QLS Classic: Purple Roundtable

Team Supreme sits down with Prince biographer, Duane Tudahl, and a roundtable of Prince's associates to share stories about the legendary artist. Recorded at Sunset Sound, one of the studios to capture Prince's 'Purple Rain.'

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
M m m m m m m m. Ladies and gentlemen,

(00:23):
what's up? Uh? This is Quest Love namesake of the
Quest Love Supreme UH podcast, the award winning Quest Love
Supreme Podcast, No No, No, the Webby award winning of
Course Love Yes, the three times I'm in the room
right now with Sugar Steve the multi anyway, UM, welcome

(00:46):
to the q LS classic And of course this is
one of my favorite subjects ever to talk about. I
love nothing else than to nerd out on Prince conversations
with fellow Prince fans. Um. We did this episode back
in two thousand eighteen, I believe, and I think and

(01:07):
add a bit of trivia Steve. We did this at
the Record Plan was it or Sunset Sound? We did
this in studio too at Sunset Sound. I believe, the
same room that Prince created a lot of UM special episode.
So it's sort of a purple roundtable. Um of course. Uh,

(01:32):
you know, I gotta have luminaries with me. Uh. Former
q L SIT boss Bill Ruth's art um Prince's uh
former chief of staff Ruth's art. Um Dwayne Todo, who wrote,
in my opinion, probably two of the best uh kind

(01:55):
of Prince anthologies as far as like his creative process.
You need to get those two books. These are must have.
The first one, uh, Prints in the Purple Rain Era
Studio Sessions and his follow up book, Princes in the
Parade and Sign of the Time Studio Sessions is kind
of a daily diary of how Prince created those three

(02:18):
masterpiece records and all the ensuing work he did in between.
Four his protege's like the Time and Sheila E and
the Apolonia six and whatnot. Um, last but not least, Uh,
that's you guitar, world class photographer, and you know he's

(02:40):
done stuff with Chappelle and the stuff with Lyndy Kravitz.
But you know he's probably the biggest Prince fanatic and collector. Um.
He has just monstrous. I mean, just listen to episode, y'all.
It shouldn't be this long. Welcome to the Purple Round
tape bol like LS classic. You know, ladies and gentlemen.

(03:30):
Sometimes when the name of the show that your host
has your name in it, sometimes you get to do
things that you want and we're gonna do an off
the cup of episode of course Love Supreme right now
and we kind of have a saw, I say, a
Purple Supreme team committee um when we kicked everybody else

(03:54):
out of the studio in front team. So no, no,
no disrespect to our team Supreme. But um, you know
one of the I feel though in my life the
two most dangerous things to have as far as discussions
in concern is politics and yeah, politics parents and Purple um.
And I try and avoid uh both uh um on

(04:17):
my mind, but somehow I felt very safe. I will
say that this is uh a rare moment which I'm
certain that and the company of Prince associates that I'm
with it, that this is the moment in which I
know the least about Prince, and I'm actually fine with

(04:38):
that same I'm actually fine so uh. In in our circle,
of course, we have Bross Bill uh, producer of course
if Supreme uh. And to his left we have Ruth Azarte.
I know I got it wrong. I've never said your

(04:59):
last name on life, even though I've known you for um.
Ruth is uh. You know. Ruth has been uh P's
right hand um for a significant period of his life.
I guess between the musicology period and UM up until

(05:22):
a little bit after that Lotus flower. So it's like
almost like in the middle of so and Prince hears
that have been like a hundred forty four Yeah, and
as knowing you as I know you, UM, well yeah,
if if you've seen the bit that I did about
finding Nemo, Ruth was the person that I had to

(05:46):
make magic happen for me on my blind date. But yeah,
Ruth is uh, you know she she's a first hand
witness to his his hard work. UM. And we're glad
you're here. UM. And to her left, uh, we have
Dwayne too, Doll who to Doll, I said, he said,

(06:07):
you put the wrong and fascist on the wrong syllable
with my correct Yes, all right. So, and you know
there's I feel I feel like I'm always on dangerous
ground when I'm declaring anything Prince wise, because it might

(06:28):
be an overexaggeration or or you know, someone else will
get offended. But I don't, I don't know. I just
feel as though, UM, Dwayne's documentation UM of Prince's work,
not his life, but his work UM is personally one
of my favorite UH documents because if anything. I'm more

(06:51):
interested about his work habits than anything. So Dwayne just
released his newest Prince book, uh entitled give him the
title first book Prince in the Purporine Era Studio Sessions,
which he thoroughly Uh yeah, I got questions for you,
bro Um And to his left, h Matthew beaton, Matthew,

(07:16):
you beat the white guy from the Chapelle Special with
the book. Yeah, Um, photographers short there and I you know,
I mean you your degree of purple alogies above, you
know about your presence, your your knowledge is amazing. So

(07:39):
just briefly in going in a circle, you know, I'm
just curious at people's beginnings. So Bill, when did you
When when did I first discover prints? This is this
is actually a story I love to tell and I
hate telling stories about my life. My first memory ever
is me in a pair of red footie pajamas in
the basement of my parents his house in South ben Indiana,

(08:02):
in front of the floor model television had built in
built in stereo and it and little Red Corvette was
playing on the radio. And that is my very first memory. Really. Yeah,
So did it affect you anyway or did you know?
You just remember that the song was on. Was it like,
oh ship, I don't remember why, I don't. I don't
know why I remember that, but I just remember that moment.

(08:22):
And then another one of my other early childhood memories
is me and my sister at her friend Terry Hill's
house listening to how old were you two? Going on three? Oh?
That's a early so you were three when you first? Yeah, okay,
let's see Ruth, your first Prince encounter, encounter or memory,

(08:48):
remembery anything? Well? I mean, I grew up in church,
so so did I. I wasn't allowed to listen to
any secular music. So, um, I remember there's this kid.
Um I went to my school and he used to
wear makeup and I didn't understand why you would wear makeup.
And it was because he was a huge Prince fan.

(09:08):
And um, the only thing I knew about Princess he
was on our prayer list because Braham to Jesus because
he was, as my mother said, he's a homosexual demon
ac So so yeah, it was like, that's my first

(09:30):
Prince memory. So when I got the when I got
the gig, good Prince, I literally did not tell my
mom for about four months. What did Yeah, I did.
How did he laugh? Well, he just like rolled his
eyes and I was like, what you were like masturbating?
And then bat like, what are people supposed to think?
I don't do those things anymore. I'm like, well you

(09:51):
used to. Uh probably hearing controversy was my first memory,
but in old time, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And then
in college was the album we used to play in
our suite or quad and just it was before it
really hit and it was fun. Just kind of a

(10:12):
bunch of us just listened to that. And also we
go to dances as in college at the time when
two and that was the girls were listening to Prince
and I wanted to be around the girls, So I said,
I will learn to enjoy this music. And I think
he learned to do a little bit more than enjoy it,
That's true, true, And what I and once I started
seeing the depth of what he had, you know, backs

(10:36):
to forty five and stuff like this, and you know,
you started to become a completest and and so I
just ended up buying everything because old horny toads on
the back of this or something like that. So I
just went nuts. And then you know, her brain and
her brain was the date movie that summer. Ah matt
um Well, I came to visit my mom here in

(10:57):
l a and eighty two because she moved here in
eight two. I was from Paris. I was still living
in Paris, and I went to Tower Records on Sunset
and heard Let's Pretend We're married. So that's my first
one was introduction, and I remember literally thinking, can we
Carson here? Now? Fun? Michael Jackson, That's what I remember
thinking that such a Michael fan, And all of a sudden,

(11:20):
I was like, what is this Forget Michael Jackson and
I became hooked. Yeah, that was my first I didn't
even speak I didn't even speak English like I do now,
but I remember thinking like, okay, this is cool. I
went about the twelve inch and then it was all
over from there. I wish I could say it was
you know, for you, but that was my first real
prince moment. That is a hell of a way to

(11:43):
get everybody crazy too with that song, because yeah, even
my mom liked it, unlike she really liked. That was
my first traumatic Prince movement because punishment, no, but just
the when I heard I want to fuck you so
bad it hurts like I ran a sto and took

(12:03):
that ship off with the I was like, what, Like
I didn't know what I was getting into. Like by
that point, you know, he was you know, well not
safe to listen to, because my dad was like, you know,
I don't trust that boy in a diaper. You know,
I was. I was nine years old. You gotta remember that.
So that was like getting hooked on Prince through that

(12:25):
at nine years old and bringing it back to friends
where they didn't really know what the hell he was
saying anyways, and so they let me. You know, it's crazy.
I guess I think I told it before, but um,
I was this. So I was seven years old, and uh,

(12:46):
my dad, I just told my mom that hurt. My
grandfather had died, and so this is like the first
traumatic experience of the household. And my mom like you
just her this blood curling scream and her on her knees,
crying and crying and crying and crying. And so wait,
I thought this was an ask group of story. No, no, no, no,

(13:10):
this is uh She's like on her knees crying and
now I was crying that they had to go on
the road. Okay, that's right. That's right. But my sister
Dorn like instantly scooped me up and was trying to
figure out a safe place for me to be because
you know, I was like, what's my mommy, what's my mommy?
And she just grabbed some headphones, plugged it into the

(13:32):
stereo and said, here, put this on now at the time,
and she turned up the volume. Uh at the time.
I remember Street Wave by Brothers Johnson was on, but
Doug Henderson, our afternoon DJ of w d SFM debuted
Soft and Wet right after that. And the first thing

(13:54):
I thought about instantly was Larry Graham based on his
eynthesizer work, and well I later found out that he
recorded did he recorded the same studio as as Grahams
both recorded record play. Yeah, so that's sort of worldly
synthesizer like, that's the same synthesize of that Graham synsers

(14:17):
Central Station with youth, and so I always made the
association that this has to be Larry Graham associated because
of this worldly synthesized thing and the hole tell me
that you love me girl like earlier with that, No,
I just felt that like it it didn't knock me

(14:38):
out or anything like It wasn't like a moment because
even then, like I was lukewarm on princes, like my
sister and her girlfriend's daughter. He was like cute and
all that stuff. But um, you know, it wasn't until
I did the The Time association I Love the Time,
and then was like, oh, they sound like, oh, I
get it. They're associate at it with him. And then

(15:01):
that's how it got in the Prince. So I kind
of had to catch up. I'm not one of those
people like, yeah, I've been down with dirty Minds since,
like you know, I kind of had to go backwards.
So it's kind of weird that the album that I
take advantage of the most, which like because everything is
so incredible, like controversy always gets lost in the sauce,
but all of us are saying practically half of us

(15:24):
the same controversy was the the thing that pulled us in.
When I first heard Controversy, I was before I liked
funk music, but I was a fan of like kiss
and the biggest thing, you know, the dirtiest thing they
were saying is Christine sixteen that exactly, and so I
was like that's all I knew, And I was like, oh,
I saw you walking home from school that day, you know,

(15:45):
which is you know, looking back, it's really kind of
bubble going. But at the time and letters, you know,
you don't realize how lectris Geene Simmons was. But I
just found out Christine and sixteens. It's a sample for
what's tone. Look second single that's Christine's Yeah yeah, like

(16:05):
I found out a year ago. I was like, ship yeah,
now controversy was I said, definitely got my interest that.
Um the riff that you hear that ended up being
in the family stuff, it's the same, you know that,
the same thing that used over and over. But I
remember hearing that when I was running track and that
was one of these things that I would use as

(16:26):
a metronome when I was running. Really yeah, I did
pull vault in high school. I know, five six, I
can see it now, serious, I did do it. So
we're in Sunset Sound Studios right now, and which is why,
you know, I guess Bill and I thought that it
would be cool to sort of have this meeting because, um,

(16:48):
this is the place where a lot of his key
songs and his songwriting and his craftsmanship really came to light.
So um, one why did you when did this? When
did it come from an idea? Oh? I should document
the creative and too you actually getting into it? Like,

(17:09):
what was the you're talking to me? I assume yes,
I'm sorry the audience can't see U. I used to
work for a magazine called Uptown and with Piter Neilsen,
and we used to we wrote The Vault, the book
The Vault, and we thought wouldn't it be cool to
expand that, you know? And I came to a lot

(17:30):
of the information for the Vault was from here, um
sunset sound. And I came here and asked him, you know,
can I get the work orders? Just arrogant that question,
I guess, And they said yes, and they let me xerox.
And the funny thing is, as I'm xeroxing, um, I'm
thinking at any time they're gonna come in here and say,
who the fuck are you? Ye, I was gonna stay here,

(17:51):
Like how did you get information? That's the thing I
I just I asked and they said sure, and I
when I got them, they said, you know, there's certain
things we don't want you to show in here. And
I thought, that's fair. You're giving me eight hundred pages
of documents, and as I got him, I'm like feeling
like maybe I should go to my car fast just
in case in the parking and I said, but that's
the guys who is he? And so I got him

(18:14):
and and um, they've been great. They they started looking
at him, and they're not always as accurate as you
as you want. Sometimes Prince would just say what's your
middle name and he'd write down Colleen or something like that,
So that's not always as as detailed as you want.
But there's a lot of great stuff, Like in this room.
I was looking through the things to see what was

(18:34):
done here. I don't think he recorded much in here,
but they remixed. They mixed the um let's work twelve
inch in here, and the ice cream castle was compiled
in here, and I think probably edited in here as well.
I think Steve Parknoley was in the in the control
room doing that. We're in studio one. He just basically

