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The Iconic Bootsy Collins Speaks On 'World Wide Funk,' Embracing The New & Guitar Battles (Interview)


POSTED BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS


Celebrating a birthday and a new album, Bootsy Collins still has more of that funky stuff to share with the world.

“They call it the White House, but that’s a temporary condition too,” George Clinton, prophesied on the cut “Chocolate City” co-written by him, the late Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins. Though we don’t have a Black House, Bootsy Collins’ new album, dropping the day after his 66th birthday is just as funktastic. World Wide Funk, his first album in six years, features an eclectic group of musicians, including Iggy Pop, Stanley Clarke, Musiq Soulchild, Alissia Beneviste, Chuck D and Buckethead to just name a few.

Bootsy is still the starry-eyed otherworldly bassist, grounded in the party funk of everyman, and has been keeping it on the one for nearly 50 years now. Starting as a teenager in James Brown’s backing band, he rode through on George Clinton’s Mothership with Parliament-Funkadelic, co-writing classic jams like “Flashlight,” “Chocolate City,” “Mothership Connection and “Give Up the Funk”. He would later keep it popping with his own Rubber Band, and slay millions as a solo artist with over two dozen albums in the last forty years.

World Wide Funk is due out today on Mascot Records, following his last album Tha Funk Capital Of the World. Like James Brown did with his fatherly discipline (including making the JB’s wear suits) and George Clinton provided for an outlet for all of his far-out space fantasies, World Wide Funk‘s strength lies not just in Bootsy’s virtuosity and flexibility, but in his introduction of supremely talented newcomers like singer and songwriter Kali Uchis, singer and multi-instrumentalist Alissia Benveniste and guitar bender Justin Johnson and having them blend seamlessly with the old guards like Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh and Musiq Soulchild. Newcomers like Johnson show that the industry isn’t searching hard enough to find new talent. Bootsy found Johnson through social media. And he has been grooming the next generation of funkateers by providing instruments to disadvantaged schools through his Bootsy Collins Foundation and his Funk University until he went back out on the road.

Iggy Pop lends his voice on the intro: “Bootsy Collins was born a long, long time ago in a subterranean cavern full of shining dinosaurs deep below.” The tune, “A Salute to Bernie” honors his friend, one half of one of the greatest writing partnerships in funk music, Bernie Worrell, who died last June from cancer. Bootsy honored Worrell with his own recordings, taken from sessions the two of them worked on in 2002. The album isn’t an ego-driven walk through nostalgia, but rather, proof that age has no number on imagination, nor on the funk. But still there are flashes of his familiar starry-eyed humor and wordplay on “Worth My While”: “In funk we thrust, who else been on my bus?” he asks amidst Uchis’s slippery seductive vocals. On “World Wide Funk,” he says, “Don’t start no funk won’t be none.” On “Hi-on-Heels,” he raps, “Aw twerk it. If you need more loving, put this wood in your oven.”

The iconic Bootsy Collins spoke to @Okayplayer about the old days, the new days and the coming days, including a record collaboration with Snoop Dogg.


Okayplayer: Bootsy, you were the executive producer for World Wide Funk, correct? Snoop (Dogg) and DJ Quik also produced a few songs, yes? So, tell us about your style of producing and what was the experience of working with those two was like?


Bootsy Collins: (Snoop and Quik) I’ve known for quite some time. With Quik, he and I were on the road last year and we got a chance to work with one another for a while. We had always talked about doing something together, but we never got a chance to. I happened to be working on this record and he was like, ‘I have something I want you to hear.’ He let me hear it and man, it was funky. I jumped in there and helped to develop it so it could be a track on the record, and that’s what we did. Snoop, well, we had been talking about doing a whole album, period. So, we did a whole album. I just didn’t finish my part because we were working on this record (World Wide Funk), and he said that once it was out of the way, we could jump back in and finish our record. (Laughs) We got a whole album that is just laying around until I got World Wide Funk done.


OKP: Tell me about your role as a producer on your earlier projects. What kind of things did you learn from George Clinton that you used as producer back then?


