June 26 2016
Justin Stanley is a Studio engineer, drummer, producer and husband of alternative soul singer Nikka Costa who was nominated for a Grammy for engineering Prince’s Hit N Run Phase Two
“Xtraloveable” was an old school, classic Prince track that dated back to the ‘80s. Prince would sometimes pull tapes out of the Vault (The Purple One’s mythical heavily secured library rumored to contain thousands of unreleased songs, videos and concert footage). He would bring them in and put them in the tape machine. Until the end, Prince was still using analog tape. He would only go to Pro Tools at the end of a session. He used the tapes to get him inspired. He was always reinventing and taking inspiration from those tapes in the Vault.
I was a lot luckier than a lot of studio engineers that ended up working with Prince over the years. Because I was lucky enough to have a friendship with him before I started to work on [HitnRUN Phase II]. I could actually have a viewpoint on something he was doing creatively. You would hear all the classic stories that he wouldn’t even talk to engineers. That’s not to say that I had a lot of advice to give to someone like Prince. Because, let’s face it, he’s Prince [laughs]. He didn’t really need an engineer. He was pretty much brilliant at that, too.
Prince had the most amazing horn section. It was amazing to see him arrange on the spot. He had all the parts in his head and they weren’t simple horn parts. That was the thing about Prince. He made you strive for perfection. Just imagine playing drums for him. That’s how I started in music…as a drummer. So one evening Prince comes to me and says, “Can you play?”
Justin Stanley
He was trying to find the right percussion sound for a track on the album. So I go into the studio, and Prince was basically engineering the drum sound. He turns on the mic and says, “Play ‘Superstition’” (Stevie Wonder’s 1972 hit). I’m playing the drums and Prince jumps on the clavinet and we were just jamming for like 15 minutes straight! After that he turns around and says, “You’re hired.” [Laughs]While we were finishing up songs for [Phase II], Prince flew in the head of a huge publishing company and his lawyer just to debate the rights of musicians. It was amazing being a fly on the wall during their debate. These guys, I have to give it to them. They kind of went through the ringer because Prince was so smart about artist’s ownership rights. Prince won the debate. He would never do anything without knowing he couldn’t win whether it was music or table tennis [laughs].
Prince had this really cheap, cheesy Yamaha keyboard he would sometimes play [laughs]. The one you would get for a child with all the pre-programmed sounds. And I knew that he had all these amazing synth keyboards that he used in the ‘80s like the Oberheim OB Synth and the Mini Moog. So I asked him, “Where are all those keyboards?” And Prince gave me the keys to his warehouse.
I don’t know if you ever saw the end of Citizen Kane, but that’s how Prince’s warehouse looked inside. It was basically every set from the beginning when he first started. I saw every bit of Prince’s clothing, every bit of gear, every instrument…it went on for days. It felt like I was in a candy store of musical history. So we found all of the vintage synths and I set them all back up at the studio. But the funny thing was Prince kept going back to that Yamaha keyboard. Even though it was cheap Prince made it sound cool.
But with Prince it goes beyond the music. He was a very giving guy. Just talk to some of his past band members. He would stop in their local town and go to their old school and write out a check for $100 grand. But you would never hear about it.
He was so generous of his time.We were almost finished with the album and Prince tells me to set up his mic and that he would call me when he was done. So it’s probably around 6 in the evening and I had left the studio. Prince calls me in the next morning. I walk into the studio and he’s already recorded every lead vocal to every song on that record! It was the most amazing thing. That just blew my mind.
The Iconic Prince 