...A large and rather tedious chunk of the Symbol album by Prince (as he was then known) is taken up with a series of telephone calls between a reclusive pop star and a journalist trying, and failing, to secure an interview. It all ends in tears, mutual recrimination and a burst of pomp symphonic rock. My interview with The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (TAFKAP but let’s call him the Artist) had been set for 5pm at Wembley Arena, during rehearsals for a five-night stint, the opening dates of a world tour. Two minutes to five and I was sitting in the back of a cab on the North Circular in a traffic jam, sweating.
There had been a week of indecision as the half-joking request for an interview the man had not done a newspaper interview for 10 years was passed on, pondered, resubmitted and finally, ludicrously, approved. The promoters could not be serious. “But he doesn’t give interviews,” I protested. “Hmmm,” they said. “But he will. Tuesday afternoon. You’ll have 15 minutes, no tape recorder, no notebook.”
Monday night was spent in a state of minor anxiety, avoiding having to think about the possibility of meeting one of my musical heroes, a man who is anyway one of pop's more eccentric characters. I was, I admit, intimidated. Tuesday afternoon, the call came through. “Wembley Arena. 5pm, be at the blue door.”
So there I was, at 5pm, stuck in the slowest cab in the world on the slowest road in the world, with a chirpy cabbie. “The last time I went to Wembley,” he told me. “I broke down.” I glance at my bag and wonder if I should take an anti-stress pill.
At 5.15 we arrive and I’m led down a complex of tunnels and passages beneath Wembley Arena. I pinch myself. Crossing the auditorium I catch a glimpse of the set for the new tour. “That’s the endorphin machine,” the press man tells me, pointing to a prop that dominates the stage, looking like a giant inflatable castle with a slow puncture. I nod.
And then I’m led to the regal presence. A search outside the dressing room door and I’m shown in. And there he is, hovering behind the press man. I immediately stop myself thinking “Gosh, isn’t he little” because I know that was what I had been thinking I would think before I went in.
The door closes and we are alone in his dressing room, a standard stadium dressing room, its tacky furniture draped in turquoise, scarlet and purple crushed velvet. Off it is a smaller room with make-up arranged before a mirror, to the side a bathroom with the deepest shag pile carpet imaginable.
Two scented candles burn in glass jars on a low table. The lighting is subdued. The Artist wears brown sunglasses. Underneath them is his personal Mark of Cain, the word Slave scrawled, rather tastefully, in black across one cheek. This he has pledged to bear until his record company, Warner Bros, release him from his contract.
The half hour that follows is by turns relaxed and bizarre. Bizarre because I am in a dressing room talking to the man who for me has the greatest pop mind of his time. Mundane because, well, loathsome though it may be, he is really rather normal. Likeable even. So who cares if this a charm offensive designed to offset the negative publicity “the loony with a squiggle for a name” has received of late? I am just happy to play along.
The Artist’s mood melts from defensiveness as he talks about his legal problems to an almost raucous joshing when we move on to music. Unexpectedly, he is an easy person to be with. There is none of the coquettishness, the eye-rolling and the puckered lips of his public- persona. He listens and engages me in conversation, a rare feat with star interviewees, maintaining eye contact even through the shades.
The Artist’s presence is calm and assured, an artist with no need for anti stress pills. His voice is deeper than I had expected, pleasant and soft with a slightly folksy twang to it that becomes more pronounced the more he relaxes. He is dressed all in white, a loose linen trouser suit affair with a long shirt of the same material over it, a black scarf tied at the neck. He is. it must be said, prettier than his pictures. Clean shaven, his hair cut in a neat, short bob with customary trademark sideburns curling down, he presents a sickeningly youthful 36 year old.
Initially he doesn’t seem in a hurry to do anything so I break the ice by presenting him with a copy of Hanif Kureishi’s new novel. The Black Album, which shares the title with Prince’s own bootlegged and later officially released work of the mid-eighties. He says “Thankyou” but seems slightly bemused, listening with the polite air of an adult dealing with a babbling child. It is only when I mention Kureishi’s film, My Beautiful Laundrette, that he nods and says. “Yes, I’ve heard of that.”
“Well,” I say. He does nothing. He stands like a dancer, his body balanced. I fidget and move towards one of the two sofas. We sit down and I notice his footwear: white, high-heeled boots. “Thank you for coming,” he begins, that old showbiz conceit of thanking your audience, before he embarks on a lengthy statement about his legal troubles, an answer to an unasked question already scripted in his head. “The reason I wanted to talk to you is so that it all comes out, everything. I want you to write everything, so that people can make up their own minds. If everything is known then people will understand.”