BC: The main thing I think is to make musicians feel at home and feel like gets along. Our sessions were more like a party as opposed to you coming in to work. I learned from him how to just be loose. George was like, “You got five or six hours to record. No problem. When you feel good about it, go do it.” His whole vibe was whatever you got, I love it. I was picking up all that from George, y’know. I was also picking up stuff from the engineer, Jim Vitti, who was doing the technical stuff like microphone placement and how they set up the drums.

It was on the job training. Everything I was seeing I was absorbing. Working with people is such a learning experience, and nowadays that experience is out of the equation. You play with yourself. How can a brother learn anything playing with himself? Even if you had a problem with your old lady or whatever, you could come into the studio and work it out with somebody. You’d just turn the tape on and whatever sadness or hurt or emotion you’re feeling you could put it on tape. All of that was so real.
We would put ourselves on tape and people would feel it. The people felt like they were a part of it, because they were. We weren’t no different. We felt the same stuff on the streets that everybody else felt. The only difference was that we had an opportunity to put what we felt down and get it out of our systems.


OKP: I have to say that Justin Johnson is a monster playing that guitar, Bootsy…


BC: I wanted it (World Wide Funk) to be different, but I wanted it to have some things on there that hardcore funkateers could relate to. I wanted to embrace them both—the old and the new generation. This (project) is about old school and new school and everything in between.


OKP: There are a lot of new artists on World Wide Funk that I had to look up and I was pleasantly surprised…


BC: When I was coming up I met all of these street people that were so bad on any instrument you could name. They could play anything. They were the ones that were always overlooked. No one ever signed them and they were the ones who were always on the corners being so bad on their instruments. The whole market was missing these really great people. So, I wanted to use my platform to make that statement. Y’all are missing it, man! Y’all manufacturing things, while the real talent is still on the street.

I ain’t out here to talk about me. These artists are out here on the street and they are hungry. It’s easy for me to make music, but it is more than that (to me). It’s seeing these faces light up when it is their turn to shine. I remember that feeling when I was coming up and James (Brown) would say, “Bootsy! Hit me!” You talk about somebody shining (laughs)! George allowed me to go in the studio and experiment to find myself and I’ll never forget that.
I just had to do something instead of play and act a damn fool (laughs).


OKP: Why do you think that all of that talent came out of Cincinnati and Dayton?


BC: Every club that we went to—there was a lot of clubs between Cincinnati and Dayton—we tried to be the happening thing. You weren’t going to find it on the radio. The happening thing was being there at these after hour spots and clubs. For us, we were feeling the people, seeing the people and performing for the people. You could see what the people were wearing that night. You could hear what the artist was playing that night. What are they going to do different? You had choices on both sides with that right there. Nowadays, the only choice you got is on your iPhone. You’re not in communication with anyone.


OKP: Do you think that funk has carried on successfully into the 21st century?


BC: It is carrying on, yes, but people still don’t want to recognize the real raw. We (Parliament-Funkadelic) were scary. That was a scary thing that could’ve gotten out of hand, y’know? The market knew if this really caught on we were going to be in trouble. After we started sizzling in the early ‘80s, it was like Bootsy and them must’ve got their funk from Rick James. We were like, “Huh?” If you from that other side, you don’t know what to expect except what the radio taught. They weren’t trying to hear us.

Anything we talked about doing we had to pay extra for. Comic books in the album? Uh, no. The funky star glasses? Take it out of my money. They package it up as cheap as they can, so they can put it out and sell it for as much as they can get. We thought and felt different about that. We were gonna give the people more than what they were funkin’ for (laughs).


OKP: Whatever happened to the Sweat Band and the Uncle Jam label?


BC: It was George trying to do a whole lot of business and he really didn’t know how to do it. That’s why it fell short of what it could’ve been. It should’ve been somebody that had nothing to do with it and have George telling him what to do. The business part is the curse of this music thing. The music is the blessing and the bliss. The business part, I hate it. I had to learn how to deal with it, but that’s not really our thing.


OKP: Tell me about the tribute to Bernie Worrell on the album. Were these unreleased keyboard tracks featured on World Wide Funk?


