In his ongoing quest to reintroduce his father’s music to a new generation, DWEEZIL ZAPPA is coming to Newcastle with Zappa Plays Zappa. Having toured the world, the musical extravaganza is recognised as the most authentic showcase of Frank Zappa’s music that one can experience, featuring numerous members of his original backing bands. Dweezil spoke with NICK MILLIGAN about his father’s genius.
Your 2009 tour of Australia is the second time Zappa Plays Zappa has come to Australia. Were you surprised by the success of the previous trip?
I had been told that Australian audiences can be somewhat fickle, or difficult to illicit a really strong response from. I’d been told that even by Australian artists. But I found [the crowds] to be very enthusiastic about what could have been perceived as a cover band. People arrive with their arms crossed, saying, ‘Well, show us what you’ve got.’ But by the end of it they’re very impressed and glad that you made it there to play.
Is the line-up for the upcoming tour very different to the previous?
It’s not that different. It’s the same band minus one keyboardist – we’re not going to have our lead keyboard player any more. Steve Vai is also not with us on this trip. Ray White (Frank Zappa’s original vocalist) will be with us again. It’s the same core band. We’ve also learned a lot of different songs since the last time we were down there. The show changes drastically night after night. If we get a sense from the audience that they’re interested in other songs than what we have planned for that evening, then I sometimes barter with them on songs. I’ll offer a few suggestions and I’ll see what gets the best response.
One of your motives for putting together Zappa Plays Zappa was to expose a new generation to Frank’s compositions. Have you been happy with the number of young people coming to the shows?
Since we started we’ve definitely seen more young people each time out. We’ve also played a bunch of festivals where the majority is a younger audience. Later this year we’re going to be playing with Dream Theater, and not that they have an extremely young audience, but they have an audience that is probably not that familiar with Frank’s music overall. Zappa Plays Zappa is for core fans, but it’s also for people who’ve never heard the music before. The reason that we make the song suggestions stems from my own memories of seeing the shows as I was growing up and being so impressed by the musicians in my father’s band. I used to think, ‘Wow, how do they remember this stuff?’ Now the audience is saying the exact same thing to us (laughs).
Frank Zappa (pictured inset) was very prolific in his life time, releasing 57 albums. He’s also had 22 released posthumously. How was he able to make so much music?
I don’t know! It’s shocking. It’s not normal for somebody to write that much music and that much great music. In general, he did it amazingly quickly. He would sometimes release five albums in one year and that’s pretty insane. But he would work 18 or 20 hour days every day of the year. When he was recording records and working with great musicians that he had trained very well, it was recorded very quickly. Even if it was really hard, they’d get through multiple tunes in a day. It would be recorded and ready to mix. Redoing a guitar track or a bass track wouldn’t fly on Frank’s schedule. His musicians would get it right in one or two takes. There’s an energy to the records,
because everyone knew what they were doing. The recordings really stand the test of time. Sonically, my dad really knew a lot about the studio and the best way to record things. It was a part of the composition and he’d use the studio like an instrument. Everything was in its place and he was very familiar with the whole EQ spectrum and which instruments need to go where. He would also arrange the songs so everything could be heard properly – it’s a real art.
Because Frank had so many albums, it can be quite daunting for someone who wants to get into his music. Where do you recommend that people start?
Usually – and this is what we did with the first tour – I recommend stuff from Apostrophe (‘) and Over-Night Sensation as the starting point because I think those two records have a really great sound to them and the material on there has a good combination of rock, blues and funk, with a bit of jazz. There’s a sense of humour from time to time. But it shows when Frank was really starting to hit his stride and finding his unique voice, in terms of making statements with different instrumentation. That’s when you really hear some percussion and marimba stuff taking over. He finally found a band that could play some of his harder material. Then you should go back to Freak Out!, Absolutely Free and We’re Only In It For The Money and you can see the difference in ten years. It makes you recognise the difference in his playing and writing overall. Sometimes when people just hear the early albums they think, ‘Oh, these are supposed to be a weird studio records.’ [The studio] was a playground for him at the time, but a lot of that early stuff was played live, to varying degrees. But that period of the 70s – middle to late 70s – is what I grew up watching him write and work on, so it’s always been one of my favourite eras.
Many perceived Frank Zappa to be a true eccentric. Do you think he ever played up to that image?
Well, I don’t think he purposely stood out to become a public personality. People became interested in his opinion on a lot of things, but he was mostly interested in writing music. He felt that the whole celebrity side [of his life] was not of any interest. But if he did have something that he wanted to share his view on he would tell the truth, even when it was not popular to do that. I think that gave him a reputation that made him seem dangerous to certain conservative types. Ultimately, [Frank] operated differently from everyone else. He had his own record company and owned his own master tapes. You don’t see many other artists in that position. He didn’t have to answer to anyone. It meant that he could put out different sounded music that he was interested in, and he could release whatever he was working on at that time. If other people liked it, that was great. He was never trying to write a hit song. His music was an artistic expression for him. But [his label] was such a different business model for him. It meant that his albums didn’t have instant Platinum sales, but over the last 30 to 40 years he’s sold millions of copies of some albums.
A lot of people are familiar with Frank’s sense of humour – did that ever over-shadow his serious works?
I think that in general, a sense of humour is welcome in people’s lives. But you put it with music and people think you’re a comedy artist and don’t take you seriously. People seem more inclined to respect someone who is really pompous and a ‘serious artiste’. If someone has a sense of humour, then they’re ‘just fuckin’ around.’ That’s where the real disservice to my dad’s career comes from. People think they know Frank’s music because they’ve only heard ‘Dancin’ Fool’ or ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’, but they don’t really have a clue about my dad’s music.
Zappa Plays Zappa hits the Newcastle Civic Theatre on Sunday April 12, 2009. Don’t miss what is guaranteed to be an amazing journey through the world of Frank Zappa.