http://www.rosiegaines.or...0Speak.htm


I POSTED THE WHOLE THING HERE. IT'S REALLY LONG (AS YOU CAN SEE)
IF YOU CLICK ON THE LINK, IT'S ALOT EASIER TO READ WITH PICTURES AND HIGHLIGHTS.

Court keyboardists Rosie Gaines & Matt Fink Speak for Themselves

We've come close. We've camped out in the lobby of the hotel where the Revolution was quartered. We've sent notes into their inner sanctum via a tour photographer we had befriended. We've even resorted to talking with public relations people, whose assignments apparently are to relate as little as possible with the public. • "I'm sorry," these friendly but firm folks tell us, "but there's no point in even asking. Nobody – except for Rolling Stone, of course – interviews. Prince. That's the rule." Slam, clank, no trespassing, go away. • And so it's gone, Since Keyboard sent its first inquiries to Paisley Park, Prince's studio/office/Fortress of Solitude in Minneapolis, more than a decade ago. While Rolling Stone kept us up to date on "the secret life of America's sexiest one-man band," we watched from afar, itching to ask about those big-blast synth hits on "1999," those new wave wheezes on "When U Were Mine," that Tom Dolbyish seasick modulation on "Automatic." In fact, practically every Prince cut suggests reams of questions about his rhythm and textural arrangement techniques. • Unfortunately, we still haven’t been able to ask them. At least, we haven't been able to bounce them off of Prince. But, for a change, luck was with us: Matt Fink and Rosie Gaines, the latest keyboard duo in Prince's band, made themselves available to discuss music – theirs and his – from the keyboard point of view. • Though most of Prince's albums have been essentially one-person jobs, with Prince covering all the instrumental parts himself, he has always surrounded himself with musicians who can take those parts and deliver them with body-punch intensity onstage. These touring bands have always included



MATT FINK/ROSIE GAINES
two keyboard players – Fink and a succes-sion of women who double on vocals. From the start, the women also served a visual pur-pose within the context of Prince’s complex racial and sexual facade. In recounting the decision to include keyboardist Gayle Chap-man in Prince’s 1978 lineup, Dave Hill noted in his book Prince: A Pop Life that "women musicians were still relatively rare in all forms of pop. But for a young white women muician to turn up in a group whose leader, most visible sidemen, and primary musical ori-entation were all black was not only unusual, it offended against some of the most deeply held conservative taboos in the land.... It would be a strange thing indeed if Prince had not had at least some conception of the mischief he might be perceived as instigating." Of course, not being a Rolling Stone reporter, Hill can only speculate about the young star's motivation. But several points do seem clear: Prince is obviously a sharp guy. His image is apparently as much a conscious part of his for-mula for success as his music. From the subtlest flick of his tongue on video to the smallest nuances of timbre and structure onstage, he is on top of what he is doing. So if the second keyboardists in his band – Chapman, Lisa Coleman, Boni Boyer, and now Rosie Gaines have all been of the female persuasion, we can assume this is no coincidence. But neither is it paternalism. No mere adornments, each of these women has made strong musical contributions. Coleman, in particular, the classically-trained daughter of L.A. studio veteran Gary Coleman, has displayed solid chops and vision on her post-Prince projects with Wendy Melvoin. Gaines's resume is even more impressive. For 25 years, she has been gigging around the San Francisco area, building a local rep-utation as a player and, especially, singer. She's had a few breaks – a solo album five years ago on Epic, titled Caring [now out of print], an appearance on Soul Train, session dates behind Whitney Houston and La Toya Jackson, toum of Japan and the U.S. as open-ing act for the Whispers, Pete Escovedo, Billy Paul, and others. But Prince may prove to be her meal ticket: He tagged her to perform last October,with her longtime Bay Area ba ' the boning of the Grand Slam, a new Minneapolis club managed by his associate Gilbert Davidson, and negotiations are underway for her to tour Europe on her own later this year. Like her predecessors with Prince, Gaines functions primarily as a backup singer in the show, though she does play on every tune doesn't feature her as a lead vocalist. Fink, on the other hand, is the designated hitter in the keyboard lineup. As the only member of the original 1978 band still gig-ging with Prince, Fink has an unmatched un-derstanding of his music. He has even con-tributed tracks to some of Prince's otherwise one-man recordings – "Head," from Dirty Mind, for example – and been credited as co-composer on a number of cuts, including the title cut to Dirty Mind and "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night," from Sign o’ the Times. Fink – called "the Doctor" since developing a stage persona as a masked and gowned surgeon in the early '80s – has put together a busy schedule as a session player in Min-neapolis, but his ongoing association with Prince remains the most vital part of his musical life. Prince and his current band clocked six months on tour in Europe last year. As we went to press, plans were being laid for a .concert trek through the U.S. early in 1991, ¿ contingerit on the box office success of Prince's latest film, Graffiti Bridge. With a rare bit of down-time in their schedule,Gaines and Fink took time to talk a little music with Keyboard.



