Artists > Inspirational Artists > Frank Zappa > Articles

Pulse Interviews: FZ

Newsgroups: alt.fan.frank-zappa
Subject: Zappa Pulse Interview
From: mike.dickson@almac.co.uk (Mike Dickson)
Date: Mon,  4 Apr 94 18:08:00 +0000
Organization: ALMAC: Scotland : +44 (0)324 665371

20th-century popular music's philosopher-king (or its Harvey Kurtzman)
has inspired independence movements in Eastern Europe and lampooned
stupidity in the west. Now he faces his most serious challenge.

It's April, and Los Angeles is nervously awaiting the outcome of the
second Rodney King beating trial. A car heads toward Frank Zappa's
Laurel Canyon home blaring the song "Trouble Every Day" from the first
Mothers of Invention album, _Freak Out!_ Written by Zappa in '65,
while the Watts riots were escalating out of control, the song is
eerily appropriate nearly 30 years later, when the city is once again
bracing for the worst.  With wailing harmonica and turmoiled bass in
the background, the lyrics ominously and prophetically tumble out,

"It's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
...and all that mass stupidity
that seems to grow more every day
each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
'Cause the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
No matter if it's black or white
Because he's out for blood tonight."

Why is the song still so poignantly relevant? The irascible and
iconoclastic 52-year-old Frank Zappa, who has outdistanced most of his
peers in the business by his unflagging commitment to both social
critique and adventurous music, fields the question with
aplomb. "Nothing has changed. We have the same racial hatred, the same
unwillingness to face the causes of racial unrest. We've had years to
examine the causes of the Watts riots, but no one has done anything
about it. There were studies and reports and conclusions then, just
like there were studies and reports and conclusions reached after last
year's riots. There's a certain type of American adolescent behavior
that hasn't gotten any better since the 60's. Scientists believe that
the universe is made of hydrogen because they claim it's the most
plentiful ingredient. I claim that the most plentiful ingredient is
stupidity."

So opens a 90-minute conversation on politics and music in the
legendary and controversial rock/doo-wop/jazz/pop/ avant
garde/contemporary classical artist's dark, but comfortable
video-viewing room with a television screen and rows and rows of video
tapes lining an entire wall.  Zappa, casually dressed in blue sweats,
turquoise T-shirt and a loose-fitting grey sweater, is animated,
fervently enjoying the conversation as he effortlessly interweaves
musical matters with politics. During the rest of the afternoon, there
are times when Zappa, his dark hair streaked with gray and tied in a
tight ponytail, seems absolutely exhausted, a consequence of his
ongoing and widely publicized bout with prostate cancer. But then the
conversation takes off into another area of music and/or politics
where he has strong opinions, and he is rejuvenated.

"I never had any intention of writing rock music," says Zappa. "I
always wanted to compose more serious music and have it be performed
in concert halls, but I knew no one would play it. So I figured that
if anyone was ever going to hear anything I composed, I'd have to get
a band together and play rock music. That's how I got started."

If ever a long-term plan paid off, it has to have been Zappa's--his
list of official accolades and honors seems limitless: Renowned
conductor Kent Nagano calls him a genius. Zappa won a Grammy in 1987
for his Synclavier-driven _Jazz From Hell_ album, and he was chosen to
play John Cage's controversial and perhaps most famous piece 4'33" for
the upcoming various-artists Cage tribute album, _A Chance
Operation. His works have been performed by a number of esteemed 20th
century ensembles; Pierre Boulez commissioned him to score a symphonic
work which resulted in _The Perfect Stranger: Boulez Conducts Zappa_
album; the European contemporary music group Ensemble Modern
commissioned him to put together a concert's worth of his orchestral
works for the Frankfurt Festival last year; and in February, the
prestigious Lincoln Center in New York City presented an evening of
Zappa's serious music in its Great Performers series. Even _The
Simpsons_' creator Matt Groening is on record as saying, "Fra nk is my
Elvis."

