The Tapes Archive

Marc Allan: Rick?

Rick James: Yeah?

Marc Allan: It’s Marc Allan in Indianapolis.

Rick James: How are you doing, Marc?

Marc Allan: I’m doing fine, how are you?

Rick James: Great, great.

Marc Allan: Good, good. Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

Rick James: No problem.

Marc Allan: Is it an accident that you’re starting the tour here?

Rick James: Well, for all intents and purposes, really the tour starts, I think, the first date is in Chicago at the Regal Theater.

Marc Allan: Oh, I thought that Chicago was after Indianapolis.

Rick James: It could be, yeah like I said, I’m not really, really sure.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I think you’ve got a couple, it seems to me, if I read the itinerary right, you got a couple of warm-up dates in LA, and then the official first date, they’re saying is October.

Rick James: Well, I don’t know, it’s, I don’t know man. Naptown’s always been really comfortable for me.

Marc Allan: Yeah? How is that? Why is that?

Rick James: I really don’t know. Ever since I’ve been going there. Some of my family’s there, and plus I’ve always had a real good, I’ve always had a really good taste for Indianapolis.

Marc Allan: Okay, all right.

Rick James: I love Naptown. I love that name.

Marc Allan: Obviously.

Rick James: Naptown.

Marc Allan: You’ll be surprised, cause obviously you’ve been on the road for a while.

Rick James: They told me it’s really been built up and stuff.

Marc Allan: Yeah, it’s a much bigger city than it used to be. So, but anyway, this record, I enjoyed and I found it really, kind of interesting. I read something where you’re describing this as kind of like an oral movie of your life?

Rick James: Well, yeah. It’s kind of like an audio movie. Urban Rhapsody album.

Marc Allan: Was that your plan when you started out?

Rick James: Well, not really because when I was down, when I was incarcerated, I wrote about 400 songs. A little over. And, like I said, a lot of them were all different kinds. It’s like, a lot of introspective music. All I had was an acoustic guitar. I didn’t have a bass, I didn’t have any drums. I wasn’t allowed to participate in any kind of music at prison. It was kinda like when Mike Tyson went to prison, he wasn’t allowed to box. Well, the did the same thing to me in Folsom. Thanks be to, that there was a person that worked in the system of the prison that really kinda felt bad that I didn’t have things, you know, and they felt that the establishment there, which was an old red neck establishment, old Folsom, was really keeping me down beyond what they should’ve been doing.

Marc Allan: Because they knew who you were?

Rick James: Exactly, that had a lot to do with it. Being black, being Rick James and all of that. And you know, all that kinda shit. So this person managed to get me a tape recorder where I would record, you know, I would write. And I could write and write and write, because I don’t know how to write notes and stuff, and I put it all on tape and then they would stick the tapes for me. So that turned out to be a real good thing over that two year period of being there cause I managed to get tons of tapes out with material on it. And when I got out, after listening to a lot of it, I really wanted to do a double, my first concept was a triple album, and you know, that’s too much for a triple album. You know, Prince did a triple album, didn’t do very, and on and on and on and on. So I said, well, a double album. Then I thought of a double album. Then after really giving it a whole lot of thought and listening to a lot of the material, because I’ve always wanted to do an unplugged, an acoustical unplugged album, and I, you know, now I’ve got about four in the can, you might say. And I didn’t wanna like lay a heavy, heavy thing on people from my history, back into the industry. I wanted to kind of ease back in with familiarity, stuff that they were familiar with. So I decided to do Urban Rhapsody. I’m excited to go back to the streets, to the street blues. Very much like, my concept was a ’90s street song thing. So that’s really how Urban Rhapsody album came into play. And a lot of the songs are about, more about my life, and I didn’t lay a lot of the heavy stuff down cause I didn’t really wanna burden people’s souls and all that right on the first album.

Marc Allan: Are you comfortable talking about what you’ve been through?

Rick James: Sure, I have no problem with it.

Marc Allan: Okay, all right. One of the lines in there, some things really stood out to me. One is I think very early on in the record, you say, “I merely forgot where I truly belong.” Can you talk about that?