BC: Bernie and I used to record together. Anything could be going down and all of a sudden, I would feel a vibe and say, “Let’s go ahead and put it down.” I always had a studio set up and running, so we could be rehearsing and I’d feel a vibe and we’d record it. We had a bunch of those tracks and songs that we never did anything with, so I went back and listened to them and picked the ones I felt like Bernie would want to hear. That unfinished track felt like it was the one (for World Wide Funk]) I wanted to make sure it was Bernie playing all of the keyboard parts. The only thing that we put on there that was live was the drum. I played one part, where the guitar was laid down, and Bernie played all the rest on the keyboard. It had that Bernie thing… the way he communicates. He communicates better through his keyboard than actually talking to you. He guided me through there.


OKP: “Worth My While” is a lead track from World Wide Funk that is very reminiscent of old school Bootsy…


BC: That is like one of the young parts of me, y’know? The relations thing. “What’s a Telephone Bill,” “I’d Rather Be With You,” “Oh Boy, Girl,” all those things rolled up into one. My personal, personal stash. I wanted to hear a woman’s take on it. I have a lot more women leading on this record. Women are coming out of their seats now and it’s that time. The women had something to say on this album and they stepped up and showed out.


OKP: Can you update us and your fans on what’s going on with Funk University?


BC: (Funk University) was an online school that we had about three years ago. It featured different bass players and was going on for a while until I got back onto the road and couldn’t keep up with it. (Funk University) took a lot of attention in being put together and getting the different artists involved. It was a great thing for about two-to-three years, and could be done again with the proper sponsoring. We are still working on Funk University because people love it. It was a great way to have people connect with each other and bring artists and musicians together.

Funk is making something out of nothing. We’ve always had nothing and made something out of it. That’s what we do. It’s in us. That’s what hip-hop did, y’know? Mama’s record player is in the living room? Let me see what I can do with that. Of course, mama was through with you because you were scratching up her records—but we made something out of nothing.


OKP: Switching gears a bit, but were there any memorable guitar battles that you share with us?


BC: It wasn’t a battle consciously (laughs)… We were always just trying to be the best you could be. That was what George and I would be doing. Every time I thought I would beat somebody over to the studio, all those mugs would be there practicing (laughs). It kept fueling the fire that kept us flowing. Everybody wanted to be the best at any and every time they got a chance to be so. When you find yourself slacking somebody else would attempt to move into that position. So, you’d be in the studio and feel like dag, I wasn’t on it.

Those “battles” made me want to be better, y’know? James (Brown) would call us into the dressing room after we had really just murdered the people. He’d be there after the people had this beautiful performance from James Brown and The JB’s, and he’d be like, “Meh. Y’all weren’t on the one.” We looked at each other with a little smile like what is he talking about. “Nah, y’all wasn’t on it,” he would say. “Y’all didn’t kill me tonight.” He would do that every night! We would be trying to figure out what this crazy man is talking about. All the evidence is pointing towards us being great, and he’d be like, “Y’all wasn’t on it.”

Each time he told me that it made me practice that much harder. I would practice until my fingers would bleed. And it was because James was telling me I wasn’t on it. I felt like I was, but when James Brown say you ain’t on it, you ain’t on it. So, I better practice some more and I would have the band doing the same.

He was making me a better person and I didn’t have enough sense to know it. We sometimes get ourselves into situations where you have a negative thing going on. The main thing is to take that negative and to make something positive out of it. We have such a hard time doing that because we have always been treated so negatively. So, to swallow another negative pill is too much, but that’s why we can take more (than others). Other people haven’t gone through it. They don’t know what it feels like or they can’t relate. Ain’t no way you gonna understand that real raw funk because if you don’t go through that, there ain’t no way you gonna know how it makes you feel.

That’s what it is really about, man. Just learning how to be yourself and not getting frustrated with people who don’t know. Once you get all that in place then you can start embracing everything.


Bootsy Collins’ World Wide Funk is available for purchase and streaming on all digital platforms. Press play and support the funk!

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Bootsy Collins Keeps It Real On ‘World Wide Funk,’ Trump & Faith

Written By Desire Thompson October 31 2017, 10:36 AM ET


Bootsy Collins is a firm believer in the creator, or as he likes to say, the one. His faith, paired with drive and patience have kept him sane in an ever changing world. During our hour-long conversation, his verbosity is appreciated as we discuss World Wide Funk, his first musical offering in six years and what the one has in mind for us.