(18:55):
mostly worked in three and two. Two was the one
he did a lot of stuff in, but three he
became its own. It's its own, um uh, it's it's
self contained. It's got a bathroom and all this stuff.
So when he was doing most of his big stuff.
He would be there. So nobody goes into three. Two
people you know, see and you see the basketball court
reading between the two. Um, so he could go out
there and occasionally see people and stuff like that. But

(19:18):
he did most of his working two and three and
and the first thing he did was one obviously made one.
I think he did the Studio three. That was stuff
for controversy. We still can't get in a Studio three
student book. Stud book to me. But you guys go
to Studio two. No, No, he didn't go to choose open. Seriously,
you should just look. We went over there earlier while

(19:38):
you guys were reacting early and it was great. It's
I've been in a couple of times, but it's it's
just you go in the room and you think this
is where prince, you know, not just Princess. This is
the van Halen, the doors led Zeppelin. So many bands recorded.
This is and Princess kind of a footnote on on

(19:59):
all the stuff that they done. You this is a
long term student. These do Disney stuff here. Um, so
this is this and the and so I interviewed most
of the engineers that worked here, Peggy McCreery and Coke
Johnson and Susan Rodgers as you know Susan um and
they kind of told me the stories and I started
realizing this is a book. And a couple of years
ago my wife said, are you gonna shitter it off

(20:21):
the pot? Basically, you know, are you gonna write a
book or not? And I thought, yeah, I did. And
I got finished with a book about a month before
Prince passed. I finished it in March of two thousand
and sixteen, and I thought, this is great. I'm all excited.
And then Prince passed and I literally thought, do I bother?
Because I didn't want to seem like an opportunist and
and uh so I got in touch with a lot

(20:42):
of people I interviewed and they said, no, this is history.
You should put it out. And so I found a
publisher and I found a guy to write the foreword
for me. And I tell you I'm debt. Yeah, I'm
still heartbroken about Miko's comments to you. Oh, I know,
see me when he was coming Who's quest level? I

(21:02):
never met him and he said in all caps too, yeah,
small man, I'm like, yo, dog, I'm like your biggest champion.
And that's what Sai I was rooting for you during
that fight, but he was uh so, um yeah, when
when you've got attached to this, it sent it through
the roof because you opened so many doors. Is an honor.

(21:23):
I know I'm saying this Brown knows you right here,
but it's an honor to show the cover with you because, uh,
you know, it's honestly the the connections you have. And
you know, any documentary you look at about MJ or Prince,
you're in and and so yeah, yeah, I know. So
so I'm just hoping to ride your tail music. Yeah,

(21:45):
I think it's important like to me. And again, I
know that Prince's life is an obsession to a lot
of people. But for me, the thing that I want
people to take away from it, which is why I'm
so obsessed with all the rehearsal stuff and all the
sound check stuff and all you know, the work order

(22:08):
things and those you know, how many hours did he
take the track? This thing is is it's because I
I really wanna hammer the point at home that the
importance of being true to your craft and rehearsal and
and being bored and being creative and like that's the

(22:32):
things that that I'm that I'm obsessed with when I
remember when was it Cam that gave you the couple
of sheets of this somebody one of the guys that
have several guys that worked on this with me, um
And the comment I got from you was holy shit,
because you saw the stuff for August of eighty three,

(22:52):
and and that gave me so much hope because you're
right in a vacuum and you never know if people
are gonna enjoy this. I'm not been a fan. Here's
the thing. I've been a fan for years. I've known Matthew.
Matthew and I've known each other three decades, and we
used to get together and listen to uh, you know
back when you'd buy an album that had you know,
a song pretty face that it was, you know, exact

(23:15):
titles on the Chocolate Box. So we we're having a
dird off, right, And so who was your first bootleg?
Oh god, it was probably the Chocolate Box, or or
it was a Royal Jewels maybe what was your first bootleg?
I feel like it was charade. It was was going.

(23:35):
I remember my friend benshipin Bard it never gave it
back and I was super paised because I paid, like
you know, a hundred bucks, and you didn't think that
you'd ever hear it again. Bill, mine was the ninety
three Bagley's Warehouse after show because from sect sacrifice of Victor. Anyway,
I love, I love. I loved his guitar solo on
the ride. I saw it late night on BT once

(23:57):
and I had to find out, you know, if that
audio was anywhere, and I got on like the Paisley Park, Well,
the PPML, remember the PML very well. I remember all
used to have the chat. The Paisley Park Chat Room
is actually how I got my first job in New York. Really, yeah,
we'll tell that story later, but really there's a lot
of guys that got the job from because Sam Jennings

(24:18):
to be a collector and in he's the same way
he ended up working with Prince Bill. Bill and I
have kind of this joke with each other. He's mad
at me because like in my head, I always closed
the door after like there's the only room in my
heart from seven eight to eighty eight. No, I mean
I have everything, and I acknowledge that there's there's greatness

(24:39):
even after eight. But for me, just you know, the
things that I hold near and dear are just there's
a big butt after with you, and and he yeah,
he always like put something in my face like yeah,
this is ninety four, you know, and I'm like, no,
here's the thing. I had to write about those that
would be a little tougher for me because my heart
is eighty eighty one into and maybe even a little

(25:02):
bit of eighty nine because love sexy tour ending. But after,
you know, Batman, I'm like Graffiti Bridge. I was like, uh,
you know, in Diamonds and Pearls, he was trying to
be pop and it was it was good for what
I mean, exactly exactly exactly four songs enough to stand
and I was and I was totally good with that amount.
And if I just had to focus on that amount,
I'd be good, you know. But the you know, the

(25:23):
guy's got another thirty years after that, so you know, So, Ruth,
I have to ask um because during this particular period
that we're talking about, I know that a lot of
his time and a lot of his hours were in
the studio and he kept tireless hours of working around

(25:48):
the clock whatever. What was his regiment from when did
you first come aboard um? Right? As a musicology tours
started in three four and he uh, you know Dave Hampton,
I think you know the engineer. He um created this

(26:12):
mobile recording studio for him, so as he came into
l A, we would run out of places and he
would be about two all hours of the night. But specifically,
one memory I have that stands out, uh we were.
It was we were on a break from musicology and
we were in Minnesota and it was like the dead
of winter. And actually I made a comment to a

(26:36):
friend on the phone and I was like, damn' it
is so cold out here. My nipples could cut glass.
And then I'm not kidding. The next day I walked
into Studio A and he was playing a song called
glass Cutter. I was like, motherfucker, did that hear me?
I was like, I got paranoid. I got super paranoid

(26:57):
after that. But I was in there and were I
was like, oh my god, yeah, I know he's like
he was. There's a couple of stories of him. The
entire building was it was Mike right to that. It
was Mike, but it wasn't on and there were no
cameras there. There there were never any surveillance cameras. But
he would creep up on you and um, no, listen,

(27:21):
he would I was. I was like, I was like,
there was like a Smashing Pumpkins gold album or something
on while I'm like Smashing Pumpkin, what are they doing there?
And then I hear um they recorded, and I was
like I screamed, and I'm like, why doesn't somebody put
a cowbell on you? And he's like never mind. He's

(27:41):
like Kim because Kim was with me and she was
doing his hair at two in the morning. Anyway, we
were we were in the studio and I was like, damn,
I need I need to go to sleep. And it
was three. It was about two in the morning and
we had been there since do in like maybe noon
and two in the afternoon and he's like, Ruth, I

(28:03):
want a house and I'm like, okay, what does that mean.
He's like, I want to run house in l A.
And I'm like, okay, so find me one like it
just like two in the morning. It's like where am
I gonna do? So I go online and I end
up finding this house like within an hour because he
comes back like he wants it now, so like he
comes back twenty minutes. I'm like I just got on

(28:25):
the computer and he's like, Okay, I'll be back. And
so I find this this home and it's um it's
thirty and then there's a street, UM name after that.
I just don't want to like out where it is,
but he uh looks at it. It's the title of
the album. So he comes in. He looks at the end.

(28:46):
He's like, have you found anything yet? And I'm like,
oh my god, it's been an hour. I have like
three I have three places so far. What do you think.
He sees the first image and it's one and he's
like that one. I want that one. And I'm like,
you don't want to look at the rest? Nope, Nope,
that's it. And then he goes in and by now
it's like maybe three in the morning, and he goes
in the studio and I hear like all the syncopation

(29:09):
and I hear like, you know, the beats, and I'm like,
why am I gonna be able to go? Man, I'm
so sleepy. And it's four in the morning. Like I
get all the information. I email, you know, the the
agent for this home, and he's like, do we have
the house? He comes back like at four and I'm like,
do we have the house yet? And I'm like no,
It's like it looks like two in the morning in

(29:30):
l A, No we don't have the house. And then
he goes okay, and then six in the morning I
hear the fully finished thirte the whole song, so it
was pretty much done by four because I could hear it,
and I was like, that's kind of funky. I really
like that song. Actually, it was really funny because you know,

(29:51):
I got to hear because he would open that he
left it was just he and I Paisley, so he
would leave the studio open and I can hear him
like mixing and like you know, and you know the
strains of you know, each instrument. And I was like, wow,
he just does he just do that? Like just now
now you have to find that house? Yeah? No, I
was like, I was like, no pressure here, Like I

(30:12):
have no pressure at all. But yeah, we ended up
we ended up moving into that house. And it was
the start of like this whole era of like house
parties and madness, and I hated every minute of it.
Parties were hustling like, um, who's in town. I'm like,
like I know, like I knew anybody, like a group

(30:36):
of church, Like I barely know people. When you guys
are speaking about bootlegs, it was all swakily to me,
I don't know what y'all are talking about. Can I
ask her a question? Okay, that you were talking about
something and I want to see what your take on
this is a lot of people have said that Princes
had an energy that he could either radiate attention that
you had to stay at Patton, or he could be
under the radar completely like all of a sudden, like

(30:57):
you said, just show up. Yeah, I mean he was.
It was interesting in clubs because you could see him
walk into a club and you couldn't see him, but
you could see the gravitational pool of people just like
he was. Like he drew energy and attention, and he
would also take your soul. So if you were if
you would talk to him, like sometimes he would talk

(31:18):
to you and you get a lecture for three hours
and I'd walk out three You're lucky. That's a that's
a light night. Yeah, there's a story behind that. What's
the I mean, you know what it's it's like the
whole be careful of your Yeah, like I caught I'm
not joke and say that, you know, when black men

(31:40):
find religion like lay low for like at least three
to five years because that's all they want to talk about,
and then they cool off a little bit. So yeah,
I caught him right and period. Man. And at first
it was like you just walked right into the trap.
Like the first night, I think it was me who
want to American Idol, the guy with the fake afros

(32:01):
that Justin Justin when inside he came in second he
didn't win. Well yeah, well Justin loves what just Kelly? Yeah, yeah,
it was like Kelly, Justin, Me and Common at a
m we were in Harlem, some some Harlem rest in
a random place. Yeah, Justin Kelly Clarkson Common walk into Yeah,

(32:31):
and it started there and we thought we escaped it.
And then the next night, that's when he came to
Electric Lady Studios when we were working on Commons. Jimmy
was a rock star and he heard the mix and
then almost borderline started quasi mixing. He's like no, no, no no,
turning up his voice and turn this down. I was

(32:52):
like producing this and then um and then no, I
mean he was cool, and then he worked on Star
sixt nine and then the only way I can describe
it is the front cover of the Who's the kids
are all right? Remember the four of them sleep on it?

(33:13):
That was me, Blow Common and it was a fourth
person I forget, but we were just sitting on the
floor and he was like talking to us like a coach.
Like if you imagine one of those Tom and Jerry
cartoons where you only see the mom's like knees, Thomas

(33:35):
or even Muppet babies, we only see the nanny's knees.
Like We're all sitting on the floor and he's just
walking back and forth like a coach, Uh, talking about
have you seen this happen before? Blow was new to
this and he's you know, Blow was Muslim at the time,

(33:55):
so it's just like Muslim versus a jo's witness. It
was two am and then it was like six am,
and I just thought like, man, it's it's like you've
been waiting all your life to be friends with this guy.
Like you guys didn't say anything. I started snoring and
he's still and I'm like sleep at me. I grew

(34:27):
up in church, so he couldn't go far. He could
not go far. Heim was like, don't start like no, no, no, no, no,
he's calling some stuff that it happen. So then there
was a period where he was like Deebo and Friday
to me, Like there was a good part of two
thousand one to like two thousand and three where I
would just run the other way. I'm like, wow, you're

(34:49):
running from your idol, Like I just can't. I mean,
I just couldn't. I couldn't take another because he just
wear you out. And you want to know things like, okay,
so the Lynn Drumm loot you used on what's up
with at the end of I don't want to lose you?
Right exactly exactly, you don't want to talk about that.
So and that's the thing when when um, the night

(35:11):
of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, when Chappelle,
me and Neil Brennan went to see him perform at
the after party? Were you there? Were we friends? Then?
Were you in that hotel or that? But I wasn't you.
We hadn't met yet. Yeah, I was about to say

(35:31):
I would have remembered you. Um, And you know, he
invited us to the hotel thing, and so I didn't
realize that the elevator opens up inside the apartment. So
I'm thinking that, okay, we're going to a hotel. Elevator
is gonna open, we'll be in the hallway and then
we'll knock on the door and YadA, YadA YadA. So,
in typical television sitcom fashion, my back is to the

(35:56):
elevated door, and I'm trying to give Dave and Neil
ad a seventeen second crash course, which I said, guys, wait,
I just thoughted something, Look, he's really really big on religion,
so you know, because the thing was like Neil was
just like, hey, like okay, it's gonna be like and
I was like, no, like that that prince you're thinking of,

(36:17):
Like he doesn't exist in more in this religion. You know.
They laughed, like religion. I'm like, no, I'm dead serious,
like a matter of fact, I said, we need a
safe word. So so the elevator doors closed. I said, look,
we need a safe word because what you guys don't
know is that he's going like really big one religion

(36:39):
and stuff and and and don't curse and dada da
da da and um and the door was open and
I swear to God it and like they yeah, he
was like continuum here he was right behind and it was.

