

Yeah, I've been there. I'd be like, ah, this is a big old storage closet.

How big is the vault?

There were two volts?

Yeah there too. There's like the opening section and then there's stuff that there's like it's like a a teer, like like a what do you call them? Like mudroom, It's like a mudroom, and then the real room.

The other thing I've had to get information from is like people like Eric Leeds and things like that would have there's when they would record.

They would keep dates of.

When they were to record and stuff like this, So that helped too. But again there's always gonna be stuff in the vault that I have no idea about. And and like when the Vraine Deluxe came out, we all were shocked when uh.

The vocal possessed but electric intercourse.

All all of a sudd They're going a holy crap, right, and Michael sitting there nodding his head, but you know, all of us going WHOA, thank you, you know for finding this, because that's something I didn't even know exist.

You know, what's weird.

And I'm not going to hell for saying this, but it was. It was always my fear.

That he you know, just in the last ten years.

Of his life. And this is you know, speaking from you know. Of course you think like everybody's going to you know, be eighty and ninety. You know, they're going to be super old. But I always thought that, man, I know, one day he's going to turn like if we think that some of his thinking is irrational.

Now, just as far as like.

Certain cutting off the nose, despite the face moves that Prince has done in the past to some of his fan base.

Why would I do what? I'm just saying that it's it's to me.

I always felt like he would pull a move like some viking burning erase everything. Yes, I thought he would pull a Willie on that whole entire, like in his sixties or seventies.

And I was just.

Like, storing magnets what what what? No, No, it's saying he was storing magnets in the room just to e race everything.

Oh yeah, he really didn't. He really didn't. I was just saying he could have. That's what he's saying.

So I'm not saying what you think I'm going to insinuate. As far as premature passing, but I definitely felt like.

He would. First of all, I thought he would have a will.

That's the thing that would say.

We talked about it, so.

It's earned everything if I had.

Wait, you talked about what did?

What was said, Well, he didn't want to at the time, he didn't want to write a will. And I was like yeah, because there was at Baisley Park and I yelled at him like, well, you know, who's going to get all your stuff? And he came. He double backed and he's like who, And I'm like the government in the world and you walked out of the office. But you know, we did talk about it because I was really concerned because he didn't have a will.

I'm gonna be honest with you because I mean more, mortality is something that people don't want to deal with or.

Talk about even now.

I mean, I I have a will, but it was sort of like an afterthought thing like yeah, just leave it to them.

I don't care. You know, I'm not gonna die. I'll be here forever. But now I'm like, okay, I would like my records to go here.

I want my unreleased drum stuff to go here. I want to donate this stuff here.

Yeah, Stu, get that notebook.

No, it's just that now as I get closer to you know, get you know, way out of my twenties. Now, oh okay, this death is going to be a certain thing in my life, like I'm definitely going to die and so, you know, but I guess at the time, you just put it off and put it off and put it off, and it'll never happen to me.

It'll never happen. And you know, because.

For anyone asking like how could he never have a will? Like you just you never think you're.

Going to go right, Well, part of his reasoning also is like you whatever you think is true. So if you're if you create a will, it means that you're you're plantasting your death. So that was a big thing about it, and we had a discussion about that. He told me he wants he was from another planet and that's why he didn't age because the sun revolved like

And then there was only one set of keys.

You know, there was only one set quote unquote, but there was another set that somebody else had.

So what if he lost those keys?

It was here's the thing. Yeah, the wall next to it was just a drive.

You could break into Paisley Park. It was so like not secured, no cameras. Still no cameras. Sure they put cameras in.

Now that that was the reasoning, right, It's Minnesota. Who's going to yah?

No, seriously, He's like only it's He's like, all the no evil people live here.

The bad people move out.

Yeah.

He had a story about I guess they went to like a convenience store or something and he left the car. They left the car running, and Prince was like, yeah, because nobody would steal it.

Yeah yeah, yeah, No, it's true, like you know we would go into uh, what was it, what's the store there? No, what's the name of the store there. I totally forgot Barney's or I think it is Birelers. Is it barrels?

Is that important?

No, it's a store in Shanahassan like, but you would walk in there and if you were brown, they knew exactly what you were doing there. Oh you were working at Paisley Park? Are you people? I'm like, uh, yeah, how do you know that? And then I realized and like, oh, you look like you worked there, And I was like, okay, stereotyping over here.

That I see. So how.

Also, the vault was not kept up very well. I mean there's no, it's not.

It was.

It was not a place where there's yeah, one of that stuff has damage.

But I know that they did, Wait, what's damaged?

Tapes?

Tapes?

Yeah, but they reconstructed it.

Yeah, there was a water leak one year and they were they were having to put the tapes somewhere else.

Because it just it was not it was mold. Yes, it was on a.

Good vault, and that what they're doing now really does make sense.

But it's funny that the family said that, you know that they shouldn't move it too Iron Mountain. That is the number one thing that should have been done.

Reason why it was kept. That people want it kept. The Paisleys for nostalgia.

Yeah, yeah, it was going to all of it, yeah.

Exactly, would have been worthless.

Yeah.

Yeah, they managed to save I think ninety eight percent of it.

Yeah, they are now obsessed with that.

It's that twenty seconds that made the song.

No, I'm not going to sleep now.

Tossing and turning, learned that poem figure out.

I have a question.

I have a question for you. You you look through the book, what is your opinion of the book? And you're you're as big a scholar of this kind of stuff as I know, and I want to know what your thought of the book is.

What did you like?

See?

The thing is is that, Okay, it's weird because even when first of all, the book is like, what's seven hundred.

It's not about five hundred page okay.