Rick James: Well, you know, coming to Hollywood, being born in Buffalo and being more, really, in the heavy ghetto, it was something I was always familiar with. I was always familiar with blacks, I was familiar with my ethnic background. Always familiar with my Afro-centric culture. Totally familiar and totally comfortable with those surroundings. And I think when I started to, when I made a lot of money, when you’re making millions of dollars and you’re traveling a lot, I think you kind of lose sight of your roots and I think that’s what happened to me. And when I did lose sight, I was so disorientated and so amazed at the things I was seeing and the things I was hearing that was really outside of really my realm. Not that I don’t consider myself a worldly person, because I am. I’ve been around the world a bunch of times and I’m very comfortable in pretty much any culture. But the real culture that I’m really comfortable with, the thing that I really understand is my blackness and the ghetto. That’s what I really understand. That’s what I understand, that’s what I feel, that’s what I cry to, that’s what I cling to. That’s what satisfies me. And I think, during my drug addiction, I lost sight of that. I really lost sight of where I really belonged. That’s really pretty well what that statement sums up. I really lost sight of my roots. My mother passed away of cancer and I was, about four years ago, right before I went to prison. And I was just completely gone, you know, I was just totally drugged out all the time. And totally in another world. I was in a world, living in a $10 million mansion up on a hill, locked up in a bedroom, never even seeing the outside of it. It took me, I don’t know, three or four months, before I walked out, one day I found out I had a rose garden on the side of my house. I was really isolating myself. And living a real, kind of, lonely existence. And I did nearly forgot where I belong, you know? Where I belong is making music and trying to do something for myself and my people.

Marc Allan: Were you at a point in your life where you felt like you were so big that drugs wouldn’t have been a problem to handle?

Rick James: Well, I never really thought about it. I never really thought about my addiction until my accountants one day came to me and said, “Rick, you know, you spend a million dollars,” or, “You spent a million and a half dollars on drugs.” You know? And I said, oh well, drugs are expensive, you know.

Rick James: They said, “Well Rick, we think you have a problem.” well, I don’t think I have a problem. Meanwhile, I’m fucking up all night, all night, all day, spending all this money on cocaine. And isolating myself and I didn’t think I had a problem. People on the outside can always see that you have a problem. No one ever in the inside sees it. And everybody was so busy kissing my ass and trying to BS me, and doing this, that no one really wanted to tell me. But in the loneliness, so when I got with myself, when it was just me and Rick together, one on one, I knew I had a problem. I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. But I didn’t know how to fix it. So my accountant and lawyer sent me to a couple rehabs. Even Ringo, from The Beatles, sent me to one rehab. Ringo and David Crosby, from Crosby, Stills & Nash. They sent me to a rehab once that did them a lot of good, and that didn’t last with me very long. I had gone to about three rehabs and none of that seemed to do any good. No, I didn’t see that I had a problem, and I didn’t really know until it was really too late.

Marc Allan: Can you describe what a crack high is like?

Rick James: Well, I don’t know, I mean, it’s like taking that first hit off a rock, or taking, you know, I used to snort cocaine. I used to snort cocaine and I loved snorting cocaine. I think I loved it. Me and my band, we did it for years and we never had any problem making albums and we never had any problem performing and snorting coke. It didn’t change the atmosphere and it didn’t change the ambiance of anything, it just, we thought it was the hip thing to do. We’re making millions of dollars, so we thought that this was part of the culture. In 1981 when I was in Chicago, is when I first started smoking, freebasing. And when I, the first hit I ever took off a free base pipe, I mean, I fell out. And I said, yeah this is for me. It completely took me out of my worries. And a lot of heroin addicts say that when they shoot heroin. But you know, I never really did like heroin, although I did it a few times. Crack just seemed to, I mean, cocaine just seemed to, just deliver me from all the ridiculousness that I was involved in and the facades that I was playing and all the games that I was playing and all the bullshit. And it just seemed to, it was just me and that drug. I didn’t need a woman, I didn’t need anything. I just needed that drug. And it was just, it’s exhilarating. The first hit is exhilarating and it’s probably the greatest feeling I ever had next to sex. It’s 500000 times better than an orgasm. But after that, you’re chasing that high. You never get that same high after that. So you’re chasing it, so you’re constantly spending all this money trying to chase that high. It’s easily understandable why women sell their babies and people do what they do, crack addicts.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I figure it must just be amazing, because, I mean, and I tell people you know, boy if I could be sure that I wouldn’t be Len Bias, I would do that drug in a minute, because think of all the things that people give up for it, the high must just be-

