In an unreleased 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Prince gives a revealing interview about his music, Michael Jackson, and death. Below are seven—in commemoration for the day he was born—interesting facts learned from the the lost interview.
Prince has tons and tons of unreleased music.
“Yeah, I like time capsule stuff. I have a couple Revolution albums in the vault and two Time albums, one Vanity 6 album … and tons of stuff recorded in different periods. But so much gets recorded that you don’t have time to compile everything. In the future you could put all the best stuff from one particular time period together and then you can release it. It'd just be like if we found a Sly and the Family Stone album and they saved their best stuff. If that’s even possible!”
Prince has never released his best work.
“I’ve never said this before, but I didn’t always give the record companies the best song. There are songs in the vault that no one’s ever heard. There are several vaults; it’s not just one vault.”
Prince is the true definition of “find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.”
“I don’t know what that is. There’s always some way to serve. And I never felt like I had a job.”
Prince finds it difficult talking about Michael Jackson.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m too close to it.”
Prince forgives fairly easy.
“Have you ever instantly forgiven somebody? It’s the best feeling in the world, I try to do it instantly now. And it totally dismantles that person’s whole stance.”
Prince on death.
“No, I don’t think about gone. I just think about in the future when I don’t want to speak in real time.”
Prince on other artists’ music.
“I don’t listen to much. If I happen to hear something ... it’s like you as a writer: You probably read things and you end up rewriting it in your head? OK that’s what happens when I listen to music. I start producing it, right? It’s such a drag too, especially if it’s a friend and they want to play me their stuff, a lot of times I just say, ‘Don’t play. Describe it to me.’”