Matt, since you go further back with Prince, let's hear how you and he first got together.
Fink: Well, I began playing in bands when I was about 12. My broth-er – he’s three years old-er than I am – was play-ing in bands in junior high, and I got his hand-me-down Farfisa organ. We started doing junior high dances, bar mitz-vahs, weddings, the usu-al things. The nucleus of that band stayed together all the way through high school, with a few changes. When I was in my junior year of high school, I was already playing in nightclubs; I was too young, so I had to lie about my age. Sound typical?
Sounds like a pretty generic American Top 40 cover band expericence to us.
Fink Exactly. Then, when I was about 21, .". I went from the Minnesota bar scene right . into Prince. He was forming a band, and I ‘: auditioned for it because knew the drummer, ' Bobby Z. I called Bobby and asked if I could try out for the band, because they were advertising for musicians. I was interested, because Prince was the only local act at that : time that had been signed by Warner Bros.
Was he part of a different local scene in Minneapolis than you were?
Fink: At the same time I was playing in clubs around the Midwest, he was doing the same thing. Sut it was different, because he had an all-black group. In those days, things were still somewhat segregated here. I didn’t even know who Prince was until Bobby played me his demo tape late in '77. Then I said, 'Let me know when this guy’s ready to do something or when he gets signed, be-cause I'd like to meet him and get involved." That's how it came about. I got into the group in November '78.
Were the seeds of his style as people know it today apparent even in that demo tape,,
Fink: Yes, I would say so. If you listen to Prince's first album [For You], that's where he was musically on the demo tape.

MATT FINK: "Prince has always resisted sequening to keep a real human feel. Of course, now you have secgueners that can do that; if you don’t quentize, it sounds good. But when he does stuff in the studio, he plays everything live to tape. He proven that I do that too if he’s using me on session work. So we haven’t sequenced anything yet. I’ve shown him all that stuff, but he doesn’t feel he needs to use it."


What instruments were you playing then?
Fink: By the time I joined him, my peronal setup was just a Minimoog, a Rhodes, a Farfisa VIP 345 with a Leslie speaker cabinet, and a Freeman string synthesizer. At that same time, he had all this gear he bought with money from his record deal, so I integrated what I had with what he had. I got rid of the Freeman and went to an ARP String Ensemble, and the old Oberheim Four-Voices and S.E.M. modules. I kept the Minimoog, and added a [Hohner] Clavinet and an ARP Pro-Soloist... a lot of stuff! It was a Rick Wakeman kind of setup. Then, as time went on, I pared things down, and every year kept updating as things changed.
What about you, Rosis? Were you into synthesizers back in the late ’70s?
Gaines: I didn’t get into them until last year. I never really cared about being commercial, because to me, if a song is a hit, it's a hit no matter what. Last year is when I started to get into the technical thing, because I thought I should know that too. You should develop whatever you have.
You saw synthesizers as commercial?
Gaines: I did. I thought it was an easier way for kids to come up, rather than to pick up some Herbie Hancock records and try to play them on their own. When the com-puters and sequencers came along, I thought of it as, like, anyone could play now, rather than having to be really talented.
Have you changed your mind on that score?
Gaines: Yeah, with keyboards I have, be-cause they can put out some really beautiful sounds. When you sample things from real instruments, that sounds good too.
So was Herbie Hancock an early influence on your playing?
Gaines: There was Herbie Hancock at one point, and Patrice Rushen later in life. , But if there was anyone who influenced me, I'd say it was Aretha Franklin. I used to enjoy listening to her play. In fact, I would say church music in general was my big influence. I used to go to church with my morn, and I'd hear all these really neat chords. I'd go home and try to imitate them. I learned by watching other people.
You didn't take piano lessons?