Rick James: It’s the most amazing, I, you know what, I grew up smoking weed and stuff, and even in the ’60s, taking acid, and all that kinda stuff. And I was able to put that stuff down. That stuff never had control of me. Hey, you do it one day, you don’t have it next day, fine. You don’t have it three weeks later, fine. When you smoke that crack, when you have that first hit, it’s the only drug in the world. It’s a truity when they say one hit and you’re strung out. Well, that’s very true. And I never ever thought there’d be a drug like that. I guess that’s why the government keeps it in the ghettos, keeps it in black. Well, it’s even in white suburbia now, but it’s even affected white people. Drugs, crack doesn’t discriminate who it gets. It was the most exhilarating, heavy, incredible thing I’d ever felt. Like I said, it was 500000 times better than an orgasm, which was, I should’ve known it was dangerous then. I really should’ve. I had a good friend of mine, a writer. I won’t mention his name, but you know, he writes for GQ and Rolling Stone and a lot of different people. He’s a very famous writer. And me and him were having dinner once and he, he was doing an interview on crack addicts and stuff, and all that, so he decided, well the best way to do this is for him to experience it, you know. And he did. And he actually got really strung out real bad. He told me this and I was very shocked cause I didn’t know, you know. And he said he got strung out immediately while writing the story, you know?

Marc Allan: Man, and that’s just from one, he knew he was going into experiment.

Rick James: Well, he didn’t know, I don’t think he knew it was as strong, as potent a drug as, I think he thought that his mind and his strength and all that kinda shit, which is all horse shit, could deal with it. But that’s not true. I don’t give a fuck how smart you are or how strong you are. When it comes to crack, it will get you. There’s no two ways about it. It will get you immediately.

Marc Allan: So, at the time that you ended up going to prison, there’s no way that going to prison is a good thing, necessarily, but was it a good thing for you?

Rick James: It was an incredible good thing. For me, it was a good thing. Before I went to prison, I was living up, like I said, this house I got from Mickey Rooney. And it was hoes, pimps and hoes and everything. And I had tons of hoes that was working for me and was all kind of things, which was players ways about it and there was women everywhere. But all that shit, you know, when you’re dealing with that kind of element, when you’re dealing in that kind of element, it’s an evil element. All that stuff about kidnapping and torture, that stuff never happened, but I mean, here’s a girl who had a pimp, who feels that they could get some money out of Rick James so they could support their habit, so that’s how that happened. And that’s where those stories came from. There was a girl at a hotel, yeah, and I said I had a fight with, a physical fight, because she actually kicked my pregnant girlfriend in the stomach. So I commenced to, I commenced to punching her and it got carried away and it was a fight with her. But all that other stuff about kidnapping and torture, that wasn’t true. But I did get in a physical confrontation with this other girl who worked for me who kicked my old lady in the stomach, and I got bent out of, I had been up for two weeks, and I got infuriated and I was out of my mind.

Marc Allan: It’s a good story though don’t you think? The kidnapping and the torture. It’s a good story, though.

Rick James: Well, it’s a grand, it’s a wonderful story. It makes me seem like. It’s very decadent and it’s almost romantic. It is, old, like Dionysius or something. But unfortunately, it didn’t happen. If I ever do a movie, I guess I’ll put it in there just to make it look interesting. because when I read about myself, I go, “Damn. “I did all this for sex?” God, as much sex as I was getting, I was like turning women away from the door. I never had any problem with sex.

