The first part of this interview was done in New York City (during the shoot of Bootsy's Rubber Band's "Jungle Bass" video at the Roxy) - the conclusion took place in Cincinnati.
New Funk Times: When you did the video shoot with all the Rubber Band guys, didn't it give you the urge to use the whole band live in the studio again?
Bootsy Collins: Oh yeah, I mean, that was the whole point. That really felt good, put me in the mind of being on a live show. It was like a first time for us... well, we all went to Japan together, but the video was even more so for us to get close and feel each other. 'Cause when we was in Japan, it was so quick-quick-quick, everybody rush-rush-rush learn the songs, and it was so much of that, we never got a chance to really get close. During that video shoot we had a chance to get close again.
New Funk Times: You are doing a lot of interviews these days - how many interviewers were surprised about you using a house beat?
Bootsy Collins: I think all of 'em were surprised - including me! But, you know, I'm into trying anything at this point. It's like, you never know what's gonna work.
New Funk Times: That sounds desperate...
Bootsy Collins: Well, I mean, I can always go back into the P.Funk. That's always there. But a lot of companies are scared of it, you just have to hook up with the right ones, I think, the right chemistry. Like I said, at this point I just wanna do some music. I don't care what's happening as long as I get in there and do some of my stuff, at least get some of my influence in there. At this point it's pretty cool!
New Funk Times: What you had planned to achieve with "Jungle Bass" seems to work out - you told me that it even gets air- play in New York City where P.Funk normally has problems. Why is that?
Bootsy Collins: The Funk was a bad word when George and myself came out with the first stuff, wasn't too many people talking about funk. It was almost illegal to say that on the air, at one time it was definitely illegal to say. Plus, it was kinda rowdy, it wasn't your traditional Temptations, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. Anytime something is that new, people tend to back off from it for a minute, and if it starts working then they'll start coming in. But New York was like... we had all kind of fans there in New York City but our records never got played. I think New York was an area where they just had their own format that didn't have nothing to do with the rest of the world. And they still like that.
I think they never wanted to be affiliated with the funk. That kinda left us out on the air but the live shows were working - we sold out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row. It wasn't that the fans wasn't in it, it just was against the format of the radio stations. They jumped on "Jungle Bass" because it is more the format of the kinda stuff that they play, it's like house, the old disco-type, it's a dance record. I knew then something strange is going on...
Me and Laswell had talked about it in the first place. I knew my fans... the old fans were gonna be doggin' me, down on me, 'cause I went and did a house-type record. I was trying to figure out, how am I gonna do this and be able to feel cool about doing it? So I threw in some of my older type funk which was "Disciples Of Funk" which became a song in itself. And I figured that "Jungle Bass" with its universal appeal would capture new fans and "Disciples Of Funk" would kinda satisfy the old fans and show them that I haven't forgot how to funk. And I was hoping if we could get over the hump of: "Are they going to accept me doing 'Jungle Bass'?", we would be pretty cool, and it seems like it's working in that direction.
New Funk Times: What is your 'definition of the day' for the word P.Funk?
Bootsy Collins: P.Funk is the purest form of funk that you can get. And George and myself, I think, are responsible to bringing that across. And it's even funkier than that because funk was just pointed towards music, but P.Funk, I think, was more of a life-style. It was like a movement, P.Funk is a whole world of its own. I don't know, you just had to be there - I mean, hearing the records is one thing, but coming to a P.Funk concert is a whole 'nother thang.
I think P.Funk was like a religious something going on, it was a holy and sancti-fool type feeling when you came, you know. We always cut good records at that time, but to me the P.Funk revival thang was really what was happening. If you missed the show, then the onliest thang you could to is get a record, and that was alright, but it was never like the concerts. We could never perform on record like we perform in concert. I can't explain why - even if we play live in the studio, it's never like the concert. I think funk was a two-way street, it was like we funked the audience and the audience funked us back. I don't know, that's where it all came from.
New Funk Times: Could you imagine that such a tour could ever happen again, with 30 people on stage, not including dogs and kids?
