Interview Deleted from Ebony:
The original article was
published on the Ebony site Dec 22, 2015, but was taken down for reasons unknown. Prince asked me to keep some secrets. I may still have a few, truth be told. This past summer, a call went out to a few music journalists to visit the purple rock, Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. Joshua Welton, 25, had a few words to share about producing his first Prince project, Hit N Run. The operative word being “few.” After 10 minutes of talk, Prince himself entered Studio A and took over the conversation for two enlightening hours, discussing everything from Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service to the origins behind “Purple Rain” and “The Beautiful Ones,” and the reformation of The Time. Bob Seger, Esperanza Spalding, Kendrick Lamar and beyond.
Our couple of hours raced by faster than the accelerated voice of Camille. Then Prince disappeared, pulling up later in front of Paisley Park in a Cadillac sports car to play his already finished, secret follow-up to Hit N Run. On December 12, Hit N Run: Phase Two arrived on Tidal for streaming and digital download. So now you know. The following is a feverish transcription of more of our August convo from the summertime, previously unpublished. There may be more; Prince is full of secrets.
EBONY: Do you ever see yourself writing a memoir?
Prince: You ever heard of checking your list to see who’s naughty and who’s nice? I just let people talk. I was talking to somebody about “The Beautiful Ones.” They were speculating as to who I was singing about. But they were completely wrong.
If they look at it, it’s very obvious. “Do you want him or do you want me,” that was written for that scene in Purple Rain specifically. Where Morris [Day] would be sitting with [Apollonia], and there’d be this back and forth. And also, “The beautiful ones you always seem to lose,” Vanity had just quit the movie. To then speculate, “Well, he wrote that song about me”? Afterwards you go, “Who are you? Why do you think that you’re part of the script that way? And why would you go around saying stuff like that?”
So we just let people talk and say whatever they want to say. Nine times out of 10, trust me, what’s out there now, I wouldn’t give nary one of these folks the time of day. That’s why I don’t say anything back, because there’s so much that’s wrong.
EBONY: But you could set the record straight.
I hadn’t heard “The Walk” in ages. That can never be duplicated again. It was a time period.
Prince: There’s too much! They get down to, “See, what he was thinking at that specific time was… His mindset at the time…” They psychoanalyze you.
There was one engineer who said that their sole purpose in life was to get the stuff out of the vault, and get it copied so it wasn’t lost to the world. I’m trying to figure out if that’s illegal. Should I fear for my safety that you might need some medical attention? You want to come up in my vault and you feel like that belongs to you and that’s your purpose? You better find something to do. That’s scary.
EBONY: You’ve never had a producer. What made you choose Joshua Welton for Hit N Run: Phase One?
Prince: His faith in God really struck a nerve. And you know how you can just feel that something’s gonna work and it feels right, it’s a good fit? I knew the band was going to work, I knew the relationship with him was gonna work. I check people out now to see how faith-based they are and how real they are about it. That goes a long way, I gotta tell you. Because I can trust them. I can give him the key and don’t have to worry.
EBONY: A lot of initial media reports wanted to count out Tidal.
Prince: With a million-plus subscribers. Spotify has 10. So if you imagine a million people in front of you? That’s a lot of people. So you gotta talk to them, and you getting ready to drop something, and all of ’em are gonna get it. What do you wanna say? How are you gonna move all of ’em? Oh, now it gets interesting. It’s always going to be the peanut gallery and that’s all right.
My thing is this. The catalog has to be protected. And some of our fans were actually disingenuous. Taking the time to get their playlists together, and yeah, it’s gone. Now you got to actually go subscribe to get the music that you lost on Spotify. Spotify wasn’t paying, so you gotta shut it down.
EBONY: I talked to people about switching from Spotify to Tidal who didn’t want to recreate their playlists all over again.
Prince: That’s the line in the sand. That is exactly what I’m talking about. When you make issue of those things, that is exactly what ownership means. It doesn’t mean that you just get pimped by somebody. And none of our kids should be subject to this.
