BOOTSY: Hello Where are you now?

AMP: San Francisco, I think it's about 8 a.m here and I'm still asleep.

B: We are just waking up ourselves. We've been doing these one nighters and it's going pretty good, but you know It's hard to get the sleeping part together.

AMP: Tell me. I don't have any one nighters and I still can't master that sleep thing.

B: (laughing) So are we, for real. Yeah So how's It going out that way?

AMP: As far as I can tell, It's great.

B: Yes, We have had a few days off and we have been rehearsing and getting it together for San Francisco, We love It there.

AMP: SF is a beautiful city and you definitely have a bunch of fans here. I've been getting a lot of pictures of you in the mail and all of them are for different projects and with different record labels.

B: Oh, yeah, which ones do you have?

AMP: Let's see, I have this pop up cardboard cut out of you for Bootsy's New Rubber Band "Blasters of the Universe", I have had a few people beg me for it, it's great. I have Bootsy Collins as Zillatron, From Bill Lazwell’s Black Arc series, You look like the coolest sci-fi musician, I framed that one. Then, I have one of you with George Clinton and Ice Cube.

B: I like to keep busy.

AMP: Who is with Bootsy's Rubber Band on this tour?

B: We call it Bootsy's New Rubber Band and the reason is that we have some new people, but we still have some of the original people, like Frankie Cash (the drummer), Mudbone (our vocalist), Rick Gardener (on the party horns) Let's see, we have Razor Sharp, the original keyboard player and, of course, Bernie Worrell, an original P-Funkster, and everyone else is kind of new. I can give you those names too. The lead guitar player is Gary James, we call him Dirty Mud (he laughted) Larry Cornet is the rhythm guitar player, we call him Flip and we got Greg Fitz - the newest keyboard player and we call him Daffy. Then we have two other vocalists, Michael Gathertite and Henry Benefield and they are both new.

AMP: A friend of mine saw The New Rubber Band in Japan. She said that it was just great : Was it good for you too?

B: Oh, yeah, wow that's really happening. We were over there a few months back and we had a blast there. Come to think of it, it was really happening.

AMP: Travelling from memory lane to the present: What: projects are you working on now for future release?

B: Well actually, we are working on the live album from the shows in Japan. I'm trying to get that finished. I’m working on Bobby Bird's live record. He was an original Flame with James Brown, I'm working with a Funk Rock group called Shag, I'm working with them to get their project finished. I 'm working on a new Blaster's II, The Enlightened One and I'm working on the new fuzzface record.

AMP: Just a few little things to keep you occupied in between tours?

B: Me busy??? I'm working on all these projects.

AMP: Where are you doing that?

B: In, Cincinnati.

AMP: Your home town. You mentioned James Brown, I know you played bass on "Sex Machine," but I've heard conflicting reports about you writing it. Did you ?

B: I would say helped.....

AMP: And how old were you?

B: I was about 15.

AMP: At 15 years old, how in the world do you write a song like "Sex Machine"

B: I didn't know any thing about it. Musically speaking, I came up with the line and my brother came up with the guitar part and we didn't know anything about writing then. We were just so happy to be playing with James Brown. We wouldn't have dared asked for any writer's credits, we didn't know anything about that.

AMP: I understand that but what I meant was, how did you know enough about the sex part of "Sex Machine" to write: a song like that at that age? I guess you were rather "progressive"'? Generations have spent time in the passion pit listening to that tune.

B: (laughing) We were brash young fellows'. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians were the Hip Cats, and I was hanging with them anyway. I Just started out real early.

AMP: So in a sense, you had no choice. This was you life and your course was set.

B. I got thrown to the wolves real young.(laughing)

AMP: You can't fool me. You ran into that pack.

BY I got thrown to the wolves real young . (laughing) AMP: You can't foolme, you raninto

B: Oh man, No really, It did give me an opportunity real quick to find out about a lot of things. I really liked it, it was good. went to a lot of different places and I did it all in a couple of years.

AMP: You haven't stopped working since you began your career have you?

B: No, I just took a back seat as far as going on the road and being visual. I wanted to get my recording and become a musician again, work; with other people, do that kind of thing because I kind of got away from that for a while once we started happening, you know, selling records, sold out concerts. We gots away from doing a lot of stuff In the studio and that's what I really irked doing.

