Cherry Audio Artist Interview: Dr. Fink

Q: Where did you grow up?

I grew up in St. Louis park Minnesota which is a suburb of Minneapolis.

Q: Having the honor of being the longest member of Prince & The Revolution, what was it like to be in the presence of a musical genius on a daily basis for decades?

Working for Prince was a dream come true for me. I knew after hearing his demos that he was destined for great things.

Q: Prince was a man with a multitude of talents. What stood out to you most? Did his awesomeness ever intimidate you from a songwriting or musician's perspective?

I was never intimidated by him, but I was always in awe of his songwriting, his acumen on bass, drums, keyboards and especially guitar.

Q: In addition to the Oberheim Eight, what other favorite synths did you find yourself playing to make so many classic songs?

Every year that I worked for him I was always introducing Prince to the latest keyboards and synths. We would try them out at rehearsal to see what we liked and then purchase the ones that passed the grade. Here's a list of them: Oberheim® OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8. Yamaha DX-7 and TX 816 rack, Memory Moog, Roland D-50, Sequential Circuits Prophet VS, ARP Omni, Fairlight CMI, EMU Emax sampler, Yamaha CP-70 Electric Grand Piano. I also used Yamaha KX 88 Midi controllers when they were introduced and those were connected to rack mount synths as well.

Q: What is it about the Eight Voice that impressed you most?

The fat analog sound it produces. Eight Voice sounds so authentic to the original Oberheim SEM modules that I used with Prince back in the day, that I couldn't tell the difference. Everything sounded so warm and fat just like the original! In fact, I found presets that sounded just like the ones I used exclusively on Prince's first two albums.

Q: Have you had a chance to check out any other Cherry Audio instruments?

Yes, the Polymode and the Surrealistic MG-1, both of which are excellent synths.

Q: In 2016, The Revolution reunited to perform trivia concerts dedicated to Prince. How did it feel to be reunited with the band? Will you be planning a post-Covid tour?

Reuniting with The Revolution has been amazing and bittersweet at the same time because it will never be the same without Prince. We will probably resume doing some shows when things get better from Covid.

Q: We understand you are currently working with New York-based company V-Media Entertainment as Director of Catalogue and Licensing and staff producer/engineer for their Minneapolis-based recording studio River Rock Studios. Who are some of the artists and bands that you are working with or listening to these days?

I've been producing an artist by the name of Michelle Rose. Some of her videos have been receiving some awards lately. I also just did some session work with The Black Stone Funk Revival based in San Francisco now on Spotify. I also produced the music for a video game coming out later this year called Rhythm Rumble. it will be on PC and then Nintendo Switch. I have also been working with a non-profit called Future Youth Records (Website: futureyouthrecords.org).

Q: What's next for Dr. Fink?

I'm continuing to work on more video game projects, session work for artists and synth licensing work for VMEDIA Entertainment which houses our record label V-Records, and hopefully more live performances with The Revolution.