“They told us we were naked. They told us we had big noses. They told us this,” he says about white societal standards. “We have to embrace what we are. It’s what the one wanted us to be. No matter what they say. They’re going to act a fool, but that doesn’t mean we have to.” Bootsy, born William Earl Collins, keeps the art of self-love close to his heart. It’s what drove his music during his time with James Brown, Parliament Funkadelic, his new album and of course, funk music.

“Funk is making something out of nothing. We had to make due with whatever we had,” he said about his early days in music. Little did he know that his position would go on to spawn gangsta rap’s G-Funk era and R&B’s recent gems like Thundercat’s Drunk and Childish Gambino’s Awaken My Love!. Unbeknownst to many, funk has found its way back to mainstream music and to a new generation who probably may just know Collins as the guy with the colorful outfits.

“To take that away, that’s our lives, it ain’t just the music,” he adds. “That’s why a lot of other people don’t understand what we go through. The music is there to say it all. You put all your emotions and your feelings into that.” His sentiments are felt through World Wide Funk. Made with a balance of yesterday and today, Collins reminds us all of who did it best. Acting as a family reunion of sorts, the celebratory album brings together OG’s like Big Daddy Kane, Snoop Dogg and Doug E. Fresh as well as fresh faces like Kali Uchis, October London and funk bassist Alissia Benveniste.

But it’s not always a joyous occasion. With today’s political climate hard to ignore, Collins admits the news cycle loops through his mind. In true black uncle form, Collins refers to Donald Trump as “that mug,” while admiring Colin Kaepernick for throwing a wrench into American’s issue with modern athletic activism.

“When I came up, we had a lot of athletes that stepped up to the plate,” he says about black sports icons like Muhammad Ali, Althea Gibson, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. “They didn’t care about sponsorships or none of that, just stepping up for the people. Kaepernick did that. Mugs have joined him and it’s the best sign I’ve seen so far.

With so much playing into funk today, VIBE speaks with the music legend about World Wide Funk, questioning the status quo and why funk will always rule the universe.
***


Vibe: World Wide Funk sounds like a fun family reunion. What was the creative process behind it?


Bootsy Collins: You get to a point where you don’t want to keep repeating yourself. I asked myself, ‘Do I do this album the same way I’ve done the rest?’ So this time, I worked with a lot of young people and they inspired me. Watching them push themselves made me feel like doing music again.

When making the album, I didn’t know exactly what it was going to be or how it was going to turn out, but I’m used to taking chances. That’s what funk is.


Vibe: It was great to hear so many artists, especially the presence of older and new acts like Big Daddy Kane and Kali Uchis.


We were just on the road last year with Kool and The Gang. Man, these cats still have an audience! They were at the top of the charts. They helped started it up. So I put the youth and the hip hop guys who brought it to a head together. I thought, ‘Well now I need to put all of this on one album and see where it goes.’ I kinda overdid it. Instead of doing ten songs, I did about 40.

With older age things are hard to get started but once you do, you can’t stop that mug. I picked out about 20 tracks and then settled on 15. I wanted to make a platform for young artists and musicians because they don’t have it like we had. We had clubs and a lot of exposure and nowadays they don’t really have that. They have social media, which is good, but there’s nothing like hearing music live. Plugging music into social media is a saturated thing now.


Vibe: What I loved about the album are the length of the songs. You’re able to soak it all in while jamming out at the same time.


Everything goes out so fast that you barely get to feel it. I was hoping that apart of this would sound that out. You have to start feeling within yourselves because that’s what’s missing. I really think we’re losing our feeling. We need to bring about a balance where you can still feel. We’re on a mission to just take feelings away and it’s kind of sad.


Vibe: I do that sometimes too; passing off my emotions as the ‘case of the feels.’ Why not catch feelings? We’re human. It adds to your life experience.


Some of our best entertainer’s music stem from tragic moments in life. They live from that. The funk is that. It’s the way we came up. It’s the music. Funk is making something out of nothing. We had to make due with whatever we had. To take that away, that’s our lives, it ain’t just the music. That’s why a lot of other people don’t understand what we go through. The music is there to say it all. You put all your emotions and your feelings into that.


Vibe: It really is. So after you finished the album you have these 15 tracks. What was something you learned about yourself while making these songs and how did you feel when you finished it?


