QLS Classic: The Revolution

Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and gentlemen, this is QLs classic. My name is Quest Love, and we go back in the archives to September twenty sixteen, some months after Prince's death. The members of his legendary band, The Revolution, gathered together can give us reflective moments of his life and his career. We hope you enjoy. Here we go.

Suprema Supremo So some Supremo who call Suprema su su Supremo Ro call Suprema Sun So Supremo who call Subprema sun Suprema ro call.

My name is Questo? Yeah, shut up already, damn. This is a special Purple News. Dearly beloved, check this out. This is Questlove and you're tuned to a very special episode of Questlove Supreme, only on Pandora. Right now, 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

Or I was raised here?

Born in uh Bronx, New York b Yeah, yeah, but I did not know?

Yeah, yeah, when did you move here?

How old were you ago?

I was about seven seventh, Okay, it's been a long time.

So what what brought you here?

My mother, she just wanted to Uh, my my dad was military and h he's based out it.

He he's from here, so 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 cause he was always overseas okay, and so that's how we ended up here.

Think what about you, what's your your early big you know your well.

I was born here, okay, and uh, Bobby and I were both born in the suburb of Saint Louis Park, which was one of the the you know what we're called the Inner Ring suburbs, like ten minutes from downtown. So you could just you know, shoot downtown to Minneapolis really quick and easy. 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

You demanded, yes, I did.

I told my parents that I really want to study jazz. So they we found these really great teachers here that had studios downtown here in Minneapolis, and they were called Wigley and Associates. There's just two guys, and Tom Weakland was my teacher. I credit him with a you know, teaching me improv and improvisational techniques and all that.

And well this isn't usual because most people, I would think, would like, like see something influential rock and roll in television and be like that's.

What I want.

Oh well that was there too, I mean definitely throughout all that. I mean I was six when the Beatles came on Ed Sullivan. I watched it live and then I was off and running from that too. That was a huge influence on me that time.

Yeah, Okay, sir Bobby, both you and your brother.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, well, Matt mentioned Saint Louis Park, which was produced a lot of great people, Al Franken and you know Wilson. It's just kind of a strange outer ring suburb that really did produce a.

Lot of fun.

But yeah, my brother David was kind of the godfather of this whole thing because, like Matt said, our families.

Knew each other.

But David was before the Beatles with Peter Paul and Mary in the case to Trio. You know, the hippie folk thing that was just moving with the anti war movement grew, you know, the folk music. Of course, Bob Dylan came from here, but David was also. They created

They would come to the house.

When we were very young, and my brother David was already showing us how to poke holes in the player piano to make more notes and.

So really, yeah, so David's old. David's eight years older. See, in my head always thought he was like your little brother. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that he's the older brother.

Yeah, older than Steve's in the middle of four. But when David met Prince, you know, Prince had worked with a with the eight track, and then David was working at Sound eighty and the.

First digital actual.

I think multi track digital was three AM and they gave it to Sound eighty one of them anyway.

So all all of that was the main that was the centerpiece of Minneapolis. Yeah, it was her.

Pilhoffer, a big jingle writer, a big orchestrator, and he built this incredibly beautiful facility for its time, you know, forty eight track two inches and you know, incredible.

Drum boots and stuff. You know.

It was really it was something and put struck to out like a fish to.

Water, you know.

And Peppy Willie we recorded their studio Beat two with the Polydor deal with ten fifteen and those tracks are played on.

Did any of you guys have any like lofty goals of like world domination or was it just like, hey, we'll just start a band, maybe I'll go to college or the army And yeah, no, I'd suburb definitely wanted to you wanted to break out of Oh yeah, no question. Did you feel there was a legitimate scene to nurture in Minnesota or was it like I gotta get to New York.

Or it was more about getting to New York or LA and doing it. But we I always thought you could still do it anywhere in the country because you know, a lot of groups broke out from different cities.

But we were.

Really at that time one of the few groups that was able to do it at that time, just because Prince got his deal with Warner Brothers, you know, but.

For me, I was on the I was like right on the cusp of that generation gap. They were in a d different generation than me, okay, and.

You saying we're old. Nah.

You know it was weird because m the generation of musicians that I hung out with, it was there. There's there was this distinct border of the type of music that we we approached. But I just remember when I was about seventeen, sixteen seventeen, I was determined.

It was nothing gonna stop me.

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, I didn't care. I was gonna do whatever it took. Cause I saw Prince did it, went in there and did all the instruments, and I was like, well, wait a minute, you know this can be done.

And so I was determined.

So how how did p into your Who's the first kid into the radar? Bobby Okay? I was.

A runner for Hustny. He had an ad agency.

I had.

Just done it one summer from my junior year, and then in his senior year, I graduated high school and was U I inherited the job from Jeff Siegel, who went on to do the Renaissance Festival here and just amazing talent. And he had created this yellow excuse me, yellow paper delivery service, which just was kind of a invoice that you turn in on a yellow piece of paper on Friday, so it was you handed it in the hustney.

It was like fifty dollars a week or something to drive around.

And then I was in this this band, Kevin Odergarden. The KO band was kind of a country rock band following Marshall Tucker and all that stuff back then. And you know, my job became kind of mixed because at the studio I was walking from the back room, which when the studio, I've heard too.

His Moon sound. So Chris Moon owned that.

Chris Moon owned the studio and photography studio, and I think he used it to get girls mostly, but I'm a photographery English accent, but he was very charming guy.

And so I was with this band.

That we were helping build in the back room for free rehearsal. We were kind of 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 fro first and just heard this sound, and he was he was working on baby, and he stopped. I got the half

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 you doing in my chair? You don't get out of here. So I just sat there and I just kind of listening and just go ahead and play it. You know, look, that's amazing. You know what's going on here? There's nothing, you know, I said, yeah, sure, And then Chris moonwalked in, What are you doing in here?

It's you know, this is exprience and everything.

I said, Oh okay, I didn't know this was like a nuclear you know, we need a special you know, suit to get in here. And uh. And so that the laughter, the first laugh I got out of him was the connection, and humor is kind of how I got into it. And then I'd see him like every day until one day he 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 drug. I want you to

It's like, where is he going? What is he doing?

Is is a drum track, comes back in the boot, picks up the bass. He's putting on a bass truck, and I'm going, that's pretty incredible.

Picks up the tarn.

There's 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 punch me on vocals, and you know, it's like I'll just hit record, you know, and then he just recorded. He goes, stop, okay, go back to the next track, and we did the next track. So I kind of like got in there a little bit there and then.

So he jed on engineering.

Yeah, of course, I mean it's just you know, I was like, you didn't realize all the things were. So then I became Then the studio, I met him, and then we were hired by Chrismin 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

Like that before. How was he at this point? He was seventeen. Wow, So slide shows like these events would happen.

Well, you know when corporate shows get together now they put together slick video and all stuff about the car.

Someone just tells me and put a playlist together. So yeah, back then, y'all have a playlists.

Yeah, but it was that was the beginning of the friendship. And then Andre entered the mix, and then the three of us were the three Musketeers for a while because they got Obviously some stuff happened with Morris. I. I came new to it because the history from the whole community in the North Side, but the flag time, Alexander O'Neill and everything, and Andrea and I was just kind of like they you know, I Prince wanted a you know, a rock drummer, and he said, I want, you know, spin sticks on fire.

I said, I can't, I'm not gonna because I'll show you. So he took it.

He took you to Mother's finance and the guy was spinning sticks on fire.

That's right, okay. I was sparklaying whatever they were doing.

And 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 chams like baby. It was kind of like what, you know, are you Mother's Finest or are you Joni Mitchell or what?

And then we saw.

Fleetwood Mac together and that was that was achieved later with Wendy and Lisa.

So the goals 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 gerummer, white keyboard player in the basically.

Not in the beginning with Mac and we were looking for identities and costumes and we were out with Rick and you know, it was it was, you know, pretty chaotic as far 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, 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 fat, the bikini briefs, and.

The Okay, so I kind of want to skip to the point where you guys are now professionally hired. I'll say that the one thing that I witnessed that I now know is key and important is the only because you know, I'm like one of those collectors that really gets off on the process of how it gets done, not the final product. But I know that you guys have put in endless hours of preparation before you even

I'll let them answer. Mark and Matt get to that. But I'll just tell you 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 until dawn. It was already like that from day one.

So even in the beginning before you guys down the would move on furniture out, jam put the furniture back, and they would open at eight nine am, and we would be done at six. Wow. 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 more better than socializing or just playing with his life.

Yeah, when I came in, I was so stunned because I mean I had a pretty busy schedule, you know. I was in high school, got out at three point thirty, had a job from four to nine thirty at the pancake house.

That's where I met him, actually cooked in.

That he was he was I was a young guy.

That's that's you got yourself.

But you know, from nine from I got off at nine thirty, I headed over to 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 start at ten am. We'd be on a jam, one groove till correct me if I'm wrong, three four o'clock in the afternoon.

Trust me.

I would get a sandwich.

