Press conference

On Tuesday, July 22 Prince, or The Artist,formerly known as Prince, sat down for a rare press conference and talked about his upcoming tour and other projects. Here are extended excerpts from that event.

PRINCE: I’m happy that y’all came out to hang with us today and I’m open for questions after a couple of quick announcements. We’re just started a world tour...and it’s a rip-roaring success. And a lot of fun was had by all. And a lot of different types of people came out to see us. 15,000 or something. It was quite a lot of fun. I wanted to let you know that Lenny Kravitz has also agreed to do some dates with us and George Clinton agreed to do some dates with us.

Carlo Santana, Chaka Kahn, and No Doubt. All these dates are just in the process of getting worked out. They have schedules and tours they’re on. And I have my dates. But they’ve all agreed to schedule around them and they’ve all agreed to do some dates with me. And I’m really excited about that. I’m not going to say who’s going to open cause this is not an ego thing. I’m just gonna go play. This is just for the fun of it. I want to just have a party, you know? Any questions about that, the tour, that I can answer?

QUESTION: When did you decide to do this tour and, as a world tour, how long is it going to go on?

PRINCE: We plan until 1999 culminating with the last concert at a secret location to be withheld until close to that...closer to that date.

QUESTION: And when did you decide to do this world tour?

PRINCE: I think when I was seven. To be perfectly honest.

QUESTION: What attracted you to No Doubt?

PRINCE: Their energy. I think Gwen’s original. I think they found their niche and on top of all that they’re really, really great people. They came in and we jammed for two or three hours.

QUESTION: Can you describe the physical production of the show, what its gonna look like?

PRINCE: Yeah what we’re doing now is, I’ve been known to have some spectacles in my day and I wanted to get away from that vibe and do one tour that basically featured me. I also had a lot of great musicians with me in the past and they were featured players. Sheila E and Eric Ruiz and Cat Glover and folks like that and they were focus points and I thought I should do one tour before I go on to something new that focused on me and what I do. So the set right now is virtually nothing we just put an ear up there. And that’s what’s cool about having other people play. If they want to bring their stuff that’s fine. It’s just a jam session with real musicians. Uh, I have a dream set that I’m working on though. Its gonna take a while to build. It’ll be spectacle time again, I guess.

QUESTION: When do you think that might happen?

PRINCE: I’m trying to get it done for the October show with Mohammed Ali at the Forum but, you know.

QUESTION: How do your date scales figure in this tour?

PRINCE: What we’re doing to avoid scalping, to avoid ticket scalping is that we book with the least amount of time in advance as possible. They’re only 15,000 seaters 20,000 seaters. We’re not getting too big as yet. Until the other players, the other bands come on. So there’s not really much trouble.

QUESTION: What prompted you to go back to basics?

PRINCE: Well its kinda in contrast with what’s out there. Even No Doubt. Their set was really beautiful but I don’t think it fit them. I see them more edgy. It was a bit Disney you know and they’re wonderful to watch and I’m a performer also. I’ve been accused a lot of times that of having too much in the way so I just wanted to do that one time just focus on what I was born with.

QUESTION: You’ve been playing some of your older material lately at gigs. Will you continue to do that and if so, which ones?

PRINCE: Yes ma’am. We’ve been adding them left and right now. It’s a lot of the old and a little bit of the new.

QUESTION: If you’re touring until ’99, will there be another album.

PRINCE: Oh yeah. I record and write all the time.

QUESTION: Um, I just want to ask one more thing about the tour. When you say you’ve been accused of having to much in the way and you wanted to make it more about music, who has accused you and are you paying attention to the critics? Do you read what’s written about you? Is that what you’re responding to?

PRINCE: No, I’m responding sort of to the fans. You know I cruise the internet a lot now. Yeah and I let them help me make some decisions regarding the set list. And the things that they want to see.

QUESTION: What have fans requested that you may not have wanted to play before?

PRINCE: Little Red Corvette, I just, ahh, I thought I would never play that again. We did the Purple Rain Tour, and then the 1999 Tour, and played it too many times and when the fans respond, I’ve learned to be more appreciative of that rather than my own personal agenda. So it’s been really cool and that’s why ahh, I just think my soul wasn’t open to that. Just wanted to ram my program down folks throats.

QUESTIONS: Is Michael Bland going to be touring with you?

PRINCE: Michael Bland’s with Chaka Kahn.

QUESTION: What band will you be touring with?

PRINCE: A newer version of it, with Rodney Smith on bass, Rodney Kathleen Disson on guitar. They’re both Canadians, played around that circuit for awhile. Kirk Johnson, who plays computers and drums. Morris Hays on computers and keys, and Mike Scotts sits in with us from time to time, he plays guitar.

QUESTION: Are you interested in collaborating with each of the other artists that you mentioned or is this going to be a separate performance?