So maybe when I was reading all my think it was like seven hundred something pages.

I went through there. All right, Well here's the weird thing. I think from the time that you guys sent me the document, I easily think the first night I went through four hundred pages.

Yeah yeah, yeah, And that's the thing. I felt ashamed, like I went.

From like shit, I'm gonn write down my story.

I went from ten a m. Till about I think I gave up at like seven in the morning.

You're already the busiest guy on the plane, right, I can't imagine having time.

But I just couldn't put it down.

It was the same way for me because I was started reading and the next thing I knew the sun was up, you know.

So like working in the studio with Prince.

And I knew I was on something because I know that I have a tendency at least of my friends, like over exaggerate some shit. And I told him like, yo, like, this is the book we've been waiting for, Like this is the moment, I think. And the thing is is that I don't know because I tried to explain this to my management my people, like, yo, this is the Prince book I've been dreaming of all my life, like I could never write a book like and they looked at it and they were just like whatever, Okay. So

I ran to the basketball court.

I ran to the seven eleven that sort of thing. I don't know. I just again, I'm I I've never been.

Into who he was dating, or even the outcome of a thing. I'm always obsessed with how he built stuff. And for me, a lot of my question anything that I would ever try to ask him was like in that.

Book, so you learn things?

Yeah, I learned a lot.

I mean I because you know a lot. So to hear that you actually got some out of it makes me really happy.

Dog, I'm waiting for it. Like it's how many books do you think you would have in you.

I'd be happy to write books at the end of my till the end of my life on this stuff because.

It's my hope that the quote powers that be well least see this.

And because again I think that if you're coming from a nonsensationalist, respectful angle like I think, it's just important to document how the greatness was me.

Well in this book some people who haven't read it. This covers two years of his life eighty nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty four. It's the ninety nine nine just has come out and it's it's just starting to hit covers Purple Rain cover the beginning of nineteen eighty four is recording Sheila's album The Time. The rest of Purple Rain appalonis six the family that summer. That's like, that's within like six months, you know, two years, that's that's no.

That's that's all six months.

Yeah, I know.

It's insane, mostly himself.

And so when you see the kind of passion the guy had for doing this stuff, and then we're sitting in the studio thinking it was in this building that he did the stuff, it's to me, it's I mean, I went back and listened to the music again, just over and over, and it was cool to listen to it with a fresh ear because after he died, it's it's tough to listen to his stuff without through the prism of the fact that he's dead hearing it again through after reading the book, you're going that's where it

We should note that as even though this is coming on way later as of this taping, I think we're falling into the actual thirty fifth anniversary of.

Oh Yeah, Little Rick Corvette.

The edits edits for the twelve inch which what January or January seventh, Yeah, very good.

I looked it up. In your book.

In your book, question for Dwayne, actually, if I can, if I may so, Like, you know, that's like a lot of information.

This amazing because like Ruth, the thing was, Ruth was such a position to get this information. But it's so amazing to me in all my years of knowing her, I'm like, you know, you're so not a fan like.

And she doesn't have an idea.

Of like and a lot of women that are in Prince's life, especially in the last ten years of his life.

It's just like.

Ask Kim Berry about his music. She likes it, but she's not a big fan. Same thing. It's like there's a lot of people around.

A little it's almost like it's a whole other person.

Part of it is I knew I knew Prince the person musicians.

I knew him.

I saw him. I was like, I interacted, but you know that musician dude was such a pain in the ass. I was like, oh, but my question to you is because you know I know what I and you know I there was so much that I wish I had the fort like you know, I had to Sam Jennings was actually in the house in one of the houses and when he was there. It was Wendy and Lisa and they came up with their acoustic guitars and he

Sam?

And he's like, it's a song called Mountains, and I'm like, it's really pretty, but I gotta work, like I gotta go pleaan his bedroom like like you know, like I couldn't.

Like.

I was like, it was really pretty and I wanted to sit and observe, and I knew I was missing out on something, but I was like, ah, I want to go to sleep. I need to go. I need to like, you know, I slept like two hours a night, so I needed to have some kind of rest. But my question to you is how much of it do you think? Because for me, I saw different parts of it.

Wow, I think I think his passion shows through on some songs. I think you can hear when he's inspired, and I think that compulsion would be like Velvet Kitty Cat and things like that. Yeah, there's gonna be there's songs that are obligatory.

I think.

I think to me, what I understood having talked to everybody, is he just had stuff in him he had to get out. And sometimes he'd be in the studio and just kind of record this traffic jam and that would be it and it would be like got to get this out and to be able to get But there's the inspiration when you hear that. You can hear that, you know when something he elevates that he spends time on too.

I mean a question, Oh, I just had a really quick question for all the nerd prince spots here. So that's all that's everybody here. So Prince told me a story New Year's Eve, maybe like in I think it was two thousand and two thousand and nine, and basically he was talking about she's always in my hair. I'm told my too this and and I was like, oh, and I had somebody had already told me it was about a protege of his. I couldn't remember Jill Johnes. Okay,

Not here's the thing he did about Susan.

No.

No, he said it was about an assistant that he had at the time, Teres. I don't know who.

I don't know.

I can't remember the name.

Well, because I.

Asked Teresa and she was like I've never heard that story.

Okay, so he said, and I'm like what, and he's like, yeah, she used to hound me about like making sure that I ate, making sure that like you know that I was okay, and then I was rested and she went away like somebody and her family got sick or something. Somebody, but they did that.

That's the story for nothing compared. But I haven't heard that for she's always in my hair.

No, nothing was about rand but the chef, no.

Sandy, Sandy, and it was also well Jerome says it was about somebody. And and there's somebody else that said it was about them.