Not bad for a guy who began his musical career as a drummer in a San
Diego r&b group called the Ramblers in 1956 ("I played one or two gigs
with them, but I wasn't very good so they fired me"), recorded parody
and instrumental doo-wop tunes in Cucamonga, California and leased
them to record companies like Original Sound in Los Angeles in the
early '60s, and led the charge into the experimental and distinctly
weird rock music of the late '60s with his seminal band of renegades
and freaks, the inimitable Mothers of Invention. His formative years
as a musician came during his high-school days at Antelope Valley High
in Lancaster, a remote Mohave Desert town in California that he refers
to as a cultural wasteland. A fan of r&b singles and composer Edgar
Varese's innovative and dissonant early-20th-century classical music,
Zappa was a drummer in the school band where he was even allowed to do
a bit of composing and conducting. But that's also where he began to
suspect that he was destined t o live a life deviating from the norms
of Americana. "I had no outlet in music then to express my
discontent. So my aggravation with the way things were festered
throughout my high-school years. The only reason I got training as a
musician was because the school needed a marching band at its football
games. It was just another tool to support the sports program. I never
did enjoy sports. So I looked at all that and thought that there
certainly must be more worthwhile educational investments besides new
helmets. That really got me thinking--how can you take any of this
seriously?"

Fortunately for Zappa, his tenure with the band didn't last long. "I
was thrown out for smoking in uniform," he says while taking a drag
from one of many Marlboros he would smoke that afternoon. "We had to
sit in the freezing cold and wear these dorky maroon-and-grey uniforms
and play every time our team scored a touchdown. So, during a break, I
went under the bleachers for a smoke. I got caught and I was out of
there. Not just for smoking, but for smoking in uniform."

When did Zappa realize the potential for satire in his music? He
recalls, "Even before I had this wonderful band called the Mothers
[original MOI member] Ray Collins and I used to piddle around in
Pomona doing gigs where the two of us would do parodies of folk
songs. We sang 'Puff the Magic Dragon' as 'Joe the Puny Greaser,' and
we played a perverted version of 'The Streets of Laredo' called 'The
Streets of Fontana.' We weren't setting out to make any kind of impact
on people. We were just doing it for a laugh, to have fun. If it
amused someone else, good. If it didn't, who gives a fuck. Nothing
I've ever written has been motivated by trying to impact or influence
anybody."Little did Zappa realize how influential his music would
become in shaping opinions both at home and abroad. Case in point: the
first two Mothers of Invention albums, _Freak Out!_ and _Absolutely
Free_. The former, the first rock double-album and the collection
which purportedly inspired Paul McCartney to begin work on
_Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_, helped spawn an American
subculture of long-haired, irreverent, authority questioning freaks.
Behind the Iron Curtain, _Absolutely Free_ proved to effect an even
deeper and more profound response. The lead-off number of the album,
"Plastic People," became an underground hit and potent rallying cry
for freedom in the now-divided republic of Czechoslovakia.

Zappa is still surprised by it all. "I had no idea that song made the
impact it did there. The album was smuggled into the country within a
year of its 1967 release. I found out 10 years later how powerful the
song had become. We were touring heavily in Europe at the time, and a
few Czechs had come across the Austrian border to hear our concert in
Vienna.  I talked with them after the show, and they told me that
'Plastic People' was responsible for a whole movement of dissidents
within Czechoslovakia.  It came as a shock to me to find out that
there was a group called the Plastic People there and that a cult of
followers had grown up around them. [That song's] especially relevant
today in the United States," he says, in reference to a poster on the
wall portraying a Hitler-like Ronald Reagan with the words, "He has
the right to do anything they want" written underneath. Zappa then
recites a few lines from the song:

"Take a day and walk around
Watch the Nazis run your town
Then go home and check yourself
You think we're singing 'bout someone else?

