Step behind the purple curtain with Matt "Doctor" Fink, legendary keyboardist of Prince & The Revolution, in this exclusive Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelley interview. Fink shares rare, behind-the-scenes stories from the studio and stage, offering a firsthand look at Prince’s groundbreaking creativity, work ethic, and musical brilliance. From iconic hits to boundary-breaking sessions, get an intimate perspective on one of the most influential artists in music history.

🎙️ Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelley features legendary and emerging funk, R&B, and Prince-associated artists. On air since 1982 and now spanning five decades, the show was personally spotlighted by Prince on his website in 2004. He also gifted us the One Nite Alone box set in 2002 — before any other media outlet.

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Excited because a great friend of ours is going to stop by the show once again.

He's coming to town about 1 hour from where we broadcast here in the states capital, Hartford, Connecticut.

He'll be performing with his band the Purple experience on Saturday night at Infinity Hall, a great venue.

And he's going to be bringing all that Minneapolis funk and roll to town.

Keyboardist and producer extraordinaire toured around the world, all around the world with his buddy prince and everybody in the revolution.

And we welcome to the upper room in WVOF once again.

Mister Matt Doctor Fink.

How you doing, doc?

I'm really good, thanks.

How are you guys?

Yeah, we're doing good.

And you know, we get starved.

You know, we love the Minneapolis twin city sound.

And you know, whenever you guys are able to come to New York, New Jersey or Massachusetts, Connecticut, we're happy.

So when was the last time you've been to Connecticut?

Do you remember?

Yeah, I think I remember.

But boy, it's a lot.

It's a really long time.

I've been to New York quite a bit over the last couple decades, but I don't get up your way very often, so I think it may have been on tour with Prince even like maybe, maybe love sexy period.

Right?

I think, you know, right in there.

And of course, I think I've been to Boston since then.

But yeah, I really like Hartford.

I have a few friends there too.

And, you know, I.

We really appreciate all the support you've given the Minneapolis musicians and all the help and promotion you've given everybody whenever they come to town.

Yeah, no doubt.

You guys came in on a huge snowstorm.

I don't know if you remember that on the night.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Yeah, I remember like it was yesterday.

And we were stranded there.

Uh huh.

We couldn't, we couldn't fly out.

We were supposed to try to fly out, you know, after the show or get up or take the bus or whatever we were doing, and we couldn't go, so.

I remember it.

Oh, yeah.

I practically kidnapped my girlfriend at the time.

Determined to go to the show, which didn't sit well with her parents when we came back that night, so.

Or the next night.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Tours, I was amazed that the show actually went off, but, you know, you guys had a great show as always.

Yeah, that was, those were the fun days, definitely.

Fun times.

So the band the purple experience, led by the doctor Fink, Matt Fink, with us right now.

And what was your thoughts in getting back into the music which you were so involved with in going out on the road with this band?

For the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in Raleigh, North Carolina.

And I was working with Peppy Willie, who was one of prince's mentors in the early days.

And he had his group, 94 east, performing.

And he invited me to do the show with him, along with some other Minneapolis musicians.

And after we did the event, a couple of those guys who I've known for a while approached me with their idea to do a Prince tribute style show.

And at first, you know, I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.

But as I thought about it more, I thought it might be a good way to get out and play again.

And also bring the Minneapolis sound to a wider audience that prince can't always get to.

And I was right.

The fans have been very appreciative.

And I get a lot of people coming up after shows saying that they never got to see Prince.

They haven't had a chance to see him yet, or prince never came to their town.

Because they lived in a smaller community and they couldn't get away.

So there's a lot of fans out there that have never seen him live.

And then we give him a great dose of all the eighties era music that I used to do with him.

So the gentleman that I'm working with do an excellent job at recreating the music from that era.

Now tell us, I noticed from at one point you had vandal playing drums with you, but who's in the current band?

Yes, I've got Ron Karen on drums now.

Okay.