I don't I don't know. I mean, here's the thing with any sort of our artist.

And and but by the way, I've heard him lie to women and say that the songs and wrote about it.

Everything.

Everything i've heard is when you're doing this stuff, and and Jill said this, and several people said this, a lot of his music he'd do to meet women and things like that, or he'd be inspired. But just because he writes he may be inspired by one person, that doesn't mean everything in the song is by inspired that one person. You know, wonderful ass may be about Vanity, but it also may be about Sanna Melvoyn could be about the cat having a wonderful ass exactly.

He told me that song was about me.

Too, I'm sorry to tell you.

But so any sort of any sort of I tried to put whenever there was a thing that he had said or other people were saying it. But he was very adamant about beautiful ones not being about Susannah and they. Sometimes I found that, And I didn't know Prince, but I found that sometimes he would get angry and vengeful about people claiming that there.

Was about them.

And that's true.

That's he would kind of just he would just say he would he would take it even if.

You don't know me.

There was a story about like how quest love to save the super Bowl. Speaking of super Bowl, Yeah, so but one of the the story.

Yes, I don't believe this story, by the way, I think you just do it to make me feel.

No, I don't. So this is this is a true story. Like I've told mat too, and I've told like maybe two or three other people. This is a true story. So, uh, Prince and I got into a fight and I was that was banished from going to the super Bowl. So I was like, yes, wait.

Time out, time out before you tell the story. And I'm trying to deflect the story because it's very silly to non playing.

But you're allowed to fight, like you That's the thing. That's how I know you're not a.

Fan, because it's everyone that would know the history of or at least a fan of Prince would sort of have this kid gloves approach.

And you were just like, eh, I don't care, Yeah, prob why you got the job?

Well?

Yeah, well, I mean, like, you know, I deal with people who are very creative and very volatile and mercurial, but also you know, genuine. These are people that I actually like, and you know, Prince was just another one of those type of individuals. And so what I noticed is it's kind of like with a child or with an animal, a small animal, like you kind of have to break you kind of have to show them who's

There's sorry, there's a there's a story i'd heard secondhand about an editor who came up to Minneapolis. He flew him up to Minneapolis to cut a music video for him, and supposely he was doing the music video and Prince came in and said, okay to look at and said, where's my red hat in the video? And the guy said, well, I thought the red hat looked kind of kind of silly,

He knew though, that you were, that you cared because even years after, years after you guys stopped working together, and I was with him and Lenny somewhere and I mentioned you and he was like you could see, he was like, oh, how is I totally called you after? Like how is Ruth?

You know?

I loved him? I mean We had a very just so I can make this, this is a very like sibling sort of relationship. There was everything, you know, there was nothing untoward. And it was after I left, you know, then I realized that people who worked females were sort of someone involved with him. I was like, oh, like.

No, interesting I've heard is after he passed, I contacted a lot of the people I interviewed, and they almost also the same thing. They'd loved him, and they protected him, and they felt territorial about him. And even to this day, there's a lot of people that will block for him in a.

Sense that I have a really hard time with that though, because if there were so many people that loved him, I feel like he would be.

Here right now, right.

But it's over the course of a forty year career. Some of these people may have been around in the ages.

Yeah. No, Actually I was Cheryl Nick, who's a big bartist, and she was like, she would tell me how she felt protective, and there was some you know, she maybe not as close, but she was just like, you know, because you he's he's just he has this child's like spirit about him. He's a man, but he's a child.

It's a.

It's a very interesting conundrum to see this person and and sometimes he's you know, you know, sometimes he's a whiny kid and you want to like choke him out. Half the time, I wanted to babyshake him. I mean half the time all the time. Who am I kidding? Let's be honest. But but but I but I loved him like he was like he was there was a there der misogynistic parts to him, and then there were lovely generous parts to him.

How many times were we fired?

A lot?

What was the time period of being fired?

No, this is this is this is a recurring story for James Brown, for almost every great and music has a thing where it's like your fire.

And then like he never fired me, not ever, my drummer. Now, so the way we.

Parted ways, we parted ways. He eventually stopped calling, he ghosted me basically, but but like he never fired me. And he always said I'm not firing you. I could never fire you. And I was like, well, bitch, I'm not quitting.

We do this.

What was the distance between the argument and the radio silence?

And Okay, I need some corn flakes?

Yeah, he could go a couple of hours to I think the longest is two and a half weeks.

Wow.

You just thought like okay, no, no, no, no, he wouldn't. He just wouldn't call me. But I would get emails at all hours of the night, but he just wouldn't speak to me. So there was one time. I got to tell you this one. There was one time we fought, and it was that it was one of the first parties that I threw at the thirty one to twenty one home, and he was so mad and it was something I did and I was like whatever, and then Raoul the driver was right there. He was like five

His mama called him and mama Sean did.

But yeah, no, there was like there was like probably two and a half weeks as long as that the radio silence would go. It was after a fight, and so he calls me up and I land. And now you know, people are annoyed because you know, the the rehearsals have been going on, all the badges have been done. It's a huge production to get security clearance and all of that for the Super Bowl you need like twenty badges and pictures and blood type and you know, the

Yeah, the.

Essence of So so what kept me around was that that that spark that you see in the Muppets Tonight, that childhood sort of elation that Prince would come out with. That That's what when I would see that, that would kind of like fuel me, yeah, all of it. So he I'm like, no, you know what's cool. I'm like, I'll tell you what's cool. What's cool is you being on the Muppets tonight And he whips his head around.

Right.

