Still (Not Just) Knee Deep

George Clinton is in a Los Angeles hotel room when he answers our call, his croaky voice sounding not-at-all like it did on those records that made him a star through the 1970s.

“Doing some sessions,” he says sharply when asked what brings him out of his home city of Detroit. Prying further, the sessions he is recording sound interesting. “It's some Parliament stuff. I'm working on a new record, an album for a cartoon; we're doing an album for a cartoon called Dope Dogs.

“I've been putting out music as P-Funk All Stars but this will be the first one for a long time for Parliament,” he explains, before adding that they are “about a quarter of the way through” the album's recording.

The chaos of a Parliament Funkadelic live show, which Australian audiences can witness again this March, is something that one needs to experience to truly understand. Anywhere up to 30 people on stage sing, dance and play all manner of instruments – all prodigiously – while Clinton stalks the stage, pointing at band members, giving hand signals and croaking out a few verses of his own every now and then.

“We have pretty good signals. Everyone follows my signals pretty good, so it's pretty loose looking but it's really organised chaos,” Clinton assures of the Parliament Funkadelic live experience. “There's a lot of traffic on the stage but everyone pretty much knows what they're doing. I usually call off the songs according to the audience; it's been working like [that] for years so we've got it down pretty well – it's pretty organised.”

This trip will reportedly see them performing as a 22-piece as they bring a show they're calling the 'Galactic Space Circus'.

“Kidd Funkadelic, he'll be there this time, Ricky Rouse will be there, the P-Funk All Stars, the P-Funk horns, my granddaughter, my sons – both of them will be there…”

For music as adventurous as the spacey funk of Parliament and the wildly psyched-out Funkadelic fare, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. The odd synth sound might seem particularly dated and visions of the future off kilter, but it generally holds up.

“I never thought about it. I just knew that I would be here for a long time, I knew that I would stand the test of time; I'm not going nowhere,” Clinton says of the longevity of the music. “I'm certainly happy that the music is surviving too.

“Back in the late-'70s I pretty much knew that we had something that was gonna [stay] around. I had no idea about hip hop coming on and taking it further, but I knew that the music itself was gonna be around for a while.”

As crazy as the music of Parliament and Funkadelic gets – and it does get crazy – Clinton says its foundation is built on something solid but simple.

“Motown set the stage. I always wanted to have a collation of music, all styles of music, a family band. Motown started that up.

“After we got started doing that I realised that characters – you know, like Dr Funkenstein [introduced on 1976's The Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein] and Mr Wiggles [first heard on 1978's Motor Booty Affair] – the characters last longer than entertainers, so I looked at it like cartoon characters and I figured that was the way to keep it alive for a long time, putting stories in the songs and characters in the songs.

“I realised then that it would be around a long time. I just needed to keep up with the changing trends in music and the best way I figured to do that was to take the music that parents hate. Whenever I hear that parents hate something then I know that's the new music. Or when I hear old musicians say, 'That ain't music! That ain't music!' then I know that that's the new music. That works pretty good. When it gets on their nerves then I know that's the new music; you just gotta make yourself learn to like it. Kids love to get on your nerves so if they get on your nerves with new music, you just gotta get in it with them.”

His output over the past 45 years has been incredibly diverse, but Clinton's personal musical preferences remain much the same as always.

“We try everything because all the members in the band like all kinds of music so we pretty much play everything. I'm still partial to doo-wop and Motown, they are my favourite types of music. Then that evolves right into psychedelic and it grows into the rest of the stuff we did. But the basic music [I love] is love songs from the '50s and dance music from the '60s.”

As for funk these days, Clinton says he hears it most evident in electronic music and hip hop, but is certain that a funk band revolution is not far away.

“It goes around and comes around; right now the funk is in the form of the hip hop. But you will get some funky bands in a minute, probably European bands or something. I mean, it's already happening but you'll probably see a lot more of it in a minute. Techno music and dance and electronic music has a bit of funk in it, but the funk bands will probably show up pretty soon.”

Given the fluid nature of the Parliament Funkadelic live show and the 45 years' worth of material the band has to choose from, Clinton admits putting together a setlist can be tough.

“The band wants to do a lot of new stuff all the time, but people want the old stuff, so you have to kind of bridge all that stuff. We have so many songs and that's why we play so long most days.” Indeed, a three-to-four hour set is fairly standard for the group and Clinton hopes the forthcoming Australian shows will go on just as long.

“Oh yeah, until they pull us off the stage,” he laughs.

At 71 years of age, with a well-publicised past packed with hedonistic debauchery, one would forgive Clinton for wanting to wind down. Not much chance of that, though. “Not really, I mean I still can outlast pretty much everyone else in the band onstage,” he gloats. “They're really punks when it comes to staying on stage for a long time. I don't feel no signs of fatigue.”

George Clinton will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 7 March - Metropolis, Fremantle WA
Friday 8 March - The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Saturday 9 March - Billboard, The Venue, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 10 March - Golden Plains Festival, Meredith VIC
Monday 11 March - MONA, Hobart TAS