PRINCE: Well I certainly hope so. I’m graciously come upon this that, and hopefully they’ll come upon my...

QUESTION: Tell us about your relationship with Muhammed Ali? How you met him? And what your whole conflict is?

PRINCE: This is something that came to me through Lon Del from Muhammed Ali, I had met him several times throughout my career, it was only really briefly. And needless to say I grew up listening to everything he said and watching all of his fights. He was a herO of mine in that respect. When this offer came to me it was too wonderful to pass up. It was great. What heps trying to do, I believe, is make a statement. I donpt want to speak for them, but I think they’re trying to make a statement for racial harmony.

QUESTION: Are we going to get any live recording?

PRINCE: Yeah. The wonderful thing about being free from any binds of a contract is on my 1-800 line and “Love 4 One Another” web site music can be accessed at the same time that I record it. You know, we always sit around and talk about if you wrote about the new bands that came up in the music industry, it would take a year before you even got the groove up. This way as soon as you’re done with it, it goes right on. And as you take the orders, the record gets cut. So we’ve released a couple of live songs on the 1-800 line so far, “Jam of the Year” is the song and “Face Down.” That’s the main thing right now. And we’re going to keep doing that.

The problem when you start trying to release with other artists, they’re bound with contracts. So one day, I hope he doesn’t mind me telling this, one day Lenny and I were playing pool and we just looked at each other and said I wonder what it would sound like if we recorded together. And we just looked at each other and didn’t say nothin’, we just kept on playing. After the game we just looked at each other and went “Yeah.” You know, you just hear it. But how are you going to get it out. Then the managers would step in and that would be the end of that. And that’s a pity.

QUESTION: Is George Clinton still...

PRINCE: (laughs) That’s an interesting relationship. George and I, because we’re both artists, I had Paisley Park through Warner Brothers so I could get music out that way. But Paisley Park was never successful really through Warner Brothers. So George just sorta went off and did what he wanted to do and because I’m an artist, I ain’t gonna chase him. It’s not a thing like he owes me. If he wants to record we can do that. I hope he stays in a relationship where he can record at will, too, because he’s coming up with stuff all the time, these live shows with constant organic experiences always so...

PRINCE: I have a new package called “Crystal Ball”. And it’s a 50 dollar package and there’s gonna be 4 CDs in it. And it’s kinda like a piece of art. It’s a crystal ball sort of and the CDs go inside and you can sit it on your coffee table. Now it’s an expensive package to make so to cover the cost we have to price it that way. But if you do the math, 150,000 copies - you’ve taken care of your business and it’s a good day at the races. You see what I’m saying. Alright. You have to understand, MPG is going to be taking the bulk if that money and then we pay our cost to the manufacturer and distribution is just a postage stamp. Crystal Ball is pretty much a bootleg. You know underground classics.

QUESTION: Is it available now...?

PRINCE: It’s finished. We just mastered it and we’re just pressing out copies now. And we’re taking orders. It’s ready to go.. We’re waiting till the orders get to a certain point and then we start mailing them. ’Cause after a 100,000, like I say, that’s a good day at the races and you know, when the bootleggers get a hold f that, to bootleg the bootleg, then fine. I have problems with any sort of business that is going to dictate what success is. I mean, right down to the award shows. I mean, I got a good taste of that when U2 beat me for “Sign of the Times.” That was kind of a rude awakening. We sit down for the “Love 4 One Another” charities and we try to think up a curriculum for the school that we’retrying to build and one of the things that we find are the first blows to the self esteem are grades and test scores. The idea is to learn, not to fail. At first, I don’t know why, but I felt a sort of failure when you see someone else go up and take that prize and you have to step away and try to...you know you feel like you’re worse then them. And after that, I stopped caring about awards and all of that stuff. So I hope that kinda answers what you were asking. I don’t like the ideas of platinum albums and all that other kind of stuff. It doesn’t mean anything. When you’re taking the bulk of the proceeds... I mean what do you care. I don’t need to be on a chart at that point. I don’t need a number one. It’s number one at the bank.

QUESTION: Have you ever considered performing acoustically?

PRINCE: I was real close to doing an acoustic tour, but my wife thought that I should do this instead. And she showed me the reasons why so I sort of changed up with that. I do have an acoustic album finished, and what’s nice about this, and this was again her idea, was to give it away free with people who help you grow your database at 1-800-NEWFUNK. It’s a pretty slick idea because the phone has been ringing off the hook. And like I said these are some of the things that you can do because you have complete control of the music and because of George you tend to be more liberal. I write and record all the time.

QUESTION (SERENA ALTSCHUL): Can you speak a little more about the acoustic album, “The Truth"?

PRINCE: It’s a project that Mike Rondell was saying would be cool after we use it as a gift to the fans to give to a major if they were interested and talking the right talk. We could do this.