So we spent the next hour talking about the Muppets tonight and what a magical thing is I After like my twenty fifteen minutes of reenacting because I had to reenact. I was laughing so hard at my own jokes. I was like I entertained. Raoul turned around and he's like,

Were what were his feelings after it was done? Because you couldn't have asked for.

I was.

We ran down Kim and I and uh, I think it was strang show. We ran down to like the front like we because I was like, we were in the box seat and then we because they wouldn't let us in there's other people, and then didn't want to. I was like whatever, and then we ran down to the field. We got drenched. I was drenched head to toe, like like I look like a drowned rat. Prince like we run back ups. We're like, we gotta go see Prince, so we run back up after his after he's done,

Off the stage.

And I'm like, I'm not kidding. My hairs pasted to my forehead, my dress is like tissue paper all over the place, showing things that no one should ever see in public. And I look at him. I walked through the door kind of like that little kid. Do you remember that episode where the little kids in Jurassic Park where they walked through after they had been electrocuted and they walk in all dumbfounded, like to the foyer with food. I walk into the sweet and I'm all with my

Have literally lost, had no material.

Had no material, none, none, and the super Bowl would have been a bust.

It's amazing when you think about somebody like that being nervous because we all look at him as this guy's almost infallible, and when it comes to movies and then to hear I mean, there's a story in the book about Alan Leed's exactly going to the premiere of Peurple Rain and he's having almost holding Allen Leed's hand because he's terrified, and just you picture this guy who at the time. You gotta remember when Pearple Rain came out

But I think a lot of his the mysterious standoffish nature is due to the fact that, you know, kind of like the Wizard of Oz, like you don't want anyone to see what's really behind the curse because you might be disappointed, that sort of thing.

There's a lot of that, But I think it also is that you know, a person like that doesn't you don't trust anyone, so it's very hard to be vulnerable, and so vulnerability is a commodity you know that he can't afford to share.

He's a guy that's never I mean, he's always cool, and I think I said before somebody is you never see him trying to grab a straw with his tongue or missing it.

Yeah, you.

Have us mortals haven't seen him doing this stuff. You don't see him tripping or you know, he's falling off the stage of James Brown. We know we've seen that, you know, but then then again the nerd off, but you don't, don't we don't.

Yeah, exactly all of us say telling us about that. Really what he's saying, Oh, he's.

Just saying that he made an ass out of himself.

Then he didn't have a good night that night.

You ever hear Allen's version of.

That, No, tell me what I may have, but tell me no.

I asked Alan, like, what happened on in the ride back home? And it was again they were sitting in traffic, Bobby, Jill, Allen and Prince and it was obviously it was dead silent. But that's what was so important about that night. Alan agrees that kind of the I will not I will never you will never catch me unprepared or that sort of So the genesis of his meticulous I mean, it's always been there, but what led to all the stop on the dime ship, all the you know, ain't nobody

No one said anything. I said, did you? Did you know? Because I asked the next day, like in rehearsal.

Was there a look of like I wonder if you two told the others like what happened to me? Like that sort of thing, And you know, it's like a fear thing, like I don't want to mess up Michael thing. No, no, like it's it's unsaid.

But she sensed that that night changed, it was necessary to change.

That was the motivation to like, Okay, I will be the greatest I will be. You know that sort of obsession.

I talked about that a little bit in the book where it talks about his control and how important control was in any situation, and that would be part of what you said, and how the man had to have control over whatever it was with the conversation holding it, you know, religion, guys or whatever.

Interesting. You're right, he was definitely a control freak, but then there were certain things that he would like I was autonomous in a lot of the stuff that I did because I don't know, well, I was going to say because, but I don't actually know why. I think I was just basically part of it was that that because not only was he a control freak, but he

So he could be above the whole thing and let you guys battle it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's let the minions kind of take you know.

I have none of that, like I got that was the thing. I would be like, but he would say stuff, well, if you can't do it, I'll have such and such doing I'm like, I.

Can do it, I can do it.

I would get mad like it would be like he would like stir you up in some way.

Ruth, do you remember that super embarrassing moment we had at the Beverly Will share in his bedroom. I tell this really quick because it's the most embarrassing story of my life. But our friend af she and Shahiti photographer photographer, his dear friend we all met through all that through Prince had his camera and we were in Prince's bedroom thinking Princess.

Okay, So first of all, we weren't in his real bedroom, so we were at the region. We were at the region I threw I had six hours to throw a party for the oscars. And that's the one that Tom Cruise came to and the one that yeah, he gave me six hours to find a place and throw a party, and that's the one where Cameron Dia is like justin Timberlake with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Bielle was there. It was like a hot mess six hours. I was so mad and then I had I was like, like I learned,

Uh it was the big, big penthouse.

So there's like several rooms. I didn't know about this night, so there's like there was like five there's like maybe five or six different rooms.

And you know, it took six hours though.

Six hours.

Well that was the best part part of it is that I had to be like.

Like you know. I I spoke Prince BONNYX before, you know, and it's like I was like a bit of a mind reader, so I would and he hated that. He hated that I would like try to him. Yeah, he really did, so sometimes he would flip it on me. But I was ready for that one too, So if he tried to flip the script, I got. I got that. So I had like like twelve plates running. But so we throw the party and we get there before no one's there yet, right, no one's there yet.

There was a few fee people, but we.

Walk into okay, so now we walk into one so I just don't want to say it's Prince's.

Bedroom was the Prince's bedroom was one of the bedrooms in his suite. And af Sheen has this camera and me and my dirty mind and being French and all the stupid shit I say, I say, we should we should do like a little sexy photo shoot, like a little porno. So af Sheen, you take picture of Ruth and I Ruth gets on the ball and I get behind Ruth.