Playing my bass.

I'd be in the kitchen area opening up, making the sandwich one handed and playing with one hand because the groove couldn't start if you stopped the groove.

He's gonna be looking at you.

Really. Yeah, no lunch breaks or anything like that. Yeah, he was a driver.

Man, That dude was a driver.

When y'all with jam like that? Would he use those as like bassis for songs? Like would songs be born? Kind of in the moment that bault is probably packed. We jammed all the time, Susan Rogers.

Which is he'd be like rollo tapes yea, and he would just listen to it on I just pull stuff out of it during mine came out of stuff like that with Matt just jamming on something and come out of the house.

And 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 like, oh, I could just loop this because Daike would like write in real time, like as we were jamming, like four hours later, I'm like, all right, dude, we play the same loop like wasted. Just listen to this loop and then Tarik will use that as a basis, But do that in real time? Is the word loop was? You know?

Was was a limb pattern and there was no you know, everything was pioneered. The drum machine arrived. I walked into a rehearsal and Eden Prairie and but I heard Private Joy when he recorded it. That was I think one of the first lum one tracks. And and he looked at me, he looked at the machine. He looked at me, didn't say anything. He's looking at them, you know, he just give me that smile. It's kind of like yeah.

This thing is evil. You know, He's a Mustard with the machine, and he.

Gave me the best advice I ever got. He looks at me and goes, it's here, learn how to use it. That's what we did, and we had to created Don Batts, who's working on.

Our crew in our recent shows. You know, he created an interface with.

Guitar pickups that we're using for acoustic guitar interfaced with this spaghetti thing that they created to interface with the outs of the limb to trigger pads.

Nobody even had that. Yeah, I want to say, you, did you guys invent at least create? Did you?

Guys?

Don was a genius, Don Bout a genius, and he and Prince staid, you know, I want him to play pads, and Donald was like, I have an idea, but you know it was a jalopi at best. I mean, it would just kind of run and then work. And then you know, when we did the American Musical Awards, the 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. Was a machine. I was going to ask you, all right, maybe I've used it three times in my life. And we started using Indians because the vibration of the monitors on stage and the base would offset the drum set right. 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 queues and all that stuff. Has there ever been a faux pile like, oh, I don't have

First of all, maybe I'm a star turn into Simon says, So he's hiding his stop on the one.

Mark had to relay them to me because.

He would sell, 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?

Or he would just go way over the way to the corner over there, right, and then he'd look at Mark and goes stop on the money, I can't see.

Well, yeah, they would go, you know. Yeah.

Besides that, though, the biggest problem was 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 couldn't see how many, and then you know, he could tell if you weren't playing, if you were like, well, no, because I didn't see how many. You know, there's one.

There's ones where Bill and I just discovered, h was it? And New England somewhere Oh, the Worchester mass Show. Yeah, we yell from one hundred. That's that's Atlanta. There's one.

Oh, but there's one in Boston where I think you, Bobby, I think you actually played.

A little bit. Yeah, he did five extra Well, yeah, it was 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 and I'm like, wait a minute, who challenges his band to mess up an actual show? You know?

Yeah, well I'll slay 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.

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 and and whatever chord you were playing would keep playing and you couldn't shut it off. So if you'd be sitting there in the middle of the song and just be.

I'm 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 your switches really, you know, really quickly, you just right split second stuff because it didn't the technology hadn't caught up.

Quite yet with technology. 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 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 bed and then you just have to work with it.

You know, one thing, what was it?

What happened on any song?

It could happen 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 we're not.

We would never get anywhere else he put. He trained us. We were 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 there, and there was.

This 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? Was he great thirty years? No?

We waited, man, I mean, first of all, going back to the again, you know, I see.

I thought he was the first new riding in the last leave.

Like we Wendy's story, you know what she told our recent shows about the freezing cold purple ran and his advice to you know, start your car and let it run for three hours when we did the Capri Theater and it was just I drove them over and rusted out pinto station wagon.

You know.

He he 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 over exaggerating, like it gets we can give you. You know, Siberia and Minneapour is kind of connected really if.

You look at the globe on the top. But yeah, I mean it gets, it gets. It's just it gets purple here on the weather map. 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 I have a tape called ice Cream, which is a fifty 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 one hundred hours figuring out these audibles. The audibles were extra hard to see. They were a sleight of hand. There were a stomp 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 drop.

The napkin dropped, you had to hit when it hit, damn.

It still keep the pace. But and it was fans blowing everywhere. So the thing was kind of like being on a journey on the.

Way down and watching he had Alan Lee's on the side of the stage just wait God, and.

You know he goes, Bobby see two hundred dollars. When the fans are going, It's like I just got fired. Those fines were real. They were real.

It all depends what kind of Yeah, they were real, but it all depends what kind of mistake if he remembered. There was two kinds of mistakes, whether he was in the spotlight or not in the spotlight. If he was not in the spotlight changing over here and he heard it, you could sometimes hear him laugh at you. But if he was in the spotlight.

And you missed something, it was usually a two hundred dollars now.

Yikes, I remember I lost twelve hundred.

I just couldn't figure stuff out. Yeah, brain Free had a new song.

Yeah, you get a brand new.

Song every day. Set changes every day. On top of everything else, is he was bored to dad. So here's a question for you guys. You mentioned that new song.

So how long would he give you guys to learn a new song soundtrack?

Why?

I developed the rumble tank rumble technique on the base because I got tired of getting fine.

So I started going, you know, in the beat with the drummer, and I started.

Doing being like yeah, that's so weird because I'm thinking like held just trying to get through, like like a play that's broken play. And he loved it. He loved it. I mean when he hear that, yeah, that was like like okay, just.

Rumbling and then we start a whole new song like that.

You know, most of the stuff I play, if you listen on stage, ain't no notes.

I know, Like that's amazing.

I feel I can do spins and foot back flips.

I can't believe, like I'm thinking like this is this is a new technilo. Because I tell my player Mark to do the same thing, like, listen, you're stolid, so U think while I have you So you're saying that at no point where you I mean, this is in the early dayes. Of course, the technology was not invented for perfection.

Yet it was not the glitchy you know, things could be glitch.

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, oh, okay, 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.

Well.

There was a studio technique he used to create it was.

That that wasn't it was too it was too quantized. No, not exactly.

He never say yeah.

There's I'm not supposed to tell that killing.

No, I told his 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 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 Nikki, like all photography. You know, it looks like one day, okay, Darling Nikki three four, and I'm just sitting there going, how are we going to do that?

You know on the records.

So it was like double kick drum next day, and it's like, well, that's not gonna work. So I figured out He said, all right, well you got to indite to figure it out.

It's on you. And I'm like, how am I going to recreate Darling Nikki live? So when he just calls us songs of random, all the stuff is preprogrammed in your lin drum depends on the song. Some are live drum, some are played. So 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 Raine 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, there's tricks to everything he did. I mean he meticulously you know, whether it was us playing or him playing would kind of you know get it.

Just did you have those flans effects on your one your lin drum?

And yeah, we were on through petals, you know, through you know, just boss delays and stuff and you know, just getting that's where all the loops.

There wasn't anything like that.

So Mountains is just the limb through all these boss delays into the you know, so everything was was new. But you know, he the technology was, as we discussed earlier, it was being developed and techniques. So like Darling Nicky, is that that double kicked room where he's just against his the other track, he's just going with his fingers.

He could play with his fingers on that thing. I mean he could just go, I mean the buttons and he was just perfect. Everybody goes, okay, let's do Darling.

Nicky and it's just like okay, okay, so you know then I'm gonna be fired. The final show up and I say it took the Box home, and me and the Box had that come.

To Jesus moment.

We really just kind of really got I just said, well, I'll just do this program going with a visual light and then get to the program data right, data. So during data I had to switch patterns. I had the one actually data, but and then I just.

Go to and then it looks at me. So then I did I did it like he did it, which was the big kick from softer pad right. So I had a technique and then he came back to he goes, nice job, let me fix something.

And then he puts them both on the loud kick. So when people heard it, stuff and the whole place was a kick drum. There's yeah, that's what I want. It's like it was just weird things. Well you know, and I would die for you to speak.

Getting back to Don Batts, he added MIDI to the lin so that we could connect it to my synthesizer and have the bass part play sequenced through the whole I was going to ask, how who handled you know that whole thing, But it was in the studio. Prince actually played that manually through the whole song. It was not sequenced.

It was him on the.

Overhind like he's talking about on the drum 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 kind of have to know, and I know everyone has like these Purple Rain 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 was similar as you brought that up. What was

Yeah, that was pretty interesting because I was scared to death. I'm sitting there, 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?

We sing it head jerky Jack you off.

I'm like, this is gonna be interesting. I think we're going to be dead after this. You're right, 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 I heard with the guy. Yeah, I look at that. Whoa, they just threw something.

Whoa.

Yeah, you're not gonna last or something. But but it started with an orange that hit.

His 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, And so we're playing what song?