Gaines: No, never. When a band came to town, i'd be right there at the side Of the stage, watching, When we were in school and all the other kids were hanging out, I was always playing the piano in the music room. To tell you the truth, 1 can’t tell you haw I learned what, like, a Cmaj7 is.
Can you read music?
Gaines: I read chord charts, but I wouldn't say l was a good reader. I read goad enough to get a job.
Clearly, Matt, you’ve had some formal training
Fink: I had jazz teachers over the years. I did have some musical training in public school, but l didn't go to college. When I was about 14, I began studying jazz with a local teacher, Tom Weekend. I said, "I want you : to teach me how to play rock organ." He kind of laughed at me and said, "I don't do that. I teach jazz. ‘But we'll start you out on Hammond 8-3." I did that for a while, then I Just with piano because that was my main instrument; I had had six or seven years of classical training up to that point.
Describe your audition for the gig with Prince.
Fink At that time, his first albumhad been out about three months. He had gotten everyone he needed for the band except for one more keyboard player.
Is it true that Jimmy Jam auditioned for the job?
Fink: I believe he did, amongst about ten other guys. There was another guy who had actually been hired, but he became impatient because nothing was realty happening, so he left to work with someone else. When that slot opened up, I had my window of opportunity. I went in, and the first thing Prince said to me was, "So tell me. Did you learn the song 'So Blue'?" That was on the first album. I said, "No,'. I didn't. Oh, God!" Then he laughed and said, "Don't worry about it. There's no keyboards on that one." So he played a joke on me, just to break the ice, Then we started jaming on stuff. l had brought my Minimoog along. It was my solo instrument at the time, and I could do quite well with it He didn't have one, so that impressed him quite a bit.
Were you trying to show off your chops or to find a way of discreetly backing him up?
Fink: At first, I was showing off my chops. Then we played "Soft and Wet," the single at the time; I had tried to cop as much as I could from the record, but there was a Clavinet part in the song that was mixed so far back in the track that it was wally difficult to get the rhythm. I did what I thought was the part, and he looked at me and said, 'well, that's linda close." l said, 'V/hy don't you just show me what it isf l can't hear it in the mix." He came over and showed me the part for about five minutes. And I copped it. I was the only guy who did up to that point.
Why? What was so hard about that part?
Fink: It was a very tricky rhythm. The voicings that he used were interesting too. He has a great knowledge of voicings. He told me, "Play the part as'big as 'you can, with both hands."
What did he mean by "big'?
Fink: For the most part, if there are horn punches or something like that, he’ll want you to play with as wide a range as you can, to make it sound full. That means to play every note you possibly can with-out making it sound bad [laughs]. So if you were playing, like, a minor 7(9) chord, he'd want you to throw the fourth in there. If you were playing a Cm9, your left hand would start on the g„ then you'd have the F, the G, the g, the C, and then the D up on top. The right hand would be playing the same thing, only with the C on top.
That’s where your jazz background proved helpful.
Fink: Yeah, it really came in handy for me.
Gaines: But although I'd done jazz before too, I never really heard the types of voicings Prince uses. For instance, there are certain rules where people say two chords don't go together; if you hit an A and an + at the same time, most people would think that couldn't work. But with Prince it works, because he puts it in the right space at the right time.
It also probably depends on the sounds you're using.
Gaines: The sounds you're playing, and also what the other keyboard player is playing.
Fink: Anyway, I kept coming back for about three weeks white he was trying to figure out who he wanted. A lot of it had to do with looks, too. There could have been some cats who played their butts off, but they didn’t look right for the band.
So how did you look?
Fink: I was pretty rocked out. That's what he wanted. And he wanted an integrated band. The original group had thee black guys up front and three white people in the back a drummer, a keyboard player, and a female. He was trying to break the color barriers that were in place at the time.
Gaines: It was Prince's idea for me to wear bell bottoms onstage. I wasn't too thrilled about it, They're like velvet tights with big bells at the bottom, with a big wide belt and a fishnet top. They're really comfortable, but I just never thought I'd be wearing bell bottoms again.
Did it seem too ’60s?
Gaines: I thought it did. But it looks good. Prince’s theory is, you see this girl who has a great voice, and you don't want to see her looking normal, like just anyone else. There has to be something that people can really look at. And that's true. My taste in clothes is very simple – maybe too simple for the stage. Onstage, I was wearing a more glamorous look before I met Prince – more like Diana Ross, a sequins type of thing. but he's into the older look, because he thinks the music from that time was more real.

