Music Interview - Dweezil Zappa
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Dweezil Ripped My Mind
As he sets out to bring his father's music to a new generation,
Dweezil Zappa talks to Paul Byrne about exploding myths,
finger-breaking chords and, yep, silly names.
I've always said that if I ever have a son, I'm going to call him
Maximillian Danger Byrne. The idea of signing a cheque, no matter how
small, with the name Maximillian couldn't help but make you feel like
a success. And if the kid's ever up in court and the judge asks him
how he pleads, he need only scream, "MY MIDDLE NAME'S DANGER -
HOW THE FRICK DO YOU THINK I PLEAD!!?".
There are others who have been inspired to choose names even more off
the beaten track, of course. Crappy magician Penn Jillette called his
daughter Moxie CrimeFighter. Jason Lee (the guy from My Name Is Earl)
called his son Pilot Inspektor, whilst also-ran Jackson brother
Jermaine called his kid - wait for it - Jermajesty. Actor Rob
Marrow obviously thought it would be funny to call his kid Tu - as
in, Tu Marrow.
More recently, highly pretentious actress Shannyn Sossaman called her
kid Audio Science, normally sensible Aussie actress Rachel Griffiths
called hers Banjo, and Boston Legal hottie Lisa Vidal decided Crumpet
was a sweet name for a girl. New mum Julia Roberts named one of her
twins Hazel; the other, she named Phinnaeus. Makes Cruise and Holmes'
choice, Suri, sound practically common.
It goes without saying though, it's in the world of rock'n'roll
that the great silly kid names reigns supreme. Bowie called his son
Zowie, the little tyke changing it to Duncan Jones once he was old
enough to realised his parents were very, very stoned when he was born.
Bob Geldof called his daughters Fifi Trixiebell, Peaches Honeyblossom
and - cheekily copying Private Eye's Celeb cartoon spoof on his
first daughter's name - Pixie Frou-Frou.
When Coldplay's Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow named their first
child Apple, Peaches Geldof was quick to warn them that she had spent
half her childhood being chased around the schoolyard by kids shouting,
"Hey, Peaches, are your parents both bananas?". Yes, yes they were.
Mum Paula Yates would go on to have another daughter, with another
rocker, Michael Hutchence. She called that one Tiger Lily Heavenly
Hirani.
They should all be made sit down with George Foreman and be given a
good talking to. Foreman named all of his five sons George. One of his
five daughters he called Georgette. Proper order.
>From the start though, Dweezil Zappa couldn't have been happier with
his off-the-beam name. He does have an older sister called Moon Unit,
after all, so it wasn't like he was getting teased about his name at
home.
Mum Gail was given a choice of either Moon Unit or Motorhead by pop
Frank when it came to naming their first child. When it came to their
second, Pa Zappa didn't have it so easy though. The nurse at the
hospital wouldn't allow it, and eventually, after much screaming and
hollering on both sides, Zappa put down the names of his backing band,
The Mother. "So, officially, I was born Ian Donald Calvin Euclid
Zappa," says the 36-year old Dweezil today, "and I hated it from
the moment I could say it. So, I changed it back. I should really track
down that nurse and give her a slap..."
After all, as any true Irishman will tell you, a name is darn
important. You only have to look at the poster for Zappa Plays Zappa to
know that. Here's the late, great Frank Zappa's two songs, Dweezil
and Ahmet, teaming up with some of their father's old bandmates (such
as Terry Bozzio and Napoleon Murphy Brock) and special guest Steve Vai
to run through a selection of their father's vast back catalogue.
Which, for a fan like me, is just about the closest I'm going to get
to seeing the great man himself in action. I warn Dweezil at the start
of the interview that, given that 'Overnight Sensation' and
'Sheik Yerbouti' are two of my all-time favourite albums, I may
actually get a little emotional. "Hey," he replies with a smile,
"me too."
It's taken Dweezil - who's released his own albums down through
the years, the last being 2001's 'Automatic' - the bulk of two
years to master the intricate guitar parts of his dad's compositions.
So, who exactly came up with this Tour De Frank idea then? "Well,
it's definitely an idea that's been thrown about for a long
time," says Dweezil. "It's a very difficult concept to make
happen, because first of all I had to do all that guitar study and
music training, so I'd able to perform what I wanted to perform in
the context of Frank's music. It was really like preparing for the
Olympics, because I've learnt a lot of things on the guitar that were
written for other instruments. Things that are meant to be played on
keyboards or melodic percussion."
