Symbolic Interview Article: 1997

The Artist opens Paisley Park doors – a new era begins!

The man who now calls himself "Love Symbol" is starting a new creative era.

AUDIO live met the eccentric in his Paisley Park Studio. – cover and feature interview in Audio Live! magazine, January 1997.

Freezing rain patters on the hood as the taxi drives out of Minneapolis into no man's land. The city itself is located in the middle of the pampas, in the US state of Minnesota. And out there, west of the city of 350,000 inhabitants on the upper Mississippi, in a suburb called Chanhassan, resides the world star: The Artist Formerly Known As Prince – "TAFKAP" – has set up his Paisley Park complex here.

The musician, born Prince Rogers Nelson 38 years ago, has built up the empire over the course of a unique career. At the age of seven, the son of a jazz bandleader and a singer had already started playing the piano.

At the age of 13 – by which time he had already moved out of home – he added guitar and drums. He joined the high school band Grand Central, which soon changed its name to Champagne. At 16, the multi-talent had learned how to spice up a funky melange of weird rock, kitschy pop and tear-inducing soul with the right dose of jazz set pieces. This was the basis for the style that later became known as the Minneapolis Sound. At 19, Prince signed a record deal with Warner, which was unusually accommodating for a beginner. Since then, the little prince, who tries to cover up his 1.57 meter height by wearing pumps, has shocked the music world with daring stylistic mixtures and erotomaniacal lyrics, often beyond good taste: The big breakthrough came in 1984 with the partly autobiographical film "Purple Rain". The eponymous LP shone with hits such as the title song, "When Doves Cry" and L"et's Go Crazy and stayed at the top of the US charts for 24 weeks. Subsequently, the workaholic released such hit albums as "Sign 'O' The Times", "Parade" or the "Batman" soundtrack, but also a whole series of flops.

The taxi stops in front of a white building with a pyramid-shaped glass roof. For the past 15 years, the ex-prince has been ruling from the Paisley Park studio and producing his albums here. In the past, the building radiated high-tech coldness, but now pastel shades dominate: light blue, pink and peach, the artist's favorite color, the entrance area is adorned with white clouds on a sky-blue background. Everywhere there are planetary symbols, sun, moon and stars and his special hieroglyph, a combination of the cells for the female and male sex. Asked what he calls himself now, he also points to this love symbol." Even his keyboarder announces that he addresses his boss to avoid embarrassment. Actually, the man should be fed up with the game of hide-and-seek and all the jokes he has provoked since he dropped the name Prince three years ago. America's anarcho-clown Howard Stern called him the artist who doesn't give a damn about everyone. "I don't care about these jokes," replies the artist, "I have a very thick skin. Besides, I was rarely confronted with it, because I didn't give any interviews at all for a long time." And then he tries to make sense of the matter after all: "If someone sticks to the symbol, I know that he respects me. The name Prince also had too much ballast."

TAFKAP is not only insisting on his unpronounceable name. He also forbids the journalists who have arrived to record the conversations with him, grotesquely even their colleagues from radio and television. We didn't come into the world primarily to speak," he explains later in a one-on-one interview. "Words can be a trap. I think it's better if the reporters only report on what they have memorized as important." But then he still finds fun in answering the questions. "After all, I have an album to sell," he justifies his zigzag course. But: "I prefer to talk about business, you have to listen to music." The man sounds tidy, although the rumor is circulating that his first child, born in October, is very severely disabled. After all, he tells us with a shy smile that he is happy to be a father.

He seems to want to demonstrate this with the joy of color in his clothes: He wears a lime-green ensemble imported from lapan – sweater, leggings with relief, socks and mules. He had his black hair shaved off quickly and around his ears. And he has removed the lettering "Slave" from his cheek. Because since TAPKAP broke away from his ex-record company, he feels free and emancipated, although Warner wanted to sweeten the spoiled prince's slave existence in 1992 with a vice president job plus a ten million dollar advance per record. "I don't own any masters of the Prince songs anymore; not even "Purple Rain", that hurts. Instead of that, Warner gave me golden LPs. But what are they worth!" he mourns.

TAFKAP aptly named his new work "Emancipation". I came into the world to make this album. It's mine. I can decide on that. If I want, I can release endless singles – or even make a new record." Unlike Warner, the new partner EMI is only allowed to regulate the distribution of its output. He says self-confidently: "I am the first great artist to do it this way; I am a pioneer – unfortunately."

And he is the boss, democracy is a foreign word in the Paisley Park company. All decisions are made by the master. And so he has once again replaced the musicians of his band New Power Generation (NPG). Kirk A. Johnson is now the drummer "He doesn't play very well. But I'm close friends with him and he has a vision."

The fact that this is not always enough, that the drummer has plenty and weaknesses to eradicate, becomes apparent on the same night: At twelve. clock in the white-decorated concert hall of his Paisley Park for a gig. There he presents even the accessible new songs less pleasingly, "Jam Of The Year" comes more than on the album. Dabel is assisted by new playmates Rhonda Smith and Kathleen Dyson. "Rhonda is the best bass player I've ever had. You. goes to bed with her bass," he grins smugly, he just loves ambiguity, Kathleen is okay as a guitarist, "but above all she knows her way around the midi. It can produce all the sounds on it." There was hardly any work for the long-time saxophonist Eric Leeds: "He's so good that he needs his own scope. But I wanted to be the only soloist."

On "Emancipation", TAFKAP also sings cover versions such as Bonnie Raitt's "Can't Make You Love Me" – for purely humanitarian reasons, as he assures. "I wanted to make sure that the authors and musicians who inspired me in the past got their money back."

The nameless man has always taken care of young colleagues: He discovered bands like The Time or Apollonia 6 and promoted Sheila E. But he also made his composter talents available to others: He wrote "I Feel For You" for Chaka Khan, and Sinead O'Connor became famous with the Prince song "Nothing Compares 2 You". He often had a private connection with his female protégés.

But the times when Prince Rogers Nelson marked the wild man are over. too obscene to play. And he also enjoys the reputation he gained through the US Vice President's wife Tipper Gore: Outraged by the masturbation fantasy "Darling Nikki", she founded the censorship association PMRC Nevertheless, the sex maniac, who married his dancer Mayte at the beginning of '96, now professes monogamy. And that can also be a kind of emancipation.

Christiane Rebmann

January 1, 1997