UNCUT FUNK interviews Jerome Brailey

Nov 9, 1996
David Mills

A 1996 UNCUT FUNK interview with Jerome Brailey that was republished on the now defunct New Funk Times website on August 23, 2003.

You can start a feisty discussion among P-Funk fans by asking, "Who's your favorite P-Funk drummer?" But there's one indisputable fact of history: the gold records didn't start coming till they put Jerome Brailey behind the kit. His flamboyant stroke propels such tunes as "Give Up the Funk," "Do That Stuff" and "Groovallegiance."

But Brailey is also notable for having left the Funk Mob at its commercial peak, helping Glenn Goins to launch Quazar and fronting his own band, Mutiny. When Larry Alexander and I interviewed Mr. Brailey in Virginia Beach in 1992, he was rehearsing with a Top 40 cover band. Since then, he has travelled briefly with the P-Funk All Stars, and has revived Mutiny.

DAVID MILLS: How did you get started in music?

JEROME BRAILEY: I started playing professionally with the Unifics out of Washington, D.C. I played drums on "Court of Love" [from '68]. I was working with those guys and ran into the Five Stairsteps, and they kind of took a liking to my playing. I just wanted to go out to California.

I went out with the Stairsteps when they did "Soul Train." The Chambers Brothers was on the show with them, and they were just freaked out by the way I was dressed at the time, the big hats. They were really into big hats and stuff. So I came home to Richmond and got a telegram to come to Hawaii, they'd like me to work with them. I was still working with the Stairsteps, but they offered me more money. So I hooked up with the Chambers Brothers.

[But] when I was with the 'Steps, I had seen George and them in New Jersey at one of the RKO theaters, the original Funkadelic with Tiki and Eddie and all those guys. Back in '68 and '69. I was out touring with the 'Steps, but they were on the show with us. And just from the first time seeing them mugs, like, "Damn, that's the shit I wanna be with."

LARRY ALEXANDER: Were they playing arranged stuff, or was it just chanting over that psychedelic kind of groove like on the record?

BRAILEY: They were doing "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" They were doing that stuff. And really looking wild. When the guys passed, you smelled incense and every- thing, it was like a whole boutique. Everybody in the 'Steps was crazy about 'em. Every time [Funkadelic] played, all of us were in the wings.

So I got with the Chambers Brothers, but the whole time, like whenever we toured, in the hotel room, I always had the early Funkadelic stuff playing. They were like, (annoyed voice) "You should just leave us and go with that group! Why don't you play Chambers Brothers music?" I said, "Well, you know, your music's cool. I'm playing it on stage. But the Funkadelic kind of shit is what I want to play."

I had met Bernie Worrell, and we kind of kept in contact, sending him letters and all. Finally, Tiki just started getting really crazy, and [Bernie] would always call me and say, "Man, we're in town, why don't you come and sit in?" But I'd have to do a gig with the Chambers Brothers.

MILLS: So the early '70s, you spent all that time with the Chambers Brothers?

BRAILEY: Yeah, from '70 to '74. Stamford, Connecticut and Beverly Hills, California. But the Brothers were doing that rock-'n'-roll circuit. They had crossed over, so we were playing stadiums and festivals. Playing with Alice Cooper when he was out with "School's Out," the Who and stuff like that, Led Zeppelin, all those mugs. Playing gigs for the Hell's Angels, the promoter Bill Graham at the Winterland, the Fillmore, we were doing all that kind of stuff.

MILLS: So what was it about Funkadelic, then?

BRAILEY: Maybe because I saw them live when I was young, and saw how they were. They wore whatever they wanted to wear on stage. Guys had cigarettes hanging out of their mouth, just went out and played. Something about it, pretty wild. And it was different. During that time, remember, like the 'Steps and the Delfonics, everybody had outfits on. Just to see these mugs come out there with boots with the toes curled up, just different. Kind of got into that.

They didn't have a lot of chicks around. We had all the chicks. (laughs) Chicks wouldn't even deal with them mugs. They were too -- Chicks didn't really start hanging around until they got more commercial. At first, a lot of people were scared of 'em.

MILLS: You say you had a correspondence with Bernie? When did that start?

BRAILEY: I think he had seen me playing with the Stairsteps. And he used to always tell me that I sounded just like Tiki.

What happened, Tiki was playing with Tyrone Davis when I was with the Unifics. We played Madison Square Garden and James Brown was on the show, and Tiki missed the flight or he was somewhere doing something crazy, so I had to sit in with Tyrone Davis. I knew all that stuff, so I did the gig. And the next show we had was in Cincinnati, and Tiki came in the room and pulled a gun out on me, talking about, "You're trying to take my job!" I mean, he was like wild and shit. (laughs)

MILLS: So what happened with Tiki when you wound up getting the P-Funk slot?