He pauses to let the effect take hold, shakes his head slowly in
disgust, then comments, "There's been an incredible rise in racist and
fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the
Republican Party.  That Republican National Party Convention last
summer was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a
Nuremberg rally.  Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and
the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to
win again.

"Even if Clinton and his people just stood still for the next four
years it would be better than what we had the four previous years
under President Nero, which is what Dennis Miller calls Bush". But
Zappa goes on to express an early dissatisfaction with the new
President. "What's upset me the most since Clinton has taken office is
this banning of smoking in the White House. What kind of symbolism is
this? It's a social-engineering program by the Health Nazis in the
White House against people who like tobacco. I with people would get
off this I'm-gonna-live-forever kick and dispel the myth perpetrated
by Reagan's evil Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who said that
second-hand smoke is the most dangerous thing Americans confront in
their everyday lives. This is from the same guy who told us that green
monkeys gave us AIDS.

"I was pleased to note recently that for the first time in the last
dozen years, the number of smokers did not decrease last year. It's
remained constant. Now if we can just proselytize people to get them
to enjoy tobacco more. I like tobacco. I've always loved it. There is
a place for tobacco in the human dining experience. It's like
wine. It's an appropriate adjunct to food."

Zappa's daughter Diva, in her early teens, bounces down the stairs,
pokes her head into the viewing room where we're talking and announces
herself with a bright, "Hi, Daddy." She's the youngest of Frank and
his wife Gail's four children. (Eldest daughter Moon Unit collaborated
with dad on the 1982 novelty tune "Valley Girl" from Zappa's _Ship
Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch_; eldest son Dweezil has
released a couple of solo records and currently plays with brother
Ahmet in the band, Z-a debut is slated for August.)

"How's little Squeech?" inquires papa Zappa."Squeech is fine, but I
don't think that's the name of it. But you can nickname it whatever
you want."Diva bounds back up the stairs while Zappa explains their
exchange.  "We have a new kitten. It's the runt of the litter. It's
adorable. I've been calling it Squeech because that's the noise it
makes. Diva wanted to call it Toaster, but I guess she's changed her
mind."

Squeech. Toaster. Names that could pop right out of one of Zappa's
zanier songs that celebrate such quirky characters as Suzy
Creamcheese, Billy the Mountain, Big Leg Emma and the Duke of Prunes.

So what is the creative process of Zappa the punster, the satirist,
the humorist? He hearkens back to the old days when he was doing a lot
of lyric writing: "I'd write lyrics when I was travelling. I was on a
flight back from Germany when I came up with the idea for the song
'Dumb All Over'. I scrawled out three pages' worth of ideas on the
plane. I couldn't wait to get into the studio to record it. The
reverse of that happened with 'Inca Roads.' I came up with the melody
first. I took it as a challenge to find words to go with it. A lot of
songs may start with one or two words. You hear a funny expression and
away you go. Some lyrics were based on folklore from the band when we
were touring.  'Punky's Whips' is an example of an absurd situation
that happened to be a true story. All I had to do was find some
musical way to dramatize it."Zappa's career catapulted in the mid '60s
as a result of his wildly experimental and unpredictable band the
Mothers of Invention. On Mother's Day, 1964, the name "the Mothers"
was coined. The group had evolved from a bar band called the Soul
Giants that had recruited Zappa as a substitute guitarist after their
regular guitarist got into a fistfight with another band member. Soon
after, Zappa pushed for playing original material, and the rest was
outlandishly weird music history. Early Mothers-inspired "freak outs"
in Los Angeles made the local authorities nervous, so Zappa and crew
headed to New York in 1967. There they worked the Garrick Theater on
Bleeker Street as an improv house band, performing experimental music
with satirical and impromptu slapstick for several months with special
sit-in guests, including Jimi Hendrix on one occasion.