ROSIE GANIES: "I was nervous at first, because I heard so many dark stories about Prince. But he turned out to be totally the opposite of whet people said. He’s a sweetheart!"


Fink: In the early days, we were all groping for images of how we wanted to look onstage. Prince pretty much left it up to each individual member of the band to figure it out – of course, with his final approval. I’ll never forget the first videos we did. I hadn’t been able to come up with anything he liked, so he hand-ed me a kind of khaki paratrooper jump suit real Army issue. Then I found some real weird space-age sunglasses. That was my image for the first video. Then I rented a gold satin tails-type tuxedo with black lapels and wore that with no shirt underneath for the next video. The next thing we did was American Bandstand our first television appearance. Our bass player, Andre Cymone, who has gone on to produce Jody Whatley and a lot of other people, wore clear plastic pants with red underwear, red suspenders, and a black tank top. He was in them for so long that they steamed up with condensed sweat. I wore a black and white striped jail outfit. And Prince was wearing dancer's knee-high stockings with boots.
Rosie, what was your audition like?
Gaines: Levi Caesar, who plays with Prince now, was in my band for a couple of years. He called me and asked if I was interested in auditioning. I said, "Sure!" I flew up and went into the Paisley Park studio with him that night. Prince came in and listened, and when I came out, he asked if I wanted to join.'.the band.
Was he familiar with any of your earlier works?
Gaines: I don't think he was. He just heard medoing stuff in there with Levi.
Were you playing much at this auditions?
Gaines: I was just singing on a demo they were doing. It was a song for the Pointer Sisters. It wasn't until I came back to Minneapolis a month later that he heard me play. I suppose he figured that if I could sing,, I could probably play too. I think he just '' went on Levi’s word that I could play, so he was already set on using me that way.
Were yov very familiar with his records at that point?
Gaines: No, actually. At least not with anything up until I saw the movie Purple Rain. Then I fell in love with his work.When he came out with that album, I became a fan.
Was it at all intimidating to start working with someone as highly regarded as Prince?
Gaines: I was nervous at first, because I heard so many dark stories about him. All my friends were telling me, "You better be careful with him. He's moody, he's this, he's that." But it was mostly stories. He turned out to be totally the opposite of what people said. He's a sweetheart! We got along right away because we have a lot in common with our vocals. Like, he would call me up, and I'd go down to jam with him from nine at night 'til six in the morning. He said, "You know, we could have a band, just you and me."
How do those jams work( Does he bring in sketches of new tunes?
Gaines:: No. We just go for whatever we feel. We did some gospel things, some rock – different styles. We'd do vocal solos back and forth. These jams started happening last January, when the movie was being filmed. Prince, being a music fanatic, liked to go in and jam with the band. He was almost finished with his album [Graffiti Bridge]. He had one more song he was working on – "Power Generation." That's when I went in to sing some stuff.
What can you say about his style as a keyboard player?
Gaines:: It’s terrifying [laughs]. He can play anything. He goes from classical to rock. My hat goes off to him. I told him, "Did you know that God took his hands and put all this magic on you" I mean, things that I thought maybe he sequenced, he actually played, with perfect timing.
Which things'
Gaines: "Elephants and Flowers" [from Grafitti bridge]. He doesn't play the sequencer at all; it's all live.
Fink: Prince has always resisted sequencing, to keep a real human feel. Of course, now you have sequencers that can do that; if you don't quantize, it sounds good. But when he does stuff in the studio, he plays everything live to tape. He prefers that I do that too if he's using me on session work. So we haven't sequenced anything yet. I've shown him all that stuff, but he doesn't feel he needs to use it.
Gaines: That's another thing that he and I have in common. We feel the same way about sequencing. I might use a sequencer to present a song to Prince, but then I’d take the band and do it live in the studio. I would use it if I was going to produce someone else who wanted to spund commercial. That's why I use the [Roland] -8 drum machine; .it sounds like real drums to me, as if you were playing them.
Fink: I prefer that live approach too, although in my home setup I will sequence, sync up to my tape recorder with SMPTE, put parts live to tape, and sequence anything else. But a lot of the time I won't quantize. I'll try to keep it as tight as I can play it, but unquantized, so it still has a human feel.
What type of sequencer do you use?
