UNCUT FUNK interviews Pedro Bell

Nov 14, 1996
David Mills

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

When you think about it, it's incredible that a single band brought forth instrumental geniuses on the level of Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins and Eddie Hazel, and a vocal genius such as Glenn Goins, *plus* a whole other stratum of top-flight performers like Garry Shider, Mike Hampton, Billy Bass Nelson, Jerome Brailey, Rodney "Skeet" Curtis, and so on, and so on ... How damn mind- blowing is it, then, that on top of all that, the same organization would provide us with so brilliant a satirist as Pedro Bell?

One simply cannot imagine what Funkadelic would *mean* today without Pedro's cover art and liner notes -- his tripped-out astral spunkscapes and mutilated anthro- robotic street players, his dildonic portraiture and maggot-encrusted collages, his grandiose hallucinatory sermons which poke fun at sacred texts while carrying the weight of sacredness themselves. And all you have to do is peep the "Funkcronomicon" inside panel, the "Dope Dogs" CD package, and the liner notes to George Clinton's new "Greatest Funkin' Hits" (which, alas, could have benifitted from a proof-reader) to know that 20 years haven't dulled his stroke. With his nuts in the gutter and his head in the heavens, Pedro Bell (aka Sir Lleb, aka Capt. Draw, aka Droski) is one of Funk Planet's best- kept secrets.

Mr. Bell talked to me by phone early last November from his home on Chicago's South Side. Part 1 of the interview deals with some of his earliest Funkadelic memories, and how the Holy Bible has deeply influenced his art (say wot?!). In Part 2, Pedro waxes philosophic on the Information Superhighway, and discusses the personal health crisis that put a scare into his friends (not to mention his own ass!) in '95. This presentation, exclusively for the readers of rec.music.funky, is part of an ongoing project in cultural/historical documentation by the Unified Stankfoot Brigades of UNCUT FUNK. All rights are reserved by the author.

DAVID MILLS: I re-read what Darius James wrote about you in his book "That's Blaxploitation!," and I want to follow up on a couple of things that I didn't know. You at one time did makeup for George, for concerts?

PEDRO BELL: I just did it for a few shows that I had gone to. Back in the chitlin circuit days, there was a lot of improvisation since there was really no official staff. For instance, another time it was a show here at the auditorium, which was definitely a union kind of a thing as far as the lighting. After I got finished getting George's makeup together, they said they needed somebody to work the lights. I said, "Work the lights?" "Well, they got union guys pulling the switches, but they need somebody to direct 'em." So I went up in this booth, I don't know who's who, and basically it was like, "Put the spotlight on the guitar player."

MILLS: Did you travel with Funkadelic a lot?

BELL: No. Because I had hooked up with them on certain dates in the Midwest when they were all-the-way chitlin circuit. That really spoiled me as far as not going on any tours, not even the Mothership tour. I didn't even like the concept. I remember one so-called dressing room, that bad boy didn't even have panelling on the walls, it was like the two-by-four studs showing. And it was only one dressing room, and they had to go 'head and do that "tent city" for the women so they could change. Other than the groupies -- which seemed to be a little better variety than the ones of later days -- that tour thing never appealed to me. That situation did not look like fun.

MILLS: When exactly was it that you first hooked up with them?

BELL: "America Eats Its Young." So that's '72. I wrote to Ron Scribner [Funkadelic's manager at the time], and he hooked it up for me.

MILLS: You offered your services as a publicist, or press releases, or -- ?

BELL: Well, being young and stupid and hopelessly in love with the funk, it didn't really matter. So I started out doing publicity stuff and promotional stuff -- flyers for upcoming shows, and stuff for their press kits.

MILLS: Some of those old flyers would be worth some money today.

BELL: You know what, I think I have the flyers for the first two Chicago concerts. I have some photocopies of some of the envelopes that I did -- publicity envelope kind of things. It was a real shoestring budget. Ron would send me a few dollars every now and then, that would sort of halfway cover mailing expenses. But it didn't matter to me 'cause I had a nine-to-five.

MILLS: Oh yeah? How did Sir Lleb make a straight living?