Returning to Los Angeles the following year, Zappa and the Mothers
formed the nucleus of a musical community that Pamela Des Barres of
the Zappa-discovered GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously) recalled in
the liner notes to Rhino's promotional Bizarre/Straight sampler,
_Zapped_: "Somehow in some mysterious and mystical way, a little crack
formed in the Americana prefab facade that allow true, far-fetched
inspiration to peek, sneak, leak through for an infinitesimal period
of time; a drop in the bucket that made a might splash. I am proud and
honored to have been a part of the streaming baptism of lunacy that
attempted to shake, rattle and roll the fictitious foundation of
normalcy." Zappa gathered as many bizarre acts as he could find and
formed his own record companies (Bizarre, Straight) with the help of
his then-manager Herb Cohen. Among the Zappa proteges were Tim
Buckley, Tom Waits, The GTO's (Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart performed
without credit on their Zappa-produced debut), Alice Cooper (Zappa is
said to have encouraged Cooper to dress in women's clothes) and
Zappa's high school friend, Don Van Vliet, aka the great Captain
Beefheart. Beefheart, who Zappa remembers in the early days as
carrying his worldly possessions--his art, poetry books and a soprano
sax--around in a shopping bag, recorded his dada-esque masterpiece
Trout Mask Replica for Straight in 1969. Produced by Zappa as an
anthropological field recording in Beefheart's house, the album was
deemed the year's "most unusual and challenging musical experience" by
rock writer Lester Bangs. After a few days of using a portable taping
system that recorded the different instruments in various room sin the
house, Zappa compiled with Van Vliet's paranoid demands that the rest
of the sessions take place in a real studio, where all his vocals were
captured.In addition to Beefheart, Zappa has worked with a wildly
diverse crew of artists, ranging from L. Shankar and John Lennon and
Yoko Ono.

Of all the collaborations and bizarre tours he went on, which
performances from his huge catalog is he most proud of?  "I enjoy
listening to some recordings more than I do others," he says. "I can't
stand to hear some of my classic albums because I remember the
horrible conditions under which they were recorded. It hurts to listen
to them.  But what I like the best doesn't depend so much on the
quality of the composition as it does on the memories of how much fun
they were to record. I'm especially thinking of some of the live shows
with the 1984 band that were recorded in the _You Can't Do That On
Stage Anymore_ series. We had a lot of laughs. For example, one night
in Seattle, in the middle of the show (guitarist) Ike Willis started
to do an imitation of the Lone Ranger, blurting out, 'Hi, ho, Silver!"
I still don't know why it happened, but I cracked up every time he did
it. It must have been road fatigue. He'd keep yelling in the most
inappropriate places. The whole show was riddled with bad Lone Ranger
jokes and me not being able to sing the right words. I enjoyed that
night.

"Zappa continued touring until 1988, when his road band
self-destructed before the tour reached most of the planned
U.S. dates. The tour, captured on the excellent _The Best Band You
Never Heard in Your Life_ double CD, could have been the last time
Zappa played guitar in concert.  Nowadays, Zappa hardly plays his
guitars (he cites lack of motivation), which is surprising given his
prowess on the instrument and the fact that he released several
impressive guitar albums, including the twin-CD _Shut Up 'N Play Yer
Guitar_. A guitar her who rarely if ever recorded a cliched riff, he
learned to play as a kid by swiping blues licks from r&b greats like
Guitar Slim, Johnny "Guitar" Watson (who worked with Zappa in the mid
'70s) and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

But Zappa--who has been fascinated with and influenced by such
classical composers as Igor Stravinsky, Varese, Boulez and John Cage,
in addition to having his bands perform arrangements of pieces by
Bartok, Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky--hastens to note that these
days he mostly writes orchestral compositions on his Synclavier 9600,
the high-tech digital keyboard and sampling computer that's plugged
into his home studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. That's
where Zappa's newest soon-to-be-released gem of an album of his
dissonant, whimsical and haunting orchestral works, _The Yellow
Shark_, was conceived.Performed in concert by the 25-member European
contemporary classical music group Ensemble Modern, _The Yellow Shark_
is a suite-like collection of new arrangements of such classic Zappa
pieces as "Dog Breath Variations" and "Be-Bop Tango" and such new
works commissioned for the project as "Get Whitey" and "None of the
Above." EM and its conductor Peter Rundel spent two week s in 1991 in
Los Angeles at Zappa's Joe's Garage studio rehearsing the difficult
pieces and then spent another two weeks supervised by the
perfectionist composer last summer in preparation for the series of
eight concerts in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. The album represents
the best performances of each piece from the different concert venues.