BRAILEY: Uh, he would come around whenever we played D.C. But by that time he had been doing all kinds of drugs, and they were doing all kinds of operations on him. He had a form of cancer that was taking away his stomach, so every time you saw him he was either bandaged up or something. But he always had that little smirk on his face. He would come around and be cool, but you could tell underneath he was like, "You got the gig and now y'all happening."

See, what happened, George fell out with him because I heard Tiki put George up against a wall one night because George hadn't paid him or something. He grabbed George up in the collar, threw him up against the wall, you know. From that day on, George was like, "Not gonna have him no more."

ALEXANDER: Within those years, did Tyrone Lampkin have much of a presence within the band?

BRAILEY: Yeah, when Funkadelic first came to Richmond, they played [Virginia Commonwealth University], Tyrone was playing. I went to the gig, and I was playing with the Chambers Brothers, and before the show started they had a little sound check, and I got on the drums. It was weird; Tyrone was good, but we just had that kind of click where he thought I was even on another level. For them, when they were first coming up, the Chambers Brothers were of another caliber. So whenever I came around, it's like, "He's with the Chambers Brothers!" But I liked Tyrone. He was pretty cool.

MILLS: You mentioned that George had called you at the hospital on the day your daughter was born, in August of '75, to hire you?

BRAILEY: It was supposed to have been the kind of birth where you're in the room with your wife. And the nurse come up and said, "Mr. Brailey, you have a call." So I went to the phone; it was George. After the conversation, I got the gig. My daughter was born, I missed the birth and everything. I took the job for $50 more than what I was making with the Brothers. Usually I'd be like (dismissive) "I'm making that now." [But] I flew straight from L.A. and went to Akron, Ohio, never rehearsed with them a day in my life, went on the stage and did the whole show. I never rehearsed with Funkadelic.

ALEXANDER: The "Mothership Connection" album was done towards the end of that year?

BRAILEY: They were in the process of doing it when I got in. After we did Akron, we went straight into Detroit. And the first track I laid down was "Give Up the Funk."

ALEXANDER: Tell us how "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker" was put together.

BRAILEY: Me and Bootsy kind of hooked it up. I remember "Fame" being out, David Bowie, around that time. I just kept thinking about that "faaame," you know, and I wanted to get in a groove like that, and "We want the funk" just kind of fitted. Like "Weee want the funk, give up the funk," just over and over, "Weee need the funk." And we just kind of hooked it up.

MILLS: Would it be you and Bootsy just goofing around in the studio until you hit upon something?

BRAILEY: Just me, Bootsy and Gary Shider, usually he'd be there. What happened, George would usually be sitting behind the board, and we'd be in the room playing and jamming, and he'd say, "Let's take that one," and we'd take it, you know, and then he'd come up with the lyrics.

A couple of tracks -- Like "If You Got Funk, You Got Style," me and Gary really hooked that track up. We didn't get writer's credit for it because while we were doing it, just jamming it, George would hit the button and act like he wasn't doing anything, but he had recorded the track.

MILLS: So did you have to negotiate to get your name on "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker"? That's the only song you have a writer's credit for.

BRAILEY: Even Glenn [Goins] told me, "George *had* to give you and Bootsy writing on that, 'cause that was y'all's tune." I had met Bootsy years ago when I was with the Chambers Brothers. He was just hanging out in Cincinnati dropping acid, a Sly Stone clone, dressing like Sly, just doing that whole trip. He had worked with George on "America Eats Its Young," and I guess he got ripped off because he was telling me he would never work with George again. Then when I [joined], he's there. I'm like, "Oh, okay."

But really, me and Bootsy put the track together. I was just excited to be in the group. I didn't go say, "Well, don't forget to put my name down." [George] just remembered to do it. But he put his name on it too, you know, 'cause he did come up with the arrangement or whatever.

MILLS: What would happen in those cases where you're all over the track, like on "Do That Stuff," and the album comes out and you've got no co-writing credit?

BRAILEY: You've got to remember that we were, like, hot then. In L.A. when we did "Clones of Dr. Funkenstein," we were in Hollywood Sound, bad chicks around, you know what I'm saying? (chuckles) I had a limo here and there and shit. You just went in, did the session and left. Now today, when I hear the track, I say, "Damn, 'Do That Stuff,' I should have got --'"

That [chant] was from when we used to play St. Louis. The audience there used to chant "Do that stuff" -- the girls, you know. And we just kind of picked it up from those people in St. Louis, and George put it in a tune.

ALEXANDER: Was Cordell Mosson doing a lot of bass on sessions with y'all?