Marc Allan: There’s an old Warren Zevon song where he talks about being a drug addict and he said, he picked up Rolling Stone, he said, “I read things I didn’t know I’d done. “It sounded like a lot of fun.” Did that ever happen to Warren Zevon? Do you know him?

Rick James: I love that line.

Marc Allan: Did that ever happen to you? Have you read things that you, well I guess, this would’ve been one of them.

Rick James: Yeah, that was one of them. I mean, a lot of things that I supposedly have done and shit over the years, I mean, I can’t remember if I did them or not. But they sure do sound great. A lot of the orgies, a lot of the women that I’ve been with and a lot of all the other crazy stuff, I mean, that stuff sounded like wonderful shit. I mean, it sounds like, was I there? Did I do that? I mean a lot of the stuff that’s been written about me, yeah it’s true, but I mean, these cops in Hollywood wanted me so bad. I mean, if you know anything about my case, you know that the DA even, they planted, they gave a girl heroin in jail to testify against me. And I got a lawsuit right now getting ready to pin against the whole DA system for that shit. I mean they gave a girl drugs in jail to lie. They schooled a girl to lie in front of a camera. You know, this went on and on. That is such a great story, now when you read that, you go, that’s gonna blow your mind. What they did to go, and what they actually did to nail me, or to try to nail me. Anyway, I ended up going to jail for cocaine and one charge of assault.

Marc Allan: It’s, so, they wanted you just because it looks good when you get a famous person?

Rick James: Oh, no yeah. They wanted me. And not to harp on color or anything but it is a race thing, it did boil down to that. Here’s this black running around with long braids with all these gorgeous white movie stars and women, flaunting, smoking weed on stage, making millions of dollars running, jumping out of limousines. Eating at Spago’s, drinking champagne and throwing bottles out of the limousine. That’s get that nigger. That nigga’s on the hit list. They didn’t like it, you know.

Marc Allan: But anyway, you end up in prison, this turns out to be a good thing.

Rick James: Yeah, you know, Marc, I thought it was a curse. I said, oh God I’m cursed, you know, this is a terrible thing. Here I am with all these real criminals, these killers and rapists and baby, child molesters and all this shit. But you know what, it turned out to be a great thing, because all the rehabs didn’t give me what prison gave me. Prison took away my freedom on a serious level, and it really put me in the belly of the beast. It really put me, I think out of 3000 cops work there, I think maybe five or 10 were black. It was a racist tin, it’s an old institution, it’s like a French Bastille or something. It’s really old, and bricks, it looks like a fucking castle. And it’s full of racism, it’s full of hatred. You know, Mexicans, the Aryan brotherhood, Crips and Bloods, and on and on and on. The good thing about it is, a lot of these guys in this prison had a love, I think, for me, because they had grew up with my music and they had done time, I had made their time easier. So I had a blanket of love when I was there. I mean, nobody was out , anybody who, nobody was out to kill me, although I heard there was a contract out on me, you know. Everybody kind of looked after me. But the COs, the officers were the ones I was worried about because those were the ones that really wanted me.

Marc Allan: Okay. Did you make reference to people watching you. Somebody’s watching you, do you really think that? Is that still going on?

Rick James: On the album. Well, somebody’s watching had to do with something I used to think about in prison all the time because I was under such scrutiny. I was under, I was under such scrutiny on a daily basis. 24 hours a day, the police all wanted to bust me. They all was hoping I’d do drugs in prison, which I didn’t. Inmates were looking at me all the time, cause everybody was like, there’s Rick James. You know, it was like a celebrity thing. So I always felt eyes on me, all the time. I never could do my time peacefully. But even when I got out, I find that I’m still under scrutiny. I got Bill, my parole officer, you know, everybody else watching me. Everybody wondering what I’m gonna do and all this kinda shit. That song really didn’t come out of paranoia, that song just came out of true awareness. That’s about everybody. I mean, somebody’s watching you, somebody’s watching everybody.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I mean, you sound really good and really loose and I’m taking it that you’re not intending to fuck up again, am I right about that?