I'm like, oh, no, enacting this thing.

And I'm like and af she like, I don't even know if he has the photos. But I'm studying there behind Ruth and dude just walks right into and he goes, he looks at me and he goes, now, he goes uh uh and walk right back out.

And you were like, you look at me like you just got me fired.

You just got me fired. Yeah.

She was like, you just got me fired with your stupid ass. And if she was studying there like okay, this was awkward. And then I'm thinking like, I don't know how to go back into the room though, because he's going to see me in the room right, And then he was cool. I don't know, he had a sense of you here.

That was the first time that somebody's like come up behind me and done something they shouldn't happen. They got fired.

So I had to tell that because that just came back to me.

That was really funny.

Okay, I'll go around the room. I would like to know, Mike, what is in your in your mind?

What is your.

Goal to see as far as his legacy concerned? Then how would you like that?

Uh?

Yeah, I mean, because the thing is he's he's not coming back, and I know I think, well, he would never want his he would never do a Nike commercial.

He would never do that.

But it's like we live in a society in which people forget quickly.

And.

You know, it's the battle of well, do we.

Put him in Bob Marley terms and have him everywhere or you know, and you know, we've had a lot of eye rolling moments like the Empire Empire episode or whatever, or maybe what going to happen.

I can tell you though, for one thing for sure, he would never want Purple Rene licensed. That's well, yeah, it was a work order that he had universal publishing. Purple Raine should never be licensed, not ever.

Oh okay, well that's one thing in his will.

I mean, it's just whether anyone's gonna honor that or.

Not, is Matthew?

What would you as as the ultimate Prince fan? First of all, what's what's what's your rarest artifact that you have? I kind of misrepresented you. I mean you your artifact game is crazy.

I mean, you know, I have a couple of black albums, a German one in the US one which is pretty I feel that's pretty cool. But I have some some handwritten things.

I have some.

Acetates and test pressings that I'm proud of, Like for you, the very first yikes, which I've had for a long time.

A lot of I mean, it's funny, like I have cassettes.

I have like cassette for that song the Voice, and I hear your voice from Warner Chapel with handwriting you know that has like the thing they sent him, things like that that are and of a kind.

So but you know, I have a lot.

And at a certain point in my life I got rid of some things around like gold experience kind of I kind of disconnected a little bit, and people came after me and was.

Like, why'd you get rid of things?

Because I was you know, at a certain point, I was buying my first house with my then wife and kids, and it was like we need money quick. You know, I had these my regrets that I wish you haven't. That's why I mentioned that earlier. I had these two uh so four sides of I wish you havn't acetates that had completely different mixes of the extended Somewhere.

I have a cassette of it, so maybe you can find that.

But that's something that but I got so much money and at the time, you know, I was like, I don't know, thirty years old, somebody gave me like fifteen thousand dollars for you know. I was like, that's a lot of money.

Do you know who he gave?

It was some some.

Some kin I could maybe, but I had, like you know, I had some some you know, a couple of pairs of shoes and the princes shoes and.

A couple of pair pair you know.

Damn, I'm just it just hit me that I forgot I have like you have.

I gave up.

Even in here. I'm like, man, I wish I had some old.

Way to you just your game like on a big No.

I got lucky, man, and I will not probably have a house in the next three years.

You'll sell it altered me for twenty bucks.

Now even you know, what's what's weird is that what I have, it's so sacred to me that my I think, my plan is that I want him to really have a nice wing at the Smithsonian in DC.

So I believe that I will.

I mean because right now as we speak, I mean, you know, it's on the floor like it's it's it's hot. It's seven figures worth of ship that is sitting on the floor. And you know, I mean, you know, and I'd rather it just be in I'd rather put it to awesome, you know, I rather have it put to great my apartment.

So I think that.

I will probably donate it to my apartment the Smithson.

I need some stuff for.

The walls in DC, So damn I wish you we haven't.

Yeah, that's that's my you know, that's one of my regrets. And there's still a lot of other stuff. I mean, I have things, you know, in storage and things in closets that I forget about. But it's pretty crazy, like some of this stuff you have that love God. Well, one time I stalked him at Warner Brothers, a friend of mine was working in international. You talk about the Oh that was crazy, No, that says stay wet. Actually, this is crazy. I found the nineteen ninety nine thing.

What made you look?

I mean, no, no, they it said like, you know something I can't remember. It didn't even have it like on the outside it said like it didn't say so it was weird. It was like a few hundred bucks, so they knew it was something. But I just saw the guy putting it up. They hadn't put it up yet. I saw the guy in the middle of putting it up, and I was like, let me have that, and I figured, you know, I look inside, I see the thing, and I was like, yeah, I'm buying that. And then yeah,

And then I had him sign a thing.

So that's someone that's in my bedroom because he signed it to me, not to my name, but signed it.

I was like that he signed it hard. Yeah, I think I have I've a napping from the first wedding.

Really yeah, signs to no not signs.

Of those such a geek weird.

It was a gift. Somebody gave it to me.

The way that he signed that, he sharp et the the get off twelve inch.

Yeah, he did something.

Similar to shocka Delica, So I think, yeah, I have the I have the Shaka Delicate or I have like whatever.

He said that.

He told Alan like have da da da play this record and he signed it and and you know Camille Shaka Delica and gave it to Alan to give to the DJ to play it and then bring it back. So I'm sorry, I'm still stuggling.

I wish you haven't.

They were like forced and they get off twelve and you're talking about.

I was there when he got it, used to hang out back then, and he had it before anybody else and he said, look at this, and he's still he.