Fink: I've been using [Mark of the Unicorn] Performer since it came out, back in '85 or '86. A friend of mine who runs a music store in Minneapolis turned me on to it and said, "This is going the be the up-and-coming sequencer." It's really good, but then [Opcode] Vision came out and took it a step further. I need to bone up on Vision. It has so many features! I had the local Opcode rep demonstrate it for me the other day. I videotaped the session because I couldn’t take it all in, but one thing I noticed was that you have several sequences that you can chain together, whereas with Performer you just get one sequence happening at a time. Vision has mon user-friendliness, although Performer has caught up with what Vision offers – assignable MIDI faders, graphic editing, and all that, which Performer didn’t used to have. I'm going to stick with Performer and maybe use it and Vision at different times for different things.
Though he hasn’t embraced sequencing, Prince seems clearly to be into using samples in his arrangements.
Fink: On his last two albums, he's gone crazy with sampling. One thing he particularly likes to do is to take a sample of some Mahler symphony, just a little section, then time-compress or expand it to fit in with the track he's working on and put it in the same key to use in the background. He did that in a lot of things on Graffiti Bridge.
Gaines: When sampling first came out, I wouldn't say my opinion was positive at all. I thought, "Why is everybody using James Brown records without even mentioning thanks to him, or even recognizing that it's him'" Now I feel that it’s okay to use sampled sounds; if they were a hit then, they could be a hit now. But I still think people should give special thanks to James Brown, I mean, the man is in jail, and people are still getting rich off his stuff. They should share that with him. I bought some CDs of James Brown, and that man was incredible. Until this day, I've never heard a band as tight as his. Prince likes James Brown too. In fact, we do some samples of him in the show.
What other samples are you using'
Gaines: We sampled our own voices for harmonies. Most of the samples we use, though, are from James Brown – usually his voice, like, "Whatever I play has got to be .„" funky."
Fink: We started getting into an acid house thing, where we would play the entire song "Baby I'm a Star" from the Purple Rain album, then go into this extended funk/R&B groove jam, with the dancers rapping over some James Brown song loops. I had all kinds of • James Brown screams and yells' and lots of other stuff to choose from train whistles, heavy breaking, hearts pounding. I had everything going. Prince would cue things in; other times, I'd use the sounds at my own discretion.
Have you sampled any older gear for use in Prince's show?
Fink: I've thought about sampling the older stuff, but all I've done so far is to transfer some Fairlight sounds into the [E-mu] Emax lls. I was really surprised to hear how much better the old eight-bit Fairlight things sound when they're booted up to 16. Now, our last tour was a "greatest hits" show, with stuff from the be-ginning all the way up through current material. For the older stuff, I tried to reprogram what we had to sound like the old Oberheim stuff.
Does Prince still use a lot of old Oberheim gear?
Fink: Occasionally he'll bring in one of the old Oberheims, but very rarely. I think we only have the OB-8 left over now; the rest of the stuff has been sold off. He still uses a lat of Fairlight samples that he created. I know that for the Batman album and for Graffiti ! Bridge, he pretty much used a [Roland] D-50 and the old Emax 12-bit CD-ROM library for a lot of sounds.
What about on his older albums' How dig he put together those big synth textures like 1999 for instance?
Fink: He would just put three or four tracks of Oberheim sounds together and use different ’ voicings to make it thick and fat. The Oberheim was the main synthesizer he used in the studio back then. He used the Yamaha CP-80 electric grand too, but for synths, the Ober-heim was the main axe. In the earlier years, he always liked to have a real strong lead line tone incorporated into his songs; that was a trademark of his. If you listen to "Delirious," from 1999, there's a real high Oberheim patch with a lot of modulation in there. It’s real live-ly – kind of a cross between an organ and a square wave.
What about even further back, when he seemed to enjoy using that wheezier organ sound on tunes like "When U Were Mine?’
Fink That was definitely the Farfisa new wave sound that was happening at the time. We were pretty much using Oberheim OB-Xs to do that.
What other keyboards was he using back then? Any old Seguential synths?
Fink: We never used Prophet-Ss or -10s. For some reason, we never got into them, live or in recording.
What about FM?
Fink: There was a lot of [Yamaha] DX7 stuff when that came out, but he’s completely moved away from FM now.
What gear does he have in his Paisley Park studio now?
Gaines: Pretty much whatever you want. The only things I didn't see were a Fairlight or a Synclavier. From what I .can see, though, he pretty much likes the older sounds. He's into the soul thing, that Sly sold. He loves the Hammond organ.
