I know he lived with his folks in the basement but he had an expensive custom painted motorcycle, all kinds of musical gear, and all of his clothes were obviously not off the rack or Merry Go Round. The film didn't show any real life struggle except for the domestic dysfunction. I always thought they could have filled out the character a little more with some money trouble or some insight to his prior romantic relationships that didn't work. It would have fit the Kid character and made the audience understand and sympathize with him more.

omg I thought that on occasion as well!! Graffiti Bridge too! The guy has customized clothes, his bike, he has a mac computer...dude was kitted out!

I always laughed at this too since my boyfriend pointed it out: Morris and his gang wreck his club/property whatever a few times asking for money...couldn't he of just like...claimed on his insurance? Or sued them or something? I mean they even graffiti 'WHAT TIME IS IT?!" on his wall which was all the proof he needed hahaha

Mind you, he blows his chances of getting money for damage when he throws his guitar into the window near the end of the movie pahaha.

Someone should work out how much that customized bike, clothes, puppet and musical gear would cost!

No wonder he lived with his parents!

dandan said:

Yeah his bike was the only big expense. His clothes are bits and bobs from costume shops and second hand stores that people wouldn't dare wear. His Honer telecaster is a $150 guitar at the time. He's got some okay pedals and the amps are probably the clubs back line. He also live with his parents so he can spend his money on whatever he wants. [Edited 4/5/15 5:31am]

people definately would wear those duds and studs in the 1980's 1970's 1960's

He's a local musician with rock star potential. With that comes groupies. Groupies support musicians in more ways than sex, ya know lol.

OldFriends4Sale said:

RJOrion said:

He did make money performing in the club and lived with his parents, and while he had a guitar, he also wanted one he clearly couldn't afford.

iZsaZsa said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

people definately would wear those duds and studs in the 1980's 1970's 1960's

Normal people shopped at Sears & Roebuck and/or J. C. Penny or the like.

And that is why they are still normal lol

I don't know about you but I and a lot of 'Prince' fans did what we could to emulate the looks back then

those years were still flamboyant for style, many people emulated a lot of their favorite artists.

the Hippie years the 1970s definately outrageous, the 1980s too. We got really plain in the 1990s

alandail said:

He did make money performing in the club and lived with his parents, and while he had a guitar, he also wanted one he clearly couldn't afford.

I think his age was supposed to be pretty young still

early 20s so it is no reason he wouldn't live with his parents.

Many kids either got a place with a lot of friends or took over their parents basement attic or garage

iZsaZsa said:

He had one guitar, then he was gifted with a second one. That bunch of gear was co-inherited in part 2. His clothes were not rich, just different, I guess costume remnants from a second hand store that others wouldn't dare to wear. He spent his money on his bike and ate Doritos for dinner. He was broke.

In Purple Rain he had not inherited anything. All that gear on the stage at the 1st Ave came from somewhere and someone owned it. Those clothes were not hardly second hand - they were custom fitted garments. YOu could spend your life in thrift stores looking for tight satin pants with buttons down the legs that looked like what the Kid had on during I Would Die You. And the purple trench cost with the studs is just too radical to explain away as remnants remnants - and even if it was, how does he get an entire wardrobe from that source. Everything you cite calls for a ridiculous amount of conjecture on th part of the audience. A good story explains this. In fact, I was never clear on what the problem was between the Kid's parents. Was it infidelity, money, emotional issues, metal issues, addiction? But that is for another one of my brilliantly insigfhtful threads in the future.

OldFriends4Sale said:

alandail said:

He did make money performing in the club and lived with his parents, and while he had a guitar, he also wanted one he clearly couldn't afford.

I think his age was supposed to be pretty young still

early 20s so it is no reason he wouldn't live with his parents.

Many kids either got a place with a lot of friends or took over their parents basement attic or garage

I just meant he didn't have many expenses since he lived at home. In the movie he should make enough performing to afford a few things, like his bike.

Makeup, gas and repairs for the bike (have you ever bought insurance for a motorcyle driven by a male in his 20s?), custom-made boots (even the dumbest fan cant explain those away with costume remnants), hair styling, dry cleaning those special clothes, salaries to the band members (As big of a c as Wendy was, do you thing she was working for free? ). More realism would have been as easy as showing the Kid in something other than rock and roll stage clothes - jeans and a. old Parliament Funkadelic T shirt around the basement whie eating Doritos and playing cheap ass cassette tapes as something

And how much could Billy really be paying him with at least 2 other acts to pay? Almost no small time local musician is making a living play at one club - they could have made it clear that the Revolution and The Time played all over town and were struggling to get the big break. Remember the opening sequence where we see Morris vacuuming his place while wearing a doo rag? It didnt exactly look like Taj Mahal either.

I always thought Kid would of been more broke in Graffiti Bridge, I mean in Purple Rain he was living at home with his parents and stuff so the most he would of had to have paid for his living arrangements was his rent. True that a lot of his clothes could of been bought from charity shops and modified by him, but his boots are probably custom made and his bike too.

In Graffiti Bridge he has his own club which is not only up against three other clubs, but constantly being wrecked by The Time. And he owes money! Yet he has a Mac SE (I believe that came out in 1987 so it was a fairly new computer for 1990, not to mention computers were hella expensive then, especially macs!), a water bed, pets (the two lovebirds shown at the start and the fish tank, so vet bills, food etc), his bike which is customised, custom clothes (his leather jacket, those weird trousers he wore and his oversized tshirts, his elephants and flowers gettup etc are not really commonplace charity shop clothes even if he did customize them haha), his hair, his mother lives in a nursing home so he probably had to pay for that seen as his father is dead and presumably has no other relatives either, he has to pay his band mates etc etc

The expenses just keep piling up

JoshuaWho said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

JoshuaWho said:

come on...Purple Rain was Prince's big moment.His chance to SHINE.

We all know he wasn't gonna be seen as some broke,struggling musician wearing jeans and cheap T-shirts

What makes no sence is he was a world class musical genius and the best gig he could get was some tiny club in MPLS?

As to where they got the money? Well Frances L was a retired spy so he had to have saved up some money.

Hey, he ain't got no money, but honey, he's rich on personality.

didnt billy say ..u aint pullin em in like u USED to ?