And he's worked with the Rembrandts here from Minneapolis, as well as I've also worked a little bit with the Rembrandts in the last few years.

But in fact, that's how I met Ron, was working with Phil Solim from the Rembrandts, who does some solo shows around the Twin Cities here.

And whenever Phil works, I do keyboards for him.

So Ron was involved with some of those shows.

And then I really enjoyed working with Ron and decided to bring him on board.

Because, you know, Bobby Vandel isn't always available.

He works with several other groups.

So then we have this gentleman by the name of Ace Mack on base.

Okay.

And Tracy Blake on guitar.

And Marshall Charloff, who is our Prince doppelganger.

That's right.

And he does.

He does a.

He does an excellent job being prince, so.

Right.

Yeah.

And, yeah, it is a tribute act in the true sense of the word.

So, you know, he dresses like Prince and does the whole thing.

So it's a lot of fun.

Now, choosing the set list.

I mean, you were involved with from the get go and Prince's early releases and tours till, you know, around the graffiti bridge era.

What was it like, you know, chopping a set list down with so many great songs throughout those years?

Yeah, it's not easy.

But what we do is we try to bring out the greatest hits, and of course, we do some of the deep cuts, some of the album cuts to vary it up a bit.

And we have a pretty good repertoire now to choose from.

So the set lists do change from city to city and what type of venue we're playing at.

You know, we do a lot of corporate events.

We do casinos, of course.

Now we're starting to get into theaters.

Okay.

Yeah.

Around the country.

And we'll be playing at the Holland Theater in Ohio coming up.

What's the date on this?

Do you remember?

Yes.

That is October.

I believe it's October 9.

Okay.

And that's a Friday.

And then we're also going to be at what's called the Wolf's Den at the Mohegan sun casino, also in Connecticut there.

Yeah.

That's like an hour and a half away.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'll love that place we enjoy there, the Wolf den.

And so you'll be busy.

What's the best place people can get the purple experience with Matt.

Matt Fink.

All the information.

Oh, before I go there.

Okay.

The something just was booked the other day at BB King's, also in Manhattan.

Oh, really?

Okay.

Yes.

So we're gonna be.

We'll be there.

I forgot the date, though, but it will be on the Facebook page.

Purple experience Facebook page.

All of our dates are posted there, and that'll be posted soon.

That just came in last week.

So just waiting for the final confirmation.

I'm trying to think what's going on.

I'd have to open up the calendar, but I can't at the moment.

Yeah, we'll give you some time.

And we're going to get into some of your own solo.

Solo work from ultrasound, which is, you know, it's still a great record.

You know, I'm listening to some of Prince's current output, and he may have had his ear to start view recordings for a sound or two on some of his new stuff.

Yes, his new album is definitely influenced by the electronica sound this time around.

And I think that's really due to Josh Welton, the gentleman that's working on production for him at the moment.

So I find it very interesting that Prince did that, that he turned to an outside producer, really, for the first time in his career.

Yeah, right.

Doctor Fink, Matt Fink, who's right now up in Minneapolis St.

Paul, and he's on the line with us getting ready.

We were talking off air about all these upcoming gigs, and most importantly, this Saturday night in Hartford, Connecticut, at Infinity hall, the Purple experience, all the great music from Prince's immense catalog.

And I.

I gotta ask you, you did so many tours with Prince.

I mean, you were in his original band, and what was the most challenging tour for you to prepare with Prince?

I know you guys rehearsed like crazy great professionals, but what was the most challenging in advance?

I hit in the stage.

That's an interesting question, because the reality is every tour was as complex as the next.

As far as his work ethic and the amount that he would work with the group to get ready for it.

I mean, we would really rehearse for anywhere from two to three months, and then there would be easily two to three weeks of technical dress rehearsals and then the tours themselves.

He would tend to do fairly long sound checks anywhere from two to two and a half hours before a show.

And there would be changes made to shows along the way on tour.