Is there a Hammond in the studio?
Gaines: No, but he has some good .Hammond programs in his D-50.
What is the bands using for piano squnds?
Fink: I've been using'the [Roland] MKS-20. It works really. well, We, do our own patches and EQ them to taste, so they sound more realistic. On the last tour, I was using the MKS-20 and the Emax II grand piano sample. Sometimes I mixed them together; other times I used them separately, depending on what we needed.
Did Prince play any keyboards in the most recent show?
Fink: Yes, as a matter of fact. He did a .. whole section by himself, just playing piano and singing.
A real piano?
Fink: No, but it looks like one. [Pause.] I don't know if I should be announcing this.
Oh, go ahead.
Fink:: Well, this was my idea, actually. About three years ago, we had a real Yamaha grand. We put Barcus-Berrys and other pick-ups in there. They sounded okay, but they picked up a lot of ambient noise. And Prince used to get up on the piano and dance, so forget that. Anyway, the sound man came to me, because he didn't want to bug Prince, and said, "Matt, I got this problem with the sound in the piano. What do you think we can do?" I said, "There's this new MKS-20 thing. I think we should try that out, and put the Forte MIDI mod in the piano." So we put that in to trigger the MKS-20. I tried it out, and it sounded really good. Prince showed up for rehearsal a couple of days leter. He had no idea that we had modified anything in the piano. He sat down at the piano and started playing, not saying anything. I walked over to him and said, "So what do you think of your piano sounds" He said, "Sounds really great! What did you do?" I told him what we had done because of the ambient noise prob-lem. He said, "Wow! Good idea. Thanks a lot." The following year, the crew people came up and said, "We can't haul this big Yamaha grand around anymore. Besides, it's totally useless, since you don't even need the soundboard anymore." So I said, "Why don't you have a fake piano shell built, and mount a [Vamaha] KX88 in it?" That’s what they did, and they strengthened the top so that Prince could get up and do his stuff on top of it.
Gaines: I play that piano too, on "A Song for You," the old Donny Hathaway song, which I do by myself.
What other keyboards do you play in the show?
Gaines: I only use that piano and a D-50 onstage, although there’s about eight racks behind me, with [Korg] M1Rs and other stuff.
What type of sounds do you run from the D-50?
Gaines: Organ sounds. Funk bass sounds – that slapped sound, like Larry Graham [bassist with Sly and the Family Stone] .used to do. There's a lot of wah-wah type sounds too, which you control with keyboard pressure. I also use D-50 string sounds, old Rhodes sounds, some of the brighter Rhodes sounds, and some nice piano stuff.
These were all the same sounds that Prince used on his records'
Gaines: Yeah. We’re not playing them the same as the record, but they're the same sounds.
Fink: It's pretty much the same keyboard setup Prince records with, but I'll try to enhance the sounds. Instead of having one D-50 per patch, I’ll stack another one on there to fatten it up. I have three [Roland] D-550s in my rack, and a couple of Emax Ils; I'll do all kinds of different things with them.
But if Prince used a D-50 in cutting a particular song, the D-50 v mains the main component in the stage version of that song.
Fink:: Right. I'll go in and find out exactly which patch he used. Often he doesn't re-member, but he'll write on a track sheet which synthesizer he used. Sometimes he writes the patch too, but he works so quickly that he often leaves it off, so I have to figure that out.
Does he rely a lot on factory sounds?
Fink I would say there's a tot of factory stuff in there. I've brought some third-party stuff in for him to hear. He's so busy and so unconcerned with technology that he pretty much relies on me and his technical staff to keep him abreast of technological changes.
Though most of his records are basically one-man operations, Prince does occasionally bring other people in to cover one or another part. Matt, you came in for the synth parts on "Jack U Off," from Controversy, for example. What leads Prince to decide when to play keyboards himself or call you instead?
Fink: I don't really know. Maybe it would just be to do a live thing; that’s probably part of his reasoning another part of it might be to just pave us $gs some work, so we don't feel too left out [laughs]. The band participated in about three-quarters of the songs on the Purple Rain album. A lot of those tracks were played live, and we all had co-writing credits on various songs. It was a lot of fun doing that album.
Do you feel that the presence of the band gives Purple Rain a different kind of dimension than Prince’s solo efforts?
Fink: Absolutely.