(37:01):
But the thing was is that what I didn't know
about Dave is Dave lives for an audience like the
most awkward. I went Dave with me and any he
can talk you out in any situation. I think Dave
could talk, Uh he could. I'm about to give me
the Healter Skelter reference. What's his name who? Just recently

(37:24):
time he could talk Charles Manson off of death row
and out of it. He can talk out of any situation.
And we walked into what looked like to be a
prayer meeting. It was like the Grams, his then wife,
her Canadian family, and well her family is from Canada, right,
her family, and instantly like I'm trying to give the

(37:48):
eye like and Dave was one of those people's words
like if you tell him no, it's a yes. He
got right. He had a captive audience. And then I
just once religion started, then I just inched my way
out of it and left. But those guys stayed till

(38:09):
like seven in the morning, and he would have stuck
around to watch Prince and Dave Chappelle talk about a religion.
I can only imagine what that conversation was like, man,
I just I mean I used to listen to it
as a fan. You know. I'd be like, okay, I'm
such a Prince fan. I'm gonna let him talk to
me for three hours about this stuff, you know. But

(38:29):
they remember there was a moment at that house where
we were talking about, you know, not religion, talking about
music and something else, and he's like, follow me. Like
I finally all right, Prince said follow me, and I walked.
I walked through the whole house long story short, down
the stairs, through the room, end up in his bedroom
like holy ship. He's got the symbol pillows and the

(38:50):
purple dadada and then he opens a closet and hands
me like a bible and all this stuff. And I
was like, man, I thought he was going to give
me an ascetate for I wish you you know. Yeah,
And he's like, I want you to read this to
your kids, because we're that's what we're talking about, my children.
And I'm like and I was like, well, I'm Jewish
and I don't really do religion. And the next day

(39:12):
said the next day, maybe Ruth, you gave him my address.
The next day, people came knocking on the door. I listen,
I had a Jehovah when time to my door, and
I had boxes of Bibles and tracks, and I was
I had been into I had gone into a really
big fight with prince. And I was like, oh, I'm like,
you know what I work for Jehovah's Witness. Wyn't you
come in the back and take your boxes because I'm

(39:34):
about to burn them? And she was like what, oh no,
And I'm like, you can bring your super Bowl. You
could come and talk to me about church and like
Bible and stuff. I know my Bible, but you like,
I was so mad, I took it out on the
poor lady. But they came in, they got the boxes
of tracks. Was there ever, what was the in the
game too his religious talk or is wanting to convert?

(40:01):
Like was there there one person that was like, okay,
like I'm Jamie Flax, Yes I'll come with you to kingdom?
Was he? Like? What was the so? So part of
the you know, not to clown on any religion or anything,
but part of you know what they do is is
they have to log in hours. So your name mat
Twoo's name, my name is in a calendar, says Ruth

(40:24):
four hours, a mirror two hours or twenty hours, you know,
and it would say he would write everybody's name down
this calendar, so it was kind of a log book
of how many people he spoke to about, you know,
the religion and all that. So it's kind of like
it is to convert people. It's their ways of proselytizing.
But um, you know I would I'm not a person.

(40:46):
I'm a kind of a mouthy individual, so you think
a little bit. So I had to pick and choose
the stuff that I would, you know, combat with him
like that. I would get into um and that would
be one of them, because it was like, you know,
you can't, you can't, I mean, you can't really talk.
I grew up in church and all and all like Pentecostal, Zionist,

(41:06):
you know, Charismatic, Methodists. I've gone to all of them,
and so you know, I understand part of the the
law of religion. Um. And I knew what he was doing,
and I was like, you can't, you can't, like you
can't swing me into this. Did you ever attend Kingdom
home away all the time? And I used to look
at him, Okay, so no diss to Jehovah's Witness but

(41:28):
I am going to kind of disk. Their music is awful.
It's it's Bible verses with no no melody. It's like
they saying and Jesus came to the cross like it
is like I would look at Prince like I'm like,
how are you even listening to this? And he wouldn't sing.
He would just look at it and he would just

(41:49):
kind of have his little finger with his little pinky
finger up and like follow the words in the hymn book.
And I was like, I'm dying. I don't even know
what your musical brain is doing right now. You're probably
like throw washing this to pieces and creating like a
like an opus of some kind. Because this is terrible question.
Is it true that he wrote a bunch of songs
for the Jehovah's Witnesses? Um he has like I don't

(42:13):
know that he did, but I know that he wrote
like a lot of songs with overtures of you know,
but I heard like that he actually has songs in
like in the hymn or Jehovah's Witness him. I could
I could imagine after spending time, did you have an
option to not go was the go I'll stay behind

(42:35):
but assistant, and you know, I think that uh, like
you know, I wasn't going to church at the time,
and like when I was in Minnesota, I would just
go because it's Minnesota. There's not there's nothing to do,
so might as well go to Kingdom Hall and you know,
just see, Yeah, it was very curious about the religion itself,

(42:55):
you know, coming up in church, so it's curious to
see what their belief systems and how they believe. And
you know, I've met a lot of Jehovah's witnesses are
phenomenal people, and then you know, just like in all
other religions, a lot of crappy, shitty people as well. So,
you know, at a bunch of Jehovah's witness come to
me um at a at a show, I think it
was in Seattle somewhere, and they were they were like, um,

(43:18):
we're here for the after party. And it was a
super private after party and I'm like, uh, there's no
after party here. Well, we're friends with prince and I'm like,
I don't know who you are. They're like, oh, we're
brothers and sisters. He went, he went, He went by
brother Nelson, we're his brothers and sisters. I'm like, um, yeah, no,
I don't. I don't think so. Oh no, we're Jehovah's witnesses.

(43:40):
And they wanted to get in based on that alone.
And I was like, okay, now you know, oh I
would have fell for that hook line is thinking like
oh okay, yeah. I was like, that's cool. We're good.
So uh Dwayne. Yeah, So in your in your research, um,

(44:01):
how are you able to find out as far as
like the length of time that songs were spent? Like
this is one thing to see the work order. And
I guess I have told explain to our audience that
I mean now because half the stuff is done on
computers and personal studios, people don't keep meticulous logging like

(44:23):
they used to now in my era of having UH
in in recording UH on our label. Like back in
the early nineties when the Roots first got signed, the
assistance job was basically to snitch, you know what I mean,
So if the labels credit card was on the room,
they would know, okay, how much we spent on food.

(44:45):
Back then, long distance phone calls were big. Yeah, like
so like everything's you know, like okay, I see a
mirror called the Yeah, how would you work on that
song the mirror? Yeah, exactly, Like so all my time,
all the else that I met in your whatever i'd
like home from the studio, That's what I think. So
assistant engineer's job was to keep meticulous, right, uh, detail

(45:10):
of what we did and how long we lilly gagged
and all those things. So what I can I assume
that these work orders were in the same way. Yeah,
A lot of times they would have you know, and
and then like you said, this is also work orders
are place to hide things. Um, they would be the
tattle things. But they'd also be like there's times that
he may worked on two or three songs and they

(45:31):
just were just scrambling through things, and just he would
write down the title. Often I would have to go
back to Um, I went to the Library of Congress,
went to the unions that had musicians unions. Because Eric
Leeds was in the Musicians Junion. There's also Minneapolis Musicians Junion,
which would list Sheila and other people like that. So

(45:53):
I could tell the time from that stuff. And also
when strings were done or when they bring in a
person played harp. Uh. So there's all this little detail
like that, Um, because people had to get paid, you know. Um,
But the work owners generally had started this time ended
this time. But that be times that he would just
get to the student and say Peggy, let's go see

(46:13):
a movie, and they go to the movies and come back,
or you know, he might step out for a couple
of hours and personally mixing it. But that doesn't mean
they're doing the whole time. Um. And that that's where
it ends up getting a little vague. People. You know,
when I first started doing the interviews in like the
early mid nineties, I remember asking some of these people
and they're like, I didn't think that some prince nerd

(46:35):
would be coming in and asking me about something ten
years ago. Now I'm asking They're like, I didn't know
some prince be coming and asking me about stuff that
happened thirty years ago. Um, And memories get a little faded.
The you know, you work on stuff for five six
years with him, guy, you're not gonna remember specific dates.
But if you've got somebody that just did strings, uh,
they might remember that specific session a whole lot more

(46:57):
then somebody who's like I said, Susan Rogers, who Susan
Rogers got a phenomenal memory because she's and the cool
thing about Susan and you probably know this, is she's
got a knowledge of sound on top of just her
prints base. She loves the funk, she loves that stuff.
But the way she talks about how sound works, and
the sound is different at night than day, or you know,

(47:19):
just the way music works. And you're just thinking that
the level of knowledge from some of these people, and
the engineers I actually engineered. I interviewed some of the
engineers here in the studios where I'd come in in
the evening and talk to some of these engineers. I'd
find their name on the work order, and this is
before Facebook or anything. I just look him up, call
him on the phone book, or call here and say,

(47:40):
is Coake Rogers were Cooke Johnson working there? Dave the
Blade is well, there's several Dave of the Blades. Dave
Leonard is in. Who's the original David the Blade. He's
in Nashville right now. I did not interview him. Um,
we were going to He used to be married to
Petey McCreery. Um, and they they did a lot of
sets just together. But he lives down there Uh. Then

(48:02):
Dave Knight, David Knight became Dave the Blade, and he
was one of the engineers here and also at Sunset.
Uh the other studio they have have another studio here. Um, yeah,
sound Patree, So he did stuff there. He's interviewed in
the book as well. I used quotes by to have
Leonard from other sources to the books that he was
interviewed or things like that too. But I wanted to

(48:24):
interview him but just didn't work out. I'm curious about
the live shows that were um sound truck or yeah,
like the or the thirty minute I Would Die for You,
which obviously went to the Sound Truck. Um, are there

(48:47):
any studio loggins for those sessions, and if that's the
case where the Purple Rain shows also recorded? Rain shows
were all recorded for the most part, sitting well pretty
much as far as I know, they're mostly recorded. Um uh,
so there's there's here's the thing. He's got vaults of

(49:08):
stuff that well as first, I've got tons of cassettes
and stuff like this. The engineers in the book talking
about how everything was recorded to maybe down to a cassette,
so it may be already mixed. You just got the
mix that he may not have uh four track recording
left of all those things. But from what I understand,
he has tapes of of every rehearsal, every sound check,

(49:29):
and he'd have six or seven tapes running the day
and not labeled, you know, just boxes. Here's the tape,
and he just throw things in a shoe box, and
so they're stuck. You know, we we don't know who
some of these things are, what dates these are, and
so it's there's a novelty to some of the stuff.
And I talked about that quite a bit in the
book where some of these engineers talking about all the
stuff that exists. So how I used to think that

(49:51):
was a storage closet. I've been there. I'd be like, Ah,
this is a big old storage closet. How big is
the vault? There were two volts? Yeah, they or two
There's like the opening section and then there's stuff that
there's like a it's like a a teers like like
a what do you call them? Like mud room, it's
like a mud room, and then the real room. The
other thing I found to get information from is like

(50:13):
people like Eric Leeds and things like that would have
there's when they would record. They would keep dates of
when they would record and stuff like this, so that
helped too. But again there's always gonna be stuff in
the vault that I have no idea about. And and
like when Brain Deluxe came out, we all were shocked
when uh, after the vocal possessed but electric inter course,

(50:35):
all of a sudden, all of a sud They're going
to holy crap. And and Michael sitting there nodding his head.
But you know, all of us going, WHOA, thank you,
you know for finding this, because that's something I didn't
even know existed. And I'm not going to help for
saying this, um, but it was it was always my

(50:57):
fear that he you know, just in the last ten
years of his life. Um. And this is you know,
speaking from you know. Of course you think like everybody's
gonna you know, be eighty ninety. You know, they're gonna
be super old. UM. But I always thought that, man,

(51:25):
I know, one day he's gonna turn Like if we
think that some of his thinking is irrational now, just
as far as like certain cutting off the nose, despite
the face moves that Prince has done in the past,
um to some of his fan base, why would I
do what I wanted. I'm just saying that it's it's

(51:51):
to me. I always felt like he would pull a
move like some viking burning. Yes, I thought he would
pull a Willie on that whole entire, like in his
sixties or seventies. And I was just like storing magnets

(52:11):
what what what? No, no saying he was storing magnets
in the room, just a race everything. Yeah, he really didn't.
He really didn't. I was just saying he could have
what he's saying. So I'm not saying what you think
I'm going to insinuate as far as premature passing. But
I definitely felt like he would. First of all, I

(52:35):
thought he would have a will That's the thing that
would say. We talked about it. It's burn everything. If
I wait, you talked about what what did? What was
said was he didn't want to at the time, he
didn't want to right a well, and I was like yeah,
because it was at Baisley Park and I yelled at
him like, well, you know who's going to get all
your stuff? And he came. He doubled backed and he's

(52:57):
like who, And I'm like the government and he walks
out of the office, but you know exact we did
talk about it because I was really concerned because he
didn't have a will. I'm gonna be honest with you
because I mean more, mortality is something that people don't

(53:18):
want to deal with or talk about even now. Um,
I mean, I I have a will, but it was
sort of like an afterthought thing like yeah, just leave
it to the I don't care. You know, I'm not
gonna die. I'll be here forever. But now I'm like, okay,
I would like my records to go here. I want

(53:38):
my unreleased drum stuff you to go here. I want
to donate this stuff here. Yeah, get that note. No,
it's just that now as I get closer to you know,
get you know, I'm way out of my twenties. Now, Okay,

(53:59):
this death is going to be a certain thing in
my life, like I'm definitely going to die. And you know,
but I guess at the time, you just put it
off and put it off and put it off, and
it will never happen to me. It will never happen.
And you know, because for anyone asking like how could
he never have a will? Like you just you never

(54:21):
think you're gonna go right, Well, part of his reasoning
also is like you whatever you think is true. So
if you're if you create a will, it means that
you're you're podcasting your death. So that was a big
thing about it, and we had a discussion about that.
He told me he wants that he was from another
planet and that's why he didn't age because the son
revolved like, I don't know, twelve years every twelve years

(54:44):
and he's like, I think you're from that planet too,
And I was like, don't you call me an alien
with I'm like, you keep your alien stuff to yourself. Um,
But he Yeah, a lot of it was denial and
not wanting to face a so in future. But you know,
he carried around in love his keys to the vault
like you know, a janitor always had him on him

(55:06):
and then wrangling every time. There was only one set
of keys. You know, there was only one set quote unquote,
but there was another set that somebody else had, so
what if he lost those keys? It was here's the thing.
The wall next to it was just a you could

(55:26):
break into Paisley Park. I was so like, not secure,
no cameras, still no cameras. I'm sure they put cameras
in Now that really that was the reasoning, right, It's Minnesota,
who's gonna Yeah, No, seriously, He's like, only it's too
He's like, all the no evil people live here, the
bad people move out. People had a story about I
guess who They went to, like a convenience store or something,

(55:47):
and he left the car. They left the car running,
and Prince was like, yeah, because nobody would steal it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
no it's true. Like you know, we would go into uh,
what was it? What's the story there Barley's. No, what's
the name of this store there? I totally forgot Barney's
or no, I think it is Birels. Is it Barleys?

