During the mid ‘70s, in and around the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the big music buzz was on Dez Dickerson.
The hotshot guitarist and singer had been gigging as a pro since his high school days – his parents even wrote notes to his teachers so he could travel to out-of-town shows.
“People compared me to Hendrix,” he says. “I had a power trio and I did the whole thing. I was building a following, and I was sure I was gonna make it.”
As the decade wore on, another young Minneapolis-based musician was quietly making a name for himself. Dickerson hadn’t formally crossed paths with Prince Rogers Nelson, but he was aware of him, particularly once the music press picked up on this young virtuoso musician who signed a contract with Warner Bros. Records and played every instrument on his debut album, 1978’s For You.
“The funny thing is, I was that guy a few years earlier,” Dickerson recalls. “Everything people were saying about Prince they had said about me.”
The guitarist borrowed his sister’s copy of For You, and with youthful arrogance, and perhaps a tinge of jealousy, thought, “It’s pretty good. I could do better.’”
By this time, Dickerson’s band Romeo was in a death spiral, and as he pondered his next move, he spotted an ad in the Twin Cities Reader: “Warner Bros. recording artist seeks guitarist and keyboardist.” “I knew the only person in town who had a deal with Warners was this kid Prince,” Dickerson says, “so I thought, ‘If he’s gonna break big, I’m going along with him.’”
There was never any bad blood between us
After a 15-minute audition, Prince tapped Dickerson to join his backing band, which over time would become the Revolution.
It didn’t take long for the band (which also included bassist André Cymone and drummer Bobby Z., as well as keyboardists Matt Fink and Gayle Chapman) to become a live powerhouse; even so, Prince treated the studio as his near-exclusive domain, and on albums like Controversy and 1999, he used band members sparingly.
Among Dickerson’s most notable studio contributions were 1999, on which he sang co-lead vocals, and the breakout hit Little Red Corvette, which featured his backing vocals and a stinging guitar solo (which he remembers as being ranked number 64 in Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Solos of All Time. “I thought that was pretty cool”).
Dickerson quit the Revolution in 1983 for reasons both musical and personal – amicably, he stresses. “There was never any bad blood between us.” Several years later, he relocated to Nashville, where he worked as an executive and producer for Christian music labels.
“Nashville is like the town where rock ’n’ roll comes to semi-retire, and I say that lovingly,” he quips.
He gigs around town here and there, but more and more, music has taken the backseat to other ventures. Last summer, he accepted an invitation to host a local talk radio show, and within minutes he felt like he’d come home.
“I’m definitely eyeing doing more radio,” he says. “Live radio, podcasts – it’s all about performing. The same creativity I used to put into a searing guitar solo, I can put that into words at a microphone.”
It’s been nine years since Prince’s death, and Dickerson still finds it hard to believe that his longtime friend and onetime boss is really gone.
Sometimes we’d hook up when Prince was in town. Every time we got together, it was like no time had gone by at all
“We would talk from time to time,” he says. “Sometimes we’d hook up when Prince was in town. Every time we got together, it was like no time had gone by at all.”
He remembers their last conversation, which occurred three weeks before Prince’s passing.
“We spoke on the phone, and it was kind of strange. After we hung up, I had a weird sense about his mortality. I even remarked about it to my wife. Three weeks later, he was gone.”
When you first met Prince, did you think he was going to be a star?
“Actually, I didn’t. (Laughs) You know, I had been doing my thing for nine years before I met Prince. I formed bands and grew an audience. Prince had been on my radar, though. I started hearing about this kid who plays all these instruments, and he’s amazing.”
The two of you must have hit it off when you auditioned for his band. All it took was 15 minutes.
“Yeah, what happened was, I called his manager, who arranged an audition for me. Of course, Prince and everybody were two hours late. I went up to the manager and said, ‘I’m on my way to an out-of-town gig. Can I go first?’”
And did you?