Gaines: It makes a big difference when the band comes in and plays. Anita Baker does the same thing with her band; that’s why you get such a good feeling from her records.
In what sense were the band member involved as co-writers on Purple Rain ?
Fink: Well, for example, we were jamming one day at rehearsal, and I came up with the main groove for "Computer Blue." Prince said, "I like that. Let’s try and work with it." Then he built the song around it. He even brought his father [jazz pianist John L. Nelson] to play on the bridge section.
How do you go about nailing Prince’s keyboard parts for concerts? is the idea to duplicate what he does on records, or bring in something of yourself and change things a bit?
Fink: Definitely both. He'll come to the band for arrangement ideas if he comes to a point where he can’t quite think of some-thing. Often I'll be playing, trying different things. If it catches him, he'll say, "Yeah. Keep that." He does a lot of different arrangements of his songs for live too.
Which songs were especially difficult to prepare for concert performances?
Fink: There have been several. The first one that gave me and Bobby Z a problem was "Darling Nikki" [from Purple Rain]. Actually, I shouldn't say that. For me it was easy; for Bobby it was hard, because the drums just go w.ild in the end section. It was a drum machine on the album. I don't remember how Bobby did it, but he had to do some technical modifications to' get his part to work. Then there was the song "I Would Die 4 U," from the same album.
Again, because of the drum part?
Fink: The drums and the bass. It's almost like a sequenced part at a fast tempo. Prince played that keyboard part live. I could play it too, but I couldn't do the rhythm part with my right hand; I had to use both hands to play the bass part. He wanted a fatter sound, though, because it wasn’t enough with just Lisa [Coleman] doing the chords.
And he wouldn’t allow you to bring a sequencer to help out?
Fink: Actually, he did. That was the first time – and still the only time – that I brought a sequencer in. I had my IViemorymoog at that time. Prince wasn't using it for recording, but I brought it in, along with the Oberheim, just to have a different analog synth sound. The Memorymoog was one of the first key-boards to come With MIDI, so I had it set up so that I could trigger it from my DX7. I used the sequencer on the Memorymoog, and did a clock thing from Bobby's Linn-Drum. All he had to do was hit "Start." I loaded the program, and that was it, but learning how to do that and getting it together at the time wasn't easy, since MIDI was in its infancy.
Gaines: My biggest problem was on the orchestral stuff. On some songs, like "When Doves Cry" [from Purple Rain], we do the whole arrangement, plus some classical things at the end as a segue. That was really hard for me, because I wasn't really into the classical thing. Unlike Matt, I never really thought of myself as a keyboard player. But he thought I was, and because he did, it gave me more confidence. Now I can honestly say I'm a key-board player. Maybe the hardest thing, though, was on the "Graffiti Bridge" song, which has those big Clare Fischer string arrangements; we had to learn all those parts. Matt and I worked together on them. He taught me a lot of things, because he’s much more familiar with Prince’s style than I am. Basically, he told me to do what he does – practice at home, but be ready for when Prince might change his mind about anything onstage. We’ll rehearse some things for hours, then once we get into concert, Prince might change everything onstage.
For examples?
Gaines: Well, we were doing that song, "Baby I'm a Star" [from Purple Rain], then all of a sudden he says, "Michael B!" When he says that, it means we're going into a break – what break, we don’t know, until he gives us some kind of sign. So you have to be aware and alert, and keep your eyes on him all the time, because if you veer off some-where else, you can mess up a whole song in a split second.
How do you divide the keyboard parts? It seems that in past lineups, Matt handled most of the synth stuff and the other key-boardist did the piano parts.
Fink: No, not at all. Lisa had a piano solo on "Anotherloverholenyohead," from the Parade album, but most of the time she was at her setup.
Gaines: Matt does the horn and string lines. I usually play the bass line and some of the rhythm parts, and I play all of the organ sounds.
Do you and Levi take turns on the bass parts?
Gaines: Levi is playing bass all the time, but sometimes the parts are too much for one person to handle. Normally I have, like, three parts going in one song – three different rhythms, say, as well as singing in the back-ground and dancing. Matt has a lot of parts too. I Id say that we each have at least three parts. tune. It almost sounds inhuman [laughs].
