Entertainment

By Hardeep Phull

One year on from Prince’s death, the grieving process is still continuing for his fans, friends and family — and also for his band.

The Revolution played alongside the Minnesotan (who died at 57 on April 21, 2016, of an opioid overdose) in various forms between 1979 and 1986. But it’s the vintage “Purple Rain”-era lineup who decided the best way to heal is to hit the road for a reunion tour.

“It would be horrible to just sit at home and wallow,” keyboardist Lisa Coleman tells The Post. “It’s healthier and feels better to do this.”

“Prince and the band were still in touch,” adds guitarist Wendy Melvoin, who, with Lisa, will be playing alongside BrownMark (bass), Doctor Fink (keys) and Bobby Z (drums). “Towards the end of his life, we talked about getting back together, and he was excited at the idea. And yet, here we are.”

Ahead of their April 28 show at BB King’s in Times Square, the iconic female components of Prince’s group discuss happy memories, as well as Prince’s deterioration.

When was the last time you saw Prince?

Lisa: He paid us a visit at the studio we have in LA in 2015. It had been a couple of years since we’d seen him. It was very sweet and loving — I showed him my new keyboard. We geeked out for a minute, and then we went back to work. I feel so foolish because I’ve grown up with drug users and I’ve had a lot of experience with addicts. But I just had no idea. It’s a nightmare to imagine that he was going through such a thing. You just think, “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped.”

Prince’s hip pains are rumored to have troubled him since the “Purple Rain” era. Do you remember him suffering from ailments back then?

Lisa: We all had aches and pains. But we couldn’t even hold our liquor. We’d have beer or something at a party, and we’d end up throwing up at the hotel. So we were clean. Prince was healthy. He would lift weights and play basketball.

Prince’s performances were often written about as near-superhuman. It’s my theory that seeing these reviews may have inadvertently pressured him to force his aging body to continue those kind of shows, possibly leading to his opiate addiction. Do you think that’s a possibility?

Lisa: I think you’re absolutely right. It’s not easy getting old, and it’s impossible to maintain that level for your entire life. As a society, we don’t forgive that. It makes it really hard on a performer or an artist. I have a little bit of arthritis in my hand, and it’s horrible. You can’t believe it’s happening. For someone like Prince, having your body fail is not acceptable. He probably had to do what he had to do. I’m sure the pills were a beautiful gift at first. “I can take them, and I can still do it.” But it’s only temporary. You’re still gonna get old. But I don’t think he cared— he was willing to do the deal to keep going. There was no choice. He had painted himself into a corner.

Did you have any suspicion that he may not have been well?

Lisa: I’ve never really told anyone this publicly, but when I heard that he was doing the piano-and-mike tour, that was the only time I worried about him. Something in my mind went ‘Uh-oh, what’s wrong?’ I think he was suffering and trying to give his body a break.

Wendy: You look at the pictures of him in the last three months, and he didn’t look well.

You must have been a shoulder to cry on for so many Prince fans over the past year?

Wendy: The first three or four days after he died, I fielded calls from some incredibly powerful entertainers — mostly guys — who were just weeping. It was incredibly profound. A few months later, Questlove called me to come to a screening of “Purple Rain” in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I hadn’t been out much, but I went, and 10,000 people showed up. As I was walking out, this big tall black security guard grabbed me and just started crying, saying, “I can’t believe it, what do I do?”

Of all the many Prince tributes during that past year, which ones have struck you the most?

Lisa: They all touch us because it’s how people are expressing their own pain. But we did see Bilal do “The Beautiful Ones” at the BET Awards. We invited him to do it at one of our shows, and it was perfect. No one could scream like Prince could, but Bilal really gave himself to the song.

Wendy: D’Angelo wanted to do “Sometimes it Snows in April” (on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show”) with us, but it was only a couple of days after his death. It was too soon. We couldn’t break away from the Revolution and perform without them. Prince wouldn’t have wanted that.

Has the Revolution reunion tour met with much skepticism?

Lisa: The family has been really supportive of us. When we announced the gigs, the responses on Twitter were almost all great. Everyone seemed very excited, except for one guy who just wrote “bad idea”! It cracked me up because it was like the little voice in your head. You can’t help but pay a little attention to it.

The first Revolution show after Prince passed was in September in Minneapolis. How did it go?

Wendy: It was awful, and great. We were only going to do one night, but the fans wanted more. The first night was just a blur of pain and anxiety and grief. But by night three, a weight seemed to lift in the room. I don’t really believe in this sort of thing, but there was a sense of Prince saying, ‘I’m OK guys, I’m OK.’ And then we collapsed into each other’s arms at the end of the show.

On this Revolution tour, is it correct that you’re planning to use guest vocalists to sing Prince’s parts?

Lisa: A lot of the songs are with band vocals, so we will do them together. But we’re also throwing it out there to see who would like to join us. We’ve reached out to a few people in New York already. But we’re keeping it open. If someone can come to the soundcheck and work through a song, then we’d love it.

Wendy: No one is going to be Prince. That’s not the point. We’re going to do songs that work for the band. And if people like D’Angelo want to come up and play a song, then come on up. It just depends if they’re in town.

What do you remember about playing in New York during the Revolution’s earliest days?

Lisa: The one show I always think of is when we played the Ritz [now Webster Hall] on the “Dirty Mind” tour in 1981. Famous people like Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger were there. It was one of the very first times we took a limo to the show, which everyone was very excited about. We were young — I was 19 or 20. I remember there was incredible energy, and we burned the house down. Hopefully, we’ll rekindle the fire when we get back. Prince was excited by New York, but he wanted people there to take us seriously. So we made it a point to really attack the stage.

Did the Revolution ever bother with doing tourist stuff on tour?

Lisa: Prince hated the tourist thing. If you would get out your camera and try to take a picture, he’d call you a “tourist” dismissively. Like you were a scourge!

Do you have any sense of what might be coming from Prince’s famed vault of unreleased music?

Wendy: We don’t have any control over the vault. You have to get vetted before you get anywhere near it. But there’s tons of stuff in there that we did. Me and Lisa were in the room with Prince and Miles Davis in Minneapolis once. It was jazz funk kind of stuff. Prince was bigger than Miles — Miles let him be the boss.

Do you have any recollection of the famous “Shirts vs. Blouses” basketball match, as recounted by the late Charlie Murphy on “The Chappelle Show”?

Wendy: We were in rehearsal that day. He went out to play ball with the guys. All we heard was that he kicked everyone’s ass — which was totally normal. Prince was the greatest athlete I’d ever seen. He could get under the basket with guys who were nearly 7 feet tall. He was just as good as [5-foot-9 NBA star] Spud Webb.

So why wasn’t he in the NBA?

Wendy: Prince is too powerful a human being to be on a team for that long. The last team he was on was the Revolution, but they broke up because he needed to not be on a team anymore. So there’s no way he could have sustained an NBA career.

What do you think of ‘Purple Rain’ when you see it now?

Lisa: It’s like looking at old home movies and pictures of my friends. Sometimes I think, “Oh, there’s a story? Who cares?!”

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