BRAILEY: Boogie did some bass. But George, he was weird. He would always have it in certain guys' head that everybody can be replaced. He never let you feel that you were actually needed. He'd bring in anybody, even if it wasn't happening. He just always wanted to have a lot of cats always around, in case somebody said, "Hey man, it's not happening," or, you know, "I gotta get paid right." "Well, bring *him* in. Let him do it."

MILLS: Wow. Sounds like an effective strategy in keeping you psychologically controlled.

BRAILEY: Right. "The non-profit organization." See, he started doing tunes later on -- Me and Glenn was like, "Man, check out the lyrics on this, like 'Funk, the non- profit organization.' Well, we're not getting *paid* regularly!" Or he said, "the pimping of the pleasure principle." Which, it was pleasurable for us to be doing what we was doing, and he was pimping us on that shit.

MILLS: Those were the glory days of the Mob. Everything was happening, y'all were on the road a lot. As you say, the groupies, the limos. What led to the dissatisfaction?

BRAILEY: All the stuff was really taking off, and George would have meetings. His favorite guys to have meetings with were myself, Bernie, Glenn, Gary, and maybe Boogie sometimes. Mike, you give him money, he'd just buy guitars, he didn't really care too much. Grady, Fuzzy, he didn't give them really too much respect, because we'd go into Detroit and do all kinds of sessions, those guys would be home, like, broke. Then George would put their names down on the album like they were there, but they weren't.

But anyway, four guys -- myself, Gary, Glenn, Bernie, sometimes Boogie, and Mike every once in a while -- but George would always call us off somewhere and say, "You're getting a royalty check next month," you know. And like, "J., you're getting $40,000. Gary, you got them cars you lease so you get about $25,000. Glenn, you're getting this 'cause you were advanced this," and it would be in the thousands. And then, two months down the road, everybody in the band -- I mean *everybody*, Grady, everybody -- get a check for $5,000 or $8,000. And then we're like, "Damn, we did all the [recording]," but everybody would get the same check. And then you wouldn't see no more until that was almost gone. They were telling you, "You got one coming for 40 or 50 [thousand]," and we never saw 'em.

MILLS: So who was the first one -- was it Glenn, I guess? -- who decided to break off and do his own thing, get his own deal?

BRAILEY: What happened, we were in Pittsburgh during a snow storm. Me and Glenn had got pretty tight, I was dating his sister at the time. I thought he was the greatest vocalist I had ever heard, and he thought I was the greatest drummer. We just clicked. Gary and them kind of -- after George gave [Glenn] some of the top rank -- they got kind of jealous, you know. Glenn could have went into acting or anything, this mug was just so talented.

We were in Pittsburgh, and me and Glenn had protested about not getting paid. It was Glenn and myself and Mike Hampton and the new horn section we had and Skeet [Curtis]. Johnny Parrent was the road manager at the time. So we had told Johnny, "We want our back pay," and John just came up and said, "The answer is 'Fuck no!'" or something that was really like *What?* So we just got off the bus. Mike, myself, Glenn, the horn section -- which was Darryl Dixon and them, I used them on the Mutiny stuff -- and Skeet. Johnny came back and said, "Man, y'all got to do this gig. Got some backers showing up." Skeet actually went and did the gig.

When everybody came back, the horn players were fired, Glenn was fired, me and Mike were put on three-week probation. Gary and all, they were kind of glad Glenn had got fired, because at that time [Glenn] had the head clout. It was like, "Finally, we'll be able to get back to normal."

MILLS: You came back into the band, then?

BRAILEY: I had tickets to go out to L.A. to finish up the tour. And Glenn was in New Jersey, and he was calling me every other day to let me know what was happening. He was telling me he was going to do [his brother] Kevin's group [for Arista Records].

MILLS: So ultimately you quit P-Funk to work with Glenn on Quazar?

BRAILEY: Right. And then Robert [Mittleman, Clinton's former manager] said, "Look, what do you want to do?" I said, "Well, I want to do Mutiny." He said, "You need any money to get it started?" And I was just joking, I said, "Yeah, about $20,000." And he wrote the check.

[Mutiny] wasn't against the guys, it was against George. And I was trying to let those guys in the band know that they could come on and do it. Because the company at the time would have given me 10 grand more for each member that I brought over from Parliament.

MILLS: You tried to recruit them, then?

BRAILEY: Yeah.

MILLS: And none of them went for it?

BRAILEY: They got kind of mad at me. Well, they got mad at me and Glenn 'cause we wanted to do it. And we was telling 'em, "Look, man, we can do this without George." Now when I see 'em -- After all these years, it's still the same groove with George.

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