How an Unknown Musician and a Young LD Paved Each Other’s Career
In the late 1970s, Roy Bennett was a young tech working for Zenith Lighting, a vendor with a Los Angeles office at the time. The head of the company knew that his employee wanted to get into the design part of the lighting business and promised him if he ever got a call, he would submit his name. In 1980, that call came from an unknown singer from Minneapolis that few had ever heard of. This was the start of a 14-year relationship between two young men who ended up rising to be the pinnacles of their respective industries.
Learning Curves
“It was an interesting part of my life,” says Roy. “Going from being a tech on sold-out tours to being a LD for an act that was still in the development stage. In fact, our first tour together (Dirty Mind, 1980) was cut short, as few tickets were sold.” The LD was learning. Other than a short stint with another artist, he had never been in the designer seat before, and as one would expect, he was under fire from the get go. Prince wasn’t very patient at first as the LD honed his craft. But Prince’s manager saw that the show was coming together and urged the singer to let Roy do his thing. “While he was different, I believed in what he was. I saw the musicianship and talent. As it turns out, we had a learning curve between the two of us, and after about five days, we became very close. At one point, Prince told management that he ‘would never do anything without me.’” Roy was put on a retainer and had a full time job.
The next year, everything changed. “I remember the turning point,” says Roy. “Prince was playing the Ritz, a popular club in NYC. Everyone was there; Jagger, Bowie, Kiss, Andy Warhol. It was the place to be. We were on a club tour, and it was insane everywhere we went. There were more people outside trying to get in than ticket holders for the shows.” By 1981, when Controversy came out, Bennett had more control of the show. He designed his first set for the tour. “I had an idea, but of course no knowledge of how to achieve it. We hired Ian Knight to help. I gave him a concept and he made it happen.” During this time, the designer would hang out at Prince’s house, spending lots of personal time together. Roy got involved in making the videos with Prince. “He had a lot of VHS tapes of other performer’s shows, and we would watch what everyone was doing.”
“Live Branding”
At this point, Prince and Bennett developed what he refers to as a creative bond/partnership that was all about the “Live Branding” of Prince. As Roy explains, “The show started becoming more theatrical. It started blowing up as we were doing things that nobody else had or was doing. It was live branding in a twisted way that hadn’t been done before. We pushed the envelope, pushed each other continuously to try and do things that may have been ahead of what we could accomplish with the available technology at that time.”
By 1982, the song and album, 1999, had catapulted the artist into superstardom. Prince and Roy were still working on how the artist wanted to be perceived. The lights, the timing and the contrasts in different looks on stage were all part of how the show needed to flow. “One day while Prince and I were talking in the dressing room, he announced that he intended to put together an all-girl band. While explaining this to me he looked over at Brenda (Roy’s girlfriend and future wife), the wardrobe girl and said point blank, ‘And you’re gonna be in the band too’. That year, we went out on a three-act bill with Vanity 6 as one opener and Morris Day and the Time as the other. Again, this was all still part of us branding his live show, and of course I was called on to light all three acts.”
Pushing the Limits
1984 brought about Purple Rain, the fifth studio album and the movie. “Life changed in a major way,” recalls Roy. “Vari-Lites were just coming out, and we pushed these primitive lights to do unprecedented things through raw emotion.” This also opened up a new world to Bennett — Hollywood. “This was all very new—and remember, we were still quite young. The established crowd did not want to know about me or any of the ideas we had for the live show. They knew what was best. By this time, I was firmly embedded in the Revolution camp as a member by Prince himself, and I have to give him kudos here. He basically stood up to all the bigwigs and said, ‘We do it Roy’s way or we don’t do it at all.’ This was a lot of pressure for me as a young man, but it all worked out. I got exposed to the whole TV and film industry.” Apparently, they got exposed to Roy as well.
This tour lasted nine months and included Apollonia 6 (cameo appearances) and Sheila E. as the opening acts. They would often join Prince on stage to jam. The tour opened up with seven sold-out shows in Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena. To quote Minneapolis’ City Pages after the opening night in Detroit, “It might be the most meticulously calculated show in pop history. Prince, a knight in white satin, materializes in a cloud of smoke from beneath the stage, as though ascending from some video underworld. Throwing his cloak aside, he stalks the stage in trademark impatience, twirls abruptly, grabs the mike and falls to the floor screaming bloody rock ‘n’ roll. The show is a series of building, endless, erupting crescendos — every song staged as if it were the final encore, each one a production number rehearsed down to the smallest step or gesture.”
Reaching New Heights
After that tour, Prince released the Parade album and the Under the Cherry Moon movie, which Prince starred in and directed. “This was the last time the Revolution played together,” says Bennett. “A show to back the songs was put together, but it was never really a tour, more a series of one-offs. It was a bittersweet time. The production was more basic, the music was amazing but it was the end of an era.” In 1987, he released Sign o’ the Times, which Bennett describes as “his biggest step in going a theatrical way. He wanted a crazy set design that emulated the album cover. I had lights built into the set. We used neon on tour, with signs flashing onstage.”
But it was the Lovesexy tour which Roy describes as “the pinnacle of anything we had ever done. It was in the round, the first time either of us had designed a show in this format. It was pretty insane, as we pushed the limits of technology again. Trying to do a theatrical show with constant changes in the round is not an easy feat.”
After that tour came the “naked” album, which did well in Europe but was underrated in the States. The tour was subsequently cut short. “After that, we just piecemealed shows together. We lost the theatrical vibe after that, and it wasn’t the same.”
Roy sums up his 14 years with this artist. “We changed the face of touring and live concerts back then. It was an exciting time that opened up a lot of doors for me as well as the whole business. I am blessed to have an amazing career that all started with Prince.”