[videowaywire video_id=”E4F1031019DCDFB5″]
*The Revolution band member Lisa Coleman suspected that Prince had been using drugs for a decade before he died of a fentanyl overdose in April 2016.
“I didn’t know to what extent,” she told the New York Daily News in advance of upcoming Revolution gigs at NYC’s Sony Hall on Oct. 11 and 12.
“I had heard rumors over the last like 10 years or something that he was fooling around with drugs,” said Coleman, who played keyboards with The Revolution from 1980 to 1986. “It was so unusual, but I knew he was in a lot of pain and he was going through a lot with his hip and that made sense to me.”
Although she was aware of how much pain Prince was in, Coleman says she wasn’t aware of the extent to which he was using drugs to cope.
“I was shocked that it had gone so far,” she said. “It’s hard to think about even the pictures that I saw of him and stuff in the last two months (of his life). ‘Hey something’s wrong. Someone give him some soup or something.’ It really freaked me out.”
According to Coleman, the Revolution’s anti-drug stance made the bandleader’s death complicated.
“All of us have very difficult feelings about it because he was very conservative and we weren’t a stone-y band,” she said. “We were clean. That was part of our image too, you don’t need all that. So yeah it was a shock, but not a surprise.”
Coleman, who went on to record with Revolution bandmate Wendy Melvoin as duo Wendy & Lisa, said The Revolution reunited as a way to deal with grief after Prince’s death, though he continues to mentor them even now.
“All of us were trained so severely, working with Prince was such a discipline that having him not be there, I didn’t know where to look — we were always focused on him,” she said. “It took us a while (to figure out) what the f–k to do. It was really crazy.”
According to Coleman, The Revolution is losing money when it performs and that’s fine.
“It’s definitely an act of love,” she said.
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