Is that something? No, it was we came out of the game with Bambi.

Yeah, it was why you want to cheat me so bad?

I think? And I was way out of tune. Basse was out of tune.

And I saw Jack Daniels bottle came up on the stage.

Yeah, crash his head.

He he just ducked his head in an empty Jack Daniels I just went like right, crash against the drum riser.

And then 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 second way taking around to me. The second thing right, like you did know what was coming. The second night they brought stuffed them from Yeah. The first night it was like are they do. They hate us that.

Much that they you know, they're just throwing their lunch at us. I mean, it's like where were these objects come went from?

It was just like you can bring one to Rolling Stones. I mean that's what I mean. It's like, you know what it's like.

It was just a but like Mark said, so it was like bikers and you know it's the Stones, but they were The doors were at six in the morning at the at the Rose ball it was the coliseum coliseum, and so they were there all day and then we went on it two in the afternoon.

So it was like an all day Rolling Stones festival. Yeah, and j Giles and George Yeah, you guys were first. Yeah, we were meeting and yeah, we were just raw meat. So then so you say the stadium was school by then because yeah, and my physician like it's always influent like when we do, like Dave Matthews was twelve people. There were a lot of people.

There was at least you know, after sixty sixty thousand, it was a ninety thousand seat venue.

Yeah, I just 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, like clouds just clouds. Yeah, so that was like the wrap show of the Yeah. But you know what you never hear about this. One thing I just want to.

Say is that that later on during the Stone set, they actually threw must have been two dozen pairs of shoes.

Up on ye love.

When you think it was out of love they rescue, this was yeah, one was love one waste.

Why were they throwing shoes though to get pick to pick it up? You know, just it was you know this they were aiming at our head. I know they were throwing nicely.

I just thought it was odd that they shoes up there on stage at him. And then of course he just said, you know, I'm not a fing door Matt back to the audience.

I mean, wait, you stayed to watch the show? Oh yeah, sure, Prince like literally he left too. I was going and went to Minnesota and had to call him. Mick and Dez said to call him, and and and and now with that without the technology like it's I don't 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 and and Mick, you know, was with with Dez and I know the management and but the story I remember most is that he had had enough and we couldn't end

Plane, went to Minnesota. Mix.

Do you want me to talk to the crowd, you know, because Charlie and Bill came back and they were great.

You know, they were.

Apologetic, apologetic, and you know that you know, our fans are routing stuff and they were apologetic or mixing 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 Mind so much. And Prince said, I don't need my mom to go up there and tell anybody anything, you know, so he he he.

He was indignant about.

It, and but he came back, and that dressing room 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, well, I got hit.

In the head, remember the limbo.

Prince almost got hit with glass.

But then we go ahead.

I just remembering the limo 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. Yeah he was, Yeah, he said, he says, Mark, it ain't like this, And I said, well, I said, friends, that's 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 going to 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 Chitlin circuit.

So was he the same after that or was it like even more into title I 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 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, the syndromes on a song. And we put

It was food. We went back to find the love. You know, that is weird, you think, like a show in l A Like to me, that's like the best thing in the world.

We man, we did Pittsburgh, We did the Stanley Theater.

That was my first real Prince Frinch audience.

And I'll never.

Forget the love was different. It was, oh man, this is not so South. But we went to find the loves.

But you know, eventually Atlanta, and you know, I mean Atlanta was another you know, Fox theater.

You know, we just we did it.

Whatever happened, he figured out who his audience was and it certainly became the Stones audience later.

It just you know, he learned from all that.

But the physical I mean it was definitely you know, this is like professional baseball football, you know, you know that, and we're at that standard. That was a loss and there was 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. In my head, I was like, Okay, that's going to make.

A stronger, more determined totally.

That's what you had to go through that. I've never cried before, I mean like that. I mean it was terrible. I mean it was just really traumatic, to tell you the truth.

Yeah, oh yeah, I was actually pretty shocked at what happened because I didn't.

Come to it. We're you excited, like, yeah, that was a dream? Are you kidding me?

It was like amazing, I.

Mean from I mean, you know, the Beatles, Stones and Sullivan, you know, the whole thing, and it was like this was you know, meet Charlie Watson.

You know, everything was just but you know, well, so someone else and put it to me that and this this is like this person's theory on on being born in nineteen fifty eight. At least were prints that even though Prince was technically a baby boomer, that the audience of baby boomer wasn't his audience. That technically he was the older brother the generation ex So all the kids and the younger siblings of the Rolling Stone audience would be Prince's right audience.

He wrote the Stevie Earthwind and Fire ride was where he went earth Wind and Fires audience. Obviously with Kavala Ruffalo, they knew how to do that, and earth Wind and Fire was had done such incredible you know with Doug Henting Magic, earth Wind and Fire really changed everything right, and then then you know it was it was just crossovers smashes, and that opened up you know us really in a way that we could uh kick going, but

So when things are heating up. During the nineteen ninety nine tour, I know that the time was, uh, the openness for you guys, what's the folk were really as tense as as it was as far as like to the where every guys cannot open forest in New York? Like were they Was it really that much of a threat? Or man?

I can speak on this. I mean I used to have conversations with dude every night.

I'd be like, friends, these cats are burning it up, as that they are burning up the stage.

Dude, He's like, that only got nothing on us. You watch, you watch, And this was every night, and I think he started seeing it and it was.

Like, was it really that? Because even though I've seen tapes, I've not seen audience reactions to the time. I think 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 that was the whole goal, like, Okay, this is me as the black group, and this is me you know exactly.

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 roll, 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. In the nineteen ninety 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 them 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.

At the end of the tour became really bad to the point where it was real. The food fight ensued, so I was just weird.

Food fight. 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 all of a sudden, Jerome looks at me with an orange in his hand and then.

Just helps up.

I have a light colored suito and I walked back dressing room and Prince, I mean, he says, what happened to you?

I said, Jerome to sent me with an orange? And he went what? And it was like I just thought nothing of it. And to him that was like Pearl Harbor shot, first shot been fire, and it.

Was like he got so enraged that it just all I can tell you is is it turned into two days of complete chaos. Hotel rooms trashed. Uh, Jesse Johnson is a prisoner of war.

It'll be a shamed the.

Witch handcuff handcuffed to a cobra who had handcuffs.

Chick.

Chick had everything, brass, nuggles and guns, whatever you want, you know, was actually part of this as well. Yeah, Chick was there. Got Jesse Johnson, picked him physically up, carried him in the room and handcuffed him to.

The because he was threatening Prince, you verbally threatening him, you know, Yeah.

Jesse was so he didn't gonna kill you. Never saw them, so we had a room manager, nam Hewett. At that point he sent him out to the store camera with maple syrup and eggs and tooth based and Justin Johnson's being interrogated and they're probably maple syrup over his head while he's chained up and they're putting tooth based on him, and the time is hearing them 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 eggs. So we were on the audience in the show they have no stage. Yeah, it was having it all through sound check on stage. Jesse Johnson was captured on stage. He was bagged on stage and dragged off. Jerome was during the show, during their show, and then the rule was the time.

Okay, so the time couldn't touch us. But Prince, I think Prince jumped up there as Jesse or something. They captured Jesse. He took him to the room and Prince waited for him while they chained him up. And then but the end of the story is Jesse breaks free. We want coat wrap like a monster. He breaks free.

Walk and then Prince everybody scatters. We went outside jamming.

Onis are waiting for us, pelting us with eggs. We run, Matt and I run into Roger's room and he's like.

Going, what the heck's going on?

Vacing See we're like outside and we just kind of He's like looking at him 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've got eggs, they got stuff. And then the end of it, Prince had sent Hewett out to get pies.

Wait what Supermark is the late hour the hotel or something, and the car pies playing pies came in like in a movie and we had a pie fight, pie fight, and then but the Prince was done.

So then he goes, come on, let's call to the hotel. He gets the hotel to open up.

Jesse's room and we're hiding. Lisa and I and Prince are in Jesse's room with yellow mustard. Wow, Prince princess with yellow princess yellow mustard.

This is gonna cost a fortune. I don't care. It's like putting yellow mustard all over his clothes. And all over everything.

And then when we hear a noise outside and Lisa and I are in the closet and it wasn't Justice, So then we got out of the room.

But he's putting yellow mustard on his door. It's a princess. I got to pay for this.

It was like twelve fifteen, twenty thousand dollars in damage.

Who had to pay for that? Let's m throws TVs out? This is nothing the tour.

The tour paid for it.

Yeah, So I mean, was there at Kumbaya Mooman at the end or was that like the last Prince Time show ever? Jam us for out so not really. Me and Prince end up sitting in for them, you know during the Atlanta Ship stage.

Yeah, because they were they weren't.

There, so you guys were playing like backstage stage.

I hit jams Terry's parks. Prince had jams first.

It's it's a movie in itself.

It's just really an amazing story, and uh it was war really yep yep yep.