(56:08):
Is that important? No, it's a store in Shanhassan. Like,
but you would walk in there, and if you were Brown,
I knew exactly what you were doing there. Oh you
were working at Park are you? I'm like, yeah, how
do you know that? And then I realized and like, oh,
you look like you worked there, And I was like, okay,

(56:30):
stereotyping over here, that I see. So how also, the
Vault was not kept up very well. I mean there
was no there was it was. It was not a
place where there's yeah there that stuff does damage. But
they did. Yeah, but they reconstructed it y water leak

(56:53):
one year and they were they're having to put the
tapes somewhere else because it just it was not kept.
It was not a good vault. And what they're doing
now really does make sense. I think it's funny that
the family said that, you know that they shouldn't move
it to Iron Mountain. That's the number one thing that
should have been done. Reason why it was kept, that
people want it kept to Paisley is for nostalgia. Yeah,

(57:14):
they was going it yeah exactly, would have been worthless. Yeah,
they managed to save I think ninety eight percent of it. Yeah,
they are now obsessed with that. Is that twenty seconds
that made the song? Now, I'm not going to sleep now,
tossing and turning, learned that poem. I'm trying to figure out. Um,

(57:38):
I have a question for I have a question for you.
You've you've looked through the book. What is your opinion
of the book and you're you're as big a scholar
of this kind of stuff as I know, and I
want to know what your thought of the book is.
What did you like? See? The thing is is that. Okay.
It's weird because even when first of all, the book
is like what seven, it's not about okay, So maybe

(58:02):
when I was reading all my thinking it was like
seven hundred pages. Um, I went through there, all right,
Well here's the weird thing. I think from the time
that you guys sent me the doc document, uh, I
easily think the first night I went through four hundred pages. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(58:27):
And that's the thing I felt the shame, Like I
went from like, shot, I'm gonna write down my story.
I went from ten a m. Till about I think
I gave up at like seven in the morning. You're
already the busiest guy on the plane. I can't imagine you.
But I just couldn't put it down. And it was
the same way for me because I started reading. In
the next thing, I knew the sun was up, you know,

(58:49):
So just like working in the studio, Prince, and I
knew I was on something because I know that I
have a tend to see at least of my friends
like over exaggerate some ship. And I told him like, yo,
like this is the book we've been waiting for, Like
this is the moment, I think, and the thing is
is that I don't know because I try to explain

(59:09):
this to my management, my people, like, yo, this is
the Princi book I've been dreaming of all my life,
like I could never write a book like and they
looked at it and they were just like, whatever, Okay,
So he went to seven eleven or July. When I
got here, the first thing he ran to the basketball court.

(59:32):
I ran to the seven eleven that sort of thing. Um,
I don't know. I just again, I'm I've I've never
been into who he was dating or even the outcome
of a thing. I'm always obsessed with how he built

(59:56):
stuff and for me, a lot of my anything, anything
that I would ever try to ask him. It was
like in that book, so you learn things? Yeah, I
learned a lot. I mean because you know a lot.
So to hear that you actually got some out of
it makes me really happy. Dog, I'm waiting for it,

(01:00:18):
Like it's how many books do you think you would
have in you? I'd be happy to write books might
till the end of my life on this stuff because
it's my hope that the quote powers that be well
at least see this. And because again I think that
if you're coming from a non sensationalist, respectful angle, like

(01:00:40):
I think it's just important to document how the greatness
was me well in this book some people who haven't
read it. This covers uh two years of his life
that just has come out, and it's it's just starting
to hit covers Purple Rain cover, the beginning of nine

(01:01:01):
is UH recording Sheila's album, the Time, the rest of
Purple Rain apalone, six, the family, that summer, that's like,
that's when like six months, you know, two years, that's
that's that's that's six months I know most of himself.
And so when you see the kind of passion the

(01:01:22):
guy had for doing this stuff, and then we're sitting
in the studio thinking it was in this building that
he did the stuff, it's to me, it's I mean,
I went back and listen to the music again, just
over and over, and it was cool to listen to
it with a fresh ear, because after he died, it's
it's tough to listen to his stuff without through the
prism of the fact that he's dead hearing it again
through After reading the book, you're going that's where it

(01:01:45):
goes back and you and you you're hearing it for
the first time again, and that's that's something that I
didn't expect. We should note that as even though this
is coming a way later, as of this taping, I
think we're falling into the actual anniversary of Oh the
Little Recorvett, the edits, the edits for the twelve inch,
which what January or January seven? Yeah, very good. I

(01:02:10):
looked it up in your book. A question for Dwayne,
actually if I can, if I may, um, so, like,
you know, that's like a lot of information. It's amazing
because like Ruth, the thing was, Ruth was such a

(01:02:30):
position to get this information. But it's so amazing to
me and all my years of knowing her. I'm like,
you know, you're so not a fan like and she
doesn't have an idea of like and a lot of
women that are in Prince's life, especially in the last
ten years of his life, it's just like ask him
Barry about his music. She likes it, but she's not

(01:02:53):
a big fan. Same thing. It's like there's a lot
of people around a little it's almost like it's a
whole another person. Part of it is I knew, I
knew Prince the person, the musicians. I knew him. I
saw him. I was like, I interacted, but you know
that musician dude was such a pain in the ass.
Was like, um, but my question he is because you know,

(01:03:14):
I know what I and you know I there was
so much that I wish I had the four, like
you know, I had to Sam Jennings was actually in
the house, in one of the houses, and Wendy was there.
It was Wendy and Lisa and they came up with
their acoustic guitars and he hadn't seen them in years.
And they sat around and they played this beautiful melodic
song and I'm like, what is that song? Sam? And
He's like it's a song called Mountains. And I'm like,

(01:03:38):
it's really pretty, but I gotta work, like I gotta
go clean his bedroom like like you know, like I
I couldn't. Like. I was like, it was really pretty
and I wanted to sit and observe, and I knew
I was missing out on something, but I was like,
I want to go to sleep. I need to go
I need to like, you know, I slept like two
hours a night, so I needed to have some kind
of rest. But my question to you is how much
of it do you think, because for me, I saw

(01:04:00):
different parts of it. And you know, I also talked
to Printed a lot, Like he talked about retiring from
music and I was like, shut up, you know that's
not happening. And he's like no, and he's like he's like,
I've done everything there is to do music. And I'm like,
you don't have an Emmy, you don't have a Tony,
you don't have like I started naming at Yeah, I
was like, name donal stuff. But my question he always
how much do you think was passion and how much

(01:04:22):
do you think was compulsion? Wow? I think I think
his passion shows through on some songs. I think you
can hear when he's inspired, and I think that compulsion
would be like Velvet Kitty Cat and things like that.
The yeah think that there's gonna be there's there the
songs that are obligatory. I think. I think to me,
what I understood, I mean talked to everybody, is he

(01:04:44):
just had stuff in him. He had to get out.
And sometimes he'd be in the studio and just kind
of record this traffic jam and that would be it,
and it would be like got to get this out
and to be able to get and moved. Yeah, but
there's the inspiration when you hear that. You can hear that,
you know, when something he elevates that he spends time
on too. I mean, I just has a really quick

(01:05:06):
question for all the nerd Prince spots here. So that's all.
That's everybody here. So Prince told me a story on
New Year's Eve maybe like and I think it was
two thousand, two thousand nine, and basically he was talking
about she's always in my hair. I told about you

(01:05:26):
this and and I was like, oh, and I had
somebody had already told me it was about a protege
of his. I couldn't remember kill John's okay, so I
didn't remember the name of him, Like, isn't this about
a protege of yours? Because they played the song we
were at the Roosevelt Club med of Bruce was. We
had gone in and like, um, actually Rood called me

(01:05:48):
and was like, um, you need to come because Princess
here by himself. And I'm like, oh man, I'm already
in bed. So I got dressed and like so we
had like this very interesting conversation New Year's Eve and
basically the song came on and I'm like, oh, isn't
this about like a protege of yours? And he's like
Jill Jones. He's like, no, not her, it's not here's

(01:06:09):
the thing he did. No, he said it was about
an assistant that he had at the time. I don't
know who. I don't know. I can't remember the name
well because I asked Teresa and she was like, I've
never heard that story. Okay, so he said, and I'm
like what, And he's like, yeah, she used to hound
me about, like making sure that I ate, making sure that,

(01:06:30):
like you know, that I was okay, and then I
was rested and she went away like somebody and her
family got sick or somebody, but they did that. He
that's the story for nothing compared to But I haven't
heard that for she's always my hair. Nothing compared to
you was about rand but the cheft, No, it's not Sandy, Sandy,

(01:06:52):
And it was also well Jerome says it was about somebody.
And and there's somebody else that said it was about them.
I don't I don't know. I mean, here's the thing
with any sort of artist and and but by the way,
I've heard him lie to women and say that the
songs were and he wrote it about everything. Everything I've
heard is when you're doing this stuff, and and and
Jill said this, and several people said this. A lot

(01:07:13):
of his music he do to meet women and things
like that, or he'd be inspired. But just because he
writes he may be inspired by one person, that doesn't
mean everything in the song is inspired that one person.
You know, wonderful ass maybe about Vanity, but it also
maybe about Susannah Melvoin could be about the cat having
a wonderful ask exactly. He told me that song was
about I'm sorry to tell you, but so any sort of,

(01:07:39):
any sort of I tried to put it whenever there
was a thing that he had said or other people
were saying it. But he was very adamant about beautiful
ones not being about Susannah. And sometimes I found that,
and I didn't know Prince, but I found that sometimes
he would get angry and vengeful about people claiming that

(01:07:59):
there was about them and that's the truth. That's he
would kind of he would just say he would he
would take it even if it were right right, you
don't know. There was a story about like how quest
Love saved the Super Bowl speaking yeah, so but one
of the one of the story. Yes, I don't believe

(01:08:20):
the story, by the way, I think you just do
it to make me feel you. No, I don't. So
this is a this is a true story. Like I've
told me too, and I've told like maybe two or
three other people, and this is a true story. So, um,
Prince and I got into a fight and I was
that was banished from going to the super Bowl. So
I was like, yes, time out, time out before you

(01:08:44):
tell the story. And I'm trying to deflect the story
because it's very silly to not playing. But you're allowed
to fight, like you That's the thing. That's how I
know you're not a fan, because it's everyone that would
know the history of or at least a fan of
Prince would sort of had this kid gloves approach. And

(01:09:05):
you were just like, I don't care the job. Well yeah,
I mean, like, you know, I deal with people who
are very creative and very volatile and mercurial, but also
you know, genuine these are people that I actually like, um,
and um, you know, Prince was just another one of
those type of individuals. And so what I noticed is

(01:09:27):
it's kind of like with a child or with an animal,
a small animal like you kind of have to bring
you kind of have to show them who's the boss,
otherwise they will take advantage of you. And I had
already learned that, and I and I already had my
you know, my mom is Craig Gray, So like I
had already learned from like I learned from early on,
you know, how to handle that sort of situation. So

(01:09:49):
I was in a unique position in order to deal
with him. And so actually one of the people that
I worked with, who's worked with him for almost thirty years,
was like, you talked. He overheard me talking to him
because I never to him out of turn unless it
was just you and I. I never like it was
never really never in front of people, never in front
of people. It was always very you know, as I
was very respectful and diplomatic and professional because that's what

(01:10:11):
he needed. He needed professional people around him and he
didn't have a lot of that. And one of the
my co workers was like, you talked to the prince
like that, And I'm like like what, And he's like, like,
you give him your opinion and stuff, and I'm like,
oh my god, how do you think I get my job? Done,
Like I gotta like, you know, he gives me a
lot of autonomy, but I also have to, like, you know,
move forward with I have to ask him questions. I