And a lot of times we would be, you know, required to remember those changes right before the show.

Wow.

So, yeah, it was really a.

That in itself could be a challenge.

So the best way for me to handle that would be to write it down and have a little cheat kind of chart or notes on stage taped to a keyboard so I could remember what was going on, or I would record.

I always recorded the.

Those sound checks whenever changes were being made, so I could go in the dressing room and review before the show and other band members could listen, because a lot of times the other band members thought they could remember, and they realized they couldn't always remember what was happening, and they'd say, hey, did you record that by any chance?

So we could hear it again?

You know?

So, yeah.

So that's how he operated.

Yeah, he was, I got to tell you, one of the most dedicated, hardest working, I think, out of anybody I know in the industry, except for maybe James Brown.

And I think he knew about James Brown's reputation and really modeled his own work ethic after James?

I think in a lot of ways.

Do you think after all these years to be the one to answer?

But, you know, he doesn't tour as like those long tours, the flights and city to city.

You know, it's kind of like a small weekend hit, three, four shows.

Do you know any reason why?

What we suspect that's how he tours.

I notice a lot of musicians do it like that now.

You think it's just age, or.

I'm sorry, say that again.

Do you think it's just age?

You know, there's the so called hit and run dates, three, four shows, then a break in between, you know?

Is there a reason why prince and other musicians are kind of going that route?

It could be just easier on the bones, as they say.

Right?

Yeah, it could be.

Could be like it's getting older and he probably doesn't want to be sitting on a bus or traveling every other day or doing all that.

I can sympathize with that, you know?

Yeah.

So, although, you know, I see Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, who's a little bit older than us, and all those guys who are way older than us, right?

Guys that are in there.

Really?

Like Paul McCartney.

I saw him a year ago in Minneapolis at our baseball stadium, and he's about 72.

He did 3 hours on stage.

Wow.

Nonstop.

It was absolutely amazing.

And I barely saw him take a drink.

Wow.

On the state.

I mean, I just.

It was amazing.

Amazing energy coming from that guy at that age.

So I only hope I'll be able to be doing that at that age.

I want to be, you know.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, you got the passion and.

Yeah, you have, you have.

And you've had, for quite a while, your own studios, Starview Studios.

What's going on cooking the last couple years that we haven't talked?

Well, you know, there's always something coming and going in here.

I work with a lot of local artists, but I do get session work from around the planet, and I'm playing on different things.

And one of the most interesting projects that I've been dealing with is a new company called Future Youth Records, which is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco.

And it works with kids, teenagers, and inner city kids.

And they're, you know, we're trying to empower them with, to write, you know, like positive messages, anti drug, anti sexist, anti whatever they want to write about.

That is a positive thing for kids to listen to.

And some of them are just doing lyrics, and we're helping them produce the songs.

And, you know, we're getting corporate sponsors and doing that kind of thing.

And a friend of mine in San Francisco is spearheading the whole thing.

So I'm in and out of town with that right now.

We've done a couple projects, and I believe there are four more slated for the next year.

And there will be a video release event for one of the projects October 24 that I'll be attending.

And the song, I wrote the music for it and helped produce it.

And it's young teenage girls who did the song with us.

It's really good.

Really good stuff.

the Purple Experience, led by Matt Doctor Fink.

He was there with Prince in the original band, the Capri Theater.

Right.

Was the first big show.

That's right.

Yeah, I wasn't there, but, you know, heard all about that.

So you can remember any, any special notes about that performance before we get into some of your own music.

Yeah, that's an interesting time.

That was January of 79.

We did two shows there, the second of which maybe it was the first night, I can't remember for sure.

It's been so long.

But anyway, all the Warner Brothers executives came in for that one to check us out.

And I remember Des Dickerson had a wireless guitar system that was kind of a new thing happening and it wasn't one of the best ones around.

And it malfunctioned in the middle of the show.

And we lost his guitar sound for a little while.

So we actually had to stop the show.