That’s a heck of a question. I never really thought about how I felt afterwards. I always feel like I could do something different. I’ve always had an old perfectionist type of vibe, but you know, overall I’m very satisfied. Not just what I did, but what everybody did.

They put their whole heart and soul into it. They didn’t just come be on the track to be on it. Whatever you put yourself into, whatever you put your name on, you want it to be a part of you. And that’s changed now. It’s all about getting paid. We’re losing our creativity, art form and losing it all. Back in the day, we were so happy to play. I would show up before the door opened. That was the times and this is different day. You can’t expect people to do that. I just lived through those changes and I see where the changes are. We need some kind of balance before we end up just like them.

Even back to the cotton fields. We’ve always sung songs to get through. Nobody can do that. We had to do that because that was the funk and faith in us. Now we’re throwing all of that away for money. It’s a balancing act so I wanted to make a record from where I’m coming from. Where the young people can be coming from, even for today.


Vibe: We hope to be part of the generation that changes that. Faith and love plays a lot into that. You feel a lot of love on this album. How do you define love in 2017?


It’s not hard for me since that’s I got a lot of love to give. Music is probably the secondary thing but my mom gave me love. That’s where I got it from. I grew up in home without a father. She encouraged me so much and that’s really all I got to hold on to. The music is the vehicle for my love to be shared. I can’t do nothing or go anywhere without love happening first. No one can take that away from me.


Vibe: I would hope that someone who isn’t aware of funk would learn something from this album.


That’s pretty much the key. I didn’t know anything. I was 19 traveling around the world with James Brown. I couldn’t believe it at the time. You just never know what the one has for you. You just take what you got and you do the best you can with it. You just have to keep moving. Just like you. You’re a young head and there’s no reason for you not to be good at whatever you do. Y’all got all the information. We had none.

I’m grateful that I had my mother to guide me and James as a father figure. He would give me lectures and taught me discipline. We were out ‘67 and ‘68 rioting, breaking into stores and lighting things on fire. I wasn’t watching it on TV, were were doing it and he saved us from that. We got on the road with him and we couldn’t do nothing but play and now I think of what he’s done for me and what I can do for someone else.

It started becoming real to me. All I knew was that my brother played guitar and I wanted to play guitar too. He was my big bro so that’s who I looked up to. If he wasn’t there, we definitely wouldn’t be having this conversation.


Vibe: Thank goodness he piqued your interest. If you had to introduce someone to funk with three songs from the album, which ones would they be?

“Bass Rigged Funk,” “Pusherman” and “Come Back Bootsy.”


Vibe: What’s “Come Back Bootsy” about?


It derives from a vibe that we have during our live show. People just get into the holy ghost thing. I go out in the audience and I touch folks. It’s as real as one can be in this world. I figured this had to go on the album. It’s one of the hardest things to duplicate; that live vibe. It’s so magical.

Funk was a bad word and that was our whole mantra. We couldn’t say it on the radio. But then people started coming to our shows and that’s when we got on the radio. That’s what people seem to forget, that people bring change.


Vibe: Did today’s world go through your mind as you made the album?


I’m aware. It’s sad that we’re going right back to the same mess. We have come along way but we still got that and it seems no one wants to do anything about it but us. And then someone does step up to do something about it, they get taken out. Either you do it together or it can’t get done. You have to keep the faith and the fight. You hear about it everyday. It makes you sad, angry and makes you not want to deal with it.


Vibe: You get caught up in the reaction.


It’s something new everyday. Like what he said to the widow of the soldier (Sgt. La David Johnson) That mug really don’t get it. Why is he up there? Why is this mug still here? No one seemed to care when the black community was battling drugs. Now it’s an epidemic. With black people, it was shame on them because they were doing drugs.

The system was always broken. We just learned to wiggle in it.
This isn’t just happening, it’s on purpose. They told us we were naked. They told us we had big noses. They told us this. We have to embrace what we are. It’s what the one wanted us to be. No matter what they say. They’re going to act a fool, but that doesn’t mean we have to.

We’re buying into it because of the paper god. Do you know what that is?


Vibe: Money?


It’s become so mighty that we want it so bad, we want it as bad as they do. We gotta bring it back.


