by Miles Marshall Lewis, December 22, 2015
Prince asked me to keep some secrets. I may still have a few, truth be told. This past summer, a call went out to a few music journalists to visit the purple rock, Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. Joshua Welton, 25, had a few words to share about producing his first Prince project,
Hit N Run. The operative word being “few.” After 10 minutes of talk, Prince himself entered Studio A and took over the conversation for two enlightening hours, discussing everything from Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service to the origins behind “Purple Rain” and “The Beautiful Ones,” and the reformation of The Time. Bob Seger, Esperanza Spalding, Kendrick Lamar and beyond.
Our couple of hours raced by faster than the accelerated voice of Camille. Then Prince disappeared, pulling up later in front of Paisley Park in a Cadillac sports car to play his already finished, secret follow-up to
Hit N Run. On December 12,
Hit N Run: Phase Two arrived on Tidal for streaming and digital download. So now you know. The following is a feverish transcription of more of our August convo from the summertime, previously unpublished. There may be more; Prince is full of secrets.
EBONY: Do you ever see yourself writing a memoir?
Prince: You ever heard of checking your list to see who’s naughty and who’s nice? I just let people talk. I was talking to somebody about “The Beautiful Ones.” They were speculating as to who I was singing about. But they were completely wrong. If they look at it, it’s very obvious. “Do you want him or do you want me,” that was written for that scene in
Purple Rain specifically. Where Morris [Day] would be sitting with [Apollonia], and there’d be this back and forth. And also, “The beautiful ones you always seem to lose,” Vanity had just quit the movie. To then speculate, “Well, he wrote that song about me”? Afterwards you go, “Who are you? Why do you think that you’re part of the script that way? And why would you go around saying stuff like that?”
So we just let people talk and say whatever they want to say. Nine times out of 10, trust me, what’s out there now, I wouldn’t give nary one of these folks the time of day. That’s why I don’t say anything back, because there’s
so much that’s wrong.
EBONY: But you could set the record straight.
Prince: There’s too much! They get down to, “See, what he was thinking at that specific time was… His mindset at the time…” They psychoanalyze you. There was one engineer who said that their sole purpose in life was to get the stuff out of the vault, and get it copied so it wasn’t lost to the world. I’m trying to figure out if that’s illegal. Should I fear for my safety that you might need some medical attention? You want to come up in
my vault and you feel like that belongs to you and that’s your purpose? You better find something to do. That’s scary.
EBONY: You’ve never had a producer. What made you choose Joshua Welton for Hit N Run: Phase One?
Prince: His faith in God really struck a nerve. And you know how you can just feel that something’s gonna work and it feels right, it’s a good fit? I knew the band was going to work, I knew the relationship with him was gonna work. I check people out now to see how faith-based they are and how real they are about it. That goes a long way, I gotta tell you. Because I can trust them. I can give him the key and don’t have to worry.
EBONY: A lot of initial media reports wanted to count out Tidal.
Prince: With a million-plus subscribers. Spotify has 10. So if you imagine a million people in front of you? That’s a lot of people. So you gotta talk to them, and you getting ready to drop something, and all of ’em are gonna get it. What do you wanna say? How are you gonna move all of ’em? Oh, now it gets interesting. It’s always going to be the peanut gallery and that’s all right.
My thing is this. The catalog has to be protected. And some of our fans were actually disingenuous. Taking the time to get their playlists together, and yeah, it’s gone. Now you got to actually go subscribe to get the music that you lost on Spotify. Spotify wasn’t paying, so you gotta shut it down.
EBONY: I talked to people about switching from Spotify to Tidal who didn’t want to recreate their playlists all over again.
Prince: That’s the line in the sand. That is exactly what I’m talking about. When you make issue of those things, that is exactly what ownership means. It doesn’t mean that you just get pimped by somebody. And none of our kids should be subject to this.
You can’t give away Google. You can’t give away the country. Nobody can just come up and just start selling the Statue of Liberty, stuff like that. So the Prince catalog now—and again, I don’t want to sound like a megalomaniac—but I have to manage it, that’s Americana now. You gave the Beatles $400 million and then tried to squash the news? That’s why Apple held out. I had more albums than they did.
EBONY: Did you hear the last album by The Time, Condensate?
