so i'm watching some old Prince dvd's (Nude, Lovesexy, ONA), and i'm noticing how all these different bandmembers are soaking up the atmosphere that is Prince. So what happens to these people once Prince kicks them to the curb? i'm sure most of them could not pull in a crowd of 5-20,000 on their own, so playing with P might have been the last hurrah career wise for many of them.

most of them probably go on to be professional studio/touring musicians. that seems to be the case with michael bland and a few others.

meltwithu said:

Ya' gotta understand, for many musicians (including myself) it's not just about being able to "pull in a crowd of 5-20,000". It's about being able to make a living making music. Having Prince on one's resume is a GREAT thing - but it's not the ONLY thing. If you read some of Michael Bland's posts in the Associated Artists forum, you can see a former bandmate's perspective on the matter. Unlike P fans/fanatics, it was a job to him. There's no mythical aura surrounding his time with P, from what I've read. It's a gig - a great gig - but a gig, nonetheless.

With or without Prince, life still goes on for these musicians and making music doesn't stop with leaving P's band. There are many local musicians who make a very good living playing/teaching and they don't need 5-20,000 people to make that possible (though those types of numbers are cool).