Zappa, who conducted the whirlwind "G-Spot Tornado" on opening night,
is pleased with the results, but notes, "I was only able to attend the
first and third performances in Frankfurt. I got sick and had to fly
home. If I hadn't been sick, the experience would have been
exhilarating.  Unfortunately, I felt so excruciatingly shitty that it
was hard to walk, to just get up onto the stage, to sit, to stand
up. You can't enjoy yourself when you're sick, no matter how
enthusiastic the audience."

The public response to and concern about the composer's health
problems have been overwhelming. Even PMRC head Tipper Gore, who was
at the helm of the late-'80s warning-sticker movement that Zappa so
vehemently opposed, contacted him when she hear he had cancer. Zappa
says, "The media likes to give the illusion that Tipper Gore and I are
mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she
heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."

When asked what he thinks of a recent article that quoted a friend of
his saying, "[Frank's] just not going to be bothered by something as
stupid as cancer," he pauses, then soberly responds, "Well that's
pretty fucking optimistic. Let me tell you. Cancer can bother you. It
can just bother you to death. I'm fighting for my life. So far I'm
winning." He laughs, then continues, "I've already beaten the
odds. When the cancer was first diagnosed, the doctors didn't give me
too long to go. But I've surprised everybody by sticking around this
long."

Zappa's prostate cancer was detected in 1990, some eight to 10 years
after it had first developed. Since it was in an advanced stage, it
was considered inoperable. He's been forced to undergo a bladder
operation as well as radiation therapy. He's reticent to talk more
about his illness beyond that he's "doing a whole bunch of other
stuff" for therapy. Is working on his music a form of therapy? "I do
it because that's what I've always done. What's your alternative? Stay
in bed or work. If you have a studio and a good staff like I have, and
you still have musical ideas, then you go to work and you work until
you can't work anymore. (Later, Zappa oversees and, with an acute ear,
monitors two of his trusted studio workers, mix engineer Spencer
Chrislu and Synclavier operator Todd Yvega, while they painstakingly
sample all the notes on Zappa's 97-key Bosendorfer Grand Imperial
piano.) I used to be a night owl, but now I'm usually in bed by six or
seven in the evening. It's hard for me to work a real long day
anymore. I'm up at 6:30 in the morning. If I can do a 12-hour shift,
then I feel I'm really doing something. The staff arrives at around
9:30, so that gives me a little time to work by myself before I sit in
the studio all day with them."

Zappa's illness also aborted his short-lived, but very serious
presidential campaign, as well as curtailed his plans to develop his
Why Not? Inc., an international licensing, consulting and social
engineering enterprise set up to forge ties between Eastern Bloc and
Western businesses. "Until the Soviet Union folded, we spent 50 years
of Cold War cash convincing American that we needed to fight against
the Evil Empire.  Hey, I traveled to Russia five times right when it
was on the cusp of glasnost. The place was a fucking disaster
area. These people couldn't even deliver milk. The CIA knew that, but
why didn't they say the Cold War was for shit and Russia wasn't a
threat to us? If we had been working with the Russians to develop what
they knew, we all would have been better off. The Russians may not
have the money, but they have the brains. My idea with Why Not? was to
work with the co-ops of inventors, helping them to license their
inventions of industrial processes and equipment design in the
West. When I got sick, I had to shut down my plans. It's difficult
enough for me to travel, but it's no vacation going to Russia. The
conditions are grim there. It's hard to find something to eat, the
transportation is a nightmare and since there's no Russian phone book,
it's nearly impossible to get in touch with people unless they've
given you their telephone number beforehand."