Prince: No. You know, it was Morris playing drums and me on the bass. That’s how we would make the basic track. Naked. Just like that, and nobody would know. And then when you put the keys on it and the guitar, then that’s what The Time was. And it was perfect. Going through it now, I can hear all that stuff. Like “The Walk.” I hadn’t heard “The Walk” in ages. It’s like you can’t believe that you did it. I don’t even know how it’s possible. I don’t. I do but I don’t. That can never be duplicated again. It was a time period. His son [Derran Day] sings now, and look just like he did. So it should be like Steph and Dell Curry. Let’s do this. The Time can still be alive, he just needs to do it. I’m gonna see him in a minute anyway to work together. Musicians I’m cool with. But other folks standing around talking about they gon’ take out the vault? Boy…
EBONY: Will you be remastering the catalog?
Prince: Hopefully, yeah. A new
Greatest Hits. Because I never had anything to do with [
The Hits/The B-Sides]. But put great liner notes in it to explain what record came from what and why. Explain the backstory of it. Somebody said “Purple Rain” was inspired by Bob Seger! I said, call him in. “Sit down, man. Y’all got to have everything, huh? Bob Seger?! You gon’ put that in the ether? OK.” [laughter]
EBONY: Let’s talk about horns in your music. The lore is that you went to a Bruce Springsteen concert and saw how much Clarence Clemons brought to winning his crowds over. And then you incorporated horns into your live shows afterwards, with Eric Leeds on the Purple Rain Tour.
Prince: How do you get “Hot Thing” from “Born in the USA”? ’Cause that’s where Eric shines, on “Hot Thing.” But how do you get Madhouse from “Dancing in the Dark”? I have a lot of respect for Bruce and everything he’s done. He’s one of my favorite bandleaders of all time. But he wouldn’t even say that.
But seriously, here’s the thing. There’s half of me that understands that. Because I don’t talk about it, they have to fill in the gaps because there’s nothing. There’s nobody saying anything about it. So they gotta say something. But what I notice is that they keep naming names that there’s no connection. Clarence Clemons don’t play funk. There’s nothing about Clarence that’s funky. He plays old ’50s saxophone that was on those types of records, Frankie Valli and that type of stuff. If you notice when Eric showed up, it was during the Purple Rain tour. And I was the only soloist in the band if [Matt] Fink wasn’t soloing. And he had his solos that were planned out. He didn’t improvise. There’s the channel and then there’s the practiced, technical way that somebody plays. And Fink, he’s incredible at that: something he’s practiced.
No Doubt, you know that group? Friends of mine. Came in here and jammed together. They don’t know how to jam. They don’t know nothing about that. You get them to play one of their songs? They’ll pound you in the ground. Girl jumping on top of tabletops and all of that, all kinds of stuff. But you get them to do anything other than what they done practiced at the house, they don’t know where they are. You know what I’m saying? Esperanza Spalding, that’s a different story. She’s gonna actually lead. So there was no other soloist in the band. So Eddie M., one of the horn players, and Eric was brought in. But Clarence Clemons, that’s just a sideman. One of the greatest sidemen in history, and he’s a star in his own right. Them two was nothing like that. C’mon, man. That’s a whole different thing. Clarence’ll smile and you’ll forget every solo Eric ever did. Like Louis Armstrong. Beautiful dude. Aura was huge. And you can’t copy Bruce. I would never mess with somebody whom I respect and who was actually gigging at the same time.
EBONY: I’ve read “The Beautiful Ones” was based on Susannah Melvoin.
Prince: Any ballad like that, you know it’s not going to be about anything, uh, what’s the word? Carnal. It’s not gonna even be based in flesh. Regardless of what I’m singing about, it’s all spiritual. This is a channel. I’m trying to do “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” It’s not about somebody human that I’m looking at right now. It wouldn’t have worked if it was. This was literally for that character. And that’s why it worked. Everybody thinks the song is about them. “This song’s about me and the other one’s about Bob Seger.” [laughter]
[Prince leaves Paisley Park Studios, pulls up later in a sportscar and plays
Hit N Run: Phase Two in his Cadillac. Plays “Stare”]
This bass is wicked, you understand? That’s why none of ’em will come to the gig anymore. They’ll just stand in the back, because they know what they said. Making up all these names about people and giving credit where credit
ain’t due. Kendrick [Lamar], this is his year now. I asked him to come up here just to visit. This is related: I told him, “You got the whole year. Don’t worry about it. Ain’t nobody gonna bother you.”
EBONY: I interviewed him for the June cover. He said he came to Paisley Park, but he wouldn’t talk about the conversation.