You can’t give away Google. You can’t give away the country. Nobody can just come up and just start selling the Statue of Liberty, stuff like that. So the Prince catalog now—and again, I don’t want to sound like a megalomaniac—but I have to manage it, that’s Americana now. You gave the Beatles $400 million and then tried to squash the news? That’s why Apple held out. I had more albums than they did.
EBONY: Did you hear the last album by The Time, Condensate?
Prince: No. You know, it was Morris playing drums and me on the bass. That’s how we would make the basic track. Naked. Just like that, and nobody would know. And then when you put the keys on it and the guitar, then that’s what The Time was. And it was perfect. Going through it now, I can hear all that stuff. Like “The Walk.” I hadn’t heard “The Walk” in ages. It’s like you can’t believe that you did it. I don’t even know how it’s possible. I don’t. I do but I don’t. That can never be duplicated again. It was a time period. His son [Derran Day] sings now, and look just like he did. So it should be like Steph and Dell Curry. Let’s do this. The Time can still be alive, he just needs to do it. I’m gonna see him in a minute anyway to work together. Musicians I’m cool with. But other folks standing around talking about they gon’ take out the vault? Boy…
EBONY: Will you be remastering the catalog?
Prince: Hopefully, yeah. A new Greatest Hits. Because I never had anything to do with [The Hits/The B-Sides]. But put great liner notes in it to explain what record came from what and why. Explain the backstory of it. Somebody said “Purple Rain” was inspired by Bob Seger! I said, call him in. “Sit down, man. Y’all got to have everything, huh? Bob Seger?! You gon’ put that in the ether? OK.” [laughter]
EBONY: Let’s talk about horns in your music. The lore is that you went to a Bruce Springsteen concert and saw how much Clarence Clemons brought to winning his crowds over. And then you incorporated horns into your live shows afterwards, with Eric Leeds on the Purple Rain Tour.
Prince: How do you get “Hot Thing” from “Born in the USA”? ’Cause that’s where Eric shines, on “Hot Thing.” But how do you get Madhouse from “Dancing in the Dark”? I have a lot of respect for Bruce and everything he’s done. He’s one of my favorite bandleaders of all time. But he wouldn’t even say that.
But seriously, here’s the thing. There’s half of me that understands that. Because I don’t talk about it, they have to fill in the gaps because there’s nothing. There’s nobody saying anything about it. So they gotta say something. But what I notice is that they keep naming names that there’s no connection. Clarence Clemons don’t play funk. There’s nothing about Clarence that’s funky. He plays old ’50s saxophone that was on those types of records, Frankie Valli and that type of stuff.
If you notice when Eric showed up, it was during the Purple Rain tour. And I was the only soloist in the band if [Matt] Fink wasn’t soloing. And he had his solos that were planned out. He didn’t improvise. There’s the channel and then there’s the practiced, technical way that somebody plays. And Fink, he’s incredible at that: something he’s practiced.
No Doubt, you know that group? Friends of mine. Came in here and jammed together. They don’t know how to jam. They don’t know nothing about that. You get them to play one of their songs? They’ll pound you in the ground. Girl jumping on top of tabletops and all of that, all kinds of stuff. But you get them to do anything other than what they done practiced at the house, they don’t know where they are. You know what I’m saying? Esperanza Spalding, that’s a different story. She’s gonna actually lead.
So there was no other soloist in the band. So Eddie M., one of the horn players, and Eric was brought in. But Clarence
Clemons, that’s just a sideman. One of the greatest sidemen in history, and he’s a star in his own right. Them two was nothing like that. C’mon, man. That’s a whole different thing. Clarence’ll smile and you’ll forget every solo Eric ever did. Like Louis Armstrong. Beautiful dude. Aura was huge.
And you can’t copy Bruce. I would never mess with somebody whom I respect and who was actually gigging at the same time.
"Rakim has no friends"