Rick James: No, no, no. You know, but if you know anything about drug addicts, you know relapse is all part of recovery. I’m hoping, I pray to God everyday, man, that I just stay straight. And I just, you know, because right now, I got my family, I have my five-year-old son I’m raising, my old lady, we got a new house. I’m excited about life, man, I’m excited about this. I’m not getting any older. I’m in my late 40s. I’m not getting any older. I wanna tour, I wanna make more albums. I wanna do it before, I wanna leave some kind of at least for my son, or some kind of epitaph that’s good and so I don’t leave out of this planet with Rick James was a son of a bitch you know?

Marc Allan: You mean, in his lifetime, right? Because you’ve done a whole lifetimes worth of work already.

Rick James: In his lifetime, exactly.

Marc Allan: Okay. You spent a lot of time on the record, which I think is interesting, reminiscing about the good old days. Talking about how you never had to worry about gunshots and this and that. And do you look at the way the world is now and just think, what the hell happened?

Rick James: I think it’s crazy, man. I think this is the most insane times that I’ve ever seen man. I’ve never seen so much black on black violence. I’ve never seen so many untalented people make so much money so fast. I mean, the whole young generation. We got a whole generation of children out there, especially black children who, number one, don’t have any fathers. Who, number two, are slinging dope and driving BMWs and everything and everybody’s got a fucking beeper living in the ghetto like they’re doctors or lawyers. And they’re all doing it under these scandalous motives. And then you have these songwriters that are coming up, these rappers, which I’m not putting rappers down. A lot of them I really like and a lot of them are saying good things, talking about bitches and hoes and niggers and saying all this kinda shit and I don’t look at that as good for our people. And it’s like, people winning Grammy’s that sample me and everybody else and they’re not even making real music. And it’s just insane, it’s just insane. And when I wrote Good Old Days and it was just like, I just had to say something about, I had to put something on the album that just, in the ’80s and the ’70s, man, we used to go to a concert, we never had to worry about being stabbed or shot or trouble. People got together for fun and love, which is what I’m trying, when I come to Indianapolis, that’s what I wanna see. I wanna see people come out, everyone come out, for a love thing, man. Just come out and enjoy yourself and let’s go back to the times when life was simple. Not go in and be worried about if you got a gun and being searched down for a strap and wow, man, it’s just incredible. Yes, it does bother me. It bothers me. It bothers me, and matter of fact, it’s even bothered me to the point I’ve thought of moving to the Ivory Coast of Africa or Belgium or somewhere to get my son out of this environment, because I don’t even want him growing up in this.

Marc Allan: Yeah, well if you’re living in 818 you’re, it’s not a great environment to raise a kid.

Rick James: No, not at all.

Marc Allan: It’s scary. The world is, the landscape of music’s changed a lot since your last record came out, and the market seems to have a really short memory. I’m wondering, when you first came out and said I wanna make a record, I wanna get back into it, what kind of reaction did you get from record companies?

Rick James: From record companies, they’re all paranoid. They’re all paranoid. Whether I was gonna get high or not. Was it this or that, has he changed, what’s he like, what’s he look it. , how’s he sound, all of this. Will you make a demo out of a solo or 45 million records, so they want me to make a demo. I was pissed. So I said fuck this. I got really frustrated. You know, because people forget really easily. You know, there was a time when I supported companies, you know? I mean, they forget the Mary Jane Girls, Eddie Murphy, they forget the tours and the albums and the Grammy awards and all this. They forget all that. All they remember is that hey, he’s out of prison. Is he getting high, is he doing this, he’s doing that? Okay, well that’s all fine and dandy. It’s natural for the cause, but still, it just got to be so crazy, I decided well, I’m gonna invest my own money and I’m gonna make, put my own album up so I started that. And this guy, Joe Isgrow, who I became partners with on this first album and this was like a fuck you album to record companies, cause this is something for the first time in my entire life, I own my own master, and it’s a great feeling, you know what I mean? Motown doesn’t own it, Warner Brothers doesn’t own it, Berry Gordy doesn’t own it. I own my own master. And Urban Rhapsody is my first step in being independent. And I did it, we did it all ourselves, you know. It was, the graphics, everything. And paid for it ourselves.