Vibe: People are doing that now, trying to bring conciseness in the public light. Even Colin Kaepernick. He’s filing a grievance against the NFL. He’s fighting the fight but being smart about it.


To me, that was the starting sign for everyone coming together. When I came up, we had a lot of athletes that stepped up to the plate. They didn’t care about sponsorships or none of that, just stepping up for the people. Kaepernick did that. Mugs have joined him and it’s the best sign I’ve seen so far.

Vibe: Took them a year to get there, but I think they were scared.


Not just scared, but didn’t want to lose sponsorships. Like I said, it’s a different time. They get money and their addicted. I’m very proud, and although it took a year, at least these mugs clocked in! They might have never clocked in with the way this addiction is going.


Vibe: Towards the end of the album, there’s the tribute to Bernie Worrell. How was it creating the song with Worrell’s own recordings?


That was my cat. He made me a complete musician. I didn’t go to school for music. I didn’t know how to read music, I just played what I heard and what I felt. I was like a receiver for the universe.

With Bernie, he was classically trained so when we got together you thought, ‘Oh they’re going to bump heads.’ I needed him like he needed me and no one could’ve told me otherwise. Even when he knew I was making the wrong chord, he made it sound right. That’s the way the world should be working.

You can stream and purchase World Wide Funk here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/world-wide-funk/id1271392172?ign-mpt=uo%3D8

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/bootsy-collins-on-james-brown-george-clinton-and-drugs-w509835


Bootsy Collins on What James Brown Taught Him, Why He Quit Drugs
As the bass icon releases new LP 'World Wide Funk,' he reflects on the perils of stardom, the genius of his late friend Bernie Worrell and more


By Kory Grow


There's a reason why the self-proclaimed "world's only rhinestone rock-star doll," bassist Bootsy Collins, has taken six years to put out his new album, World Wide Funk: He was awaiting the urge. "It's a feeling like you gotta release yourself," the typically hilarious yet surprisingly soft-spoken artist says. "It's like going to the bathroom, man. You know, 'I gotta poop. I can't hold it no more.' I can't hold it, man." Collins laughs at his own analogy and says, "I probably gotta get out more often. I've been pent up too long."


Collins' scatological joke, of course, undersells World Wide Funk. The albumis a continuation of the genre-spanning R&B-funk–hip-hop amalgam of his last release, 2011's The Funk Capital of the World, except with more focus on musicianship. In addition to a typically star-studded list of collaborators, including Snoop Dogg, Chuck D, Victor Wooten, Buckethead and Collins' late P-Funk associate Bernie Worrell, among others, he collaborated with emerging artists in an effort to find a new sound.

"I didn't want to make a record like I've been making before," he says during a lengthy, career-spanning interview with Rolling Stone. "Everybody knows what to expect from me, so I didn't want to do that. I wanted to add a fresh, young energy to it, so I involved some young musicians and had them around me in recording sessions. I know what old funkateers wanna hear, but how do you get out of that if you don't want to just do that?"

Collins says the experience of working with younger musicians like bassist Manou Gallo and guitarist Justin Johnson, helped him accept change, embrace new technology and "open the mind." "They were wild and crazy about the opportunity to be with me," he says, "and they're feeling like they ain't nobody yet, and I'm saying, 'You are.'"

It led him to create the album's bluesy, country-flavored "Boomerang," the upbeat jazzy dance number "Snow Bunny" and the rap-inflected modern funk of album closer "Illusions." To him, it's just a new extension of what the man known as Bootzilla has always been about. "I don't want to leave all the funkateers hanging, so I'm gonna take 'em with me and I'm just gonna build on what we do," the singer says, with optimism beaming out of him. "And then we'll all be out on the high sea, waving and funking and having a good time."


RS: When you felt you were ready, was it easy to get started on World Wide Funk?


Yeah. When I started the record, it just felt right. I didn't know what I was doing as far as what it was going to wind up being. But to me, the hardest thing to do in life is to get started. I grew up with brothers all on the street corner about what they was gonna do. And I was one of them. It just so happened that I learned early that I gotta turn this talk into doing something. My brother had a guitar and he wouldn't let me play it, so I knew I had to get a paper route and started saving my pennies; I started making $2.50 a week and I thought I was rich, man. The guitar I bought cost $29.95. You know how many months that took me to pay for that?