Bootsy Collins: I think so. As a matter of fact, I know that's got to happen because I think George is hungry for it and I'm hungry for it. Right now, we're just going out doing our little own things but eventually we got to come back together because that's what everybody want. We want it deep down inside, and the people want it, too. There's nothing that's really going to keep us apart from doing that. It's just a matter of time.
New Funk Times: Sometimes I get the impression that there is too much monkey business in the way of those things to happen.
Bootsy Collins: Yeah, you're right about that, it's definitely a lot of monkey business going on. But I think we're gonna be able to jump over the monkey for a minute and throw the monkey off our back and give the people what they want. It's gonna boil down to that because we're talking about doing this movie about P.Funk, so I think that's gonna break the whole ice, that's gonna stop the whole monkey thang.
New Funk Times: How would you describe the three roles that you were playing to P.Funk novices?
Bootsy Collins: It started off as the Casper thang [inspired by the U.S. cartoon "Casper The Friendly Ghost" - Ed.]. I think he was the one that really inspired me to go ahead and do what I did. He was more inspirational, the unseen- type character that really inspired me and gave me that confidence. He kept me in tune with the future. Out of all three of 'em, Casper is the one that's gonna be around when the rest of 'em is finished.
Bootzilla is the monstrous character, he don't care what's happening, he's come to let's take it to the stage, he's into mashin' a mug. He's into heavy funk, heavy monster rock, he's loud, he's got the rhinestone rock star thang, the glasses, he's the glitter.
And Bootsy is the guy that knows William the closest - he's the most real out of all of 'em. And he's the one that the kids liked, he was the focal point of the whole thang. When you talked about P.Funk, you would always cue in on George, of course; and the kids would definitely cue in on Bootsy because he was like a cartoon character, he never started no ruckus, he was always about: "Everything is cool!", he was always laid-back - and full of rap.
New Funk Times: Looking back, is it possible for you to point out a certain time when all those problems between P.Funk and the record companies started; for example, did you get wrapped up in the legal hassles of the early '80s?
Bootsy Collins: I think that was a main part of it that slowed everything down. That, plus we was doing P.Funk so much and we didn't have no competition but ourselves. I think that had something to do with us not reaching as far as we could have reached. We coulda kept going with it, but it got to a point where we just stopped fighting like we was losing. We just started feeling too comfortable - when you get like that, thangs like what's happening right now have to happen to put you back in pocket. So I think all this is going down now by George being over there with Prince and me doing this stuff with Bill Laswell. It is gonna to make us hungry again for each other.
New Funk Times: It is pretty frustrating that some records on the charts nowadays - like Tony! Toni! TonŽ's "The Blues" - are funkier than a lot of the P.Funk people's current output. They are almost being 'out-P.d'...
Bootsy Collins: Well, that's the main reason: We ain't really came back around yet. We're coming, though... - we're coming back around but it ain't made that complete cycle yet. And I think all that's good, too, 'cause in a minute, like I said, it's just making us more hungrier to get back at it. Without that hunger you're useless. But when we come, we come all the way!
That leads me back to "Jungle Bass": Everybody got us so much into the P.Funk, they won't hear us doing nothing else. I think that's good and bad, but eventually I'm gonna break that barrier. That's my challenge now to break that up, 'cause it's just like a actor in a movie, you know - he gets type-cast into one scene, and then that's it. If we try something different than what we known for, then people just won't go for it. I don't believe in that - I just don't believe in it! I mean, even if "Jungle Bass" don't work, I can still go back and do a serious P.Funk Record, me and George. Whatever it takes, we can always do that! The whole thang is, I wanna do something different. You get tired of doing the same old thang.
New Funk Times: Talking about the past, did you ever get into the Bootsy character so much that you completely forgot about William Collins?
Bootsy Collins: I think I took myself too serious because I was hung-up into Bootsy myself, I couldn't stop being him, and I never even thought about that until it started happening. I couldn't get away from him - when we was peaking, I found myself in a hotel room, it was people in there with cameras - when I'm asleep! - and I would wake up with a microphone in my mouth. And it was like, who let these people in here? That kept happening and kept happening, I couldn't explain it, and it started getting confusing to me, what the heck is going on? I had no privacy, so I can imagine what Michael Jackson and Prince and them are going through. It's a whole 'nother trip that I don't know... you think you ready for it, but after years and years of it, it's like, God! And as far as taking a break and as far as, let me cool out for a day or two, it never works, it never happens!