BELL: I did the thing at the post office, which is a mandatory requirement for men of color in Chicago. (laughs) Got to work at the P.O.! And I did Sears as a elevator operator, and I did the security guard thing too. I was doing record reviews for a college newspaper so I could get free albums and concert tickets. Hey, free concerts, free records -- I didn't really need a lot of money.

MILLS: Also in Darius's book, you mentioned almost in passing that your father got you and your brothers into cartooning as a kid. How did that go?

BELL: I can't say if we just independently started messing around, but I do remember that he had taken us to a art store in the vicinity -- he knew a few artists -- and he bought us some how-to-draw-cartoon books. I was 5, 6, somewhere in there, so I would give him credit that he did get us all into that. Mom said that he was a read- a-holic, so if there's such a thing as genetic transfer by osmosis, I got that from him too.

MILLS: Didn't you also tell me that your father was a preacher? Did you pick up anything from him, gift of gab, or any philosophical outlook?

BELL: I will say this, I definitely got up on the Book of Revelations, which was a precursor to my later obsession with science fiction and horror stories and all that. Let's just say the beginning and the end (laughs) of the Bible, Genesis and Revelations, I remember having my old man read -- "Read me that part again."

You can find people who say "I believe in angels." I'mo tell you something, if you believe in angels, you better believe in demons. Because can't believe in one without believing in the other. And there is definitely some demons with their own individual personalities, far as top dogs under Lucifer or whatever.

One time I went into a store that specializes in occult books and all that. When I asked the manager what did he know about these particular books [on demonology] -- I had a short list -- he basically gave me a glassy-eyed stare and said, "You shouldn't be looking for those kind of books if you're not serious." I didn't like the look on his face when he said that (laughs), and I broke camp at slightly less than the speed of light. I bounced from that set when I realized it was maybe spiritually, maybe physically dangerous to even go 'head and investigate any further.

MILLS: What captured your imagination about it, going back to your memory of the Revelations story, that led you to want to investigate it further?

BELL: You know, every kid goes through their little monster phase, where it's scary but you still will check it out. Basically it was the same kind of curiosity. But no, I wasn't embracing none of that crap. I just wanted to know.

MILLS: As a matter of fact, somebody posted on the Internet recently, "How come Pedro Bell always puts a '666' on every album cover?" You got an answer for that?

BELL: Well, as I like to say, "I'm a product of my environment, and my environment is *you*." (laughs) I didn't want people to be dealing with the worldly things without even taking a look at the spiritual things. For instance, on "Electric Spanking," there's a picture of William Shockley, who is one of the more recent people talking about the racial inferiority of people of color as a genetic thang. And I had stencilled on his forehead "665." One thing about the image of the Antichrist, he's not going to have a red pimp suit, horns on his head, and a tail. He is going to, in all likelihood, wear a suit, he's going to be highly respectable as far as his profile.

Especially back in the early days of Funkadelic -- or for that matter even checking out the Process Church -- people say, "Oh, that's Funkadelic, that's Process Church, they off into that devil-worship, blah-blah-blah." Well hey, the real Antichrist is not going to come up via Funkadelic, George Clinton or the Process Church, or any other cult. It's coming up through mainstream America. And that's what people need to be conscious of. Shoot, he might even be a Democrat. (laughs)

MILLS: Philosophically, you really believe in this? The prophecy of the Revelations, the coming of the Anti- christ, and the existence of demons?

BELL: Well, I have an open mind. We got psychic hot lines, 900 numbers, people willing to go 'head and pay $3 a minute to have somebody reveal supposedly their future, and yet they'll dismiss the prophecy of the Bible as some kind of a comic-book thing to keep us in check. And then the same people talking about they believe in aliens. It all might be part of the same fabric, people don't know.

First of all, if you calculate the number of planets that are in the universe, it's no way someone can be thinking that we're the only life form in the universe, much less intelligent. 'Cause you can just read the paper and see that we are obviously not intelligent. (laughs) And if I was a member of an alien culture, I wouldn't want to be any more visible than what the alleged aliens are now; study [Earthlings], snatch a couple, check out the booties or whatever, dump 'em back, and stay-da-flunk away. Because we are inherently too dangerous.