Fink: I've always been the lead player. If there are any solos, that's usually my thing. Rhythm parts can be delegated pretty much equally. Technically, I’d say Lisa was far and away the best other keyboard player we've had. With her, we could work quickly and get things done, because she had a really great knowledge of voicings. But she wasn’t a dynamic soloist, although she got better over the years. She wasn't a Jan Hammer-type Moog player, though, which is what I was into. When Bonni Boyer came in, she was a good rhythm player but, again, not a strong soloist. I would sometimes have to work with her a bit longer, because she wasn't quite as technically proficient as Lisa. Now, Rosey is a great funk player, a really good R&B player, but again, not a strong soloist. As a singer, she's incredible.
Gaines: I think I do more singing than anyone else in the show. Thank God, Prince likes my voice a lot, so he gives me a lot of parts to sing. I also do a lot of ad lib parts between songs.
Are these solo episodes for you between songs?
Gaines: Yeah. Like, he does "Do Me, Baby" [from Controversy], and after the chorus, I step from behind my keyboards, go out front, and go into "Ain't No Way." Then, as I'm walking back after that, he goes into "Nothing Compares 2 U." it’s like we're talking to each other: He's saying, "Do me, baby," then I say, "Ain't no way for me to love you," and from that he’s going, "Nothing compares to you." There’s a blues song we do too, called "Don't Make Me Pay for Your mistakes." From that, he goes into "If I Had a Harem," then I go into this rap, saying "One of these days, you gonna walk through that door.... " I never give in. I’m like this hard-core wife, because he's slick and he knows it [laughs].
How do you feel about the fact that Prince has only hired women to play keyboards opposite Matt?
Gaines: I never really think about it, but I suppose he hire because he happened to likabor vb and we all happened to play keyboards.
No men have ever auditioned for that position in the band?
Fink: No.
So it’s part of his stage concept that the second keyboardist has to be female.
Fink: I would say so.
Gaines: And, well, he also loves beautiful women [laughs].
How different is the music that you’re doing with your band from what you’re doing with Prince!
Gaines: The type of music we play has more of a rock edge. With Prince, we go back to the old funk. He likes a lot of the older sounds that you probably wouldn't hear any-more. That's why it's so much fun playing his stuff; it takes you back in time. But each individual in my band is a jazz player with a degree in music. We sound jazzier than Prince, because we have a lot of dynamics. It's really a battle to get them to play funk. If they’re not excited about it, they won't learn it at all. Somehow I have to pump them up, saying "Wow, this is gonna be crazy!" You tell them what they want to hear. Then you keep rehearsing with them until they lock into it.
If that’s what you want to play, why not just hire funk or rock players to begin with?
Gaines: Because my guys have been behind me for eight years. I love them; they're my friends and family. Even my daughter La Toya is singing with us; she’s 13.
Fink: I'd have to say that on my original stuff, I have a different style from Prince too. It's also R&B pop, but with fusiony things and hip-hop mixed in. I've been writing originals with a partner in Minneapolis, a guitarist named James Behringer. He’s worked with Bobby Caldwell, toured with Kitaro, and been out in the L.A. scene for a while. He and I have compiled a pretty good-sized catalog of songs which we're trying to sell to other artists through a couple of publishing companies. We don't have an official publishing deal, only because we're so busy it would be difficult to be nailed down to writing exclusively for one company.
Has staying here in Minneapolis made it more difficult to launch your own career than if you had moved to L.A. or New York?
Fink: I've thought about that, and it seems to me that if I had wanted to do the L.A. or New York thing, I would have had to have left, Prince. But this is my home town. My friends and family are here in Minneapolis. I like it here. I've seen what it's like in New York, and I've tried to be in L.A. for different periods of time, but it's just easier to live here. It’s not as big, it's not as polluted, it’s not as: congested. Sure, the music business is not as concentrated here as it is in New York or ’ L.A., but I feel you can still do it from here . if you have the right connections, which I've been able to get over the years.
Do you see your gig with Prince as a springboard toward grater success as a solo artist?
Gaines: Well, I want to do my own thing. And Prince wants that for me too. But I also want to stay with him and work with him because I care a lot about him as a friend. I appreciate him thinking that I'm good enough to do what he asks me to do. He . wouldn't give me all his support if he didn't ‘ have that confidence. I mean, before I joined this band, I never really thought of myself as a keyboard player. But he thought I was, and because he did, it gave me more confidence to work on that. Now I can say my chops are up. In fact, I've never seen them this good in my whole life. I can honestly say, finally, that I’m a keyboard player.