(01:10:32):
have to and you know, when I think that there's
a mistake happening, I pay the price for it. But
I have to be vocal, and so I've been. I
was always very vocal about Prince and I have no
regrets about my time with him. There's sorry, there's a
there's a story I had heard secondhand about an editor
who came up to Minneapolis. We flew him up to

(01:10:52):
Minneapolis to cut a music video for him, and supposedly
he was doing the music video and the Prince came
in said okay to look at it, and said, where's
my red hat in the video? And the guy said, well,
I thought the red hat looked kind of kind of silly,
and President okay. And at the end of the day,
the guys go back to his room and his bags
packed and he's got a ticket out of town. On

(01:11:14):
the top of his lug is that they had already
sent him back home. So she's like, well, like, I'm
not supposed to have my opinion heard here. So the
fact that you got you, you know, but you're probably
a lot cuter than that guy was. But he knew
though that you were, that you cared because even years after,
years after you guys stopped working together and I was
with him and Lenny somewhere and I mentioned you, and
he was like you could see he was like, oh,

(01:11:34):
how is I told? I called you after? Like, how
how is Ruth? You know? I loved him. I mean
we had a very just so I can make this
this is a very like sibling sort of relationship. Um,
there's everything. You know, there was nothing on toward And
it was after I left, you know that I realized
that people who worked females were sort of someone involved

(01:11:55):
with him. I was like, like, no, interesting that I've
heard is have to be passed. I contact a lot
of people I interviewed, and they almost also the same thing.
They loved him, and they protected him, and they felt
territorial about him, and and even to this day, there's
a lot of people that will block for him in
a sense that I have a really hard time with
that though, because if there were so many people that

(01:12:17):
loved him, I feel like he would be here right now,
right But it's over the course of forty year career.
Some of these people may have been around the ages.
You know. Actually I was Cheryl Nick, who who was
this bigger artist, and she was like she would tell
me how she felt protective and there was some you know,
she maybe not as close, but she was just like,
you know, because you he's he's just he has this

(01:12:37):
child's like spirit about him. He's a man, but he's
a child. It's a it's a very interesting conundrum to
see this person and and sometimes he's you know, you know,
sometimes he's a liny kid and you want to like
choke him out half the time. I wanted to baby
shake him half the time all the time. Who am

(01:12:58):
I kidding? Let's be honest. But but but I but
I loved him like he was like he was there
was a der misogynistic parts to him, and then they
were lovely generous parts to him. How many times will
we fight? A lot? What was the time period of
being fired? No, this is this is this is a
recurring story for James Brown, for almost every great music

(01:13:20):
has a thing where it's like you're fired and then
like he never fired me. Whatever, my drummer. Now, So
the way we parted ways we we parted ways. Um.
He eventually stopped calling. He ghosted me basically, but but like,
he never fired me, and he always said, I'm not
firing you. I could never fire you. And I was like, well, bitch,

(01:13:41):
I'm not quintin. Oh we're gonna do this, do it?
What was the distance between the argument and the radio silence?
And okay, I need some corn flakes? Yeah, he could
go a couple of hours to I think the longest
way is two and a half weeks. No, no, no,

(01:14:06):
he wouldn't. He just wouldn't call me. But I would
get emails at all hours of the night, but he
just wouldn't speak to me. So there was one time.
I got to tell you this one. There was one
time we fought, and it was that it was one
of the first parties that I threw at one home
and he was so mad. I don't know it was
something I did, and I was like whatever. And then

(01:14:26):
Raoul the driver was right there. He was like five
inches from me. I'm at the front door. Prince talks
to Raoul and he's like, UM, tell Ruth that um.
And I was like me, bro, are you for real?
Talking looking at Raoul and I'm in front of your face.
I was like maybe ten inches away from him. Tell

(01:14:47):
Ruth that, um, we don't want this person here. I
think it was mad because somebody got to the party
that wasn't supposed to be there, and I was like,
I had nothing to do with that. That person wasn't
on my list. He came with another person and uh
in Uh, Raoul turns around and like Raoul, I heard
what he said. He's right there, and I was like, Prince,
I was so mad. I was like, yeah, all the

(01:15:11):
time when I was mad, Like if I was in
front of people, or we were in a meeting with
like Warner Brothers and executives as yes sir or no sir,
um um, I would call him. I would say his name,
might say Prince, like if I need to get his attention.
But there was one time we were in New York
and uh and he there was too many people and
I'm like all crazy. He turned around and he just

(01:15:34):
laughed because there was no there was no way of
getting his attention otherwise, and he was too far and
I couldn't reach him. Um. But he snapped his head
back like his mama called him MoMA Shaw did. But yeah,
I know, there was like there was like probably two
and a half weeks was as long as that the
radio silence would go. So it was after a fight. Um,

(01:15:55):
and so he calls me up and I land and
now everybody, you know, people are annoyed because you know,
the the rehearsals have been going on, all the badges
have been done. It's a it's a it's a huge
production to get security clearance and all of that for
the Super Bowl. You need like twenty badges and pictures
and blood type and you know, the last date of
my period. So it was like an ordeal. And so

(01:16:17):
they were annoyed that they had to rush it through
and literally like an hour or two. So I get
there and I can't you know, I can't walk around
the grounds or anything. So I'm waiting at like this
holding cell area and then um, you know, Prince summons
me and he's in his trailer and so they have
to escort me because I don't have any credentials. And
so I get escorted. I go up there and Prince
is like, um, the sound is bad. Fix it. I

(01:16:39):
was like me, fix it? Like sound like I look
like a sound engineer and I'm like okay. So he
basically weighs upset about the sound. I had nothing to
do with The producers already knew about it. Everybody already
knew about it. There wasn't anything I could do. I
didn't know why I was there. Um uh So I said, well,

(01:17:00):
you know, they're working on it, and he's like, okay, well,
we have an event to go to tonight. You're coming, right,
And I'm like, well, yeah, I guess I am. So
you know, I was like, hey, be in the car.
We're leaving at no thing is that if nobody knows,
Prince likes to speak in the plural and the third person,
So everybody else started to sort of pick that up.
We all this we bullshit and it's just like you.

(01:17:21):
It's just you. And so he's like, we're leaving at seven,
and I'm like, okay, I go downstairs. I wait in
the limo. And Prince was curious. He's really pissed up
about the sound and not you know about you know
what what he was hearing. Also in an empty stadium
and there was no know, there was reverb and all
this stuff, and you know what was going to be televised,

(01:17:41):
and he was just not happy about the whole situation.
We get into the limo to go to this event
the night before the super Bowl, and he is like
stone cold face killer like he gets in the car,
doesn't even look at me, and I'm like, where's everybody else?
And I asked for it's the question. He doesn't answer,

(01:18:02):
and I was like, uh, it's just you. And I'm like, motherfucker,
like you left me in the bluemo. It's just me
and Prince. And it was just like you could feel
the tension in the air. It was just it was
just so thick with like rife, with just it felt
like anger. I wasn't sure what it was. And I
was like, god, damn, I'm going to be in this
car with you. I don't know what to do. So

(01:18:23):
I'm like and and we start to leave and I'm
like okay, and the driver says, oh, you know the
destination is like fifteen minutes away. Well, it's South Beach
the night before the super Bowl. It is bumper to bumper.
We it's twenty minutes and we don't move but like
maybe a foot and so um. Prince is getting highly
annoyed and I'm and I'm starting to panic because I'm like,

(01:18:46):
I can't sit here for two hours with this dude
just fuming, yeah, just doing. I was like, oh, this
is super uncomfortable. And I was like fuck it. And
I'm like, um, so this is soup speech, right, this
is where they say did they film that movie say
Hello to my little friend? But that's all that could
come to mind, you know, And he was like, um,
he looks at me, he gives me a side. I

(01:19:08):
mean what he's I only get his profile. He never
once really looks at me, and he's like yes, silence.
I'm like fuck. And then uh, he's like, well, well
how long you know, how long before we get there?
And he's like we're calling a police s court. So
we're waiting for a police escort and so I'm like
I can't stand in and I'm like, so, like, have

(01:19:30):
you ever been here before? Well, because I couldn't. My
brain wasn't working because it was so I was stressed
out because he was stressed out, and he was like, yeah,
I used to. I used to have a club here.
It was really cool. It's called clam Slam. And I
was like and then suddenly I remember, so two days
before now I had a Mirror had sent um the

(01:19:54):
Muppets Tonight, and he had sent me a CD version
I've never seen it, and it was the if no
one's ever seen it, you have to look at at
the Muppets Tonight with Prince. It is the essence of
So so what kept me around was that that that
spark that you see in The Muppets Tonight, that childhood

(01:20:17):
um sort of elation that Prince would come out with. That,
That's what when I would see that, that would kind
of like fuel me. Raspberry sey, yeah, all of it.
So he um, I'm like, no, you know what's cool.
I'm like, I'll tell you what's cool. What's cool is
you being on the Muppets tonight. And he whips his
head around. So the first time he looks at me
in the whole like by now, it's been like forty

(01:20:38):
five minutes, and he's like, what do you know about that?
And I'm like, A Mere sent it to me. He's
like yeah, He's like, what why is the Mirror sending
you stuff? And I'm like, well, because you're in it
and I've never seen it before, and I'm like, oh
my god. And so I go into this and I'm
like how about when Fozzy Wazy Bear goes you're pretty
mouthy for a guy with no name, And I literally,

(01:20:59):
because I just mean it, I take on all the
like and how I went conso like where's the courset
in the fishnets? And he's like, damn to me as
exact like, I literally like re enacted the whole thing
because I've just seen it. So we spent the next
hour talking about the Muppets tonight and what a magical
thing is I after like my fifteen minutes of reenacting

(01:21:20):
because I had to, I was laughing so hard at
my own jokes. I was like I entertained. Rooul turned
around and he's like, what the is going on? And
I'm like, dude, I'm like, I mean my moment, it
was like it was like musical theater for the five
year old of me, and I like went through the
whole thing, and I was like, how about when you
were like wearing your little cute little overalls and you

(01:21:41):
had that strong in your mouth like you know, And
so we talked about how he he was like and
this is where where I bring back when you were saying,
Dwayne about how he would like change like if he
was upset at someone and he would like not give
credit to that person or whatever. So he's like, I
don't remember who told me to do the Muppets tonight.

(01:22:01):
And I was looked at him, I'm like, yeah, you do,
because I could tell you he the way he phrased it.
I found out later my day his first wife had
encouraged him to do it. Um. But he was like,
but it was the best thing I ever did. He
was like, it was the most magical experience to him.
Hence student's studios is like the most the most magical
place you could ever be in. And we had this really,

(01:22:23):
you know, really long conversation about it, and it was
during the course of the conversation then I realized he
wasn't angry, that he was nervous. And it took me, like,
you know, because you're his prints, like you don't think
about it. And when I saw him soften up, and when,
you know, I saw the look on his face and
then I was like and I'm like, suck it. And

(01:22:44):
I'm like, prince, your prince, like no matter what happens tomorrow,
like you're gonna you're gonna kill it, You're gonna slay it.
And there's nobody who's going to ever do what you
can do, not here, not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.
So I'm like, just no, Like I said, I guarantee you.
And I'm like, and if you come back for that
money back guarantee I got about two dollars and fifty

(01:23:06):
cents because what we what were his feelings after it
was done? Because you couldn't have asked for I was.
We ran down Kim and I and I think it
was straight show. We ran down to like the front
like we because I was like, we were in the
box seat, and then we because they wouldn't let us
in there to other people, and then they didn't want

(01:23:27):
us it. I was like whatever, and then we ran
down to the field. We got drenched. I was drenched
head to toe, like like I looked like a drowned rat.
Prince like, we run back up because we're like, we
gotta go see Prince, So we run back up after
after he's done, he's already in the box. I'm like, motherfucker,
we left before you got off the stage. And I'm like,

(01:23:51):
I'm not kidding. My hair's pasted to my forehead, my
dress is like tissue paper all over the place showing
things that no one should ever see in public. And
I look at him. I walked through the door kind
of like the Little Kid. Do you remember that episode
where the little kids in Jurassic Park where they walked
through the after had been electrocuted and they walk in
all dumbfounded, like to the foyer with food. I walk

(01:24:11):
into the sweet and I'm all with my face just
like all like crazy hair plastered. Prince not. He had
two droplets on his shoulder, hag. I was like, I
scream at him, and then I'm like, how do you
not have any water on you? Oh my god? You

(01:24:34):
were amazing And I just go and I grab and
he like we give no. He came up. He stopped talking,
you know, he stopped talking to come up to me,
Like I didn't just do that out of nowhere, like
he like made he made he like he stopped his
conversation and came right up to me, and I just
give him the biggest bear hug and he just laughs
and he's like thank you, and I was it. And

(01:24:54):
then he moved on and he said talk to Kim
and Tricia. But I'm like I took that thank you
and I was like, yeah, that's right, Yeah I did.
I did that. But actually, because if it wasn't for you,
I would have literally lost, had no material material, none, none,
and the super Bowl would have been a bust. It's
amazing when you think about somebody like that being nervous,

(01:25:16):
because we all look at him as this guy's almost
infallible and and and when it comes and then to
hear I mean, there's a story in the book about
Alan Leads exactly going to the premiere of Purple Rain
and he's having almost holding Allen Lead's hand because he's terrified.
And just you picture of this guy who at the time.
You gotta remember when Purple Rain came out years old,

(01:25:38):
I mean that that's I look back at that age
and I'm like, that's that's a child, you know, and
I can't imagine having that kind of control. And if
that movie bombed, it would have he would have been
a punchline. But I think a lot of his the
mysterious standoffish nature is due to the fact that, you know,
kind of like the Wizard of Oz, like you don't

(01:26:00):
want anyone to see what's really behind the curser because
you might be disappointed. That sort of thing. There's a
lot of that. But I think it also is that
you know, a person like that doesn't you don't trust anyone.
So it's very hard to be vulnerable, and so vulnerability
is a commodity. You know that he can't afford to share.