Well, you know, I just want to thank you guys for I mean, I can go on forever and ever and ever and ever, but I really really just want to thank you guys for uh, everything that you've done for music and for you know, for for me personally. But 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 to keep our name alive and be on our side.

If we love you. From that, Bobby C. Brown, Mark and Doctor place each other, we'll be back. We're more Quest Love Supreme and we're broadcasting from Minneapolis, and we just wrapped up a great conversation with Mark, Bobby Z and Doctor Fink 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

I mean it's such a story.

I don't know how 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 no like music just feels like assistance. I feel like you guys 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, actually no, there's a lot of your background before you even came to Uh, I guess under the Purple umbrella

Yeah, Well, here's the story is pretty interesting where Lisa and I are a second generation LA musicians. Our fathers were studio cats. That's what they're called, right, They are part of the wrecking crew.

And in the.

Sixties and the seventies, being a studio musician was really a really respectable career. You know, you got your pension based on how many sessions you did. So when my father and her father, you know, were in their fifties, only fifties, and all of those cats were losing their gigs to machines and to single room producers, they started living off of pensions based on sessions, right, which really

We knew the difference. So I think being hired by Prince that.

I think that was an asset for him because we had a real we had already had a big definition of that in our own personalities by the time, at least I joined and Lisa joined, and you know, we had bands together with our friend with our siblings. There was an unreleased record on A and M. It's it's based off of a really horrible food substance, Waldorf Salad. It's we all went to a Waldorf school. We all went to Highland Hall, which was this Waldorf schools. A Stein in her education.

It's real hippie like you get to crochet and do you're with me and make cut me. Yeah, I mean I.

Remember at the time you're making it like it was a lame thing, but at the time was like fun.

Like the name of the band is lame Waldorf Salad. I'd have to say, my father rest in peace.

Okay.

So well, my father and her father are also the ones that were the band for the Partris family. My dad was a uh was Shirley Jones and Lisa's father was the little girl tambourine player in all the sessions.

Wes Farrell was the producer on those things and.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and the Syden Marty Craft show, which I've told you about.

You're gonna make my dad like freak out if he hears this. He's done.

Your father did.

All with the Seely Dan record, So your dad was much in mind at that time.

Well though they were both cool. They did a lot of cool things.

So what else, like go through the resume, like, what else is your father does?

Well, my father really started on motown sessions 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 played on, and it was.

Just sad immense.

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 a percussionist. Yeah, so back then it was like a percussionist was really a cool thing to be.

I want to be on a.

Phil Spector session as a percussionist. That's the wall of sound, right.

I mean my dad also played on like Marvin Gaye, he played congas you know, on What's going On and that whole record, and yeah, stuff like that. When we went on tour with uh when I don't know what tour it was dirty mind, maybe with Prince 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's Gary, Gary L. Coleman.

Amazing.

So you can go on the internet and see both of our fathers on the pet Sounds recording sessions. Because my father is doing all the he did played all the organ stuff, yeah, like good.

Vibrations and all that kind.

Yeah, there's great area.

My father, young Michael, Michael Melbourn.

I remember your father beaming with pride as he entered.

Do 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. Gonna kill you because normally I didn't do it.

I didn't know, I know nothing.

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, I guess someone would big would do that. I was like, that's normally like a narrow staff member would just say what the rules and regulations were, like, not introduced the biggest act of the night. So I always wondered.

My father was the president of the National Academy of Recording NARS 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 NERS. It's very trippy. It just is 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 blah blah blah blah.

Which they normally do. And then he introduced the Prince and the Revolution.

And it's special for.

Me because my daughter happens to be a member of the Revolution and Prince.

At the time.

He would be like if he was like you know, I mean, there was this whole esthetic we had, like doude smile man, look bad ass and if there was any kind of cuddling cuddlingess when you needed to be, I'm going to kill you.

You're don't blow the bubble bss, don't do it. I don't want to care about this at all.

Yo.

So okay, this is one. Do you remember anything about the Sunshine Superman sessions with Melbournmore 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 set out Melbournmore's Sunshine Superman with you, Wendy and your twin sister Susannah singing in the children's course. That was Melbournemore Sunshine Superman on Quest Love Supreme. We're here with Wendy and Lisa Princess Band, The Revolution. I don't know. For me with Sunshine Superman, I meant just as a digger, as a

There's not very many Melvoin's. We're all very closely related.

I know this now. So I guess I got to bring you guys to Middle America. How did you why did you leave LA to go to Minnesota? Like how did your paths even cross? Or I guess Lisa you were first.

Yeah, well it it is.

It is kind of strange growing up in LA and Hollywood and being born to the into the music business. You know, like that was the steel mill, you know, our town. You know, I grew up in Hollywood, went to Hollywood High.

You know, my dad worked in the studios.

All local you know, it was all right there and uh, and then I moved to Minneapolis to make it big.

So lucky.

I mean, did you go there specifically to work with Prince or was like let me let me.

Know.

It was like are you kidding?

Because it's like funky Town just came out. It was about getting out of there. It's like, take me to someplace else. No, it was just through his management company. He had a female keyboard player, Gael.

And so how to own hunt, you know, to seek you out.

Well, by that Owen had just been fired and he had a new management Farnoi.

And can we probably say their name because.

Steve Farnoli, Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo, so it was Ruffalo fern So it's only three.

I always thought it was like four or five.

Well, it sounds like a lot of.

Guido, and you don't want to know the other guys.

You don't talk about those guys.

So they so, well, they were looking for another girl and a friend of mine who was my best friend in school, she had run away from home and got a job at their company, you know, secretary, and she heard about it and she was, oh, my god, Lisa would be perfect and she told me about it, and she said, Prince is looking for and I was Prince.

Yeah, No I didn't. When did you first hear of Princeville? Oh?

When I was seen, and I was.

I left my It was the summer of seventy seven 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 two places. 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, I saw amazing performances there. But in the

I'm thirteen, spok, but I'm like.

I literally ran up to the booth and went, who's that girl?

And the guy looks at paintings. That's 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 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 on and I was listening to it, I was like crushed with envy and pride and like she was perfect. She was the perfect addition to his. She was so schooled

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 this whole song that freakier.

This is great. It was almost so dangerous to me.

It's like, oh my god, it's not like some weirdstute sounding person.

He was like this sound like acture sounded real. It was that's weird, Like you had a pride and I had a moment of how to not give It's weird, like everyone has a sophoment story, a moment of discovery. This guy so uh, I mean, obviously I know that Gail Chapman left h the band under tints uh kind of this under under this tension of having this sort of closure line. Well, yeah, I mean religion sometimes, I

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 like we didn't really conceive of anything first. We sort of 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 he was outrageous and.

You know, but you didn't see his stars Born.

Poster in the house he had the Stars Born first.

Yeah.

Yeah, when I first flew out to meet him and he picked me up at the airport and it was pretty funny and yeah.

Yeah, oh wow.

Then I was like, have a manager's car service pick so there.

No, no, no, 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 like, I'm sure he wanted to say, don't smoke, lef he smoked and he used to smoke.

And 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 the dressing, 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 on the wall.

There's like Chris Christophers and.

It was a little bit like what, I'm certain that somebody put that up there for him. I can't see him doing his own housework.

Oh that's not true.

He did a little bits.

Oh yeah, he knew what he was like exactly that was. And he was like just putting things on the wall like it's spray paint, pieces of paper.

Was he extra meticulous?

He seemed like he was somebody that was extra meticulous.

Later on, later on he was in the beginning, he was he was sloppy. Yes, he was sloppy.

Yeah, you know it's messy.

I have pictures of the launy.

But you know in the yeah, you know it's funny because.

I ended up doing it and making Friday sandwiches.

He one of his last piano concerts, 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 Farnolan and he says, I don't think this is gonna work out. Really, Yeah, I don't think this is because there was something about the way.

And I didn't look him in the Yeah, something was weird to him. And then and then he says, you're 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, go downstairs, and then he calls for only and the phoney. He says, you get a gator, 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 downstairs and she opens the piano and she just starts playing. And if anybody in here has ever heard Lisa play by herself and what, yeah, what comes out between Sawtee and hinder myth And.

He said, I'll call you back.

So you had a classical background. I mean when 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. And there was this guy, Dick Gray who was very depressed man, but played so beautifully and woul.

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.

It's shapes, you know, what sounds like.

Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say these former centers. Yeah, so when you heard sound, 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 I when after they would finish and I go to the piano and try to make shapes again.

You know.

Usually, well every virtual as I know, at least in pop music, you know, they have this higher education first, like they they s like the Motown guys were jazz musicians. This pop stuffs whatever.

Yeah, jazz.

So I did you feel as though or did your family make you feel as though, like, uh, you're kind of luring yourself like you could be the next you can 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, you said you got the talent to be a concert pianist, you know, and I really I saw that for you and your future, and you know, I would marry the conductor and you know all this stuff, and I was like, Dad, no, I'm going to be the conductor. You don't understand, you know. 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, and I wanted to play everything forever, and they got me lessons 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 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.