And then Prince had to start talking to the audience for a little bit while we figured out the technical thing.

And it was kind of scary.

It was kind of scary because he wasn't used to that.

And, you know, they came in in the dead of winter, it was below zero at night.

All these la guys came in and they froze their butts off.

Right.

It was a lot of fun.

I do remember one thing after the show, they said, don't quit your day job.

You guys need to keep working.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

How'd that turn?

What?

No, I said, how'd that turn out?

No, they didn't.

They didn't actually use those words, but they did say, well, you know, you guys are, you know, you're on your way, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Prince, you need to do your second album now.

Right.

The rest you guys keep rehearsing.

So.

Yeah, but the second show went better because we figured out the technical glitches so it didn't help having that happen in the middle of the show.

Yeah.

So, so much history.

And, you know, when I talk to musicians like, like yourself, who are right in the middle of just a movement, you know, the Minneapolis sound, we talked to pfunk members and, you know, did you know this was going to be, as we are today, such an important part of musical history while you were in the midst of it?

You know, you have those hopes and dreams when you're getting into it.

Yeah.

So, so the push for it, the, you know, the thought of doing it, you know, putting that thought in your mind always helps the visualization of it.

I always had visualizations of my career doing those things when I was in high school.

In fact, one of my goals that I had for myself was to be on all of the national music tv shows, to be on Saturday Night Live, all that stuff I was praying for, and it all came to fruition.

So I think, you know, for.

Just for advice to anybody who's out there trying to do this for a living, you just have to have the confidence and envision it in your mind and work hard.

That's what it takes.

You have to really be dedicated to the craft and put long hours into it, and you will succeed, I think.

Yeah.

Great words.

What kind of dog do you have?

Oh, sorry, the dog was barking.

Well, we have a couple dogs.

Both of them are rescue dogs.

That's the way to go.

Yeah.

The one that's barking, who's the barky one, is a little spitfire named Phoebe, and she's probably half papillon, half pomeranian.

And then the other dog, which we acquired last December's name is Lola, and she's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Okay, that's nice.

Yeah, she's the quiet one, right?

Hey, that's okay.

We keep it real here on the show.

So doctor Fink is with us, Matt, doctor Fink from Minneapolis St.

Paul, and he's coming to Connecticut this Saturday night with the purple experience, the ultimate Prince tribute, bandaid.

He was there.

Prince all through the dirty mind, the purple rain tours and the revolution.

We're going to talk.

You have time for one more segment?

Sure.

Okay.

And I, you know, I was even.

Yeah, I was.

That's right.

Yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

And one quick thing, getting back to the Future, youth records company, people can see that and hear the song right now on the Facebook page for FYR is what it is.

Or future youth records.

Okay.

They can, they can hear that song which is called we are the women.

And amongst other things I'm working on these days.

There's even a doctor Fink solo project in the offing right now.

Just so people, just so you know.

All right, we look forward to that.

The follow up to ultrasound.

And we're going to get into a track and change it up a little bit.

From ultrasound.

This is called nobody cried.

And you're listening to the upper room with Joe Kelly and WVOF.

Matt, Doctor Fink coming back one more time.

That is nobody cried from ultrasound.

Matt, Doctor Fink, great producer, keyboardist and performer.

He's bringing the purple experience.

We're going to hear some of their live music after we talked Doctor Fink one more time.

So, you know, you were, we all know you with Prince and the revolution and the MPG and your mates from the revolution.

I know you guys over the years have gotten together periodically minus the band leader Prince, but you guys still hold out hope once that he'll grace the stage with you.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, yeah, I'm hoping he will.

And he's, you know, he's even hinted at it a little bit over the years, but he thinks about it.

But then he gets caught up in doing what he wants to do and moving forward.

He really seems to believe in doing new things and working with different people and, you know, so I don't know.

We'll have to see.

I hope he does.

He knows.

He knows that we've all wanted to do that.

Right?