My way of waking people up -- I mean, you can't get anybody to think until you get their attention. So I go 'head and try to figure out how to present something in a form that people will check out. That was the whole thing about doing the liner notes, to express certain realities in at least an interesting fashion. I'm perfectly capable of doing a editorial about the condition of the planet in politically correct lingo, but being Sir Lleb of Funkadelia is more interesting. Even if people don't even understand it on the first read.

MILLS: Right, but it gets people going word by word, reading so slow because they have to --

BELL: Yep. And that's part of the whole thing of even trying to read parts of the Bible.

MILLS: Let's talk about what you consider your deepest liner notes -- your "electric splanking" concept, as the companion and antidote to George Clinton's idea of "electric spanking." Fifteen years ago, it wasn't about personal computers and the Internet when y'all talked about the technological threat, yet it fits perfect. How did George break down the concept to you for "The Electric Spanking of War Babies"?

BELL: Actually, that was one of the few projects that he actually exported me into town [Detroit] to discuss for a hot minute. The "war baby" syndrome, of course -- everybody born after 1946. Then the "electric spanking" is the use of technology to program the civilians to act or think in a certain and predictable way. And you start with manipulation of basic instincts -- food, sex, sense of what's right and wrong, materialistic stuff, and throw in some theology and some government tangents, and you can really manipulate the people to go with the flow. Or be stupid.

The whole thing about "1984" was a prediction of how technology could be used to control the populations. And even though "1984" per se is not an absolute reality, it is not absolute sci-fi either. [Technology] is definitely indirectly responsible for what I call the intellectual downsizing of America.

Just look at the Internet. Here we have a situation with technology where, back three decades ago, you literally had to be a rocket scientist to have so much computer tech within your power. Now we got machines that you can buy from the store for $2,000 and change, that make those old-time computers look like toys. And yet, did that increase the number of people who used the technology to become wiser and more intelligent? No. That's the irony of it all.

MILLS: Well, give it a chance. The Internet is still pretty new. You don't think it has the potential to -- Or to put it in "electric splanking" terms, the Internet isn't run by the government. Is it a tool for "spanking" or "splanking"?

BELL: It could go either way. You see, if you have people intellectually downsized to the point that they're basically stupid when it comes to determining their own destinies, you really don't need government [to clamp down].

We can even keep it in the funk category. I hate to say it, but from what I have picked up, a whole lot of stuff on there, far as the funk-related nets, is not the exchange of valuable information. A lot of the crap is trivia, where people just go into battles about who played on what album, or what they heard. I would like to go 'head, hopefully, get some dollars together and prove by example, and put up a serious funk-net website. And for better or for worse, I would challenge some folks -- "Here's a concept you can think about. This is not something for you to argue about to prove who's got the latest scoop."

It can't happen if more people don't be jumping into the technological thing with a little bit more imagination.

MILLS: Backing up a little to George and the "electric spanking" concept, were you impressed by how deep he was conceptually or philosophically, or by how much he read?

BELL: Well, he wasn't like that Day One. He did not have a huge library of stuff back in the day, at least not on the wild stuff. But probably his involvement, on whatever level, with the Process Church started him off on that tip. And he never turned down anything that was presented to him -- "Yeah, I'll read it." So he accelerated extremely quickly in terms of checking out a lot of books.

I gave him the thing on UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. I had sent that to him back in the day, and didn't noboby know squat about no Bermuda Triange, and the UFO thing was still a big joke. The world caught up to it. They started making made-for-TV movies about the Bermuda Triangle, and then the high-end magazines started doing feature writing about it.

I made the mistake of doing a science-fair project for school, and they, like, laughed me out of the fair.

MILLS: A school project on what?

BELL: UFOs and Bermuda Triangle, like a double project. I had went ahead and provided all the research that I had available to me at the time, but I was basically laughed out of the science fair. I got my revenge, though. I went the other way for the next science fair, did problems and theories of automotive aerodynamics, and kicked everybody's ass. So I learned my lesson: The next time I go 'head and stretch out, do it in the appropriate medium.