AMP: I can just Imagine what the birthday and holiday parties that you guys must have had over the years

B: Oh man yeah, that was the wild thing. I mean you know, seriously, back in those days that’s what we lived for. We lived for these kind of parties.

AMP.:A while back I was watching Home Shopping at about 5 am and there was a hostess. Selling a bathrobe and she said I Just love to wear a comfy robe at home when I relax and listen to my Bootsy Collin's records. She went on about your music giving it equal time with that bathrobe.

B: Really? On a Home Shopping channel? AAA, that is really wild. It's actually kind of incredible. We've been popping up in a few different strange places lately. That one is really wild.

AMP: Speaking of Wild. The video you did with Cube is great, that looked like fun.

B: Oh yeah, it came out really good and it was fun.

AMP: Especially your part. You are like a King there, with all your Ladies in Waiting.

B: (Laughing) Right! It was Great...Oh man. That came off really good. It wasn’t one of those videos where you had to waste a lot of times. It was pretty quick. It was fun ... for real

B: Well, I'm going with the "where no man has gone before" vibe. Reaching for new and different things, trying to be as original as always.

AMP: I've never seen you in the same thing twice.

B: That's a good vibe. That's pretty much what we try to do. Stay with that one instead of following the Jones, I just like to come up with my own stuff.

AMP: There is no debating that.

B: I don't know what the reason is, I’m just glad that I kind of got that space. That's kind of what I have always been reaching for. The space that I could just do what I wanted to do. It's a whole other ball game and I am glad that I fit into that space where, whatever it is that you want to do and you are doing as long as you are happy with it, then you know What the Heck! A lot of kids get a complex about that kind of stuff. They tried to give me a complex too when I was in school. If I hadn't have gone for it, I wouldn't be doing what I am doing. When I was a kid going to school. They would laugh at me and the stuff I was wearing but, after a while I start laughing at it myself. It was kind of funny. It wasn't like what they were advertising and the hip stuff that was going on in the day. It wasn't like that stuff because I couldn’t afford it, so I had to wear whatever I could get. I used to wrap a whole lot of different stuff around me and people would laugh at me

AMP: I venture a guess that they aren't laughing any more. But at the time as long as you laughed along with them I'm sure it diffused the situation.

B: I had to learn how to do that because when you are a kid, people laughing at you is like wow, it's like the end of the earth.

AMP: Especially when you were all pleased with the results of your efforts.

B: Right, and then you are like "Wow, they are wearing me out laughing at me, what's going on?" Once I did get above it, then it's been non-stop till now.

AMP: Speaking about stopping, I see I've gone over my fifteen minutes. What would you say is an ingredient that has helped you keep your perspective and remain human in the business that you are in. For example, when you make security stay back and you go out and walk through the audience, and touch everyone there that you can. I am always struck by the emotional response this evokes.

B: I do that because to me it's really needed. People really need to know that we can touch each other and it ain't that difficult. We build up these walls with our fear and plus we have the excuses for it. I just feel that that's part of my job to let people know that just because you become a certain status-quo in the world that you can still touch people. We are all human and I want to relate that message to all people.

AMP: That also ties in with what you say on your Zillatron album, you say that people have to realise how important they are to each other.

B: Yeah, because what it all boils down to is at the end of the day, we are all riding on the same boat and we have to learn how to deal with each other. I think that the music and what we do in our actions is what can kind of bring us together, hopefully.

AMP: Your music makes people feel good, the message and all but let's face it, Bootsy's Rubber Band is a good band. You guys are musically tight and the songs are well writer. B: Well, I appreciate that because we work on that, thank you. We just have to keep it like that. It's kind of hard when you have a lot of people. We are motivated and we are still sticking together and it's coming out really good.

AMP: Everyone in your band is always working on a bunch of different projects but you always come back together.

B: That's kind of the foundation. Everyone in the band pretty much knows that whatever they want to do I am there for them, if they need my help or not, I am there for them. We have to keep working at that though. In case luck runs out then there goes the 'real deal' you know. You have to try to keep it together as much as possible and it helps when you are working with guys who are moving in the same direction.

AMP: I know you have to move in the direction of rehearsal and I am moving in the direction of back to sleep.

B: That sounds great. I really liked talking to you…

AMP : Thank you, Bootsy