Well, here's a nice little tidbit as well as that Lisa's father, Gary was friends with Tom ober Time and they had some of the first since in the house and at Lisa also learned all of her skills with an our twenty six hundred in the house, and so Gary was doing a lot of music concrete in his sectonic.

He was a composer, Yeah, yeah, a total composer.

And Lisa learned all of her tape skills and marking and patching.

Yeah we had we didn't, you know, synthesizers were 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.

Earlier.

Yeah, she was a team with like a young team learning that stuff.

So by the time the Oberheim came when you were able to actually play chords on it and like one noted right exactly. Oh my god.

Then I know I knew how she was the 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 going to do something.

Okay, So I have to jump ahead a little bit. Uh Rick James's street songs, and Rick and the at least the David Rich edition of his autobiography talks of stealing your keyboards and there already made patches to record street songs. So by that point was the overheime, like how much programming did you like? Now? Of course, if you ever tried or whatever, it's like ready made and you know it kind of does have to work for you at least to get the patch sound you want.

Well, to be honest, at the very beginning, it was.

It was actually really cool 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, well, and they just had a sound.

The only thing that we used to do was just like, wow, just turned the filter up.

So there's no grand design like you just.

No, in the beginning there kind of wasn't It was just yeah, and it just had a sound of its son. 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. But in the beginning, no, it was really like, that's why you can get an Oberheim now and it sounds like you know, you're to whatever ce one and it's those are those horns?

You know?

Weren't you right?

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, well no, I mean my purple rain guitars were ripped off.

That pissed me off. Really yees wait who.

Whoa how there was no other opening.

Act but you guys, well, and we were loading the trucks and someone was eyeing, so they knew instantly the price listened.

So another theme that uh I noticed that's recurring is the meticulous, uh hours of and relentless hours of practice that you guys have had to 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, it's you guys.

Just when you said body heat, it was like a.

Flat like slowly I turned step by step.

Well, I would assume that he was 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.

Oh wow, really yeah, we were machine.

We were the little presscoa. Okay, go and then don't don't move, and he'd be doing well.

I kind of want to There was a period at least that I knew this, uh, somewhere between late controverty no even I'll say between late nineteen ninety nine tour where his dancing was sort of awkward. I eve a dirty mind thing like it was more like a big

If 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. And that was countless hours of not moving and giving him as much confidence and 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 gave him theoph underneath to keep him up there, 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.

And that that we just became a body.

Yeah, there's there's probably i guess out there in the in the in the atmosphere, it's probably i'll say, maybe eighteen or nineteen hours of the 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

And no not, it's kind of the contrary.

It made it.

It made it the job at hand, and we were it was you know, if you choose to take this mission, you know what I mean, we were there and ready to do it.

Yeah, and like what else you got trying stumping 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 tacked it in. It was every time we were dialed in in a groove, we looked forward to getting to that spot where that groove would happen.

It could happen because and then he would start doing the little yeah do that.

Whenever it was dial it was almost like that thing that happens when you're when you first hit mocked two or three and you just you're it's like, yeah, you feel like the groove actually sits so tight you feel 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 and more of it, we had the runners high with him.

So it okay. I know I'm asking like a lot of privileged questions, like the only only stuff that I've heard, like the average person hasn't heard. But I kind of have to wonder if this is true. So if I tend to notice that better, the best shows ever are always the shows with the least or in the cities

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, if it was you know, like it was Kalamazoo Michigan. You guys had the time because it was.

For the fans.

I mean yeah, it was more we didn't and it wasn't because it was famous people. It was more like we found it them in suits.

Yeah really yeah, Well you two also hold that I guess that this distinctive doubIe signer of sort of crossing over from his stage world into his studio, which I guess the focal is that you know that that was Fort Knox or you know, just like no one gets influenced into and it didn't.

It's true, there was just a small group of people.

How are you able to even gain trust on that level at least to play him things like here, listen to this and listen to this.

He just offered it. I mean, well he.

Said, I need inspiration.

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 and you know, he'd take a nap or something like, I'd be in the studio messing around and he'd said, one time, I remember that piece of.

Music I did for Miles, just my stepdad. It was just for fun.

And he was taking a nap and he was hearing me play and everything, and he was just like, that was the I had the best dreams.

And you know that was so beautiful, and so he knew what we had, you know, and.

I can't stop you one second. You said the most amazing thing what Prince left?

Oh yeah, oh no, it was just he blinks, that's really funny, got something in his eyes for a second.

This is this is something people don't know, but this is really really cute.

Okay.

So in his bedrooms they're you know, I mean because he sleeps 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 like you you you just see like a little tube of like an imprint of a little bag on the bed.

In his little 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 was like the nineteen ninety nine intercover with like the neon lights and watercolors.

Well you know on his crow in the bathtub.

Yeah, you know he was, Oh no, he was.

He was kitty with little pony.

Yeah, Lisa and I used to call him my little pony. Did he hate that or like, no, he hated it, but he loved it.

Who you know, and girls, girls love ponies, cute ponies. Never mind must change itself.

So I meant at the at the rate where you know, I guess uh laid eighty four, mid eighty five. I mean, you guys were pretty much a Lennon McCartney combination together. I mean, could you speak of an on just at the point where you were full fledged collaborators.

And it became a parent that he really relied 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 scale he was really he was more you know, making the movies and getting you know, he was getting his head into other things.

Strange relationship was like that right. Yeah, what's weird was that you guys weren't using patches. You guys were there's we played those were Middle Eastern like.

Yeah, we would get yeah, I mean whatever.

Brother was also like a proficient So the song we Can Fuck was David.

Song Around the World Day was David and his you know, Arab and Farsi influences, so we used that stuff.

You know, that's amazing. Okay, I know in private, I'll always ask about out the Japanese run. But I guess in the past few months, I guess 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 each other and went, it's over.

It's over, because why would he destroyed because.

He was already pissed. He was pissed anyway. There was something happening and he was.

Pissed, and there were more 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 layout. 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, ooh, 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. I think it's happening. And we got off stage and I was panicked. I felt it.

I felt it big, and Lisa, it's like, stop overreacting, stop overreacting.

Done it 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 La had a rental there. It's a funny story. We flew back again and he 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 wear nipoles, bras and crotchless panties.

He drew that true, and we went that's true.

You know something. Letting somebody goes probably or at least reprimanding someone is that's one of 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.

It was incredible that he had that and that that he what he said was the way for him to feel comfortable enough to let He knew that Willis and I would go, well, you're right, we won't do that. He knew that that was his in and I understood that was his way of saying it, and I knew ultimately that wasn't the truth. He just was ready to take full control back and felt like I've spread myself to Yeah. Yeah, it was just turning into it was almost eighty seven.

Wow, 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 I think. The album came out with August thirty, first of eighty seven. I'm sorry, I like the album came out the same day that Michael Jackson's Bad came out, and I distinctly remember listening to their record more than like, you know, the whole world was waiting for bed and.

I know it's 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 phone on the phone after I heard bad on the radio whatever.

And I was like, here's the single, but wait for it, Lisa, keep that in your head, but.

Put them together.

And that was I was like, you're kidding me.

This is a musician joke, like circus music. Circus music.

It's something that we joked about years prior as it being like a joking musician yes, thing that goes like this, this is a single, and we're both like, it's a it's a.

Smash, smash my circus music.

Give the people what they want exactly real quick.

One of 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 No.

And he's like the first line, your buddy is mine. Okay, who's seeing that one?

On an interview with Chris Rocks, Like imagine me saying your blood is mine?

Right going to happen? I'm not singing it to you you're not seeing it. He was like, so how 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 know, I've loved everything that you guys have done in your west Wing, like everything. There's even west winging boot legs out there, and with the Yes, that's that's funny, that's all that's obsessed with your fan base.

Here's the thing.

And I said, this is one of his memorials. Everything that I played then and still playing now. I say to myself, I wonder if you'd like it really to this day, I still do it. So he was sort of a measure of my push and my standards.

That's a hell of a standard to have. That's an amazing standard to have.

Well, I'm sure you feel exactly the same way.

Hell yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know why no one's just called.

You because you're not no, but I mean it's it's I mean to me, the you maintained an identity.

You maintained identity. 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 imitation exactly right.

You know, it's actually okay, I have to ask what did we you guys aware of? Okay, Okay, I work with a lot of hip hops, which I mean, yeah, I don't know those hip hop kids. I mean, you know, we we once had an aesthetic in the nineties, like you know, no bite allowed, no copy and like, you know, do your own thing individually. Now like everything's just derivative of each other. But were you guys aware of the ready for the worlds And but I don't know.

As soon as I heard oh Sheila, I was like, oh my god.

Here we go, Here we go.

But 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 this. 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 meds should in the comedy, like that was out the windows and now this is this is the standard.

So yeah, it's just like pink se elists, you.

Guys like laughing at like, you know, those groups in the early eighties that were like.

Some of them, only some really 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 chicks singers in the eighties. Chick singers now with all that malisma and.