So it's really the balls in his court.

Now, let me, let me ask you this.

The purple rain tour down in Miami, the orange Bowl, I think it was.

And the statement, the press statement, everybody's looking for the ladder and this is it for Torrin.

Did you guys believe it yourself?

I'm sorry, could you say that one?

Repeat that again?

Something broke.

Broke up on the phone here.

Okay, one more time.

You guys did the gig, the purple rain, I think it was the Orange bowl in Miami.

Yes.

That was the final show.

Yeah.

Then prince released some statement.

No more touring.

He's going to look for the ladder.

Did you guys really think that was the end of touring yourselves?

Well, I didn't think he was going to do the.

He was going to end touring.

He did tell us, I mean, he did say right before that show, literally, he sat down with us in the dressing room and said, hey, guys, I want you to all know we're going to take a long break, long hiatus up to possibly two years.

He said, okay, and you all, you all can do whatever you want.

You can put out records, you can take a break, not do anything, whatever you want to do, and you'll be on retainer.

And we all said, okay, fine, but you know, at the moment, I said, you know, I don't know if two years, that's an awfully long time.

I.

Are you sure you want to do that?

Do you think that's a wise idea?

And he just said, yeah, I just want to do what I'm going to do.

And then, you know, within three months around the world, the day was presented to us.

That's right.

So now Wendy and Lisa, they were involved with some of the music on that as far as recording.

And I think Lisa's brother did some string arranging on Raspberry Beret with somebody else, Novi Novag and some other people.

And the thing about that album is that when Prince was recording it, I don't think Wendy and Lisa knew that it was going to come out so quickly.

I think it was that, you know, because Prince is always recording songs and just, you know, archiving them.

So they just thought, oh, this is just part of, you know, his creative process.

He's just going to be putting songs together for future projects, blah, blah, blah.

And then I think he got bored trying to take a break.

I think he wanted a break, really.

I don't think he, I think at the moment he was serious about that and then realized that he couldn't sit still or, and you never know what's going on in his mind for sure.

He just said that to us to keep us off guard so that we wouldn't be so shocked when he laid that on us out of nowhere, out of the blue, you know?

Yeah.

I thought a cool part of the Purple Rain tour was when you guys played the Nassau coliseum, one of the shows I had right behind the stage.

So I knew that you guys were coming back out to do an encore and you work some of the songs from around the world in the day with the house lights up and that was pretty cool.

Now was that on the purple rain tour itself still?

Yeah, it was, it was st.

Paul came out in his canary yellow suit and I think you guys did, he might have did America.

No.

Couple songs I remember.

Yeah.

So, yeah, just a lot of great tours we didn't get to see here in the States.

The sign of the Times tour.

But what was special or what was kind of not so special about the sign of the Times tour?

Was it all good for you?

Yeah.

The sign of the Times tour was.

And was really.

The stage set was spectacular.

The music was spectacular.

And it's just a darn shame that that album was not toured properly in the United States.

And there were just.

There were some things that happened that prevented that from happening.

I don't know all the details.

Right.

But, you know, he even cut the tour short in Europe.

I think we did about two months there.

And then he thought, well, let's put out a concert film.

And so we came back to the.

Then brand new, just had opened Paisley Park Studios.

And we did pick up filming shots for the movie, which had already been.

The majority had been filmed live on tour, most of it in Paris.

And so they did a lot of close ups.

They set the stage up on the soundstage.

Paisley park, took some shots, you know, called better shots.

And did a lot of stuff.

And spent a couple weeks filming back home.

And then they.

That was the end of it.

So, yes, very disappointing.

I'm sure he was disappointed about not doing the US with that show.

But everybody can see it.

They can get the dvd and various places still, I believe, or VHS copies.

But that.

That's a great show, right?

I mean, it's just the musicianship and the technicality of the musicians are just stellar in that lineup.

Really.

Yeah.

What a great band.

And, you know, yourself and Bonnie on the keys.