I remember one time me and George went to the Bahamas. We successful, so we figured we'd go to the Bahamas for a few days, cool out, nobody knows us over there, everything be great. We take a boat-ride over there, took us about four hours, just me and George and the captain; so as soon as we hit the dock - can't nobody explain this now! - it's about 200, 300 kids waiting there, just hollering: "BOOTSY! GEORGE! P.FUNK!" They had the records, the pins, so as soon as we stepped out of the boat me and George looked at each other and said, "Oh no, oh no!" Wasn't no vacation... we had fun, I ain't saying we didn't have a good time, it's just we could not find a day or two to just cool out and chill out.
I think it messed with my mind more so than George's, 'cause George kinda had a way of not being George. He could come off and look as crazy as he looks and he could be one of the street people. But I had to be Bootsy, when I saw a microphone I always had to say something Bootsy said, I always had to have the star glasses on. And it got to be a trip.
This time around I wanna be wrapped up in Bootsy when it's time for Bootsy to be on, but when it's time for him to be off I wanna be just likeI am. It's a way I gotta do that, and I think I figured it out. I think I have... Bootsy's gonna be the guy that does the stage stuff, and the guy that's just in the street is gonna be different from him, I don't have to wear those glasses and I don't have to feel those boots. I remember when my bass got stolen - the Space Bass -, I felt real bad. It was like, wow, what am I gonna tell those people, you know, they all paid to see me - and the Star Bass, too! Everything I had represented something. If I didn't have the star glasses, people said: "Where's those glasses, man?" So I had to be very protective and make sure I got those thangs so I wouldn't disappoint nobody. I didn't even feel whole if I made a gig and didn't have my Star Bass, or didn't have my star glasses.
New Funk Times: That is very different from George who could take a bed-sheet for a stage costume.
Bootsy Collins: Yeah! And that's what he had going, and I think he even had that more so going then than now. He was so natural with it. I never was in nothing like that, I always wanted to be... not a star, but I always wanted to be noticed. So I always wore wild and crazy stuff, but I never knew that this would be used against me to the point of, okay, how do you get out of this crazy stuff and just be normal? But then again, what is normal?
That became a thang. I'm the one that loved to sign autographs, that was my whole reason for being out there. And after I seen it started turning around on me, that I was trying to hide from doing that, I knew something was wrong, not with the fans but with me! And it was something that I wasn't mentally ready for. So I said, okay, I gotta stop! And that's when the whole thing, as far as I was concerned, started going downhill.
New Funk Times: You didn't see a shrink, did you?
Bootsy Collins: No... [laughs] You had to do what you had to do, and, like I said, all the time I had off, working with other people, I kinda figured out how to deal with it, and that's to leave that boy on the stage. I don't dress like, I try not to look like him when I'm not doing that. So, that's one way of dealing with it - before I was Bootsy 27 hours a day!
New Funk Times: How many people still call you "William" nowadays?
Bootsy Collins: Not too many! I could probably count 'em on one hand.
New Funk Times: What about yourself?
Bootsy Collins: I don't call it either one, I just know how to relate to who's in charge today.
New Funk Times: You mentioned working with George again. Do you think that the whole P.Funk crew - including you, Bernie, Mudbone, all those guys - could be as close again as they used to be?
Bootsy Collins: I don't know about the closeness, but I know that we're gonna work together again. I know me, Bernie and Bone is already working together, so the only other element is George. That's the only move that we got to make, and that's gonna happen. I think we all need it. It's at a certain point; it's when George decides, let's go ahead and do it! It's really on George.
Bernie and myself, we been working pretty much together for the last year. It was George, Bernie and myself... I believe that's where the P.Funk really came from.
New Funk Times: On the "Jungle Bass" cover you gave George the Road-Lord award. Did you do any shows together with him lately?
Bootsy Collins: No, I just showed up at one show in Columbus/Ohio and did a little spot with him. He was doing his tour to death, he was the master of that one, yeah! That's why I had to give up the credit.