Were there major differences between the Record Plant and Sound 80 Studios?
That’s a no-no in this business. I owned three studios in my lifetime, and that’s a real no-no. It usually took a month or two to get a board under control once you wired it in. Vicari said he couldn’t work in that studio, so he wanted to go back to Los Angeles to record. Tommy Vicari was from L.A. and felt more comfortable out there. I made the decision that I did not want to go to Los Angeles with Prince. I knew who he was, and I knew how he liked to operate. I compromised and said, “Okay, we’ll leave the studio in Minneapolis.” Prince was a Minneapolis guy and didn’t want to go, but I talked him into it, and we compromised on the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, where Sly [Stone] did quite a bit of his work there. It was a very good room. They agreed to it, and I went out and found us a house in Marin County. We flew out there. The whole family: my then wife, André, Prince, me, and my dog. [ laughs ] We all went out as one happy family living in Sausalito. You have to remember: Prince and André had probably very limited travel experiences at that time. And here they are—Marin County is one of the most expensive real estate areas in the world. We were out there living in a three-level redwood home that I swung for us. It wasn’t too far from Sausalito. I could drive Prince because he didn’t have a driver’s license or car at that time. I was the designated driver that drove everybody around. My wife was making dinners and helping Prince with his hair. We were turning him on to other forms of music like Joni Mitchell. André was there as well. André was really Prince’s soul-mate companion during that first process. There were a lot of great stories when we were recording. We would take a break for a day, because it was getting intense. One of the things they loved to do was to have me drive them into San Francisco. They would just go to some music store there and jam like crazy. I would drop them off, and they would jam there with all the instruments. One day, I got a call from this dude, and he said, “Hey, man. I saw these two dudes jamming at the music store in San Francisco. We want to come over to the house.” I was like, “No, I don’t want anybody out at the house. This is ridiculous. They’re working, we can’t do it.” I said, “Who are you?” He said, “We’re in Santana’s band. Carlos saw them jamming, and he went crazy over them. We want to come out to the house and hang with you guys.” I was like, “Oh shit.” [ laughs ] So, here are these two guys from over north in Minneapolis, who are now—Prince hasn’t even made his first album—influencing the big musicians at that time like Santana, just from jamming in a music store. That was the enormity of his talent. I was a guitar player. When I was living in Minneapolis, if I sat for ten years in my basement playing guitar, I would’ve never been as good as Prince’s natural talent. Either you’re born that way or you’re not. So it was a really good experience. André was there. Prince had an ability to absorb a lot of stuff. The engineer [Tommy Vicari] was great. I mean, he had a huge track record. But Prince didn’t want anybody dictating any kind of musical direction to him. After a while, he said, “Owen, I can do most of this myself. Can you let the engineer go?” And I didn’t want to let him go because he was a good guy. Then I knew I would have record-label problems; but again, I have to give Warner Bros. credit. They really understood Prince. Warner Bros. gave him everything that he wanted: all the tools and the keys to the kingdom. They understood him. They got him. They got who he was as an artist. That’s why I wanted to be there, because they were a very artist-friendly record label. Mo Ostin was the chairman, Lenny Waronker was the president, and Russ Thyret was head of promotions; they all would have fallen on a sword for Prince, because they believed in him as much as I did.
Husney: Yes, Sound 80 was a little bit more sterile and you probably would expect to see more white lab coats there. [ laughs ] The Record Plant in Sausalito, California, was a very funky, wooden studio known for just great sound with a giant tongue in one of the studios, a lounge chair in the shape of an elevated tongue, and that’s where Sly would record. He could plug into the tongue and stuff like that and just record or sing right from there. All those places were still holdovers from the hippie days with everything being natural. But it wasn’t as sterile as Sound 80. It was funkier. It was a good room to make that first record in. They had a little FM transmitter, so we could do a mix or just do a rough cut, and then get in our car and drive around about a nine-block radius, then listen to it on the radio and see how it would sound, which actually worked. Because you have to remember, we were in a big, giant, million-dollar studio, and basically, at that time, we were cutting records that were coming out of tiny speakers. We had to be very aware of how that sound was going to translate. But it was a very funky room, really cool place, very typical San Francisco- ish, hippie-vibe-ish, Sly Stone situation. It really turned out to be good.
How much time was spent at the Record Plant recording the songs for the album For You ?
Husney: It seemed like day and night. I kept pushing the boundaries of Warner Bros.’ budget. In all the books, it says, “They went way over budget.” Considering the artist that he became, it really was meaningless. I pushed Warner Bros. I pushed them like crazy. We needed extra time. I think retrospectively, and I’m sure Prince would say the same thing, that he probably tried to be too perfect on that first album. He knew it was his debut. I think that he tried to go over it again and again and to make it a perfect album, which he was capable of doing. If you were to ask him, he’d say, “Yes, I probably put too much time in. I didn’t give it enough air to breathe. I probably overdid it.” But they were going all the time. Prince really liked recording at night, so that’s what musicians do and that’s what he did. I’d drop him off at night at the studio. They’d work all night. He’d come home early in the morning. But he was working around the clock. We had it on lockout, which meant they locked out the room for us, so it was our room. For the nine songs that are on the record, were you there during the collaboration process between Prince and the engineer, Tommy Vicari? Husney: Yes. Look, I’m sensitive enough. I was a musician, and I wouldn’t want my manager sitting in the studio all day long. There was no reason for me to do that because I had to be up during the day to be dealing with the record label and working off promotional programs and promotional tours. It didn’t make much sense for me to be a studio hanger-on. I don’t even like doing it to this day, although I’m semi-retired. I’m not out to make anybody self-conscious, but I did see the process. Trust me, I heard the problems that would happen, especially when Prince and the engineer fell out. It wasn’t because the engineer wasn’t good. It was because Prince had an ability to learn at such a rapid rate. Prince didn’t come home and say, “Wow, I learned how to EQ something today.” No. Prince would come home and say, “I’ve learned how everything works.” Everything . It was more than amazing to watch. He was a sponge—he was SpongeBob on twelve. He just pulled everything in. It was nothing personal for anybody that
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