The and the mid range stuff is like.

What everyone sounds like that now, And that's just a standards just.

How we Yeah, it's a human thing, how we evolve kind of a hundredth monkey.

Yeah. Yeah, were you guys this accepting in this politically correct patient now?

No, No, we were, No, we were cocky kidding me.

Well, because at one point, I, until I started hearing the remsal tapes, I didn't even know if you guys were even aware of modern music. But then I would hear like rehearsal taps in here, like, oh, okay, he doesn't know about talking heads, and well, i'm.

I you know, I have to say, I'm the Wendy's always, I'm 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 rhythm and said, you have to listen to what happened with these chords right now right.

Steve Libson, Trevor Yes.

Co producer, but Bruce Lipson and Bruce Willie did those, Yeah, And that was important for me to make sure he heard that.

When when I remember after we had broken the band up.

And Do the Right Thing had just come out and Lisai, I went to Minneapolis and I was a fanatic for the main title song and ah, and I put it on there and at Paisley and he.

Wait, you were still friends, yea, 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 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 as soon it was played in the room, everybody's getting up and dancing, And I think he really it's like the metal people when they hear Nirvana, they oh my god, it's changed.

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 would because I mean, come on, Chuck D, that was genius and he knew it, but it was it was the 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 yeah, it's like I can do that.

I can fuck you up.

Like you know, there's syndromes of people kind of embracing things that they normally would resent in the first place and then wind up embodying that it's just youth.

Just you know, time goes by and you go get it. I totally get it.

Well, okay. On on a final note, I would just like to know, uh, with the reunion of the group and carrying out the mission, how how's this process been bringing the band? It's like the Blues Brothers. Wow, it's blood on your.

Thumb, It's blood on your thumb.

Lisa Lisa.

Lisa described me and Bobby and Matt and Mark as five people jumping out of an airplane with our parachutes on trying to do formations.

Each other's hands, and someone went down there too far and we're trying.

To I have to say that I haven't seen the show, especially when when April came on. I mean, I told you, I ran out of there like I couldn't take it.

Some people cry, some people cry, I.

Was like, I need to run out. Well, I really want to thank you to uh for for everything that you guys represent. I mean, you know, I mean you you would think the smallest SoundBite would mean nothing, but it's just like you know, you read like, oh okay, she's in joy Menchell. Now I'm at the library skilling all the joy Mental records and I'm hearing that you're playing more chords with your fingers, and now I'm making my keyboard players play like nine notes with just five fingers and.

Lisa, Lisa does three on each.

And I've always told you, like you know, you're the heir apparent to Jimmy Chank Nolan of the JVS, and it's it's you two are definitely one of my favorite people ever, and I thank you so much for doing the show with us.

And just 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 that would be would help the listeners understand him and what his musical influence is.

And you know, look, the Revolution.

Wasn't you know.

We're not, you know, a bunch of Julliard grats. We were a band that was meat and potatoes and clocked really well, but we were an entity and to have you validate that for us is really lovely for us.

Wow on it, ladies, and gentlemen, Lisa and Wendy, we're on the road broadcasting from Minneapolis where we just finished talking to some core members a Prince's former band of Revolution. Now let's chop it up with Prince's original guitarist Deus

Yeah, okay, Oh, my dad was a musician. That was my musical background. And to my family, my brothers and sisters, I was the youngest of six, and you know, they all had various musical you know, tastes, and that had a lot to do with uh, you know, just my pers my personal kind of perspective on music.

So what did your father play base? Okay, was the d d D? I mean, what was the environment like in Bobby and and Fink explain, 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 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, the music was very regional. You know, now with the internet. You know, someone in Siberia can get right a reference that came from southern Georgia that you know, in in lightning time. But I mean, how how did culture and and and what was hip and what was not hit and what was you know, how how did you discern what was what? Well?

I mean, you know again y and I don't I probably don't have to tell you this. I mean, you know, being black period, you know in America is an interesting you know, just reality, right, And so being black and and a predominant, very predominantly society, you know, and and obviously 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 you know, moving experience.

So your your band experience, Uh, I would assume in school, Like, what was the first band that you joined or formed?

We started Grand Central?

Yeah, so the fir Grand Center was your first.

That was all of our first band? Yeah, R well, me and Prince and and Charles you know stuff.

How did you two meet to even know that you had something in common?

You know, I, like I said, I I came from the projects.

Right.

My mom uh, you know, she was I guess at fifteen, you know, had a 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, and uh wound up getting a a a really good job, moved our family out of the projects into a an upper middle class black neighborhood. And I had to go to a different school, and so I just, you know, the new school was like, you know, I didn't know

I said what do you do?

You said, I do music. I said, oh, so do I I said what do you place it? I played piano. I said, oh, I played bass, you know, And he said we should hook up. My dad has you know, like a piano and you know, a little I didn't have a bass at the time, so he said his dad has a little, uh, 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 f bass story in Minnesota starts with just four string, right. Frown Mark was saying that he ordered a a base in the series catalog and broke two strings. Two strings were broken, So that's he came from from. Faced by default, was the name Prince a usual thing in in the sixties, like you know, I you know, it wasn't John or Thomas or you know, like.

Mostly among probably small four layen animals. But his dad's stage name was Prince Roger.

But 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 know, I mean you have to well you can't ask him, but I have no idea. But I know that in that community, in that neighborhood, we had Caesar, you know, we had.

So unusual names were just starting.

Yeah, there was a lot of veryous sort of you know, regal names and then you know.

Yeah, so at what point did you two start playing together to know that that, okay, we gel and maybe we should do something right then? Yeah, that was.

That was cause when we went over to his dad's house and we jammed, you know, we were like, we hit it off. I mean, cause it was it was the first time I ever met anybody that had the same passion about music that I did before that. I you know, tell you know, I would tell anybody you know, look, I I you know, I'm gonna be i'm'a be a superstar. I'm gonna be you know, Jackson five, I'm gonna do this.

I'm'a do that.

And people would laugh at me. And when I would say it to him, he was like, it was like, yeah, let's do it.

So anyway, so was there a a a thought to make it happen in Minnesota or did you two 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, no, no, no, Well it wasn't that, you know, I mean, I think the the reality is, I don't think kids think like that. Cause we were like thirteen fourteen. Maybe you don't think I don't think you think like that. I think you just put together band cause 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 the the dopest bands in the in the city. And he was unbelievable drummer. And then you know, you had other things like the Elks and stuff like that that were all those were big things for you know, young kids

I'm sure you did the same thing. You gotta put a band together.

And then you gotta you know, then you gotta you know, move from there.

So it does. Were you born in Minnesota, like, what's.

Your I was born in Saint Paul, Ah, Yeah.

So it was life different in Saint Paul than it was in Minneapolis or was it really a twin city?

And I I I it's definitely a twin cities thing, you know.

Saint Paul was sort of the more provincial, you know, twin sister of of Minneapolis, but but less so then, you know what I mean. There was a lot more similarity I think, between the cities then. 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 cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, His older brother was at the U of M.

And was in his like his 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 over 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 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 sacks in the navy and got out and you know, started working two 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 post office.

In the morning.

Well, that's because my dad would get off work, you know, wide awake work with some other guys that were also musicians, and it would be like, well, just come on 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 what people did. He had a huge, huge record collection and you know that whole thing.

So, knowing your history and your vocabulary and knowing how much of a tredder you are in the rock influence, am I'd 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 just naturally speak to you, Like, well.

It just spoke to me. It chose me.

I mean 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 but even while we were still you know, in the hood, it was it was guitar that spoke to me. I remember going through my dad's record collection and he had this King Curtis single and I flipped it over, played the B side and it was this rocous like rock and roll thing, and I was like mesmerized. I mean I would listen

I didn't choose it. You know, it was in my 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 and I had to pay to get in my first gig. We played like the ninth grad dance, you know, Junior High had.

The first gig.

But you know it was like all like Grand Funk Railroad and you know, that whole thing, and the first several lands.

Because I was in I formed or was in like nine different bands.

Before the audition at Dell's Tire Mart, you know, all those years later, so 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.

Purple and you know, anything with long guitar solos in it. That's what it was about.

So okay, well to hear this, this this tale the Two Cities, I mean, how expansive did your vocabulary And this is for Andre and I mean how expansive did your vocabulary have to be in order to get these soap hop gigs and whatnot? Like, you know, would you say that you're would you have to adapt to whatever environment you were in. 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 I mean, was it integrated audiences?

By that point was in my background because we we had to literally go from playing little tiny towns you know, East Crevice, Iowa at the teen Center.

You know where we would go from playing huge traveling. Oh yeah, I was.

My folks used to have to write me notes to get me out of school early all through high school so I could go.

We found a dude that could drive, and we would go and we would play.

So we would have to go from like playing you know, an Emerson Lncoln 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. There were bands that had you know, blacks and whites and Hispanics and and everybody.

Some of the most popular.

Bands in town were multi racial, and you know, so in this market, it was just it was just a different thing.

