HELLO GOODBYE
It began with a visit to the Addams Family mansion. But then fronting a band changed the scene.
Fate joined them in a haunted house. But the groove faltered when business reared its head. Bootsy Collins talks Hi’s and Bye’s and George Clinton.
HELLO 1972
My first thing was to play with my brother Catfish [guitarist Phelps]. We’d got with James Brown and became The J.B.’s. Once we left him in ’71, we came back to Cincinnati and started House Guests. It was the middle of the acid thing and we were dressing crazy and wanting to be freaky. When we started touring, people would say, “Y’all are like Funkadelic!” We didn’t know who they were. They were kind of an underground college thing, with a white audience; we were doing the serious chitlin circuit.
We had Philippé Wynne singing with us, and Billy [Henderson] from The
Spinners called and wanted a band, so we went to Detroit. While we were there this chick named Mallia Franklin, said, “Damn, you’ve got to meet George Clinton!” The first meeting – hahaha! She took me over to his house, and everything is dark. He had the black lights, that’s what you tripped on in those days, and it’s real creepy and spooky, kind of like The Addams Family thing. George was sitting on the floor, in the corner, in this white sheet, and in the black light you could see every little bit of lint on it. His head was shaved, he had a scar, he was just a mess! He was not, like, funny, he wasn’t laughing, he was looking real crazy. And then he had these big yellow chicken feet on. So it was scary, but I was kind of tripping too, so I was “Damn, I’ve got to talk this guy.” As a matter of fact, I just knew this was the right time and the right place. We were really honest with each other. He needed that other piece of the puzzle and so did I, and we weren’t fearful of letting each other know that.
I was trying to figure out a way to back out of this Spinners thing, ’cos they were the ones who brought us out to Detroit, so to appease them we told Phil to go with The Spinners – which was perfect, he fit them like a hand in glove – and the band would go with Funkadelic, so we got what we wanted.
It all panned out and we were just elated.
George said, “We have to change names”, but I was kind of, “Nah, we wanna be The House Guests.” He went with it, but once we got out on the road and the girlies started calling us Funkadelic, we was like, “Ah yeah, we Funkadelic, jump in the ride!” George knew that was gonna happen.
GOODBYE MID-1978
There was always something crazy happening. The first time we went to LA, California, we pulled up to the club, the LAPD came and threw us out the car, hands on the hood, they had their shotguns drawn – 11 guys had escaped from prison in Ohio, and they thought it was us! We had some mescaline, some sunshine… that was just an event in the Funkadelic everyday life. Of course, we did the gig. There were so many amazing gigs.
It was going good, and at shows people had started hollering, “Bootsy, Bootsy! We want Boot-sy!” George thought it was a great idea to make a song out of it. One thing sort of led to another. He said I should be front man. I’d never thought about fronting a band, and business-wise I was a dummy. So I kind of got thrown out there. And with George, everything was flip-flopped, everything business-wise was not happening. That was sort of the first beginning of realising I had to do this by myself, to make those business decisions. In the middle of 1978, I had to go out and headline my own tours [with Bootsy’s Rubber Band], and to call the shots.
There was no meeting where we said, “Let’s call it quits.” What’s that saying? Business and pleasure don’t mix. Because I value friendship over any of the other stuff, I’d rather not be in it than have business tear us apart. The door was always left open. It’s really on him, wanting to do something. I saw George in May, we did a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, all of Funkadelic. It was good to get a chance to see the ones that’s left. In the future, anything can happen. I’m glad I made it through all those phases without having a chip on my shoulder. Life is just deep, man.
As told to Ian Harrison
My Mind Set Me Free: The House Guests Meet The Complete Strangers & Bootsy, Phelps & Gary is out now on Shake It! Records. Bootzilla Records Archives, Volume 1 – the first of many – is available now on Bootzilla.
“George had these big yellow chicken feet on.” BOOTSY COLLINS