Got a package from Paisley Park one day and I'd been I see, I was consulting for like anti piracy. I was a total hypocrite because I was collecting all the ship and they were paying me to like do anti piracy work. But basically it was, you know, I was.

Just compared with Pigeon.

Yeah, So basically like and I was like, you know, these are the I would make databases and all that stuff. And so they started sending me, you know, test pressings and.

This guy, honestly it was it was because he'd always had some crazy stuff. He was always getting amazing stuff. And you still had a relationship with Lenny way back then because but he when he got the twelve inch of of Get Off, he like showed me and Brian, who used to hang out with and we were just dumbfounded by this thing, going, this is the coolest thing, and nobody had it.

Because it was weird.

He shipped it like two weeks later, so three weeks later, so I was and I was trying to see, like, wait, is this the actual writing on it?

Like he still has the FedEx package that it came.

From Paisley because I'm because I have a geek.

And then I got yeah, I ship away. Well, I used to work at rough Bound Records, interned there and they sent like five of those on esther fans really and my.

Mom the package, the package I got for that, it's another Paisley thing and it's got the gold sex CMF wrapped in underwear with the sex MF with the fan and a card from Print saying you know the.

New blah blah blah. And I still have that thing pretty intact.

But you know, there's there was There was at Zanzibar the night where we were at Zanzibar, and that's what I was working on the Ultimate Prince thing with Warner Brothers, and I had like the he really like got in my head and about about it, and he was he got an advance for he knew it was, you know, it was a real thing and he was down with it. But he asked me to take off certain songs because of his belief. So take Away, Erotic City, Soft and Wet.

There was one more the twelve inches and on twelve the Ultimate Print.

No, we had to take it off, so you know, thanks to Michael. Now it's out in the sound, in the right sound on the Purple Rain thing. But so I said, can I put Let's Work instead? So we replaced Let's Work and then for soft and what he wanted the acoustic version of seven. So it was like, Okay, that's not really the same thing. But but that night he had a I still have this. It was an acetate of I don't know why I got that. It was like a parting gift.

I don't know.

Maybe it was for somebody else and he thought it was somebody else. But it's a sex cmf remix with mixed with like ice cube wrapping.

I remember that.

It's like, but it's it's an ice cube track. It's not ice cube on prints. It's a it's like a like a Medley kind of yeah, mash up. But so I'll dig that up for you. I'll send you that. It's it's just but you know, things like that. I'm sure if I someday, I'm gonna actually, you know, organize my stuff.

What is your wish as far as the legacy's concerned, what's your.

I think there's so much potential to do. I would, first off, would love to see serious XM station that's just just prints or something like that.

I would love to see.

Did you not tell me that at the time you guys that conversation did you.

Have, because I would love to see.

To me, you got a Tom Petty station, you got a Bruce station, and I would love to smell. I'd love to see it right now because you could have all the different shows. You have a live show, you have a Bobby's he doing the DJ thing that he used to do. I think something like that would be amazing. And the problem right now is that the legacy of Prince is going to start to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And it's our job to keep expanding it.

Thing care that was, soone's like, what the you know?

But with Prince, he's got such a vast vault of stuff, some great, some not as great. It's up to us to kind of get you know.

Well, there's enough for released twenty great records.

Oh yeah, he's got a lot of great stuff, a lot of and I'm hoping what the State does and what Warner Brothers did. First off, I hope everything goes to Warner Brothers. I want it under one house. He may have had problems out with Warner Brothers at certain times, but it seems that Warner Brothers is never going to

Yeah, there's a lot of things like that.

And on top of that, he would he would be very interested in something for Monday and Tuesday of a week, and that would be the most important thing. And then Wednesday come along and you get a new idea and he say no, screw Monday and Tuesday. This is wednes That didn't mean Monday and Tuesday stuff is bad. It just meant that he all of a sudden happened. He had a very short attention span and and I think he was really good at starting projects because that's when

But wrapping it up is.

Is a little more difficult because it's it's the end of a relationship. So he would get interested in the new girl or the new girl, the new girl, the new song, the new song, the new song. And I think that so he has a lot of unfinished projects. I'd love to hear the flesh out there. I'd love to hear a Madhouse box set. I'd love to hear Vanity six and Apollonia's six box set. I'd like to hear unreleased Revolution album The.

Garden.

Even though some of that stuff was released on that album, there's more stuff there and I'd love to hear that stuff.

I'd love to hear all the songs.

I'd love to see a Sign of the Times multidisc set of all the stuff that came out for that. You know, with Dream Factory and all all that stuff. There's so many projects that the guy did that it seems like you could be releasing these things for a

They come out with a tape. You know, they just a tape that.

Is the rehearsal of something, and you subscriptions to the year and you get this download and that to me would be the best thing because and it doesn't have.

To be perfect.

It can be a flawed tape. We all understand this was like a set. But yeah, by now it's weird.

Hearing something that sounds good. I don't understand this.

But there's so many things that that you know, I

Group he did with during Christmas here, yeah, exactly exactly exactly a billion, So it would be that and then that album end or the book ends.

The second book would end with the Revolution.

Breaking up, the family breaking up, and then prints breaking up with uh Susannah, and then the last thing he does that year is recording Wally, you know, And that's right before the Sign of the Times band got formed, so it sets up Sign of the Times, which Sign of the Times is kind of a way of him saying, you think it was all about them, I'll show you what I can do with a new band, almost a completely new band, and and you know, almost feeling like he had something to prove.

So that would be the book.

After that, I'd love to keep doing books, you know, And like I said, until till it's done. I have enough material right now to do one about eighty one, eighty two, eighty five, eighty six, and eighty seven eighty eight.

And I'm hoping that along the way.

Three I know, you know your wife is still.