(01:26:20):
He's a guy that's never I mean, he's always cool.
The thing I said before somebody is you never see
him trying to grab a straw with his tongue or
missing it. Yeah, you have us mortals haven't seen him
doing this stuff. You don't see him tripping or you know,
he's falling off the stage of James Brown. We know
we've seen that, you know. But then then again the

(01:26:43):
nerd off, um, but you don't. We don't laugh over.
We don't exactly telling us about that. Really, what are
you saying? Oh, he was just saying that he made
an ass out of himself, that he didn't have a
good night that night. No, he didn't good night. You
ever hear Alan's version of that? No, tell me what
I may have, but tell me no. I asked Alan, like,
what happened on and the ride back home? And it

(01:27:06):
was again they were sitting in traffic. Well, it was Wendy, Bobby, Jill,
Alan and Prince. It was obviously it was dead silent,
but that's what was so important about that night. Alan

(01:27:29):
agrees that kind of the I will not I will
never you will never catch me unprepared or that sort
of So the genesis of his meticulous I mean, it's
always been there, but what led to all the stop,
when the dime ship, all the you know, ain't nobody

(01:27:51):
fucking with us sort of thing. That's the night it
was born. Because and I even asked Wendy. I was like,
so if he didn't say anything in that whole ride
home and she was like, yeah, it was bumper to
bumper traffic. No one said anything. I said, did you?
Did you know? Because I asked the next day, like
in rehearsal, was there a look of like I wonder

(01:28:14):
if you two told the others like what happened to me?
Like that sort of thing, And you know, it's like
a fear thing like I don't want to mess up
Michael thing. No, no, like it's it's unsaid. But she
sensed that that night changed, it was necessary to change that.
That was the motivation to like, Okay, I will be

(01:28:35):
the greatest I will be you know, that sort of obsession.
I talked about that a little bit in the book
where it talks about his control and how important control
was in any situation, and that would be part of
what you said, and how the man had to have
control over whatever it was with the conversation holding it,
you know, religion or whatever. Interesting you're You're right, he
was definitely a control freak, but then there were certain

(01:28:56):
things that he would like, I was autonomous and a
lot of the stuff that I did because I don't
know what I was going to say, because but I
don't actually know why I think I was just basically
part of it was that that because not only was
he a control freak, but he also liked to instigate stuff.
So he could tell like twelve people to do the
same thing, so there'd be some kind of weird rivalry competition,

(01:29:19):
and he and and no one would talk to each
other so we would all do the same job. So
he could be above the whole thing and let you
guys battle it out. All. Yeah, yeah, let's just let
the minions kind of take you know. I ain't have
none of that, Like I got that that was the thing.
I would be like but he would say stuff at well,
if you can't do it, I'll have such a such
do and I'm like, I can do it, I can
do it. I would get mad like it would be

(01:29:41):
like he would like stir you up in some way, Ruth,
do you remember that super embarrassing moment we had at
the Beverly will Share in his bedroom. So this really
quick because it's the most embarrassing story of my life.
But after our friend a Sheen Shahiti photographer, photographer was
a dear friend. We all met through all that through
Prince at his camera and we were in Prince's bedroom
thinking Prince Okay. So first of all, we weren't in

(01:30:02):
his real bedroom, so we were at the region. We
were at the region I threw I had six hours
to throw a party for the Oscars, and that's the
one that Tom Cruise came to and the one that yeah,
he gave me six hours to find a place and
throw a party. And that's the one where Cameron Diaz

(01:30:23):
like Justin Timberlake with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Bielle was there.
It was like a hot mess six out. I was
so mad and then I had I was like like
I learned, literally became an evil bitch. I was the
only night everybody and um we before the party started though,
I was super stressed out. And there are many rooms
in this this penthouse. It was the big penthouse, so

(01:30:45):
there several rooms. I know about this night, so there's
like there's like five there's like maybe five or six
different rooms. And you know, it took you six hours.
Six hours. Well that was the best part. Part of
it is that I had to be like, like, you know,
I spoke Prince Bondix before, you know, and like I
was like a bit of a mind reader, so I
would and he hated that. He hated that I would
like try to Yeah, he really did, so sometimes he

(01:31:08):
would flip it on me. But I was ready for
that one too. So if you tried to flip the script,
I got. I got that. So I had like like
twelve plates running. But so we throw the party and
we get there before no one's there yet. There was
a few few people, but we walk into Okay, so
now we walk into one so I just don't want
to say it's Prince's bedroom. Prince's bedroom was one of
the bedrooms in his suite and af Sheen has this

(01:31:30):
camera and me and my dirty mind and being French
and all the stupid should I say, I say we
should we should do like a little sexy photo shoot,
like a little porno so ave seen you take picture
of Ruth and I Ruth gets on the boat and
I get behind Ruth and I'm like enacting this thing.
And I'm like and I've seen, like I don't even
know if he has the photos, but I'm standing there

(01:31:51):
behind Ruth and dude just walks right into he looks
at me and he goes Now, he goes and walked
right back out. And you were like, look at me, like,
you just got me fired. You just got me fired. Yeah.
She was like, you just got me fired with your
stupid and she was standing there like Okay, this was awkward.

(01:32:15):
And then I'm thinking, like, I don't know how to
go back into the room now because he's gonna see
me in the room. And then he was cool. I
don't know, he had a sense of humor. Ye, that
was the first time that somebody's like come up behind
me and done something they shouldn't have and they got fired.
So that I had to tell that because that just
came back to me and that was really funny. One. Okay,

(01:32:40):
I'll go around the room. I would like to know, Mike,
what is in your in your mind? What is your
goal to see as far as his legacy concerned, And
how would you like that? Uh? Yeah, I mean, because

(01:33:05):
the thing is he's he's not coming back, and I
know I think, well, he would never want he would
never do a Nike commercial. He would never. But it's
like we live in a society in which people forget quickly,
and you know, it's the battle of well, do we

(01:33:29):
put him in Bob Marley terms and have him everywhere
or you know, and you know, we've had a lot
of eye rolling moments like the Empire Empire episode or whatever,
or maybe can tell you for one thing for sure,
he would never want Purple Rein licensed. You have him writing, well, yeah,

(01:33:51):
it was a work order that he had universal publishing
prop should never be licensed not ever. Oh okay, well
that's one thing in his will. I mean, it's just
whether whether anyone's gonna honor that or not. Is Matt
what would you as as the ultimate Prince fan? First
of all, what's what's what's your rarest artifact that you

(01:34:14):
have I kind of misrepresented you. I mean you your
artifact game is is crazy. I mean, you know, I
have a couple of black albums, a German one in
the US one which is pretty I feel that's pretty cool.
But but I have some some pen written things. I
have some acetates and test pressings, uh that I'm proud of,

(01:34:37):
like for you the very first yikes, which I've had
for a long time. A lot of I mean it's funny,
like I have cassettes. I have like cassette for that
song the Voice, and I hear your voice from Warner
Chapel with penwriting, you know that has like the thing

(01:34:57):
they sent him. Things like that that are one of
a kind. Um. So, but you know, I have a
lot and at a certain point in my life I
got rid of some things around like gold experience kind
of I kind of disconnected a little bit, and people
came after me and why did you get rid of things?
Because I was you know, at a certain point, I

(01:35:17):
was buying my first house with my then wife and kids,
and it was like we need money quick. You know,
I had these my regrets that I wish you haven't.
That was why I mentioned that earlier I had these
two uh so four sides of I wish you have
an ascetates that had completely different mixes of the extended
Somewhere I have a cassette of it, so maybe you
can find that. But that's something that But I got

(01:35:40):
so much money and at the time, you know, I
was like, I don't know, thirty years old and somebody
gave me like fifteen thousand dollars for you know, I
was like, that's a lot of money. Do you know
who he gave it? It was some some it's some
kind in jet. But I had, like you know, I
had some some you know of a couple of pairs

(01:36:01):
of shoes and Prince shoes and uh a couple of
pair pair you know. Damn, I'm just it just hit
me that I forgot I have, like you, I gave
up even in here, I'm like, man, I wish I
had some wait your game like on a big I
got lucky, man, and I will not probably have a

(01:36:24):
house in the next three years. You'll sell it to
me for twenty bucks now even you know what, what's
what's weird is that what I have, Um, it's so
sacred to me that my I think my plan is

(01:36:44):
that I want him to really have a nice wing
at the Smithsonian in d C. So I believe that
I will. I mean because right now as we speak,
I mean, you know, it's on the floor like it's
it's it's high. It's seven figures worth of ship that

(01:37:07):
is sitting on the floor, and you know, I mean,
you know, and I'd rather just be in I'd rather
put into awesome. No, I'd rather have it put to
great my apartment. So I think that I will probably
donate it to my apartment the Smiths own. I need
some stuff for the walls in d C. So damn

(01:37:32):
I wish you haven't. Yeah, that's that's my you know,
that's one of my regrets. And uh, there's still a
lot of other stuff. I mean, I have things, you know,
in storage and things in closets that I forget about.
But um, it's pretty crazy, like some of this stuff
you have that love God. Well, one time I stalked
him my Warner Brothers, a friend of mine was working

(01:37:53):
in international. You talk about the one you found? Oh
that was crazy, No, that's as stay wet. Actually this
is crazy. Y I found the nine. I think this
was when like days after he passed and this is like,
you know, holy whatever you call it to divine intervention.
But long story short, I got record that inside has
a napkin, authentic signs, stay Wet love prints in purple

(01:38:18):
marker and we have the story goes Deep. But yeah,
that's so that. Yeah, that's one of those things. What
made you look? I mean no, no, they they it
said like, you know, something I can't remember. It didn't
even have it like on the outside it said like
it didn't say it was weird. It was like a
few hundred bucks, so they knew it was something. But
I just saw the guy putting it up. They hadn't

(01:38:40):
put it up yet. I saw the guy in the
middle of putting it up, and I was like, let
me have that, and I figured, you know, I look inside,
I see the thing, and I was like, yeah, I'm
buying that. And then yeah, that was crazy. But but
I also had, like, you know, I had him signed
some stuff. My friend used to work in International and
Warner Brothers, and I came to the I guess it
was for Graffiti Bridge and then he had the Diamonds
and Pearls where they performed on a lot. That's when

(01:39:02):
I met Jeff Farrof who ended up Remember we were
hanging with Jeff back in two thousand nine in New York,
the guy who signed Lenny and Van Ben Harper and everybody.
But anyways, Jeff, you know, it kind of stuck me
in to watch Prince performed the Diamonds and Pearls thing
on the lot and then I had him signed a thing.
So that's someone that's in my bedroom because he signed
it to me, not to my name, but signed it.

(01:39:24):
I was like, he signed it hard, Yeah, I think
I have I have a napkin from the first wedding.
Really yeah, signed to know not science of those such
a geek. It was a gift. Somebody gave it to me.

(01:39:46):
The way that he signed that, he SHARPI the but
get off twelve inch. He did something similar to shock
a Delica. So I think we're yeah, I have the
I have the Shako Delica or I have like whatever
he said that he get told Alan like hal Data,

(01:40:07):
I play this record and he signed it and and
you know Camillo Shaka Delica and gave it to Allen
to give to the DJ to play it and then
bring it back. So um, I'm sorry, I'm still stuckling
I wish you hadn't. They were like forced and they
get off twelve and you're talking about I was there

(01:40:28):
when he got it. We hang out back then, and
he had it before anybody else, and he said, look
at this, and he still got a package from Paisley
Park one day and I've been I see, I was
consulting for like anti piracy. I was a total hypocrite
because I was collecting all the ship and they were
paying me to like do antipiracy work. But basically it
was you know, I was just yeah, basically like and

(01:40:50):
I was like, you know, these are the I would
make databases and all that stuff. And so they started
sending me, you know, test pressings. And this guy, honestly
when it was it was razy because he's always had
some crazy stuff. He was always getting amazing stuff. And
you still had a relationship with Lenny way back. But
he when he got the twelve inch of of Get Off,
he like showed me and Brian, who used to hang

(01:41:12):
out with and we were just dumbfounded by this thing, going,
this is the coolest thing, and nobody had it because
it was weird. He shipped it like two weeks later,
and so three weeks later, so I was like, before
you even and I was trying to see, like, wait,
is this the actual writing on it? Like he still
has the FedEx package that it came from Paisley because
I'm because I'm a geek. And then I got the fans. Well,

(01:41:40):
I used to wear at Roughounce Records interned there and
they sent like five of those on esther fans and
my mom the package the package I got for that,
it's another Paisley thing and it's got the gold sex
c MF wrapped in underwear with the sex m with
the fan and a card from Prince saying you know
the new blah blah blah. And I still have that
thing rey intact, but you know, there's there was There

(01:42:03):
was at a uh Zanzibar the night we were we
were at Danzibar and that's what I was working on,
the Ultimate Prince thing with Warner Brothers, and I had
like the he really like got in my head and
about about it, and he was he got an advance
for he knew it was, you know, it was a
real thing, and he was down with it. But he
asked me to take off certain songs because of his

(01:42:24):
belief so Erotic City, soft and wet. Uh, there was
one more, the twelve pitch isn't on twelve the Ultimate Prince.
We had to take it off, so, you know, thanks
to Michael. Now it's out in the sounding the right
sound on the Purple Rain thing. But so I said,
can I put Let's Work instead? So we replaced Let's
Work and then for Soften what he wanted the acoustic

(01:42:45):
version of seven. So I was like, Okay, that's not
really the same thing. But but that night he had
a I still have this. It was an acetate of
I don't know why I got that. It was like
a parting gear. I don't know. Maybe it was for
somebody else and he thought it was somebody else. But
it's a sexy MF remix with mixed with like ice

(01:43:06):
cube wrapping. I remember that. It's like, but it's it's
ice cube track. It's not ice Cube on Friends. It's
a it's like a like a medley kind of yeah
mash up. But so I'll dig that up for you.
I'll send you that. It's it's just but you know,
things like that. I'm sure if I someday I'm would
actually you know, organize my stuff so, Doyne, what is

(01:43:28):
your wishes as far as the legacies concerned. What's your
I think there's so much potential to do. I would,
first off, would love to see a serious XM station
that's just just Prince or something like that. I would
love to see. Did you not tell me that at
the time you because I would love to see. To me,

(01:43:49):
you got a Tom Petty station at Bruce Station, and
I would love to smell. I'd love to see it
right now because you could have all the different shows.
You have a live show, you have a Bobby's you
doing the DJ thing that he used to do. I
think something like that would be amazing. And and the
problem right now is that the legacy of Prince is
going to start to get smaller and smaller and smaller.