"So these are stunt guitar parts beyond anything that I was capable
of in the past. I've always been something of a technical player,
being able to play some difficult things, but I never tried to play
this kind of material that I've decided to take on in this regard. So
I literally had to learn a whole different way of playing in order to
accommodate how difficult some of this stuff is. I'm lucky to have
all my fingers still."
Given that Frank Zappa delighted in delivering complex chording and
arrangements beneath his rockin' freak-outs and crude little ditties,
I'm guessing learning them note-by-note wasn't exactly all fun and
games...
"Well, when you begin something like this, you feel like you're
pushing a rock up a hill the whole way. And then you start getting
little bits of progress, and then you start getting more motivated,
because it starts paying off. 'Hey, I can actually play this - this
is going to sound so cool'. I'm very familiar with all these
records, and the things that we're performing on this tour have
basically been my favourites for my whole life, so I want to make sure
that what we're playing sounds very much like the original versions.
Not to the point where I'm trying to copy note for note what Frank
played for guitar solos, but all the other detailed arrangements within
the context of the song, we're sticking to it as written. That's
the thing that always bothers me when other people play Frank's
music, is when they decide to rearrange it. With Frank's music,
because he was really a composer, the music needs to be played as
written in order for it to sound like the real composition. It's not
just, 'Here's a four-chord song; do what you want with it'. His
music isn't like that."
"In any case, for me, I'm very motivated to continue the journey,
even past this tour, because I've learnt so much about... the sense
of humour within the music. Beyond the lyrics, there are just things
that Frank liked to use, techniques that he employed as a composer
harmonically that, when you start unravelling the mysteries of this
stuff, he just knew so much. He was on top of his game, and it's just
a shame that he wasn't able to stick around."
It was on December 4th, 1993, at the age of 52, that Frank Zappa passed
away, of prostate cancer. For Dweezil, heading out on the road to play
his father's music isn't a nostalgia even though. "We're not
some sort of tribute band," he says. "This music stands the test of
time, and for me, the real mission is to introduce his music to a new
generation. I think his music has skipped a few generations, so I want
newer, younger audience members to become aware. And I want to be see
if people might enjoy hearing a real alternative to the music
industry."
"The material that I've chosen to perform is a mix of obviously
some popular songs, but I wanted to create a collection of songs that I
felt really made Frank stand out as a composer. He had a real talent
for arranging things, and he really enjoyed the whole process of
putting things that seemed to be incongruous together. So, you know, a
lot of the material that we're doing is some of his more heavily
arranged stuff. Songs like 'Inca Roads', 'Florentine Pogen' and
'St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast', things that made him
stand-out. 'The Black Page', 'Peaches En Regalia', you know,
'Montana'. All these kinds of things that have incredible little
musical interludes but are still... the basic pill that you're
swallowing is a fun little pop song, you know what I mean?"
We talk on for another half hour, covering growing up Zappa ("The
only way I could have rebelled would have been to become a
Republican"), being a highly cautious kid ("If someone said,
'Don't touch that, it's hot', I would say, 'Okay. I
won't'") and the expectations that come with being Frank
Zappa's son ("I always shared his love of figuring out how things
worked, technically, and then deliberately bending the rules"). The
one thing that struck me most, and the one point Dweezil, it seemed,
wanted to get across the most, was that Frank Zappa Didn't Take
Drugs.
We're running out of space here, so I'll let Dweezil have the last
two paragraphs. "I don't smoke, don't get drunk, don't do
drugs, and that's because of Frank. He just really had a great sense
of humour, and he was very intelligent. And he never - despite what
people perceive - he was never involved with drugs. People have a
hard time believing that because he named us all crazy things, and all
his songs have weird titles, but this is just a guy who liked to amuse
himself, and he had a good imagination."
"One of the by-products of his career was being able to see firsthand
what happened to people when they took drugs, at concerts. Growing up
around these people, it was actually frightening. I didn't like
seeing people out of control, and Frank said, 'You see those people?
They're using drugs as an excuse to be an asshole'. And that made
perfect sense to me."
Zappa Plays Zappa, featuring Dweezil Zappa, is at Vicar Street, on
Dublin's Thomas Street, on Sunday 4th June. 7.30pm. €60.
www.zappa.com / www.vicarstreet.com / www.aikenpromitions.com
Martin Gregorie
>
> ....normally sensible Aussie actress Rachel Griffiths
> called hers Banjo....
>
That seems pretty normal for an Australian: one of their best known
popular poets was Banjo Patterson.
--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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