On the evening of Feb. 23, 1983, Prince was at home, watching Michael Jackson become the first artist to win eight Grammys in a single night, including Album of the Year for Thriller . When the broadcast was over, Prince turned to Bobby Z , his longtime friend and drummer for the Revolution , and told him, “Next year, that’s gonna be us.
” As both an album and a movie, Purple Rain was still unfinished at that point, but Prince had a good idea of what he had. The very idea of making a movie was inspired, at least in part, by the massive success of the “Thriller” video, according to Bobby Z. “‘Thriller’ lights the world on fire,” he says.
“It’s not a video. It’s a mini-movie — throw that gas on Prince’s fire. ‘A mini-movie? MTV? This is mine.
I’m taking this now. That’s not acceptable that someone else has it. I’m going to make the full movie.
It’s got to be a motion picture.'” But Prince wasn’t only thinking about Jackson, Bobby Z adds: “Was it all to compete? It wasn’t just Michael. It was absolutely everyone.
And [Prince] did it. He’s starring in this movie. He’s got the Number One album.
He’s got the Number One song.” (He did win Grammys for Purple Rain , too, albeit only three of them.) To honor the recent 40th anniversaries of Purple Rain as both a movie and an album, Bobby Z.
(who played with Prince from 1978 to 1986) joins host Brian Hiatt on the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now . The conversation dives deep .