Now you had to play the people's music. But that's just the way it was.

So was it as utopian for you? Andrea's Oh was it just straight?

Like no, no, no, We you 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.

It was called Bucket of Blood.

We literally my brother, I mean, you know, because like I said, we came from the other side of the town and so we were playing at you know clubs where you know, people were getting shot stabbed.

And you know, my brother was there with his girls, and you know, it was just it was.

It was a different reality, you know. And then my mom you know, would get a lot of our a lot of our gigs and so you know, and then you know, we played at barbecues, We played it back as you know, we played it, you know, anytime somebody was you know, having to get together. You know, sometimes there even be you know, parties people have down their basement and they 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 that you guys paths cross because I assume that in Prince's first incarnation of the band included both Des and Andre.

Well, Andre is definitely the og 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 gonna make it or that that's like was it a big deal or was.

It just like okay, yeah, it was a big deal. Absolutely, it was a big deal. I mean it was like this is what 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 you with me and that sort of thing. But this is clearly like, okay, one of you is going to be the focus in the center of it, as opposed to it being a group situation.

You know, it's interesting. I heard a I guess there was a documentary with Chris Moon, okay, because our band, you know, we had won a Battle of the Bands and one of the prizes was free recording studio time and I think maybe seventy five dollars or.

Something like that.

But 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, heard us playing. He was trying to figure out how he could get in, you know, get in involved with this this band because at the time we were hot. We paid the dues and worked that way up and everybody was you know, really talking

Right, yeah, I would like to know at what point do you really push the envelope, because you guys weren't just an average group. I mean, your your television debut caused many many Uh yeah, I mean I I remember seeing a thing. It was Midnight Special before or after American Bandstand. They were real close together, close to the well.

I remember.

That whole story. I remember Midnight Special and just the utter tone and discuss my dad had about it, you know, and all he took away from it was no, no boys should be wearing no dipe on no stage like you guys just looked like nothing ever on, 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, how has that even come to fruition? Like who 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.

So you guys even stood out even in the local localization of Yeah, no, I mean we were. You know, it's like, who is your closest competition band wise and nobody who's in 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 Okay?

Uh, Sunny Thompson their band, They had the most unbelievable band in the city at the time, bar and 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 what you're supposed to do, practice and play and all that kind of stuff, then you know, you pay

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 all of this stuff that you know, you know, all the funky stuff, all the funky licks, but he just always had this ram 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 the cool drummer. And so

That was like a distant way beyond our whole thing.

And that's when I was like, we got out our game.

So anyway, there's one particular project I would like to talk about that never really came to light unless you're deep in the bootleg circle, and that's the Rebels. What was the was the Rebels just like a weekend idea, like, hey, let's just for start as you guys record at the speed of sound and you know, the the entire project can be done within a week. So t to even have that much output in in such a little time, Like, what was the the beginnings of the Rebels or the

But yeah, I can I can tell you what the real give me the real I mean, like you know, I mean, I know the folk lore, but what was the what was the basis? The real deal is is he had a band of very talented musicians, you know, and you know we had done some stuff, you know, and we probably could have gone off and done other things.

So this is keeping from moonlighting.

It's kind of like it's kind of like the same theory that some parents use.

Well, would rather have you have the party here, We'll get the alcohol and make sure that you don't leave the house.

But it was so 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 Des a whole lot better.

And does why didn't you guys come out?

Dez 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 articulated to us, you know what I mean, which happened from time to time subsequently, because.

Those songs weren't complete. There's at least five or six that oh yeah, it could have easily been on the Dirney Mine record.

Yeah, it was a record, and it 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? Who exactly were the members? It was the band, yeah, Andre and I. Gail Chapman was a keyboard player at the time, and it was the same band. But I guess Prince would have lessened his rule 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, they wanted thriller or killer to be the single.

Yeah, and.

That probably might have been a b you know, cause 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 numbers, you know,

I know, it has to be word 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 the forty nine fifty one percent of it all

I mean, for me, it really wasn't hard at all because the the day that I auditioned at Dell's Tire Mart, the infamous fifteen minute audition, Prince and I went out in the parking lot. He asked me some very deep, very career 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 from the beginning that at some point I was going to go back to being a front man, to be a band leader guy. So he came to me after nineteen ninety nine and said, look, here's the deal this film. I need a solid three year commitment to the films. Yeah, and at that point in time, I just couldn't get

Do 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, then on the Rebel Yel tour with Billy Idol the special guest out there.

Yeah yeah, I remember that, uh, Dre, I guess it should also be noted. I mean, you've done a lot of work, uh since your actually probably the the the most notable is uh your production for Jody Whitley's uh first three, first three albums. What was that transition like? And I mean what was the feeling to I mean

Like?

Well, I'd have to agree with that as it was easy easy to leave that situation, not just because it's like, you know, my old 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 so, and then I did the solo stuff and I did space 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 gonna promote it, why don't you just drop me.

They wouldn't drop me. They heard Kelly's eyes and didn't feel like, yo.

This isn't 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, and so I thought, well, I gotta make some money. And I met Jodie when I was doing the video for Fans Electric, 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, and I was like, I'd love to, you know, shoot you some tracks, and I shout up, I think five tracks, and she wrote lyrics to him, and I guess the rest is history.

And he started working on 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 Des and Andre for being on the show. And we'll be back with Susannah Melvoyn Wow, What can I say about our next guest? One of my favorite favorite people ever.

Susanna's Pajamas.

Yes, Susanna, how are you?

I'm good?

I have to know growing up in such a musical family in California. And first of all, do you play any instruments? Because I'm curious about siblings who where one particular sibling picks up an instrument and the other doesn't. I know that Alan Leeds's brother, Eric's a monster saxophonist, but doesn't necessarily he doesn't play instruments himself. Like, are you do 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, no, I was well, while Wendy was playing guitar lessons, I was ballet answer, and then we were both session singers as kids because of my dad.

So, I mean, in did you have any design I used to become singing yourself? 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 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 I have this other thing I want to do, and that's all I know how to do. That's that's what I do. That's what I was born into. Wendy and I and even and Lisa, all of our families grew up together. Our parents were session players and they were wrecking crew, and we just

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 inside of a nightclub. I'm like, wait, what was the carning policy or y'all that developed physical? Yeah, I was going to say kind of both. It was you know, before those times where you know, I don't know how we.

Got away with it, but dad were going out tonight. How old are you thirteen?

Yeah?

So as I was picking us up, we're going to go to the Starwood and uh oh he told them the truth right straight up? Oh, straight up, like we're going to library.

No, no, no, no no. I went to church to sneak to see the Thanksgiving purple range that I got a busman.

Oh, this was crazy.

Wendy and I would go at thirteen year old girls and we would We were the only I don't I know how it happened, but Wendy 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 were just we were doing the line, 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

Is an amazing thing when it works out perfectly well.

When you've got kids that come home and they're not, you know, effed up and they've just been dancing all night, there's something that you know, and if your kids are sort of straight up, I guess we were, you know, or my my father was a knucklehead.

So did you just meet Prince at the same time that Wendy Metmore 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 this was right 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 Geffen Company, and after awhile, I'd be like, have a cup of coffee company, Have a cup of coffee company, David Effen Company, Have a cup of coffee company. It was just running, running, running anyway. Christmas Party nineteen

And say hi.

And you know, no clue that like, And.

He gave me that sweet little smile and he said, Wendy's your sister, right. I said, Lisa is my sister too, and he.

Was like oh.

And then Vanity leans down, she grabs my face and.

She goes, ooh, you're so cute.

What theouts are?

And I was like, great, okay, bye, are you cute? 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 gotta find another lead. And here comes Susannah walking in to rehearsal and she came right.

Up to me.

You're gonna have 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 took his head like that. And that is funny because Des had his birthday party and shortly at 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,

I got two questions, huh, I got two questions. And I don't know if the fact that I come from and the era of music that was just so overdone with budgets and whatnot, but I would think during this time period, like like you guys were picking each other up from the airport. Oh yeah, First of all, Prince was taking a plane. Because in my head, I'm like, oh, he.

Took a plane by himself. 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, least were a baseball caategory something to what you was like, what eighty for four? Was this post post purple? So okay, so at least in our heads, because I'm thinking, like, this guy cannot step out the door without getting mobbed. Now I know that some of that stuff is, you know, what we just saw growing up as kids. But 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 time you need to be here, and we'd be there and pick him up.

And there's no prince sign like Prince Nelson, not during this time.

No.

But I imagine his flying outfit is different from his you know what I mean, Like his whole look is different.

Who was always different? But he was a this is a beautiful kid. You know, he was a beautiful kid. I mean, and he would you know, just wear a you know, a vintage old you know, grandpa coat and he'd looked so beautiful in it. And he'd wear his you know, his jeans, and he'd wear a you know, whatever top I mean, and that's he just come out like that. I mean, there was no it wasn't like who's that weirdo? It's just like who's that cutie pie?