And comparing the parts, you know, your counterpart.

You usually had a counterpart each tour, playing keyboards.

What were the parts you played and the other keyboardists played during the print shows.

What were you guys responsible for individually?

Well, usually we would learn all the parts that were in the song, each keyboard player.

And then we would divvy the parts up.

And so it was really between me and the other keyboardist.

And, you know, by then, you know, once Lisa was out of the group and Bonnie was there.

And then later working with Rosie Gaines.

Right.

On one final tour, I was in charge of really working with both of them.

And divvying up the parts more than anything.

Prince wasn't too instrumental in that at that point.

He didn't want to have to worry about it.

Back when Lisa was in the group, though, he would help with that at times, to help divvy up those things.

Give us assignments as to who's playing what.

Yeah.

So it really varied from song to song, right?

Yeah.

Our special guest has been Matt Doctor Fink, key member of the Minneapolis music scene.

And still is.

And has been for such a long time.

And he's real busy with his own band, the Purple experience.

You know, you want the authentic Minneapolis funk and rock blend and all that great sounds.

The doctor can bring it to you and has been doing it with his band the Purple experience.

Coming to town.

You can go to infinityhall.com, that is in Hartford, Connecticut, and a bunch of other shows.

We alluded to some of them that could be able to find out all the information on Facebook.

But off the top of your head, what's upcoming after Infinity hall?

Let's see, we've got two nights at what's called the 37 main club.

That'll be October 6 and 7th.

That's a Friday and Saturday night coming up in early October pretty soon.

Then we have a.

What town is that in?

I'm sorry, say that again.

What city is that club in the, that's in Atlanta.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

Wow.

Big.

All the hair, all the hairstylists and salon owners from around the area, Midwest come in, some from out of town.

They come in, they fly in for the, what's called the Hare Congress event.

And then there's a big Halloween bash happening with that.

So we're doing that at the downtown Hilton.

So if you're a hairstylist and you want to go to this, you can come to it.

Okay.

I believe there's tickets.

I think there's, you have to be a licensed cosmetologist though, I believe, to get into that event.

Right.

So that should be a lot of fun.

Then you talked about the Wolf den at the Mohegan sun casino here in Connecticut, right?

Correct.

And then in November, let's see, November 8, we'll be at the Magic bag.

I'm sorry.

October 8, I apologize.

We'll be at the Magic bag theater in Detroit.

And then October 9 we're at the Holland Theater in Ohio.

Okay.

And then there's, there's going to be a date booking up here on October 10.

I don't have the exact venue yet.

I made a mistake on that.

That time for 37 main.

That's November 6 and 7th.

I apologize.

Okay.

Yeah.

In Atlanta.

And then we'll be in Orlando, Florida, November 12 at the Savannah, I can't remember, it's some sort of place called the Savannah center in Orlando.

And then there's another show down in southwestern Florida on the 14th, which, I don't have the name of the venue yet.

It just came in the other day.

Soon to be announced.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now there's one other thing.

I'll just kind of go along the calendar a little if you want.

November 20 in Sacramento.

I'm sorry.

November 21 at the Colonial Theater in Sacramento, California.

Right.

And then there's a show in Davenport, Iowa, right after Thanksgiving.

I don't remember the name of the venue.

And then Grand Falls Casino and resort in Sioux Falls.

I think that's South Dakota.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what's going on there.

And then, of course, New Year's is to be determined, but right now it looks like it could be the hard Rock cafe here at the Mall of America.

Wow.

So you know.

You know what?

It looks like you're touring more than your former boss, prince, as of the moment.

Yeah, I guess you could say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm sure Prince will be out on the road for the hit and run gigs again.

So, you know, you guys, I got to thank you, doctor Matt Fink, all the great performances and recordings over the years and looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting with you as well.

Yeah, everybody.

Our audience, if you get a chance.

And we're going to give you a taste of what you're going to be hearing that night.

Thank you.