You Yeah, yeah, she My daughter is funny. My daughter's eight, and she just all she knows is Dad sits and writes, so.

She just she'll try to.

I just wrote a book too, Dad, you know, it's very nice. But she doesn't understand that on every vacation, every night and every weekend, Dad sitting there writing, you know, And it's it's it's obsession, you know. And the interesting thing is I see it almost like Prince when he got obsessed with doing his stuff, working all the time, and it's almost like a life lesson when you see what Prince accomplished. There's a reason why he's got a vault full of stuff is because he was always working.

He'd be playing.

You know, you when you know that kind of stuff, there's a reason why he's he's that good and and there's a reason why nobody touches him.

And that's why there's the reason why there's no next Prince.

Because Prince never never not showed up to reheard, right.

That's He just that guy lived music, He talked music. I think that his communication with people was based on music. He had a There was one story I heard that would be in the second book where his engineer was he's talking his engineering. He said, we should make a TV show called drum Talk where one drummer's going the other drumm's going and answering each other, like in drum talk. And I thought, that's that's courteous.

But this is how he thinks. This is how this is how he thinks, and you know this, and so yeah, again.

One thing I just wanted to add what you're saying, sorry real quick, is that because of the haters, and we deal with a lot of haters, is that let's remember that Prince was back at Warner Brothers. When people, you know, say, oh, Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers. He was back with Warner Brothers. That's why Michael was his A and R guy, you know when he passed. And the other thing is when people talk about he didn't want this,

He's taking pictures, deluxe editions.

And all that stuff. And I used to give him those things and and he would. And when I give him to Miles Davis bitches brew fortieth anniversary box that I did, the first thing he said is we got to do you know, I want to do this with all my albums.

So when people say he wouldn't.

Want this, you and he was a Gemini, so he would, you know, want one thing one day. But I just wanted to put that out there that he did say that on many occasions and that he was back of Warner Brothers.

That's all right, Ruth, your turn. What would you like his legacy to be?

You know, I think it started during I mean it's always been there, but during my tenures when he wanted to create a museum droid at the beginning at a park at Paisley Park. So it was Dave Hampton, myself, Sam Jennings, and Rick Pelaquin who managed you know, Paisley at the time. And you know, I haven't been. I don't know what it looks like right now. I've seen kind of pictures and I'm a little disappointed, only because

It's the performances, the music.

I know about the movie. I've never seen it. It's just something I should see.

Apparently not.

I've wasted a lot of bad things.

But they're lying lying.

Nobody say that the studio bits are cool because it's him.

The studio bits are like really impainful studio in the studio, we filmed inside of.

The session with Study and Michael.

There's some really good performance parts, but the project whatever, anyway.

It's it makes out that the Cherry Moon look like gone with the Wind.

I watch Purple Rain for the narrative.

I love.

I don't know, but I mean the better than the hard life.

You don't want to know.

That's a horrible that's a.

Horrible you had we know Prince in movies are it's like a short fifteen minute film that they I think they like badr Okay, let me say this The Hard Life.

It's kas next to.

Now don't stop serving me anyway.

But I think I think just because Prince would say, you know so one of the ideas, and I have quotes from like my work notebooks of what he wanted. He wanted Paisley Park to be an interactive, multi dimensional place where fans knew and old could come and discover and rediscover music. And part of his you know, saying that he would say all the time is I am music.

And I add one or two things real quick. You would mention documentary. We were talking earlier about ken Burns type thing. It's why I'm watching the One of a Vietnam or he did the Jazz one. Imagine a ten hour PBS documentary about it. I know, which would be great. And I make documentaries for a living. This has to be something I would love to do. But one thing I wanted to make. You brought something that reminded me

I know, but I'm saying to tell that tell the truth as much as they can.

So many revised historically.

Well that's true, but I think that people are getting ignored and accidentally ignored or actually written off. And there's a lot of people that had you know, I would never have known the glass cutter story. And now I'm going to always think about that exactly.

I'd be fired just tag me to it. But but I think that there's there's stories like this.

I mean, somebody, Joe Willis was telling me that there was a the song shake. He was gonna make a shake in the in the in the kitchen and he came up with shake. He's like, I'll be right back,

So he's always looking.

For that that, like you said, a casual conversation somebody could have, becomes a joke you throw away, becomes a song title or becomes a part.

He's one of my jokes.

He would steal this stuff all the time.

With this song is so good, I'm starting to like ovulate.

And what do you do?

He made it into like a weird lyric. It was terrible exactly he would he would station. I was like, Prince, that's not good, that's not good.

But he would pull this kind of stuff from everybody. And and that's one of the fun things is you can tell his work based on who was around him. You can hear Susan Rodgers influence, you can hear Peggy my career influence, you can hear each one of these band members that you know, Fink was around for this long period and so he's got stories to tell it. Just to me, I think it's almost criminal that that these things aren't being well.

Hopefully, if there's like a documentary that comes.

Out, documentary just the oral history of print.

Stories, Yeah that's true.

I'm gonna start my book right now, but I do want to see because I did mention hashtag me too, just I don't want to be slight about it at all. That Prince, even though you could be slightly misogynistic and kind of a jerk sometimes, he was never, ever, ever, as far as I know, inappropriate with women. And I just want to put that out there because there's so many people like like you know, getting thrown under the

Think the majority of his fan base happens to agree with you.

Yeah, but I don't know how who listens to this, and I just want to make that, but I just want to make that, like it's like a like a very clear statement about who Prince was. And he was always a gentleman. He might have been like, you know, an asshole sometimes, but he was never well, you know, I definitely learned a few things.

From him, but get me some cereal.

