Just curious - how soon after starting your instrument did you start leaning towards Prince?

Of course this assumes that you SOUND like Prince in your playing style. Some of us old-timers are burned-in-the-wool P-wannabes.

I can remember exactly when I decided to start doing prince. When Kiss came out, I recorded a song that lifted the basic themes from the song. Oh, it was a horrible song, probably the third or 4th song I've ever recorded, but still, it had the 7th chord, the dry drums, the clean-guitar-wah and the stops.

In all honesty, I didn't really begin to "sound" more like Prince until about 1998. I did this song called "Nude" (I had no idea at the time that Prince had already done a tour by that name). I used a rough analog sample of the Controversy scratch guitar in it. I've always sang more high pitched but most of the stuff that I do I use a voice synth to make it a bit higher. The Minneapolis sound has always been in me though. I was doing hip-hop mainly until about that time and funk (Prince, George, etc) was the basis for my hip-hop beats.

I have listened to Prince since before I can remember, probably since I was about 5 back in 1981. His music shaped my style, as did so many other artists, but mainly Prince and George Clinton/Parliament/Funkadelic. My style is really a blend of the two, along with the environment around me that influenced me.

The MPLS sound (Prince, Jesse, Terry, Jimmy, Morris, etc) is in my blood now. My Mom loved the funk and she was always listening to funk and r&b around me as a baby. I was bobbin' my head in the womb, y'all!

Z7

beauhall said:

I sound nothing like Prince. Unless Prince will all of a sudden start to sound like a washing machine recorded through a distortion pedal on his next record.

It started for me the day I was watching "Purple Rain". I was mesmerized. I was a Prince fan from day one, but that was the day I made a conscience effort to try to go MPLS. His use of weird synth sounds and percussion was so innovative, fresh, introspective, and just fresh. I wanted to see if I could scratch the surface of the MPLS sound. But due to budget restraints, I was never able to afford the gear he used to pull off such a sound. In 1987, I came close to the sounds when I bought the Kawai K-1 keyboard and the Kawai R-50 drum machine. The sounds of these came pretty close because I could shape the sounds if both.

beauhall said:

Hey Beau! I still need to catch one of your shows! I've seen some of your flyers up around town!

I dont' really sound like Prince. Once in awhile I'll bust a guitar lick or something that sounds like something he might play but that's as far as it usually goes.

I've got tapes of recordings I did when I was about 16. Talk about Prince pastiches...

I never felt comfortable with it at the time. It used to scare me that everything I'd come out with would sound like Prince. I can't deny that some of the stuff I record now isnt a million miles away from what he does, but at least it's not as over-stated as it used to be.

jjam said:

Absolutely co-sign!

I feel though that if U are influenced and inspired by some1 as prolific as Prince, particularly musically, U may go through that phase of sounding like said artist for awhile.

I think it's healthy as it helps you to discover your own style in the process and before too long unless U choose to sound like Prince (the number 14 comes to mind...), you get to decipher between your own style and that of the man. So no longer does it become imitation, it becomes influence.

I've got tracks where my voice has been sped up, I've used Clare Fischer strings (samples not replayed) over my own material, used the Linn Drum 'til it's more stale than fungus, and sampled as many hits as I could from particularly the "Sign Of The Times" LP (been awhile since I seen the word LP used)!

I guess my point being, is that cringeworthy as U may have found it, it was probably a good way of developing your own sound, I can relate.

'dre

I was admittably a Prince wannabe as a teenager, something of a David Bowie / The Cure -wannabe in my early 20s and then I did a complete turn into electronic and mostly instrumental, non ego-worshipping music. It was the best decision of my life.

You know, I've recorded hundreds of demos for young guys at small demo studios (I used to make living out of it) and it seems to me that none of them were really that into the producive act of making music itself, but rather being somebody who makes music instead. I think this is the problem with idolization as well, you just want to incorporate something of that other person into yourself. You tend to exprience immense delight when you see some of that materialize successfully, but alas, you can never capture their whole essence. Afterwards and during this process, in your own defence, you start calling your shortcomings as "originality", basically just the factors of your music where you can't reach your idols level and have to attempt a detour. Hopefully, maybe you'll learn to love your "detours" more than what you were attempting to mimic - I can only hope you would. Or you can do a full turn alternatively. Just use your attained skills for something completely else. This is the only way out of "sucking".

This is a learning process, and many / most of us have to go through that, but I don't think it's very healthy on the whole. It can be psychologically somewhat draining, I can see it now that I am able to look back at it.