aaamusic | On 05, Nov 2012

Musician Frank Zappa produced over 80 albums which combined progressive rock with avant-garde jazz and surrealistic lyrics. Dweezil Zappa, his son, is preparing for his 2012 UK tour with his band, Zappa Plays Zappa. Access All Areas Music interviewer Anthony Weightman spoke to him in California ahead of his first  performance at The Roundhouse in London.

 

Anthony Weightman

Firstly, I’m extremely sorry to hear about the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy. Do you have relatives or  friends on the east coast who’ve suffered?

 

Dweezil Zappa

I have a lot of friends over there who’ve been having some challenging times. They don’t have the really devastating things that have happened to other people, but  it’s still been tough… getting power and downed trees. Fortunately they didn’t have too much of  a disaster compared to others.

 

Anthony Weightman

Marvellous. I’m pleased to hear that. The other sad news this week is that the very great Chicago musician Terry Callier passed away. Perhaps you were a fan?

 

Dweezil Zappa

Yes, I knew the guys who played in the band. That kind of thing is part of life, unfortunately. We all have to check out the contributions made by artists.

 

Anthony Weightman

He had me transfixed. An extraordinary man. It was great meeting you in Brighton last year and chatting about your Apostrophe tour. Could you briefly tell me what’s going to be different about this year’s tour?

 

Dweezil Zappa

This tour is different in a lot of ways. The Apostrophe tour was focused around playing an entire album and then a selection of other songs. We try to give people a different experience, but still have the same goal in mind – to put Frank’s music on display to show the same depth and variety and let the music speak for itself. We try to think about it more in terms of the totality of his output, so we want to do a decade thing. You have a set specific to the 60s, 70s and 80s that represents things within his compositional style. Some classic stuff from the Mothers of Invention era and then see where he goes from there. So, we have 60s stuff that’s fun to play, some 70s stuff that we’ve played before and some material we’re introducing new on this tour. Some classical things we’ve been working on. One thing I’ve been wanting to do for some time is Strictly Genteel. In an interview some time go Frank said it was his favourite piece of music. This is an important piece of music for him because he labelled it as one he was most proud of. It presents a lot of challenges for us. The band is a little smaller – a 6 piece rather than an 8 piece. So, we’re covering quite a bit of material with the band. When you have pieces like this it’s ‘multi tasking’.

 

Anthony Weightman

I enjoyed your performance at the Barbican, London, last year. There was the more experimental material that committed fans would appreciate but also the more accessible songs that someone new to Zappa might like. Do you feel that you succeed in getting the balance right?

 

Dweezil Zappa

We try to do it every time around. You don’t know who is familiar with what era the most.  To some people their favourite era is the Mothers of Invention. Some people love the 80s music. It just depends on where you become familiar with the music and what you’re first exposed to. So, we try to mix it up as much as possible, but we’ve definitely done tours where the selections might be more obscure than people are familiar with. So, some people shout out: ‘Play something we know!’ The point is that, if we play something they don’t know, they may walk away with a new favourite. Frank did a lot of that. He would play stuff he wrote earlier that day. People were constantly hearing things that were new to them. He never was massively promoted on the radio, so it’s difficult to tell what people are familiar with.

 

Anthony Weightman

 

When an album is played live on stage, perhaps even without deviating from the original track order, sometimes it seems to work and at other times not. What to you are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

 

Dweezil Zappa

I think the idea of playing an album in its entirety is something promoters seem to like, perhaps even more than fans. It’s an easy way to get an idea of what you’re going to be playing. In reality, considering the element of surprise and the variety we’re trying to achieve, it can feel limiting to play a record in its entirety, no matter how great the record is. Sometimes you just want to play something with a different kind of energy. I love the Apostrophe album….one I heard constantly while growing up. It’s a fun record to do and a short one….43 minutes. It seemed a good choice. It definitely had a lot of songs that people not familiar with Frank might have heard.

 

Anthony Weightman

On your website you refer to yourself as a ‘migratory minstrel’. I was listening to country artist Mary Gauthier sing ‘The Last Hobo’. It’s a moving song about the way she feels that a desire to travel and a spirit of adventure in America has now been lost. Do you have a view on this?

 

Dweezil Zappa

Well, ultimately, I don’t think that people are without that idea. My tour is not glamorous at all. We’re on a bus most of the time. We have a hotel once a week. You’re showering at venues. It’s more of a grind, but the music we play is the fun part.

 

Anthony Weightman

I read recently that Dionne Warwick had found Los Angeles stressful and moved to Brazil. How do you find Los Angeles? Is it a place where you feel you can relax?

 

Dweezil Zappa

Well, I’ve lived here my entire life. I tend to stay in locations which are not stressful. But, I can see that if you only live in that small bubble of what the entertainment world has to offer, you can be in this competitive cycle and that’s not a comforting place to be. I’ve never been to Brazil but it’s probably a little bit more crazy than Los Angeles.

 

Anthony Weightman

Yes, through some of the street scenes, I can see what you mean. When you visit the UK are there things you particularly like or dislike?

 

Dweezil Zappa

Over the years I’ve visited as a tourist. There are good things I’ve continued to enjoy….history….architecture. The food has got much better, but also some of the classic things.

 

Anthony Weightman

I watched an amazing video of yours about making a custom built guitar. You were browsing material in a wood library to choose wood that was a bit unusual, would work well and had a  personality of its own. You didn’t say what types of wood you prefer, so I’d like to ask you that.

 

Dweezil Zappa

Prior to that, all I could do was pick up a guitar which was finished. That’s how  I made my decision on whether I was going to play it. This was a different kind of experience because I was able to see the wood in its raw form and see what it might become. It was interesting to do and we found one particular piece of wood which seemed to be schizophrenic. It had two different types of finish that people seemed to like. Really quite unusual. So that’s the piece I chose. I thought that if that naturally happened, then there was something special about it. Some people might have overlooked it. It was fun to have some naturally occurring anomalies.  It was interesting. I  recently had a guitar which was a replica of one of Frank’s guitars, so Ill be playing that on this tour.

 

Anthony Weightman

I’ve never heard the expression ‘schizophrenic wood’ before! I gather that, as a child, you liked to play an imaginary game with Frank to find words of your own, which were not in the dictionary, to try to describe something. Do you still play that game?

 

Dweezil Zappa

In my family we play it sometimes and also another game ‘Balderdash’. You take words which are in the dictionary and everyone has to make up an imaginary definition. People have to select the right one. You can come up with some funny examples.

 

Anthony Weightman

Dweezil, thank you very much for your time and the best of luck on your UK tour.

 

Anthony Weightman