(01:44:10):
And it's our job to keep expanding it, you know,
Michael Jackson, it's important to us. But Michael Jackson's legacies
drifting because the reissues are having yeah exactly, the reissues
are having the Halloween thing. So it's like what you know,
But with Prince, he's got such a vast vault of stuff,

(01:44:32):
some great, some not as great. It's up to us
to kind of get you know, um at least twenty
great records. Oh yeah, he's got a lot of great
stuff and a lot of and I'm hoping what the
state does and Warner Brothers. The first off, I hope
everything goes to Warner Brothers. I want it under one house.
And he may have had problems with with Warner Brothers

(01:44:54):
at certain times, but it seemed that Warner Brothers never
gonna release what they have. I would like to see
everything going into one place so you can have the
greatest hit exactly and you can and then you don't
have to fight about what uh. When he did a
session in eight five that didn't come out, well, that
would be under this umbrella, as opposed to somebody saying,
well that didn't come out, so that he He also

(01:45:14):
did a lot of albums that as you know, he
did a lot of albums that he gave to Warner
Brothers saying release this, and they didn't. So when people
complain that, well, he didn't intend to release this, no,
he actually there's a lot of things he wanted to
release that Warner Brothers or something that said no. Yeah,
there's a lot of things like that. And on top
of that, he would he would be very interested in
something for Monday and Tuesday of a week, and that

(01:45:35):
would be the most important thing. And then Wednesday come
along and you get a new idea and he say no,
screw Monday and Tuesday. This is when that didn't mean
Monday and Tuesday stuff is bad. It just meant that
he all of a sudden had he had a very
short attention span. And and I think he was really
good at starting projects because that's when it's fun. You know,
you're dating somebody and you you want to you want
your fall in love with the thing. But wrapping it

(01:45:55):
up is is a little more difficult because it's it's
the end of a relationship. So he would get interested
in the new girl or the new girl, the new girl,
the new song, the new song, new song. And I
think that so he has a lot of unfinished projects.
I'd love to hit a flesh out there. I'd love
to hear a Madhouse box set. I'd love to hear
Vanity six and Apollonia six box set. I'd like to
hear um unreleased revolution album the Um Garden. Even though

(01:46:21):
some of that stuff was released on that album, there's
more stuff there, And and i'd love to hear that stuff.
I'd love to hear all the songs. I'd love to
see a sign of the times Um multi disc set
of all the stuff that came out for that, you know,
with dream Factory and all that stuff that there's so
many projects that the guy did that it seems like
you could be releasing these things for a long long time.

(01:46:42):
I would also like to see them taking some of
the rehearsals and sound checks and saying, Okay, this is
when he taught the band Purple Rain, or this is
when he taught you know, and have let's say a
year long process where once a month or twice a
month they come out with a tape. You know, they
just a tape that is the rehearsal of something, and
you know, subscriptions to the year and you get this download.

(01:47:03):
And that to me would be the best thing because
and it doesn't have to be perfect. It could be
a flawed tape. We all understand. This was like a
sett Yeah. By now it's weird hearing something that sounds good.
I don't understand this. But there's so many things that
that you know, I think are out there that I
think should be one of the cool things about doing

(01:47:24):
the book and stuff like this is because I get
an idea of some of the things that are out there,
and I'm thinking about doing a book that's six which
would cover Under the Cherry Moon, which would cover Madhouse,
which would cover Sheila's second and third album, which would
cover The Flesh, which would cover Crystal Ball, which would

(01:47:44):
covered Uh It's a it's a jazz group he did
with during Christmas here. Yeah, exactly, exactly exactly, So it
would be that and then that album end or the
book ends. The second book would end with the Revolution
breaking up, the family breaking up, and then Prince breaking
up with Uh Santa, and then the last thing he

(01:48:05):
does that year is recording Wally, you know. And that's
right before the Sign of the Times band got formed,
so it sets up Sign of the Times, which Sign
of the Times is kind of a way of him saying,
you think it was all about them, I'll show you
what I can do with a new band, almost a
completely new band, and and you know, him almost feeling
that he had something to prove. So that would be
the book. After that, I'd love to keep doing books,

(01:48:28):
you know, And like I said, until until this is done,
I have enough material right now to do one about
two six and um, and I'm hoping that along the way,
you know, you know, you still with you. Yeah, she

(01:48:49):
my daughter is funny. My daughter's eight, and she just
all she knows is Dad sits in rights. So she
said she'll try to I just wrote a book to dad.
You know, it's very nice. But she doesn't understand. End
that on every vacation, every night and every weekend, Dad's
sitting there writing, you know, And it's it's it's obsession,
you know. And then the interesting thing is I see
it almost like Prince when he got obsessed with doing

(01:49:11):
his stuff, working all the time, and it's almost like
a life lesson when you see what Prince accomplished. There's
a reason why he's got a vault full of stuff
is because he was always working. And that's the reason
why he was so good. Is he was always playing.
And before a concert he would play for hours while
they were still setting up the lights. He'd be playing.
You know, you when you know that kind of stuff,
there's a reason why he's he's that good, and and

(01:49:32):
there's a reason why nobody touches him. And that's why
there's a reason why there's no next Prince because Prince never, never,
not showed up to her. That's he just that guy
lived music, He talked music. I think that his communication
with people was based on music. He had a There
was one story I heard that would be in the
second book where um, his engineer was He's talking his engineer.

(01:49:53):
He said, we should make a t a TV show
called drum Talk where one drum is going the other
drum is going and answering each other like and drum talk.
And I thought, that's that's courteous. But this is how
he thinks. So this is how this is how he thinks,
and you know this, and so yeah again, one thing
I just wanted to ask, what you're saying, sorry, that's

(01:50:15):
real quick. Is that because of the haters, and we
deal with a lot of haters. Is that let's remember
that Prince was back at Warner Brothers. When people, you know, say, oh,
Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers. He was back with Warner Brothers.
That's why Michael was his A and R guy, you
know when he passed. And the other thing is when
people talk about he didn't want this, he didn't want that.
I first hand experienced Ruth there many times where because
I before I was a photographer, really I was doing

(01:50:36):
all the I still do a lot of photographer. He
was taking pictures, deluxe editions and all that stuff. And
I used to give him those things and and he
would And when I give him the Miles name is
Bitches Brew forty anniversary box that I did, the first
thing he said is we gotta do you know, I
want to do this with all my albums. So when
people say he wouldn't want this, he was Gemini, so
he would, you know, want one thing one day. But

(01:50:58):
I just wanted to put that out there that he
did say that on many occasions and that he was
back an brothers. All right, Ruth, your turn. What would
you like his legacy to be? You know, I think
it started during I mean it's always been there, but
during my ten years when he wanted to create a
museum and droid at the beginning at Paisley Park. So

(01:51:21):
it was Dave Hampton, myself, Sam Jennings and Rick Pelloquin
who managed you know, Paisley at the time. And you know,
I'm not I haven't been. I don't know what it
looks like right now. I've I've seen kind of pictures,
and I'm a little disappointed, um only because you know,
it's it's going along the lines. It's it's a very
diff I don't want to put words into Prince's mouth.

(01:51:43):
I knew what he said to me at the time
and the time frame and during with when I was
with him, what he wanted. But but then he you know,
he could change his mind on a whim. I mean,
there's a movie that he made. It's terrible movie. But
there is a movie really bad and it's the performances. Yes,

(01:52:05):
there's there's I know about the movie. I have never
seen it. It's just something I should see. Apparently not
I've wasted a lot of bad things. But they're lying, lying.
They have noble to say that the studio bits are cool,
because it's yeah, the studio bits are like really inputiful

(01:52:26):
their studio, the studio we filmed inside of Days and
the jam session with Sunny and Michael. It's there's some
really good performance parts. But the project whatever, anyway, it's
it makes other the Cherry mood look like gone with
the wind. I don't watch Purple Rain for the narrative.

(01:52:46):
I love Cherry. I don't know, but I mean the
better than the hard life. Man. You don't want to know.
That's a horrible you. It's cool, man. We know Prince
and movies are. It's it's like a short fifteen minute

(01:53:06):
film that they think they Okay, let me say this
to hard life. It's Kasa blanca next to don't stop
serving me anyway. I think I think just because Prince

(01:53:28):
would say, you know so, one of the the ideas
not have quotes from like my work notebooks of what
he wanted. He wanted Paisley Park to be an interactive,
um multidimensional place where fans knew and old could come
and discover and rediscover music. And part of his you know,

(01:53:50):
saying that he would say all the time is I
am music. And you know, one of the ideas was
like he was like, we could hang a guitar here,
you know, underneath some acrylic and I'm like, no, that's
not what you do. You hang a guitar here, you
have a suspended and like suspended animation, have a twirling
you can have a hologram of all the music or
the shows of what that guitar played on. And I

(01:54:12):
don't know anything about Prince and his music, and like
the songs. But I I, you know, I know what
I think would be cool to go into a interactive
museum and kind of like you know, the Met Museum,
where you put on like the headphones and either they
can be guided or they can be you know, via headphones,
and you will as you walk through each area, you
are you know, you walk into an experience, because that's

(01:54:33):
what the parties were. The parties were a multidimensional experience.
You were, um, you were assaulted through sound, through smell,
through taste, like we used all your senses and that
was what we were trying to do with Paisley Park.
Now what I saw in a picture, I mean, I'm
not not to dis anyone or anything, but I saw
like a utility closet popped out and a coolic not

(01:54:56):
even the door jams are taken out, and like there's
a guitar just lying there. Just because Prince tells you
to do that, that's not That's not how I work anyway.
I don't like that's the basic of what he wants,
the bare minimum. And if it's done like that, you know,
he's a he's a quick moving guy. So if it's
already done, he's just gonna keep it moving. But what
I would love to see for his legacy is the

(01:55:17):
things that we talked about but implemented in the most
thank you, thank you took the words right out of
my mouth. Work. It's not beyond, it's not classy, it's
it's more like it's got to change. So whatever is
implemented has to be able to morph at just like
he did. He morphed and he changed. He changed, but
he didn't like there were the core things. His core

(01:55:39):
thing with Prince was always the record company. Like he
was always going to fight the record company. It didn't
matter whether he was friends with him or not. He
was always he was always going to look at an
attorney side eyed. Always he didn't trust attorneys. No matter
who tells you what, he didn't trust them. You know,
you can say that like three doestible lowered, it will
still be true. Like he you know, there were there

(01:56:00):
were certain things about him and and and like Dwayne
and meant you and everyone here says like he would
change his mind, then he would change it back. So
what I can say to you right now it could
almost be like solid truth. But then you know, the
last couple of years, a lot of things happened that
that I would have never even foreseen because of all
the things that he said to me, you know, over
and over and over again that he would never do,

(01:56:22):
and some of the things were done. Therefore, you know,
who's to say, but the best, the the best implementation
of his legacy would be to have the music released,
but in a timely manner, after it's been well curated,
and and and and you know, all the anthology, the

(01:56:42):
prince anthologists that are presents or whoever needs to be
involved with that, knowing what needs to what what you know,
come to a consensus in agreement like my dream. And
I had, I had already. I had told him this
with the when we were talking about his the day
we talked about his will and he was like, oh
why because he asked me why he should have a will,
and I'm like, because somebody needs to manage your state.

(01:57:04):
And he's like, why you think you're going to manage it?
And I was like, you know, I do a good
job if you if you're if you're asking me the question,
He's like, oh, all by yourself, and I'm like no,
I would have like a tribe of people managing you
would take one old band member, not all of them,
because there's a lot of stuff happening, and you would rotate.
There would be two positions you would rotate. It would
be the band members and it would be maybe some

(01:57:26):
sort of super fan base. The other ten they would
be executives. There would be uh, you know, uh music
and it would be your music industry executives. There would
be uh, um, your counterparts like Lenny Kravitz or you know,
somebody like that. And then you would have you know,
maybe one uh former employee, but even that should be

(01:57:48):
rotated because power just as strange when it comes to Prince.
It's where I learned how to hate everybody. So it
would literally be a tribe of people sort of curating
and finding the best alternative for you know, because everybody's
got the version. Well that Prince would never do that. Well, no,
you wouldn't do it, but he didn't leave direction, so

(01:58:11):
you have to take the next best things in order
to secure his legacy, to move it forward and to
introduce it to the mass. It's like I like met too,
Like when we talk, he tells me something new all
the time that I didn't know about Prince because I
only knew the person. Really the musician is something that
I am still discovering, and that would be like a
dream to have that sort of cemented if if you know,

(01:58:33):
the estate could just sort of set a hard and
fast guideline or something that's concrete, like a like a
serious documentary, which I've talked to other people about, and
something that just takes in everything and and you you
don't have there's not enough time to go over it,
just like a documentary would be like ten hours. There's
just too much. He did on so many different levels.

