Its impossible to overstateBootsy Collins influence.
Its going to be the bomb, Collins promises.
Whats the best part of success?Experimenting.
But getting two or three dollars helps, too.
I was sad I had to do that, but at the same time, youhaveto do it.
James said one time, Man got to eat.
If you dont work, you dont eat.
James Brown used to fine musicians who messed up while playing.
Was that the right thing to do?I think for him, yeah.
I couldnt fine nobody.
But he had such a big band.
And us as musicians, we act a fool here and there and might miss a note.
Its rare, but it did happen.
Fining made us want to practice more.
James felt the fines would make you work harder.
He was using that reverse psychology on us, and we didnt understand at the time.
Why was he saying we wasnt happening?
Why would he have to fine us?
And so I learned from that experience with him.
When we got there, he just stopped fining us.
Also, he realized that taking money from us didnt matter, cause we didnt have nothing no way.
We came in off the streets.
We wasnt used to getting paid.
I thoughtIhad to payyou.
And he going to pay us, too?
James used to ask people to call him Mr. Brown.
Did you ever ask people to call you Mr. Collins?Oh, heck no.
To me, that was so dated.
When people say, Mr. Collins, Im like, No.
I want to always maintain that kid frame of mind.
I dont ever want to grow up like that.
So he called himself Mr. Brown, protecting his own interests.
So all of that was in his mind, and it was great for him.
I didnt have a father in the house, so I didnt know how to be a son.
And he treated us like his sons.
Once we got out of school, we would have to watch her doing this work.
Im going to get you a car.
So I was talking all that stuff, and I wasnt even playing yet.
I didnt even know how to play.
And she reminded me of that.
We kept our boxes always packed and ready to go.
So I got a chance to go all the way around Cincinnati and make friends.
I dont think I wouldve got treated like I do in Cincinnati anywhere else.
He had his red wagon, so I wanted to be just like that.
He played guitar and had a band.
It was like, Get out of here, boy.
Its like, Im just watching.
But all the band cats loved to see me hanging around.
They were eight to 15 years older than me; I was nine, and they were 22.
Because my brother was so rejective of me, I was like, Well, Ill show him.
When he goes to the paper route, Im going to sneak his guitar and practice.
And all of sudden, he going to find out Im a bad mother …shut your mouth.'
And thats really what happened.
I went on the gig with him.
Our mother said, If you want the gig, you got to take your little brother.
That was the night of my life.
I got videos that will blow peoples mind.
After you worked with James Brown, you and Catfish joined George Clinton in Parliament and Funkadelic.
Was that a culture shock?George was more like a brother than a father.
So we would get chicks, and wed do what we do.
I couldnt do that with Mr. Brown.
With George, I got a chance to experiment with the business, too.
I got a chance to convince them that we crazy, but notthatcrazy.
Dude, this is just a look.
Whats your advice for creating a good image?For me, it just fell into place.
When I was going to school, I would sit at the desk and draw stick men.
Why do I keep drawing this star man with the star glasses?
So what I used to draw in school came back to me.
What was the purpose of the mirrored star sunglasses you wore?
Everybody had all of these things that wasnt going to work: The wood is not shaped right.
It aint going to sound right.
And I said, Well, can I meet him?
He introduced me to him, and then it was on from there.
1975 is when he actually finished it.
He said, Oh, man, you look like a monster.
I said,Bootzilla.It wasnt something I planned; things like that just happened.
Thats what I love about the funk: Things just happen, and you have to grab them.
If you grab what I got on today, then I got to go somewhere else.
You titled your new record,Album of the Year #1 Funkateer.
So its that time again rolling around like, Oh, yall dont notice me, huh?
All right, well check this out.
So Im going to call my own album,Album of the Year.
Funk is making something out of nothing.
Youve always talked about funk like a religion.
How important is the funk?Funk is the word, and the word became flesh.
If you dont got no funk, then you dont got no physical thing going on around here.
We get two things: We get funk, and we get spirit.
But man wasnt the first: Funk was the first thing.
Funk is making something out of nothing.
On your 1977 song The Pinocchio Theory, you sang, Dont fake the funk.
I can never fake the funk.
From 2006 to about 2017, I started to realize that I couldnt keep that up no more.
I cant fake that.
I was going to have to figure out another way.
My other way now is making Albums of the Year.
You and George Clinton were famous in the Seventies for dropping acid.
Why did you stop?The last time I took acid was in 1981.
I told myself Id stop if I ever had a bad trip.
Every time I tripped, it would be so good, so much better than the last time.
The last time I took it, I had the worst trip.
I cant even remember what actually happened.
People had to tell me what I was doing.
Other than making music, my go-to thing was riding bikes.
I was riding up to gigs on the Bootcycle.
Thats the one you see on the cover of [1976s]Stretchin Outalbum.
It wasnt just a prop; it was actually a motorcycle.
I used to ride it around in L.A.
I had the black leather suit with studs and rhinestones on it.
That was my freedom.
That was my wind in the hair, in the face, no helmet.
To have two or three chicks in the back, it was the best.
I was so blitzed out [on drugs].
That was the best time, other than being onstage.
You stopped riding in 1983 when you had a motorcycle accident.
How did that change your life?The doctor told me I would never use my right arm again.
He said, All you got to do is rehab, rehab, and rehab.
Thats all I knew.
Nothing else ever worked for me.
It took about a year before I realized I could use my arm again.
Why?We got it in 2018 because we wanted to do these stage shows.
And the people went crazy.
So we got it in the backyard now.
Were going to probably use it for props in videos.
You spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s playing with Clinton in P-Funk.
Now youre collaborating with him again.
But now things are feeling good, were easing ourselves back in.
What happened was I seen Kamala [Harris] on TV saying, I found a George Clinton doll.
And I love Bootsy Collins.
For some reason, that touched me.
Like, Hes still your friend.
No matter what happened, you got to be the one to take the high road.
So I called him up and said, Lets do this track together.
And he was all over it.