“I did. Prince and the rest of the band eventually came in. André Cymone was the bass player at the time. He fell in with Bobby Z., and they started riffing. I played some rhythm stuff, and when Prince looked up and nodded, I did my thing. I felt like I said what I needed, then I went back to rhythm.
“It was like that for 15 minutes till I had to leave. Prince asked me to go outside to talk in the parking lot, and he asked me some amazingly career-oriented questions for a kid that young. He said, ‘Look, I know you’ve been doing your thing, but would you help me do my thing? When we get there, I will empower you and do what I can so you can do your own thing.’
“True to his word, he did just that. He hooked me up with management, and they got me booking agents. They put me on the road opening for this band called the Producers. Then it went to Steve Stevens, who was a big fan of mine. His girlfriend worked at Frontier Booking, so thanks to both of them I ended up on Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell tour.”
Did Prince ever tell you what he liked about your playing?
“Not really. His whole thing was, he was kind of looking to have a band like Sly and the Family Stone – not just in how we looked, but in the musical push. It’s kind of funny, because he told me and André that he wanted the three of us to be frontmen.
“I remember him coming to rehearsal one day, and he told me, ‘I want us to be like the Black Glimmer Twins. I’ll be Mick and you be Keith.’ If you look at some of the early videos, Prince and I are singing at the same mic like Mick and Keith.”
Of course, Prince was a badass guitar player. Did you have to adjust your style to fit with his playing?
“In terms of rhythm parts, I had to copy what was on the records. As for leads, he loved what I did and wanted me to be me. Truth be told, he thought I was a better lead player than him at this point. There was a time when he came into the dressing room and said, ‘From now on, you’re going to play pretty much all the leads on stage. I’m going to focus on putting the guitar down and being a frontman.’ He treated me as an equal.”
You guys opened for the Stones in Los Angeles in 1981. That gig famously didn’t go well – the crowd booed and threw stuff on stage.
“Yeah, but those shows have gotten twisted out of context. We played two gigs opening for the Stones, something like 120,000 people. Statistically, they say 5 percent of any audience isn’t going to like what you do.”
Five percent of 120,000 equals a lot of people.
“It was mostly Hell’s Angels. They didn’t like Prince’s bikini underwear. I found out later that the Stones’ audience threw things back at them – that was their way of showing their love. Prince got freaked and cut the set short. (Promoter) Bill Graham came out and started cussing people out, and they booed at him. The rock stations reported that we got booed off the stage, but that wasn’t true.
“Anyway, we went to the dressing room and found out that Prince had gone straight to the airport. He went home and wasn’t coming back. There was a day off between the shows, and Mick Jagger called Prince and asked him to come back, but he said, ‘No. I’m not doing it.’ Then management called him, and same thing – he wouldn’t do it.
“Finally, management came to me and said, ‘Look, Prince listens to you. Will you call him?’ So I did. I appealed to our manhood as a band and said, ‘We can’t let them run us off like this. We’ll never live it down.’ He came back and we did the second show.”
Little by little, Prince started bringing band members into the studio to record. Let’s talk about your Little Red Corvette solo. Did he give you any kind of direction for what he wanted?
“Not at all. He called me up and asked me to come to his house. By this time, he had a second home with a killer studio. He played me the track and said, ‘Here’s where the solo goes. I want you to solo here.’ As far as direction, he just said, ‘Do what you do.’ I did five passes and we comped them – that’s what became the solo on the record.”
There was a music store in town called Newt Coupe, and they built me a couple of custom Explorers from Schechter parts. That’s what I played on Little Red Corvette
Did you use your Vox Explorer on that track?
“I had custom-made Explorers. There was a music store in town called Newt Coupe, and they built me a couple of custom Explorers from Schechter parts. That’s what I played on Little Red Corvette.”
Did you and Prince sit around and talk guitars and gear? At this point, he wasn’t a multi-millionaire, so I imagine he didn’t have a ton of guitars yet.