Prince: We talked about a lot of stuff. Listen. A lot of times I don’t talk about the past because you can’t do it without naming names. I’m not bitter by no stretch of the imagination. But I grew up poor, so I’m used to something: if it’s mine, I’m used to it being mine. If somebody takes it from me, it’s taken. It’s taken a lot to get used to that. That, ok, you’re somebody else. But I’m like, that’s my coat that’s in Hard Rock Café. They’re not supposed to have that. Get that outta there. And second of all: how did they get it? And then they’ll say, “well, a bandmate.” I say, “oh really? Go get the band member and bring him to me.” And then they sit down and come in with their head down. I ain’t gonna say who it is, but that’s what I’m talking about.
“Why? What do I say to your wife now?” “I came on hard times, I don’t know what to tell you.” Now in my heart, I forgive them. But like I said, it’s like, you won’t hear from him anymore. See, back in the day, he was making some comments too. We’ve all had to deal with it, but I just, wow. I didn’t wanna go this far, because it’s about
Hit N Run and Josh and all that, but this is where “Baltimore” is. It starts this whole album. Check this out.
[Plays “Baltimore”]
And it goes right into this.
[Plays “RocknRoll Love Affair”]
EBONY: How close is this to being…?
Prince: It’s done.
EBONY: It’s done! My man…
[Plays “2 Y.2.D.”]
Prince: They say that stuff when I ain’t around. Ain’t nobody else heard this.
[Plays “Look at Me, Look at U”]
EBONY: Are you feeling more oriented to the bass lately?
Prince: Yes. I spent years on the guitar, so.
[Plays “Groovy Potential”]
This came out briefly on a file on SoundCloud or something, but never been on an album. You know the sequencing is perfect into this one. This is driving music.
EBONY: You produced this album?
Prince: Yeah. Josh did the other one. And just so you know, where Josh is to me, he’s like me, younger. But I’m trying to get him to cut through all the junk that I had to learn on my own. I’m trying to throw it all on his desk at once. Because he can grasp it. He’s learning quickly. Mixing is the thing that he appreciates. It’ll float. It’ll literally levitate when you find the right spot for it. When he hears it, I see his light bulb go on. If his light bulb didn’t go on, I wouldn’t waste the time. I would say maybe he’ll be a beat manufacturer or something like that. But to do the whole thing, you need to learn how to make stuff float. And it’s hard. It doesn’t work all the time.
Paisley Park is an academy any which way you look at it. Musicians have gone through here. We’ve jammed, we’ve shared with one another. And ultimately there’s now a storehouse of great music to learn from, productions and arrangements you can study. And we pride ourselves with working with the best people. Eric and those guys were some of them, but not the only ones. And so what people can’t do is say, “oh, well, that team was better than any.” Please. It’s actually just getting better. I’m not saying that ’cause it’s us. I just hear it.
[Plays “When She Comes.”]
Recording like Al Green. I don’t need no words. I don’t need nothing. You know, Doug E. Fresh told me—we used to hang out when he was touring with us—he said, “Man, Prince, Rakim is so bad, Prince, he don’t have no friends. Just no friends.” I said, “Why?” “Nobody wanna be around him, they just feel small.” And that’s why I always know I’m doing alright: nobody comes around. Be quiet around here. I love it just like this.
EBONY: Did you do all the instruments on this?
Prince: No, no. Keyboards a little, just parts. I’m getting in the habit of that now. I did it on one album a long time ago. I love schooling musicians on just one track. “You are gonna do a masterpiece today. You just gotta listen.” And when they get it, it’s so fun, because you see them go through what I go through. It’s magic, you know? You gotta feel that you did something magical. It all blends, and you get everybody to calm down and listen to when they’re playing and get outside of themselves, like they’re listening to the record rather than playing it. [Plays “Black Muse”]
This is the oldest one on here, and I loved it so much I just saved it.
EBONY: I like this album better than Hit N Run: Phase One. No disrespect.
Prince: Hit N Run sounds like today. Tidal is sinking money into it, and they need it. And my heart is always on because I want them to do well. [Beyoncé and Jay Z] have taken a lot of abuse, their family has. A historic amount of abuse between the two of ’em. And when we win on this, none of us’ll gloat. He’s not the gloating type anyway. He’s slick with his. He says to brush the dirt off your shoulder. “Y’all just need to stop. Just calm down! Everybody calm down! There ya go.”
