Veteran drummer has calling to paint
By Kathaleen Roberts / Journal Staff Writer, Albuquerque Journal
With one foot on the toilet while his paintbrush completed the arc of a Zuni bear’s back, Tubes founder Prairie Prince was adding a mural to the bathroom of a home on Santa Fe’s east side on Wednesday.
“I’m going to come back in with a darker turquoise on this,” he said.
Afterward, he relaxed to a recording of “Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder” by ’60s session piano player Nicky Hopkins, the bass by Beatles friend Klaus Voormann and the signature slide guitar of George Harrison.
“I was the drummer,” Prince said. “Getting to work with George was unbelievable.”
Prairie Prince, the drummer for The Tubes, is painting murals in Cathy Stoia’s home.
Prince – née Charles Prince – is a veteran musician who has played with everyone from Todd Rundgren, Brian Eno, David Byrne and Jefferson Starship to Tom Waits and John Fogerty. He was even a founding member of the band Journey, returning to The Tubes well before Journey’s mega success.
But he was in Santa Fe Wednesday to paint murals in the home of Cathy and Chris Stoia.
A Renaissance man with his feet planted firmly in both paint and pop, Prince has designed and painted murals on A&M Records’ Hollywood exterior, San Francisco’s Cliff House, Art Deco-themed walls for New York’s Chemical Bank at Rockefeller Center and sets for Michael Jackson, Shania Twain, Bonnie Raitt, Gloria Estefan, Bette Midler and Broadway productions.
“When you’re not doing one, the other one suffers,” he said of his dual career.
“I’m playing tomorrow night in San Francisco,” Prince said. “It’s (The Tubes’) 40th anniversary.”
Born in Charlotte, N.C., Prince grew up in Phoenix, where he played in his elementary school band.
‘Then The Beatles came out and I got a set of drums.”
After a move to San Francisco, his high school group morphed into the The Tubes, the often-satirical band founded in the 1970s and perhaps best known for its theatrical and outrageous live shows.
His career in the visual arts also germinated in the Bay Area, where he won a scholarship to the Art Institute. He left with a master’s degree in painting.
In Santa Fe, his approach is minimal and subtle. He added an earth-toned prehistoric Hopi migration pattern to the master suite’s kiva fireplace. Clouds scallop beneath the dining room vigas, bringing the outdoors in. Feathers line the edges of a table. The plaster softens the paint into a muted color theme.
‘It gives it an immediate antique look,” he said.
He even has plans for the outdoor teepee.
“Here’s the teepee I want to live in,” he said, unfolding a sketch he calls “Prairie Fire,” with flames licking the edges, tapering into the greens of trees at the top.
“It’s a work in progress,” he said.
The garden design resembles a giant bear claw in colored gravel.
He’s already sketched a Beatle-esque floor painting for the owners’ upstairs office. It looks like a traditional Navajo yei rug until you check out the faces. Client Cathy Stoia is a huge Beatles fan.
The Southwestern themes all gel nicely with Prince’s Arizona roots; the photographer Edward Curtis was a friend of his grandmother’s.
Prince said a San Francisco project for a microwave entrepreneur features a gold leaf ceiling.
“I’m doing a lot of Italian Renaissance stuff in the house.”
Commissions come from word-of-mouth, as well as fans.
Prince nearly got to paint Harrison’s recording studio at his Friar Park home in London. He traveled to the home of the former Beatle and the two went to lunch and discussed a project.
“I asked him what he liked and he said Art Deco,” Prince said. “He was wonderful. He showed us all over the grounds. I did a bunch of designs for him.”
Harrison never called back. But Prince still has his memories of jamming with a Beatle.
“The thing I remember the best was the beautiful serene expression on his face,” he said. “When we weren’t playing, he was chanting and rolling beads in his pocket.”