I just can't imagine him flying commercial or him all the time a Pinto or that sort of thing.

Oh no, you.

Not many 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 we became like pals, but deep, like you know, not many people know that. Like he's 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 house. An I'm gonna say that right from the job.

No you don't.

But then it's that's what it all threw. No, but I'll tell you a really funny story. So one of the nights he's there, we lived in this eighty 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 going to get out of the house now, right, or nobody's gonna be around.

Here anything.

It's like just horrifying.

So I'm in that room and.

Lisa, when what am I supposed to you know, if I need to what you know, if I need to, she said, well, just tell her sleep the room. So nothing went further than that.

But he did come 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 I had a huge, huge, deep dent in it.

And he said, he went, you sleep in this thing? And he said do you have a job? And I was like, and he said, can't you get yourself a new mattress? How do you sleep in that? I was like, I sleep on that side. I don't sleep in the hole.

Right.

But I came home the next day from working for Deaf and Records David, and there was a huge mattress at my door.

So it was like, so, yeah, yeah, you're a good lady, because I would have been like that for me or for us.

That's that's so funny you should say that.

I mean, it just never occurred to me at that point that like he was actually courting me in any way.

I just, you know, I was just like, this is a really sweet gesture. And again he heard that demo, he heard that demo in that house, this one of these particular things. And he said, well, when you said up, can we play him the demo? And I said, no, don't play him anything. God, don't don't blame in. It was so flipped out because I loved everything he'd done. And I was working with Quincy. I was doing like, you know, session work, and you know, just wasn't that And I said, I want to hear it. And so

I said, wait, okay. Before I let you go, I just had to ask.

One, Oh 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 I would like to discuss. Yeah. I know that he would often communicate with cassettes, which I mean blows my mind. I mean, if I'm in the studio making a song, I'm thinking like, Okay, how can this be a hit? How can like I'm not just gonna make like a song aimed at one person, like that's it.

None?

Even la?

I mean the tapes that I would get, the tapes that I would get were on the floor of my car. You wouldn't hand them to me. They'd be dispersed at the bottom of the car, and so'd be like.

Oh, oh, like these are for you or never put them in your hands.

There mine now.

No, I don't mean like songs just made that he just left there specifically for me. Well, I know that he made Lisa song strange way of saying I love you, like they had.

An argument, whatever, and no anything anything that we did.

Anything.

He would specifically say, let's go in the studio.

You and me.

We're going in.

Oh so you were there, just we're.

Going in, You and I were going in, and then you're gonna hang here until you're 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 it. And then we'd listen to everything together in the car and that would go on for days and days and then we'd go in and do more overdubs 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

We're doing this.

Yeah, we're doing Not that I'd even collaborate, but it was like there, you know, I need you buy my side because I'm gonna have you do this. But you're gonna be with me from the get go. Now, I'm not gonna call you at some point you're gonna come in. No, You're gonna be with me.

Before we go. I gotta ask her the Starfish and Coffee Store. Okay, all right, for our listeners, could you please please please give us the genesis of the Starfish and Coffee Store.

During the many, many car rides together, he would have, you know, occasionally asked.

Me, wait before you say that you seen car rides? Or you just drive around the city listening to music.

We'd live in the car, lived in the car. We would drive everywhere for any reason all the time, from vanilla milkshakes to going to Minnie Haha 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 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

She was like, I had.

Starfish and Peevie.

Yeah, starfish and peep.

And you know what my favorite number is, It's twenty and she I mean, this was for years, and I loved her. I thought she was the sweetest coop ever, and you know, I just like that she was. It was just anyway, so this one particular day and I would, I want to say some in the fall of eighty five, we were at the house and we were in the kitchen and he came upstairs from the stud he said, can you you tell me the whole story of Cynthia again, can you tell me the whole thing with Cynthia Rose.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome.

I have so much more, but I gotta wrap.

It up another time.

Yes, there's plenty more, Uh, Susannah melvoyn Uh, thank you so much. I have to say. Uh, that was an edgy location. We learned a lot about Minnesota and and and what it had to offer, and.

That was like a pH d. That was a doctor of course, and all things Prince Minnesota.

Like. The only thing we needed was Kirby Pucket.

And Kirby's dad. Actually, oh, yeah's stead Kirby's dead.

Uh.

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 friends in his work, I.

Need to get my ship together.

It was a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, it's about me, Like, yeah, shit.

Together, I'm paid Bill.

Why is everybody from Minnesota in a fucking musical family? Every one of them was like my dad played the dance, my mom did this.

And I was just like, my parents are doctors, like I did this is like I.

Thought to myself, I was wondering, like what it would be like to grow up it 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 on me, Like I didn't learn it at church, I didn't do anything.

I don't know.

It just music. The way they were presenting it was like music was like an option in my case, Like 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 me from getting my ass whoop by the neighborhood kids.

Like Wendy and Susannah growing up in like the Wrecking Crew house, like it was that was an option.

It just well, I'm amazed that they told the truth like We're going night and the fact you had parents that would be cool enough to be you know, I mean I worked in the nightclub, but I mean, 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.

I like, wow, yeah, that must be nice.

Yeah, it's I didn't wanna say.

Like wow, hashtag must be nice. Uh is there anything that we didn't cover? Built? I mean, you and I probably the biggest Prince fans that we know, Uh, like, did we missed something there?

There was one thing I really wanted to talk to Matt and Bobby about, and that was the bullhorn incident on the plane when uh oh that led to the wh when when they all got taken taken taken to jail. There is so much that I wanted to ask about, but we just didn't have enough time.

We need to do like four hours actually, I mean we had like just forty different Yeah.

Yeah, Susanna, I'm proud off I mean to our supreme leader. Yeah that sounds very Jenny Jones.

I just think that at least with Susannah alone, Like, you know, there's a lot that I wanted to go into but you know, I felt it was 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 that a couple of other.

Band members the way did they feel about.

You and what you've done? That was real? That was really well yeah, I mean I just it's again like okay, so I were interview in the car with No. It was I was in the car with Maya Gretchen from Princess last night and this weird Prince fan stopped the car and like actually said you know, he starts the sentence with I have one hundred thousand dollars and I want to give it to you just so I can tell you my life story. And well exactly I said

Well, it was probably like.

No, and it just hit me 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 that were my Familyase, I'm not saying like, I'm not saying anything. There's a guy with the ones he wo like all these images

Fans in general, because like he had 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 trick rabbit always had to conceal his excitement for tricks without you know, and then you get busted by the kids, and hey, guys, it's really me like, I don't ever want to be that guy, Like okay, I gained your trust, let me not let you know, like the only indication that they really gotten that. It's like, oh, mirror, his level of fandom might be average, you know, more than the average person was. Just like the demos that started

In order to like to the way to gain the I think it's like, wait, wait, wait before you answer, are you sure you want to give this this away?

Before everybody starts trying.

To know even though trust me, even if I gave it away, people will still okay, they'll still they'll still fu I think for me, and I mean for me and maybe different, I think there's a fine line.

You know what I'm saying.

For me is if I meet quote unquote a fan, the last thing I want to talk about is music. And I think this is just something for you know, whatever person you're meeting in that field, you know what I'm saying.

If it's uh, you know, if they're.

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, you know what I mean. I don't want to talk about basketball.

You know what I'm saying. From K I don't want to talk about you know, he ain't talking saying ship. But other than that, you know what I mean.

I think you know there that being a an artist or being a famous person.

Let's let's be clear to 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 what I mean. I think that, oh wow, you striking. 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 arrested development.

So to me, the thing that is most endearing is when you meet people and they just talk to you.

Just like regular fucking people. You know what I'm saying, Like I don't want to like.

Or whatever, Like yo, you see that on Instagram and you see the twerking chip, Like we can just talk about just regular ship.

You know what I mean. But it's weird. That's a hard middle 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 I got you. Yeah, and then they got people right now, the people to try to just take it too far. Just yeah, but that's that's being super obvious that it's an issue. But you're doing like I have. Probably this room is is as normal as Yeah. I mean, that's why I'm not saying I gathered you here like a master plan, like please get your kool aid st put

Shout out to Henley audio of thank you, Andrew Handlenk, great job, great job, thank you.

Because I'll be honest, I thought we were all just going to have to turn on.

That was my first plan when you said this, Yeah, everybody bring an iPhone. I thought it was interesting.

Everybody who was interviewed there 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 practices dancing, and nobody seemed to resent anything. Everybody saw that there was a purpose behind it, and they kind of took pride in it.

Like if you told me play.

Drums four hours, you just sit there and watch.

Me or whatever.

You're fucking crazy, but you know, everybody seemed to see the method to his madness.

You know.

Yeah, so that was pretty cool. Well and going the hotel, all 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 Fante Bill both unpaid and Boss Bill Layah Steve. Hope you join us next Wednesday for another episode. Uh I guess what one PM and ten a m specific standard time specific specific, yes, specific. This is Quest Love signing off Quest Love Supreme. Thank you very much, Quest Love Supreme. It's a production in