“He zeroed in actually on a Hohner Tele. That guitar had a sound he really liked. He wasn’t really a gearhead. He’d find a couple of things that he liked and use them. He had three Boss pedals and played through a Boogie. He liked the saturated channel on the Boogie. That’s about it – it wasn’t about gear. We talked about the band.”
Was there a pattern for how Prince played you and the band new material? Did he make elaborate demos? Did he pick up a guitar and play songs live?
“Most of the time songs were recorded – it was everything from ‘rough roughs’ to sort of board mixes he did in his studio. Sometimes he’d play me things in their early stages. When the tunes got more complete, that’s when he’d get the rest of the band to learn them.”
He hadn’t yet built Paisley Park.
“No. Here’s an interesting tidbit: When he built Paisley Park, the chief engineer had me do these guinea pig sessions. I went in for a week and did my thing so they could debug the A and B rooms. So I actually recorded at Paisley Park before Prince. (Laughs)”
What exactly made you want to leave the band?
I’m in Purple Rain as a cameo; me and my band are doing a song called I Want 2 B A Millionaire
“I left five years from when we started. Prince and I had a conversation… We had a lot of conversations in dressing rooms. I was feeling that we were becoming too slick; what kind of brought us to the party was being this raw, unscripted band.
“Now Prince wanted us to become slick and polished, more choreographed. I said to him, ‘This isn’t what we are, and I’m just not as comfortable anymore.’ I wasn’t happy, and I was becoming kind of surly on the road. Soundchecks were going on for a long time, sometimes six hours where we were getting LinnDrum sounds.”
You left before Purple Rain broke Prince huge worldwide.
“We were rehearsing the songs. Raspberry Beret (from 1985’s Around the World in a Day), we played it in soundcheck and on the bus. Baby, I’m a Star, we hashed that out on the 1999 tour.
“He gave us all copies of the Purple Rain script, and the part that ended up being a composite of Wendy and Lisa was actually originally written as my part because I was still in the band. I was going to do the film. Actually, I’m in the film as a cameo; me and my band are doing a song called I Want 2 B A Millionaire.
“During the middle of pre-production, I was in L.A. having meetings with A&R people. Prince called me and asked me to come home to talk. We sat down and he said, ‘Once this film is done, I want us to tour for at least two full years. I need you to either solidly re-up, or you can go off now and do your thing if you want to.’ I thought about it for a few seconds, and I was just tired. I wanted to get back out and do what I did. It didn’t take much for me to decide on door number two.”
No regrets about leaving, especially when you saw Purple Rain become a massive hit?
Matt Fink, who himself will admit to being the most annoying person on the planet, said something to me, and I just snapped. I grabbed a boom stand and went after him
“None. I knew it was my time. I was so grumpy… There was a soundcheck when (keyboardist) Matt Fink, who himself will admit to being the most annoying person on the planet, said something to me, and I just snapped. I grabbed a boom stand and went after him. Two crew guys stopped me, and they knew, ‘This guy’s going to hurt him.’ I knew I was done. No regrets.”
Prince always championed your lead playing, but he was a badass guitarist himself.
“Oh yeah. What happened was, after I left the band, (guitarist) Wendy (Melvoin) technically took my place. Now, Wendy’s not a lead player, so Prince kind of took that role back. I saw him grow as a guitar player during that time. He didn’t have to timeshare the guitar – it was just him.”
One of his greatest guitar performances was when he played the end guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in 2004.
“That performance was kind of the culmination – now he’s fully that guy.”
And, of course, he was quite a showman. When he threw the guitar in the air and his tech caught it…
“Which, by the way, he got that from me. I used to throw my guitar up neck first, spin it, throw it as high as I could, like, 20 feet, and my guitar tech would catch it. Everything is borrowed. Everything is recycled.”
Did your guitar always wind up in your tech’s hands?
“I missed a couple of times. About 98 percent of the time, I did it successfully. A few times it landed and bounced.”
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