RS: About a year.


Yeah.


RS: There's a track on the record, "Bass-Rigged System," where you play with four other bassists – Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, Alissia Benveniste and Manou Gallo. How do you pull something like that off?


It's a thrill. My first concern was getting it down. I knew that if we started vibing, it was gonna go down and it did. At the end of the day it was, "Let's see how we can place these things to make some kind of sense?" There are gonna be people looking, listening to this and wanting to hear what so-and-so played, so I tried to do that part of it so people would actually hear what each one was doing.


RS: I love the album's "Salute to Bernie," which features your recordings with Bernie Worrell before his death last year. What are your fondest memories of him?


Probably a better question would be what were not my fondest times (laughs). It was like he was the other half of you; he makes you a whole person. He made my music whole. He makes me feel like the part I don't have – the technical part, as far as knowing what chords go together and how to read music – he knows how to make what I play sound like I did on purpose.


RS: He complements you.


Yeah, and he does it without questions. He never asked, "Why did you do that? That ain't the right chord." It would be like, "OK, if that's what you wanna play, let me see what I can do to help it sound right." He was always like that. He was just a joy to be around. We gained so much from each other.


RS: What did he learn from you?


He learned that you don't have to be correct traditionally. Sometimes you can play whatever you're feeling and just make it work. I didn't know any better coming from James Brown's school; James just did what he felt.


RS: What are the biggest lessons you learned from James Brown?


The most important one was that he told me I was too busy; I was playing a lot of stuff. He loved all the different stuff I was playing, but if I were to give him the one – the one beat on every four count – and then play all that other stuff, he said, "Then, you my boy."

He treated me like a son. And being out of a fatherless home, I needed that father figure and he really played up to it. I mean, good Lord. Every night after we played a show, he called us back to give us a lecture about how horrible we sounded. (Affects James Brown voice) "Nah, not on it, son. I didn't hear the one. You didn't give me the one." He would tell me this at every show. One night, we knew we wasn't sounding really good – we were off – and he calls us back there and said, "Uh huh, now that's what I'm talkin' about. Y'all was on it tonight. Y'all hit the one." My brother (guitarist Phelps "Catfish" Collins) and I looked at each other like, "This mother has got to be crazy." We knew in our heart and soul that we wasn't all that on that show. So then I started figuring out his game, man. By telling me that I wasn't on it, he made me practice harder. So I just absorbed what he said and used it in a positive way.


RS: Since we're talking about how you developed your style, I'm curious what you think of this. In George Clinton's book, he said that Parliament-Funkadelic found its stride when you played wah-wah style bass through a Mu-Tron on Chocolate City's "Right On." Do you agree with that?


I think he's right, 'cause after we did that I felt like I had something to offer instead of just being a bass player. I felt like I had a signature. When we recorded that, it set a sound for us as a group – as a band and I guess as a player as well.
"'Flash Light' was more of a Parliament song, and George called it out: 'You know, well, give that to me,'" Collins says. "So he took that and I took 'Bootzilla.' And they both were hits."

RS: What was your process like back then? I believe "Flash Light" was a track you recorded with your brother.


Me and my brother used to just put tracks together, 'cause George would always be the one to pick what songs were going for Parliament and what's going for Funkadelic. I had a handle on the songs I liked for myself personally, like for Bootsy's Rubber Band. But (Parliament-Funkadelic's brass section) the Horny Horns and my brother and I would just record tracks.

So when we did "Flash Light," I was in need of one other song on the Bootsy? Player of the Year album. So I recorded "Flash Light" and I recorded "Bootzilla." I happened to like "Bootzilla" for Bootsy's Rubber Band, because that was more the monster I was trying to create. "Flash Light" was more of a Parliament song, and George called it out: "You know, well, give that to me." So he took that and I took "Bootzilla." And they both were hits.


RS: You were talking earlier about the new approach you took onWorld Wide Funk. Will you be doing much of the older stuff on tour?


I know I might have to do a few, but I'm gonna try to make sure they don't push me to do a whole set like I have been doing. I think this album is going to allow me to break out of having to do that. Because this ain't back in the day. This is a new day and the sooner we embrace that, the better. Being creative calls for change. If I did the older stuff, it would have to be moving forward. Just me being in the mix is old school enough. You're gonna get what I got in me. So I'm looking forward to the challenge.


