Thursday, March 28, 2024

Boosty Collins Says He Quit Drugs (LSD) When His Bass Turned into a Snake!

*Bassist Bootsy Collins, the self-proclaimed “world’s only rhinestone rock-star doll,” released his 14th solo LP, World Wide Funk, on October 27 via Mascot Records. The 15-track album includes guest spots from rappers Doug E. Fresh, Big Daddy Kane, DJ Quik and Dru Down.

Rolling Stone describes the album as “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.”

“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?

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Musician Bootsy Collins is 65

Collins took a trip down memory lane with the UK Guardian, in which he details his enlightenment, drug addiction and why quit James Brown’s band.

Below are excerpts.

LSD was a big part of why I left James Brown’s band. I promised myself I’d never do it during a show, but we had a father-son relationship, and he pestered me so much not to do it that one day I just did. My bass turned into a snake and I can’t even remember playing. After, he called me in the back room, as he always did, and was explaining how terrible I was – even when I wasn’t taking LSD. I laughed so hard I was on the floor. To him, that was very disrespectful. He had his bodyguard throw me out.

My time in Funkadelic was about creativity. I was 21 and there were no rules. The best time was when we crossed the border to Canada in cars filled with smoke – George [Clinton] had rented a big place on a lake and there were about 20 of us and we recorded America Eats Its Young. The deepest thing to happen was getting busted in Toronto for mescaline and going to jail overnight.

I got worn out from being Bootsy. Going into the 80s, I was trying to get away from him. He was hitting up the festivals, the stadiums, headlining for 100,000 people. He was like a monster. The business side got really big and ugly because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just there to play music, and the next thing I knew, everything had turned around.

I came to my earthly consciousness in 1984. I was riding a street bike in the woods and was high – it was like I was asking for it. I flipped over a few times and was told I wasn’t going to play bass again. I was laid up for months and did a lot of thinking. Once I got the focus off me, I found I didn’t need the drugs. When I later worked with Deee-Lite, it was perfect for me – I got to just be in the band and not be the star.

Read the full article here.

 

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