Marc Allan: And I take it you’re gonna go out there and sell this thing because-

Rick James: And I’m gonna go out and sell it and I’m gonna go out and try, and give people some real music without all that crap.

Marc Allan: Okay. You mentioned sampling before, and obviously, you know Super Freak was sampled into one of the biggest singles of all time, what do you think of that?

Rick James: I think the checks were great. Unfortunately, MC Hammer, he, I don’t know. I think he went a little nuts thinking that he could actually sample a song, then get such a big record, and then he could’ve carried on that he was creative. I mean, I don’t know what he was thinking. Rappers need to know that their longevity on this planet is very short. And anything, I would tell rappers, hey you need to learn how to play instruments, deal with real instruments. Sampling, you know, pretty soon when the FCC starts coming down and it becomes a government thing, it’s gonna be hard for them to say or do anything without, you know, a bunch of trouble one way or the other. I mean, I enjoy the fact that MC, cause MC Hammer, at least one thing about MC Hammer, he was a clean rapper. He didn’t offend anybody.

Marc Allan: Right, right.

Rick James: I didn’t really mind that.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I take it that it was no surprise to you that his career, you know, would up being.

Rick James: No, it was no surprise at all. Matter of fact, when he came to Buffalo, my home town, and I saw him had like seven or eight trucks. I knew he was through. I looked on stage, there was like a hundred dancers and I said, oh no, oh no, he’s just lost it.

Marc Allan: Yeah, yeah. And these rappers seem to be repeating the same mistakes. You don’t get the impression that these rappers are learning from each other, like.

Rick James: No, no, man. You know, I can’t really say anything about it, because I don’t know, I think they’re all on some kinda strange drug, man. I think they’re all like, you know, they get a little taste of success, and maybe they’ll go off the deep end. I mean, they’ll go into Rick James song with George Clinton and they actually think they’re creative.

Marc Allan: Well, they’re creative because they know the music. At least they spend a little time learning about the music compared to so many kids out there.

Rick James: Well a lot of them do. Warren G’s and DJ Quik. Teddy Riley, you know, I mean there’s a lot of them, man, that studied old school. They really do great jobs and they’re really creative. But then there’s a lot of them who are just out there doing garbage. And I guess the kids, I guess that’s what they wanna hear. That’s what they’re buying. But unfortunately, all that garbage, unfortunate thing is they can’t go out and even do a concert.

Marc Allan: Well, yeah and even that. I mean, you could go, have you seen any rap live?

Rick James: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Very rarely is it done well.

Rick James: It’s very strange. It’s like they stand there, the kids stand there and it doesn’t really seem like they’re having a good time. They’re just there you know what I’m saying?

Marc Allan: They watch for a bit.

Rick James: They’re just watching and looking around, wondering if they’re gonna get shot.

Marc Allan: But they also say they look around and it’s like they never applaud at the end of songs.

Rick James: No they don’t.

Marc Allan: Isn’t that the weirdest?

Rick James: And the rapper gets up and he holds his dick in his hand and he walks back and forth swinging his hand. I don’t understand it, man. I don’t know, maybe I’m too old. Maybe there’s a generation gap, you know? Maybe I’m missing something here.

Marc Allan: A couple other quick things, if I can.

Marc Allan: When you come out and people see you playing an instrument, it just makes me feel like-

Rick James: When I go see groups down from the ’80s or ’70s, it warms my heart so much. I went and saw Larry Graham the other. Larry Graham, Earth Wind and Fire, and I saw War not long ago and Brother Johnson and stuff. And Average White Band. And I just felt so good, man, something inside me just got really warm to see these groups again and to really hear real music. And I’m wanting that same thing from people that come to see us.

Marc Allan: Just a few other quick things. One is, somebody asked me to ask you if you still do Loosey’s Rap.

Rick James: Loosey’s Rap?

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Rick James: Yeah, we’re gonna do a little bit of it.

Marc Allan: Okay.