RS: About 20 years ago, you told Rolling Stone, "I got so tired of living up to that Bootsy character. I'd become a so-called 'star' and I just didn't know how to handle it." How did you find the place where you're at right now?


A lot had it do with time and a lot had to do with backing off "Bootsy" and becoming William again. I came home to see mama one day with all the boys and girls with me, and I had the star glasses on – I was decked out with my leathers on like I was still onstage. I came home, and she slapped the glasses of me. I'm like, "What was that about?" She said, "Go out there and take that garbage out, boy." And I was like, "Oh, man." I was very embarrassed in front of all my friends. But I needed that. That slap right there let me know that when you come home, you take the glasses off. You ain't nobody but William here. And I had to realize that.

A lot of things had to happen to me. I fell off my motorcycle and had a terrible accident. The doctors told me I wasn't gonna be able to use my right arm and I'd never play again. And that scared me to death. So that combination right there was enough to turn me around to say, "Wait a minute. It's all right to be that guy when it's time to be that guy, but you don't have to be that guy at home." I thought I had to be him 27 hours a day.


RS: That sounds like a hard lesson.


It's like the Frankenstein monster: Once you get him up and rolling, that mother gonna turn on you. I had to accept that this was my fault. I'm the one that's out here crazy, doing all these drugs. 'Cause I didn't get into it just to do that. And I found out that I put more time into doing drugs and partying than I did making music.


RS: Did drugs ever help your creativity?


Definitely, but I wouldn't say go out and try it. For me starting off, I was just adventurous. I was trying different stuff. LSD was probably the culprit for opening my mind to anything and everything possible: I mean the colors, the clothing, the self-expression, the whole love-and-peace thing. It had to be in there, but what I was doing helped bring it out even more. It pumped it up faster like a time traveler. ... It was the trip of a lifetime, and I think it worked for me. I felt good about it.


RS:What made you stop taking drugs?


The motorcycle accident and the mother slap. And the other part was in 1979, I got on the SST (supersonic transport plane) going over to Europe. I had been wanting to fly on that thing. They had just came out. Everybody was telling us how quick you get there, so I had wanted to fly it. As soon as I got on it, 45 minutes into the flight, we lost all of the engines. So you're talking about somebody who's scared to death, man. Then we hit the sound barrier, and you just heard this big boom. I'm sitting by the window, 'cause I always sit by the window over the wing, and as soon as I heard the boom, I saw big flash of fire come from one of the motors. We were going straight down. You ever seen a plane coming out of the air? And not only that, I had just come back from the movies watching Jaws. I was like, "Oh, my God, Jaws, I'm coming to see you."

Now put that together. OK, I'm gonna crash. Then if I ain't dead, Jaws is gonna eat me. And then one of the engines kicked back in and we were able to fly back to New York sideways. It was a crash landing, but we made it. And that was one of the incidences that helped me come off of everything I was on. I made all these promises to God, like, "If you get me out of this one, Lord, help me. I promise I won't take no more." I stayed off planes until I got with Deee-Lite in 1991. Everywhere I went between those times it was bus, a train or boat.

I kept saying that for a while that it started like me crying wolf and then at some point I had to get serious. Whatever point that was, I throwed all my drugs away and I stopped taking them. That was in, like, '84 or '85. That's when it started to become clear what I needed to get back to, which was the music.


RS: That will definitely turn your life around.


Yeah, it did. And I'm thankful. A lot of things that we think are negative to us help shape our lives. Like the thing James (Brown) was doing when he was saying I wasn't on it. That was a negative thing and that was why he was doing it to me. It helped shape my life and make me better. A lot of things come at you in a negative way and it depends on how you accept it and respond to it. It can make you a better person.


RS:What lesson did you take from that that you rely on today?


I just wanted to play in the band. I didn't want to lead the band, because it took too much. All you wanna do is have fun with the people, and then it gets thrown on you to do this. It's like, "Man, all I wanna do is just play music for the people. Is that so hard to understand?" You gotta come up with a balance, because you have to do it all. I had to step away from it to find out how to do it. And I'm still finding out. It's something that you never really grasp.