MILLS: So the impediment to you getting on-line is just not having the finanaces to get the hardware?

BELL: Yep. All that and then some. Somebody made a crack on the Net, "Well, Dro's not around 'cause the only thing he's got is a Commodore 64!" Kind of ironic; I'm surrounded by too many people with $2K machines, and they got less functioning intelligent memory than a Commodore 64. And the machine was never about the Mac or the PC, it was about the Amiga in the first place, thank you very much. (laughs) And they couldn't even keep it together, because they had some people who were more adept at selling vacuum cleaners and cars than selling a computer. So the Macs and the PCs that rule the world now are basically here by default.

Commodore 64 was always the machine of the people who didn't have any money. If Bill Gates was to go 'head and save the world, and actually get credit for something, he ought to stop feeding that Microsoft bitch he got and break off some of that money that he's already hoarding up and do whatever it takes to bring back the Commodore 64 hardware. That means people could afford to have a functioning system for $250, so at least they'd have something to bring their pre-schoolers through early grades up. To use a $2,000 Pentium or Mac to teach a pre- schooler is obscene, when you have game systems that apparently everybody can afford for $200 or so.

But, of course, to a lot of the power echelons in the country, making real computer technology, far as having access to some knowledge, available to even -- yikes! -- inner-city kids (laughs) is illegal in itself.

MILLS: There's obvious class ramifications to what you're saying. The games are affordable for the kids, but not the access to information.

BELL: Right. Yep. People could say it's ironic, but hey, sounds like "electric spanking" to me.

MILLS: Speaking of kids, is your son [known from album covers as "Irate, Jr."] in the Chicago public schools?

BELL: Yeah.

MILLS: Is he getting any computer education there?

BELL: He's the unofficial student troubleshooter. Because the school finally has one motley PC or Mac in each classroom. Since he has been a lap-top -- meaning that he was sitting on my lap -- since the age of 3, (laughs) he learned a long time ago, pressing the wrong key does not mean that the computer's going to blow up on you. Consequently, when there's a computer problem, far as something crashing out, they collar him, because he ain't scared. He knows more about the regular PCs than I do.

But the Commodore machine was enough for a pre- schooler to learn. My knucklehead kid learned how to become computer-literate, and believe me, he was a hard-head. He didn't want me teaching him nothing. He learned it on his own.

MILLS: How old is he now?

BELL: He just turned 11.

MILLS: Does he read your album covers and stuff?

BELL: Nah. I don't let him play Mortal Kombat either.

MILLS: (laughs) What does that mean?

BELL: It's just that I don't want him to have access to all my spheres of knowledge. I'm just now getting him to recognize the fine points -- no pun intended -- of the Beauty of the Week in Jet magazine. (laughs) I go 'head and have him give *me* the rating. As he comes up in age and maturity, I will let him see more of my [artwork]. But not before.

MILLS: What can you tell everybody about the medical problems you've had?

BELL: I got checked into an outpatient clinic for possible diabetes [last year], and I was diagnosed having malignant hypertension. My blood pressure was at 225 over 160, which basically meant that I had no business even being alive. I was immediately hospitalized, for the malarkeys to save my life. Even though I was there for a week, and they wanted to keep me for three, I couldn't disappear off the planet like that. I had to jump back in the real world. But I have been outpatient status ever since.

My blood pressure situation has been at least moved out of the danger zone. It was a possibility that my kidneys were damaged to the point of needing dialysis, but since that, I have moved from the red zone to a yellow zone. I was also diagnosed with brain damage, but of course that's due to my Funkadelic chromosome --

MILLS: Pre-existing condition.

BELL: Right. (laughs) Right. The most disastrous lingering effect is that my vision has been affected. I'm still under treatment for that.

For those people who are interested in what I have been doing -- just, if for no other reason, to get some practice in -- they can pick up issues of this magazine called Rocktober. It's based out of Chicago [but] is distributed nationally. I've been putting stuff in every issue.

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