When this does well, nobody gloats, we go about our business. But we’ll do another one. And this is a way for Josh to step up. ’Cause he’s not gonna stay around here forever. So I gotta work with him while I can. And you remember: Teddy Riley was under somebody before; Pharrell was under somebody before. Jimmy and Terry were under me.
EBONY: “America” is my favorite Prince 12-inch, an extended version over 20 minutes long. Those 1980s Prince singles weren’t remixes.
Prince: It blew my mind too. I brought them “I Hate U” and I thought it was one of the greatest records I had ever done in years. And they said, “Yeah man, this is dope. Now we gonna have Puffy do the remix.” Like, I was in shock. “OK, I’m out.” That wasn’t the reason; that was just another compound to the thing.
All the musicians that played on this, they go, “He just records and he puts it in the vault.” All of them have stories. “He’s recording stuff you would not believe. He just threw it away.” I didn’t throw it away. It just has to be on the right project. And all of these fit together now. It reminds me of this time period. I can see all of their faces. And this is probably the last record I’ll do with Shelby J. She’s all in here too. And Andy Allo’s singing background here too.
EBONY: Shelby’s a powerhouse.
Prince: So’s Liv Warfield. Watch this though.
[listening to a song transition] You know: where else would it go except there? But before, I had that whole song starting another album sequence. And it didn’t work. So now, where it’s placed, it’s right where you wanna be at that point on the album.
[Plays “Revelation”]
EBONY: “Housequake” really starts with the end of “Play in the Sunshine.” It’s not the same without that interruption.
Prince: When I was doing that, there’d be no way I could hear this. Now I think this is the best stuff. This is “Revelation.” That’s Marcus Anderson on soprano.
EBONY: That moody keyboard effect works.
Prince: When I did the track, it was about an hour and a half of just messing around with the groove. He just kept messing around with programming. When he got that one, it sounded like “U Got the Look.” I said: “That. Stop.” Then he didn’t have to play that much on the keyboard. And that’s why this song has the sex appeal it does. And those types of records you can’t make unless you had a hit prior to that, you get what I mean? You do it out of confidence. “I can do anything now.” So then you try anything. And that’s what this is.
And that’s when faith comes into it.
[Listening to the end of “Revelation”] What that’s about is Moses. Remember they said he put his hand into his cloak and pulled it out and it was white? [Exodus 4:6] What color was it before he put it in? So now we can start talking about that stuff. We couldn’t do that until you had a [Black] president. Couldn’t do that until hip-hop.
Hip-hop is its own force now. It took a minute. And that’s why Jay has to succeed. Our entities have to succeed. Baby and Lil Wayne ain’t supposed to be fighting. That’s supposed to be where cooler minds sit down and say, “Check this out fellas: for all of us, stop. ’Cause we said so. Everybody’s gonna calm down.” Rap ain’t gonna be a ghost town. Nobody’s gonna shoot nobody.
I’m saying: now we can start talking about this stuff. And without faith… I was telling a friend of mine who was here was that I wouldn’t have met Josh if it wasn’t for faith. We wouldn’t have had nothing in common. He’d have thought I was crazy, and vice versa. Religion, when used properly, actually is like a health regimen. And they’re finding now that people who have faith live longer. I mean, it says so in the book. That’s what it’s supposed to be. You ain’t supposed to die. If there’s God, then that’s what God would be.
EBONY: What do you say to people who are more spiritual than religious?
Prince: That’s okay. Because eventually they’re gonna get more responsibility. And that’s where religion will come into it. Because you have to have some sort of glue that’s gonna keep people honorable. Even if you’re thieves. And that’s what religion is. It’s order. Just think about it like that. The word’s been muddied. We forget what it was in the beginning. Did you see
Tut?
EBONY: No.
Prince: It was interesting. ’Cause that’s the way it was in the beginning. And it’s all explained out there. Remember: all of that was African. If you just look at it for its African properties, then everything’s straight. It’s all in there. Every story is based upon that story, the story of Tut and his father. They just keep retelling it in different ways. And the Bible is just the same story, that story, told different ways in several different parts in the Bible. Once you know that, then you don’t get overwhelmed by what’s in the Bible. That’s if it’s taught properly. You don’t get overwhelmed by it, and there’s nothing to fight about.
Like, this supposed to be like wings. Take you up higher. Now do your work from a higher place, get more done, cover more ground, and whoop your competitors. Comparisons with this, that and the other, we never thought of ourselves as having competition with anybody.
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23 hours ago