Rick James: Yeah, we’re gonna do a lot of old songs. Matter of fact, it’s gonna be a real concert. Everything’s gonna be, even the tempo of the songs are gonna be right.

Marc Allan: Okay.

Rick James: It’s not gonna be like the old days just running through stuff. We’re gonna actually give a real show of music.

Marc Allan: Okay, the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock, the entry on you ends by saying that there was a rumor that you were gonna write your autobiography.

Rick James: I did.

Marc Allan: You did? Okay.

Rick James: There a few paragraphs, there’s some things that got to be finished, but it’ll be coming out probably right after this tour.

Marc Allan: Wow, okay. And are you calling it-

Rick James: Super Freak.

Marc Allan: That’s what they said it was gonna be called, okay.

Rick James: And I’ll be working on it with David Rich, hopefully.

Marc Allan: Okay. A lot of times it’s written that you first started your career with Neil Young. And you know, I never read any details of that. Can you tell me what that was like?

Rick James: Well, that was in the village in the ’60s. I had a group called the Mynah Birds. Really was half of Steppenwolf, Nick St. Nicholas who formed Steppenwolf was in the group and Goldy McJohn, our keyboard player. He was the keyboard player for Steppenwolf. And we kinda broke up after a couple years and a guy named Bruce Palmer came and took his place and Neil Young which become Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash. But that was in the village in the ’60s, you know, hanging around. That was with Joni Mitchell and all of us were playing around the same coffee houses, David Clay Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears. Gordon Lightfoot and on and on, you know. It was a great time.

Marc Allan: Where is that music, do you have any idea? Is there anything recorded?

Rick James: I don’t know, man. I would love to find some of it. I would love to find some of it.

Marc Allan: The people you’re mentioning, and the crowd that you’re running in, I mean, they’re all pretty cool people, but that’s an extremely white scene. How did you-

Rick James: Yeah, it was. But I mean, that’s when I was awol from the Navy. I had to hideout.

Marc Allan: You went, did you do Canada?

Rick James: I went to the village. You know, and I happened just to meet these musicians and that’s when I started my life in the music industry.

Marc Allan: Wow.

Rick James: Just walking down the street and, hello?

Marc Allan: Yeah, I’m still here.

Rick James: Some of the guys in the band, kicking me around, I was in my sailor suit, they took me around to coffee houses, I end up singing in a coffee house and the group asked me to join them. But those were great days for me. And those are great, you know, music has no color to me. I mean, I like country western, I love classical, I love jazz, I love Brazilian music. I mean, I love all, I love folk music. I still listen to Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and all those guys, you know?

Marc Allan: Since you were the master of funk, nobody expects that you’re hanging around with Joni Mitchell.

Rick James: Yeah, we kinda laughed at that. Nobody expected Joni to be such a great jazz artist, either.

Marc Allan: Yeah, good point, good point. For another story I’m working on, I’ve been asking everybody I interview, if you became the overlord of pop music, what would be the first thing you would change?

Rick James: What would be the first thing I’d change?

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Rick James: I don’t know, that’s a hard question. I’d change a lot of, I’d change a lot of content and lyrics. I wouldn’t let, I would want music where three or four-year-old, or five your old, six year old would be able to listen to it without being offended.

Marc Allan: Anything else going on that you wanna mention? We covered a lot of ground.

Rick James: Just the tour, I’m really excited about the tour. I’m really excited about Indianapolis, man. I want people in their 30s and 40s to show up strong in Indianapolis, show unity, show love, and show that we can have concerts without violence and that we can have love and that funk still lives. And for all those people who are evoking devils about Rick James or player hating as they call it these days, keep your asses at home. All I want is people that wanna see a good show, wanna hear great music, wanna go back to the times were simple, and when people were loving and caring, cause that’s what the concert and that’s what this tour’s all about.

Marc Allan: Yeah. Well, I wish you the best, and I hope everything works out. I hope you stay healthy and it’s good to have you back.

Rick James: Hey, thank you man.

Marc Allan: You take care, Rick. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

Rick James: Okay, bye-bye.

Marc Allan: Bye-bye.