We went on a cereal one night. That was one of my favorite. We went to Rouse to get him some cereal. And I thought he did that just to break up his suspicion if I was trying to see ruth it.

No, I don't know.

Now you know what he had. No, he had a thing about why isn't talking. He's like, tell him Mary, he can't come because he talks too much. He's like the pot. He's like, he's like he's like talk Like bringing him mirror is like having him go snitch to the police, you know. But then but then he was like relenting would be there.

All right, Bill, We got to wrap this up. What's your wish uh for his legacy?

I actually would love to It's all pretty much been mentioned.

But I'd love to see like an app or a subscription service that's like based around the app where they can continuously rotate content in and out.

The idea of the MPG Music Club.

But done properly, but done properly, but done properly, just say Jennings.

But well, I mean, you know, he was that was a lot of Prince right, Like you know, Prince wanted to have like those weird whatever that hide and seek things.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I didn't pay attention to that.

That was another thing that was started and then just.

Too busy getting cereal or calling yak so.

Well all closing saying that probably, I mean, yeah, you guys, everything that you guys said, of course I agree with. I actually say that I want to be selfish enough and maybe.

Grumpy old guy enough.

I would like to see the analog version of that idea where it's like, maybe it's just me in my my middle age wanting to revisit my childhood.

I don't have room for all that ship.

We always I'm just saying that for me, especially with there being two record store Days, you know, I would hear a Record Store Days. Yeah, I would like a record store series where it's like, you know, all this stuff remastered on wax.

Of course, this stuff.

Being you know, we're in forty five culture right now, so get the original forty five's reissued the same way mastered, you know, the same way, like the excitement of a new Prince forty five coming out, what's on the B side?

That sort of thing. But even then, men like having.

You know what, I would rather see that done with the new stuff that comes out like in the future, not the old stuff. Like see the new old stuff, get a new print song that I've never heard before on forty five with well yeah that too.

I mean, you know, even the stuff that we have, like.

I mean, I'm just saying, there's plenty of you stuff out in the world people.

But you know, Prince didn't like the reason why he didn't like the digitized stuff was because of the compression and that it would lose the sound and that you couldn't hear certain sounds in certain tones, and so it didn't have the same life as a record does.

Nowadays though you can stream lossless audio and it's so much easier to do then probably.

Make a Neil Young poem joke.

But the Jack White, the way he has his vault, like I subscribe to it, my son subscribes to it.

Those things are amazing. Like every three months you get.

A ridiculous box that you know, colored vital this that books that kind of stuff for guys like us, we like this.

When Tower Records, is it Tower Records that was on the corner of something when that when that was going out of business Prinson want to buy it?

You want to buy it?

An open a record store there, and he's like, and I want you to write Oh no.

No, no, no, call it recost.

He wanted to do. Yeah. Well, he also wanted me to open a Caroline's out here and I was like, no, comedy club. Yeah, he was like, you could be like Caroline interesting.

You know what for all the talk of like question you should be there and curat. I don't.

I want to. I want to be a fan.

I wanna you know when Records Store Day happens in April.

I wanna you know.

The feeling that I had hearing the that that, uh, the reissue of We Can Funk or whatever? Ye like, I knew that was the last time that I'd have that feeling I had when I was like eleven, like hearing the little Recorvette remix for the first time, Like what the hell is he.

Like staring at the speaker. It's hard to please Prince Vance.

I'll apologize to all the orgers and all the who what other chat room people and stuff.

All the Facebook groups.

I feel like there's there's no laying they are still around, an't they There's no there's no level of happiness. There's just like making them angry.

The least.

Class half half empty. Now my fans, just like you guys are pretty.

Much I wonder I wonder about some of those people.

At the at the end.

Of the day, this is just just a step back, a conversation with with with friends, purple friends, nobody know nothing.

I wanted to do that, Michael. I thank you guys for thank you.

Thank you. Let me crash this.

Wait a minute, wait, this is my PostScript, Ruth. Do you have a silly story anything like something super Yah?

Yeah, I have got one.

Just yeah.

Speaking of being traffic yea. So one time the Princess driver couldn't pick him up from he was from here. No, it isn't from here. It was another studio on the West Side. He was editing the movie that we shall not speak of and movie shut up, oscar winning movie, and so I had a hoopie at the time. It was an infinity. It was like a nice in the No, it was an infinity. It was like he was like in two thousand and five, two thousand and six, and like I got it at a police action so that

Like?

He's calling me and I'm like I'm driving and he's like, well, I'm ready now. I was like, dude, I'm like it's traffic. And I get there and he's standing there waiting for me person like sucking in his cheeks and pursing his lips. You know, it's just annoy that I was. No, it was somewhere in Santa Monica. I can't remember something it might have been. So I go and I pick him up, and you know, I don't get out of my car because it's like, you know, he just walks over to me,

Why would they buy me a new car?

And I was like, I won't you buy me a new car? And he's like, you shouldn't be riding around a car like this, and I'm like, why it runs? And he was like look around and we were like in you know, deadlock traffic, and he's like, do you think anyone would believe that Prince is in this car?

Right?

No, they were tinted, and so it was a long it's a long story, but it's a long ass trip back to freaking Beverly Hills or wherever he was staying out.

He was standing at the Boozer House some stories at the Boozer House too.

Did you ever get the car from him?

No, but I did. I did end up getting and

The kids turn around and they go, oh wow.

Guy Series talking to him like I couldn't stop. I started cracking out.

Thank you. Well, that's a great note to end or.

All Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love signing off Quest Love Supreme.

We will see you on the next go round.

Thank you.

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. This classic episode was produced by in the team at the Indor. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.