Some of this is slightly difficult to follow, like encountering Brando in his lair at the end of Apocalypse Now. “Who are they to tell me what I can or cannot do? What if I don’t want to sing Purple Rain every time I go on stage? The fans don’t want that either. It’s my music, they’re my songs.” Although he is clearly quite worked up about this, interspersing his comments with “But you gotta understand” and “I gotta make this clear”, he doesn’t lose his good humour, the situation doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
“Do you know how many of my songs I own?” he asks. “Not a single one. Out of 16 albums, not a single one. They won’t belong to my children. I won’t be able to pass them on to my grandchildren. They belong to someone else. Why? It’s my music.”
Is there an alternative? “Do you know what a sense of freedom it gave me to release The Most Beautiful Girl In The World on an independent label? When I released that I didn’t have to give them the master, I could keep the master. I can release that record again next year if I want to.” (Interestingly, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, the only new work the Artist released last year, was a critically lauded worldwide hit, his first, and last, for a while.)
Through layers of “Well you shouldn’t have signed the contract should you” cynicism, I start to see the man’s point. “I’ve been very upset with this,” he continues. “I’ve gone to them when I’ve been physically ill and argued.” I try to comfort him with the thought that he’s not the first that this has happened to. Frank Zappa, I remind him, had a similar problem with the same company. The tirade lets up. “He was ahead of his time,” says the Artist. He offers more examples: “The companies tried to do it with Miles, and with Duke.”
Has the controversy affected him artistically? Critics allege that not only has the Artist lost the legal plot, he’s lost the musical plot as well. “Did you hear Letitgo?” he asks, the minor hit from last year’s Come album. I did. It was the best pop single of the year. His case is proven. “But again it’s the record company. If they don’t want to promote a song, they don’t make the effort to cross it over into other markets and the fans don’t get to know it. It’s the same with my albums. People say ‘Why did he drop Rosie Gaines after one album?’ But I did three albums with her in between which nobody heard because the record company never released them. They’re all in the vaults.”
Can he see any resolution? “When I changed I felt reborn.” he says, his mood lightening as he speaks about his change of name.
I sense an opportunity to get him off his contractual troubles and on to the really interesting thing about him, his music. Is the new album, The Gold Experience, which will not be released thanks to the contractual problems, as good as word has it, “his best work yet”? He laughs. “I never said that, but it is good,” he says, and abruptly flops back on the sofa.
I focus on his boots, wondering if this would be the right time to ask for his autograph. “I always have to wear them,” he says, interrupting my reverie. “I went to see the Jackson Five when I was a kid and they all wore flat shoes and it didn’t work.” I nod dumbly. “Do you ever wear Timberlands?” I ask, trying to make sense of what’s going on. The Artist finds this very funny, slapping his leg with glee. “I did once, as a joke for a photo, and people were saying ‘There’s something wrong, but we don’t know what it is.’
“I grew up with Carlos Santana. and those crazy boots and his trousers rolled up,” he says. “And now you go to see Eric Clapton with those big flat shoes, and you think, ‘Whoa there, Eric, what are you doing?’”
He is, it seems, disenchanted with today’s young pretenders. “Now there’s no one to go and see. Where are the young ones coming along to whoop us up? Who is there to go and see? Fem 2 Fem?” The wronged voice of earlier has given way to jokey playfulness. He lolls back on the sofa as he talks about music and musicians, particularly his current band. “Now that the record company isn’t involved, we can play what we like on the tour. It’s going to be much more like the after-show jams we used to do It’s going to be all new songs, with just a couple of old ones.”
“You know I felt so annoyed and angry when you walked in,” he says. I change the subject, telling him that I had prepared a series of short questions, given that our interview was only for 15 minutes. “They’re from a questionnaire we do,” I say, “but I’m not going to ask you all of them.”
“Thank God for that,” he replies. What is your idea of perfect happiness? I ask. “Music,” he shoots back, laughing. ‘What possessions do you always carry with you?” He pauses, shaking his head. “Music,” he laughs.
“You’re not going to catch me out.” “How would you like to be remembered?” I try. “Music,” comes the reply. “What vehicles do you own?” Surely I’ve got him with this one. “Uhh, uhh...” he sounds like John Turturro in Quiz Show. “Lots,” he caves in.
Finally, I ask him what is the trait he most deplores in himself. “My inability to communicate my music,” he says. “I hear it but it has to go through someone else. That person may have had a bad day or may not think the same way I do. Why does there have to be a soundcheck? I don’t have a song check. You don’t have a clothes check...”
Well, actually. My time comes to an end and I make way for Smash Hits. On my way out after being played sections of The Gold Experience, a triumph of affirmative pop, I glimpse the Artist on stage, rehearsing. He is in character, in a pool of blue light, commanding the stage before an empty arena..