(01:58:55):
And I had one or two things real quick. You
would mention documentary. We were talking earlier a about Ken
Burns type thing. It's why I'm watching the one of
a Vietnam or he did the Jazz one. Imagine a
ten hour PBS documentary about him, I know, which would
be great. And I make documentaries for a living. This
will be something I would love to do. But one
thing I want to make you. You brought us something
that reminded me something that I think has been forgotten.

(01:59:18):
And a lot of the stuff that's being done is
all the people that worked for him, the pure An
alumni and people like that that really were there, like
you were saying, there's a lot of people who understand
his legacy because of the pocket they were in and
and to have it. And I think that there's it's
it's going to waste by not um by the estate,

(01:59:38):
not kind of checking in with some of these people.
I would love to see them do a uh Prince
Day at just for the people who used to work
for them and say, you guys can all kind of
Paisley Park, take out your cameras, take pictures and make
it like a picnic day for all you guys to
kind of get back together and have a fun day.
But it seems to be so secretive right now, and
they don't like to do that to me. I'd that

(02:00:00):
there's engineers and there's band members that have stories to tell.
And that's one of the reasons I wrote a book.
And that's one of the reason we all love articles
and stuff like this about this stuff. And and that's
one of the reasons you, you know, people come on
your show because we want to hear these stories. And
these stories are gonna die if these aren't told. And
these stories are what keeps Prince alive. And when I
hear these, it's like he's back again, and we're never

(02:00:22):
gonna get him back and again, there's never gonna be
another prince. So it's up to everybody else to tell
these stories and to put the pieces together. We're never
gonna get the full picture. But the responsibility of everybody
right now is to tell the truth and to tell
what they remember. I know, but I'm saying to tell that,
but tell the truth as much as they can. Rest well,
and that's true. But but I think that people are

(02:00:43):
getting ignored and accidentally ignored, are actually written off. And
there's a lot of people that had you know, I
would never have known the glass cutter story. And now
I'm gonna always think about that when I let be
fired tag me to it. But I think that there's
there's stories like this. I mean what somebody, Joe Willis

(02:01:04):
was telling me that there was a um the song shake.
He was gonna make a shake in the in the
in the kitchen, and he came with shake. He's like,
I'll be right back, and you know it goes so
that kind of stuff. There was another one somebody told
me that the house quake was he was walking across
the floor going out to dinner here in one of
the studios and his feet made that sound in it,

(02:01:28):
and and he's like, dinner's off, and he went back
to the drum and went poop poop, you know, and
you go this, you guy's always feeding the machine, so
he's always looking for that that, like you said, a
casual conversation somebody could have becomes a joke you throw away,
becomes the song title or becomes a part of the song.
Is one of my jokes. That ovulation, he would steal

(02:01:49):
this stuff all the time. With this song is so good,
I'm starting to like opulate. He made it into like
a weird lyric. It was terrible exactly he would he
would whatever. I was like, Prince, that's not good, that's
not good. But he would pull this kind of stuff
from everybody. And and that's one of the fun things
that you can tell his work based on who was

(02:02:10):
around him. You can hear Susan Rodgers influence. You can
hear Peggy me career influence. You can hear each one
of these band members that you know, I think was
around for this long period, and so he's got stories
to tell it. Just to me, I think it's almost
criminal that that these things aren't being well hopefully if
there's like a documentary that comes out, the documented the
oral history of print stories. Yeah, that's true. Listen, I'm

(02:02:33):
gonna start my book right now. But I do want
to see because I did mention the hashtag me too.
Just I don't want to be slight about it at all.
That Prince, even though he could be slightly misogynistic and
kind of a jerk uh sometimes, uh, he was never ever, ever,
uh as far as I know, um uh inappropriate with women.

(02:02:56):
And I just want to put that out there because
there's so many people like like you know, getting thrown
under the bus and Dave Chappelle, but we I just
saw him and spent some time with him, and you know,
he's a lot of his comedy is on that. But Prince,
even though he was all about sex and and all
kind of crazy whatever the wild and crazy songs you
were talking about with those lyrics, he was never ever

(02:03:18):
not to me, not to like anybody that was involved
was there because they wanted to be there. He was
never inappropriate. He was never I think the majority of
his fan base happens to agree with you, and yeah,
but I don't know how who listens to this, And
I just want to make that. But I just want
to make that like a like a like a very
clear statement about who Prince was. And he was always

(02:03:39):
a gentleman. He might have been like, you know, an
asshole sometimes, but he was never well you know, I
definitely learned a few things from him. Give me some serial.
We went on a serial one night. That was one
of my favorite rap to get him some serial, and
that he did that just to break up his suspicion

(02:04:03):
if I was trying to see Ruth. I don't know, No,
you know what he had. He had a thing about
why isn't he talking. He's like telling Mary he can't
come because he talks too much. He's like the poet.
He's like he's like he's like like bringing him mirrors,
like having him go snitch to the police. I mean,
but then then he was like letting Amer would be there.

(02:04:31):
All right, Bill, we gotta wrap this up. Bill. What's
your wish for his legacy? Um? I actually would love
to It's all pretty much been mentioned, But I'd love
to see like an app or a subscription service that's
like based around an app um where they can continuously
rotate content in and out the idea of the MPG

(02:04:52):
Music Club but done properly, but done properly, but done
properly Jennings. But well, I mean, you know he was
that was a lot of Prince like, you know, Prince
wanted to have like those weird whatever that kind. Yeah,
I don't know. I didn't pay attention to that ship.
That was another thing that was started and then just

(02:05:14):
too busy getting serial or so well all clothes and
saying that probably. I mean, yeah, you guys, everything that
you guys said, of course I agree with. I actually
say that I want to be selfish enough and maybe

(02:05:36):
grumpy old guy enough. I would like to see the
analog version of that um idea where it's like, maybe
it's just me in my my middle age wanting to
revisit my childhood. I don't have room for all that ship.
I'm just saying that for me, especially with there being

(02:05:58):
two record store days, you know, I would recordster Days. Yeah,
I would like a record Sto series where it's like,
you know, all this stuff remastered on wax. Of course, uh,
this stuff being you know, we're in forty five culture
right now, so get the original forty five's reissued the

(02:06:20):
same way mastered, you know, the same way, like the
excitement of a new Prince forty five coming out and
what's on the b side, that sort of thing. But
even then, men like having you know what, I would
rather see that done with the new stuff that comes
out like in the future, not the old stuff, like
seeing the new old stuff get a new print song
that I've never heard before on well, yeah, that too,

(02:06:41):
I mean, you know, even the stuff that we have,
Like I mean, I'm just saying, there's plenty of you
stuff out in the world and people, but you know,
Prince didn't like the reason why he didn't like the
digitized stuff was because of the compression and that it
would lose the sound and that you couldn't hear certain
sounds in certain tones, and so it didn't have the
same life. There's a there's a record does nowadays though

(02:07:01):
you can stream lossless audio and it's so much easier
to do then probably make a Neil Young poem joke.
But the Jack White, the way he has his vault,
like I'm just I subscribed to it. My son subscribed
to it. Those things are amazing, Like every three months
you get a ridiculous box that you know, colored vital
this that books that kind of stuff for guys like us,

(02:07:23):
We like this. When Tower Records is a Tower Records
that was on the corner sometime when that when that
was going out a business, Prince wanted to buy it,
buy it an open record store there and he's like,
and I want you to write all oh no, no,
no nod yeah. Um. You also wanted me to open

(02:07:46):
a Caroline's out here and I was like, no, good
comedy club. Yeah. He was like, you could be like
Caroline just um, you know what for all the talk
of like question, she should be there and I don't.
I want to. I want to be a fan. I
wanna you know when Record Store Day happens in April.

(02:08:09):
I wanna you know the feeling that I had hearing
the that that, uh, the reissue of We Can Funk
or Funk whatever, Like I knew that was the last
time that I'd have that feeling I had when I

(02:08:29):
was like eleven, like hearing the little record remix for
the first time, like what thews he like staring at
the speaker. It's hard to please Prince fans. I'll I'll
apologize to all the orders and all the who who
what other chat room people and stuff, all the Facebook groups.
I feel like there's there's no length, there's no there's

(02:08:52):
no level of happiness. There's just like making them angry
the least, you know, glass half empty. Now my fans,
just like you guys, are pretty much I wonder I
wonder about some of those people. At the end of
the day. This is just had to step back a
conversation with with with friends, purple friends. Nothing I wanted

(02:09:16):
to do that. I thank you guys for thank you
all for coming, thank you, thank you. Let me in
a minute. Wait, this is my PostScript, Ruth. Do you
have a silly story anything like something super yeah, oh yeah,
I got one just speaking of being traffic. So one time,

(02:09:38):
uh Princess driver couldn't pick him up from he was
from here. No, it wasn't from here, was another studio
on the West Side. He was editing the movie that
we shall not speak of and movie Oscar winning movie,
and so I had a hoopedie at the time. Wasn't
it was an infinity? It was like a nice infinity.
The No, it was an infinity. It was like he

(02:10:00):
was like in two thousand five, two thousand and like
I got it at a police action so that the
front seats were ripped up. Listen, it was on set.
I'm like, I like to buy new use. I am
frugal with my money anyway. Stupid sometimes, but definitely. So

(02:10:20):
I regardless, I was in the car and I was like,
damn it, I'm in my car. He's going to call
my car. They looked nice from the outside, but once
he sat in it. So I go to the trunk
and I had some Musicology T shirts in there, but
this one had like it was like a prototype or whatever,
and it had his face on it. And I'm like,
I'll just put the T shirt on because I didn't
want to slack he. I knew what he was wearing
that day, and he had like some silky slinky pants

(02:10:41):
and they're like sky blue, and so I was like, oh,
he's gonna get all. He's gonna be mad if you
get some snags. So let me put the T shirt on.
So I go all the way to the west side
in Santa Monica and I go and um, you know, um,
where are you? Like? He's calling me and I'm like
I'm driving and he's like, well, I'm ready now. I
was like, I'm like it's traffic. And I get there

(02:11:02):
and he's standing there waiting for me, person like sucking
in his cheeks and person in his lips. You know,
it's just annoyed that I was. No, it was somewhere
in Santa Monica. I can't remember, so that anyway it
might have been, it might have been. So I go
and I picked him up, and you know, I don't
get out of my car because it's like, you know,
he just walks over to me or and he doesn't walk,

(02:11:23):
and Prince never walks. He floats or flutters or whatever
it is that he does. And then he sort of
like appears in the seat and never see him actually
get in, and he looks at that. He looks at
the seat and he sees the T shirt there and
I'm like, you have to sit on the T shirt
because I don't want your clothes to snack. And he
doesn't say anything. He starts scowling at me, and he's
struggling with the seatbelt, and I'm like, I'm gonna get

(02:11:44):
the seatbelts. So I reached over like a child and
I'm like, buckle him in. So I buckle him in
the car and then um, it's it's frush hour traffic.
It's like five o'clock in the afternoon, and he's sitting
in there and I can tell he's mad, and I
just see him from the side of my eyes is
fingering the phrase of the of the stretched open leather

(02:12:06):
like a like a like pigs guts, you know. He's
like just touching it. And he's like, um, why did
not Stacy Snyder or Ali Shermoer buy you a new car?
And I'm like what And he's like, why didn't your
old bosses buy you a new car. I'm like that's
that's that's not how it works. Brent's like unless it's
a company car, like, why would why would they buy

(02:12:28):
me a new car? And I was like, why won't
you buy me a new car? And he's like you
shouldn't be riding around a car like this and I'm like,
why it runs? And he was like look around and
we were like in you know, deadlock traffic, and he's like,
do you think anyone would believe that Prince is in
this car? Right? So it was a log. It's a

(02:12:57):
long story, but it's a long ass trip back to
freaking Beverly Hills or wherever he was staying at He
was stating at the Boozer House. Some stories at the
Boozer House too. Did you ever get the car from him? No,
but I did. I did end up getting him. He's like,
when you when I've dropped him off. I finally dropped
him off, and he was like because he started, you

(02:13:17):
know with there were people walking back, like he would
taunt people and he would like look at them and
people would double take because it was odd to see
somebody like him and then look and then and then
they would go back and be like, oh no, it's
just something dude that looks He's like, see see nobody
believes Princess in the car, he would think. But there

(02:13:39):
was something about it he didn't like. But we had
like there was another like they had a couple of
car things, like there was one time and we were
in the car with guys, Sirian. He rolls down the
limo window because he's these kids in the car next
to us. They're singing loud, they're like and he rolls
down guys trying to talk. He has a meeting with
him in the limo, and he rolls down the limo

(02:14:00):
like halfway and it goes. He looks over them and
he just goes. He put his a shush, but he
doesn't say it. He just goes like this. The kids
turn around and they go, oh wow, guys series talking

(02:14:22):
to him like business. I couldn't stop. I started cracking out.
Thank you. That's a great note to indoor. All right,
ladies and gentlemen. This is Course Love signing off Course
Love Supreme. We will see you on the next go round.
Thank you. What's Love Supreme is a production of My

(02:14:53):
Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team
at the Indoor. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.