But according to Zappa, his international endeavors have not always
been appreciated by his own government. "I have a large and devoted
audience overseas, but a lot of people in this country don't know that
I still exist. I think that might have something to do with the
Republicans, who have never been too thrilled about my existence. I
get the feeling that I've been blacklisted in this country," Zappa
says. "My music doesn't get played on the radio here. And the only
time I'm on TV is when someone wants to get a funny comment out of me
for the news."

When Czech playwright/former president Vaclav Havel wanted to make
Zappa Czechoslovakia's special ambassador to the West on trade,
culture and tourism, the composer reluctantly yielded to Bush
administration pressure to ditch the idea.

"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an
effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it
work, even if it's incompetent machinery--because the species hasn't
evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I
call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and
lower taxes.  What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government
and more taxes?  Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure
for the rugged individualist of American myth. "...It's not completely
true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the
shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording
studio, Studio Z, which was where the surf hit "Wipe Out" was
recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by Peter
Occhiogrosso, was transformed into the compelling and hilarious
autobiography _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ after the subject found
Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair.  Today, Zap
pa, who has released well over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing
rights, records on his own Barking Pumpkin label, runs a mail order
and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the Honker
Home Video arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with
Rykodisc, as well as the six-volume series _You Can't Do That on Stage
Anymore_ (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of
bootleggers by authorizing Rhino Records to release two series of
Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline message,
818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.

Zappa also exercises strict control over performances of his
orchestral material. "You'd be surprised at how many orchestras and
chamber groups all over the world play my music every year. I get
requests for scores all the time. But I won't granter permission if I
feel there's not enough money budgeted for proper rehearsal time. I'd
rather not have the music played that have it performed in a sloppy
way." Any unusual requests?  Zappa laughs and says it happens all the
time. "The most recent was from the President's own US. Marine Corps
Band in Fairfax, Virginia. They want to play 'Dog Breath Variations.'
It seems a couple of gunnery sergeants in the ensemble are fans. So we
sent them the music. Then there's one from a young filmmaker in
upstate New York who wants to use "Elvis Has Just Left the Building"
from the _Broadway the Hard Way_ album to conclude a mock documentary
he's making of current Elvis sightings.

As for future projects, Zappa's slate is full. He continues to dig
into his audio archives to issue old material. Just released as the
_Ahead of Their Time_ CD of a 1968 Mothers concert in London, where 14
members of the BBC Symphony joined the group to provide the
Zappa-composed musical accompaniment to a play the band members acted
out. Next year Zappa promises another CD of unreleased studio cuts
called _Lost Episodes_.  Then there's a CD of music for modern dance called _Dance Me This_ that he's working on.But what Zappa is most excited about are a couple of projects Andreas Molich-Zebhauser, business manager for Ensemble Modern, talked about during a visit just a couple of days earlier. "Andreas told me about an interview Edgar Varese gave once where he envisioned a film to accompany his piece 'Desert.' I had never heard of that before. Varese said that the images didn't need to relate to the music. Well, the Ensemble is booked for a concert in Cologne, Germany on May 27, 1994. And reas thought of the extensive data bank of video images I've collected and got the idea to commission me to do a 22-minute film. The other project we discussed was for May 1995 when the Ensemble would perform an evening dedicated to my theatrical works like "Billy the Mountain" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" arranged for classical ensemble.

I think it will make for an entertaining evening and an entertaining
CD."After talking for 90 minutes, Zappa answers a final question:
Given that his music over the span of nearly 30 years has remained
fresh, relevant, challenging and on-the-fringe, to what does he owe
his career longevity?  Opinionated on so many other subjects, Zappa
displays a rare moment of humility. "I don't know how it's
happened. How have I survived? I guess by word of mouth, but I don't
know. I got lucky."