Let’s look back to 1990 and the Graffiti Bridge movie. How did the original seven members of The Time come to be involved with that project?

Let me try to clarify a little bit. There might be a misconception that we got back together to do the Graffiti Bridge movie. That’s absolutely not the case. What happened, Morris [Day] was working on a project with Prince. It was basically going to be more of a solo project. Prince was going to do the bulk of the writing and playing. I think it was going to be calledCorporate World, but there were a few different names floating around at that point. Around that same time period, we had also been working with Morris on different projects and things. We thought, let’s get The Time back together and just make a record. So we got back together and started making an album. This was with Prince’s blessing, by the way. And we had our own idea for a film.

What kind of film did you guys have in mind?

It was basically based on our own true story, rather than a fictional story. Purple Rain was a fictional story based in some truth, the whole backdrop of Minneapolis and the competition of the bands. The way that worked was very true and very well done in that movie. But we really wanted to make a film about our exploits on the road and some of the things that went on, because we had a great time on the road.

How far did you guys get with this project?

We actually brought in someone to write a screenplay. We sat and talked with a couple of screenwriters, telling them the stories we thought were funny, letting them weave a storyline around it. We were in talks with Warner Bros. to do it. The next thing you know, literally out of the blue, Prince called us for a meeting at Paisley Park. And I remember we walked in thinking it was going to be about the movie — the movie we thought we were going to do. All of sudden it turned into Graffiti Bridge, and we were like,“What’s Graffiti Bridge?” Prince was like, “This is my movie.” And it was, you know, this girl and a feather. [laughs] It was like, “No, no, no — we’ve got our own ideas for a movie.”

Let’s look back to 1990 and the Graffiti Bridge movie. How did the original seven members of The Time come to be involved with that project?

Let me try to clarify a little bit. There might be a misconception that we got back together to do the Graffiti Bridge movie. That’s absolutely not the case. What happened, Morris [Day] was working on a project with Prince. It was basically going to be more of a solo project. Prince was going to do the bulk of the writing and playing. I think it was going to be calledCorporate World, but there were a few different names floating around at that point. Around that same time period, we had also been working with Morris on different projects and things. We thought, let’s get The Time back together and just make a record. So we got back together and started making an album. This was with Prince’s blessing, by the way. And we had our own idea for a film.

What kind of film did you guys have in mind?

It was basically based on our own true story, rather than a fictional story. Purple Rain was a fictional story based in some truth, the whole backdrop of Minneapolis and the competition of the bands. The way that worked was very true and very well done in that movie. But we really wanted to make a film about our exploits on the road and some of the things that went on, because we had a great time on the road.

How far did you guys get with this project?

We actually brought in someone to write a screenplay. We sat and talked with a couple of screenwriters, telling them the stories we thought were funny, letting them weave a storyline around it. We were in talks with Warner Bros. to do it. The next thing you know, literally out of the blue, Prince called us for a meeting at Paisley Park. And I remember we walked in thinking it was going to be about the movie — the movie we thought we were going to do. All of sudden it turned into Graffiti Bridge, and we were like,“What’s Graffiti Bridge?” Prince was like, “This is my movie.” And it was, you know, this girl and a feather. [laughs] It was like, “No, no, no — we’ve got our own ideas for a movie.”