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GuitarPlayer.com >> This Month >> All In The Family
Dweezil Zappa Reinvents His Playing and Hits The Road to Celebrate his Father’s Music
All In The Family
| July, 2006
“When people would ask Frank how he wanted to be remembered,” says Dweezil Zappa, sitting in the studio control room tucked inside the rustic confines of Zappa Family Headquarters, “he would say, ‘I don’t. It’s not important.’ Well, to me it is important. I want my kids, and my kid’s kids to feel as strongly as I do about my dad’s music, because it’s so unique. Especially living in a world where so much music sounds the same, there isn’t anything that sounds like Frank.”
So Zappa—who enjoys the distinction of being immortalized with his dad on the cover of the January ’87 issue of GP (which also included a Soundpage)—decided he was going to do something to ensure his father’s work isn’t forgotten. In the process, he put himself in the hot seat as a guitarist.
“I thought the best way to get people interested in Frank’s music was for them to see it performed live,” he says. “But the minute I decided to do the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, I knew my main challenge was to get my guitar skills together. I had to play the really difficult, complex parts found in Frank’s music, as well as improvise solos in the context of that music. So that required rethinking how I play on not only a technical level, but a mental level, too, as I tried to incorporate the idiosyncrasies of his playing into my own playing.”
So Zappa got to work, and gave himself, to use his term, “A Complete Guitar Makeover.” He then assembled a band of young, 20-something musicians, as well as three guest players who served time in his father’s band; Terry Bozzio, Napoleon Murphy Brock, and Steve Vai.
“I feel that if I don’t do this, there’s a chance his music will slip into obscurity within my lifetime,” says Zappa. “Frank is truly one of the great American composers, and he gets major kudos and respect in the classical world, but that world is a lot different than the pop/rock world that can, and will, easily dismiss anything. I don’t want that.”
What has been the biggest challenge in getting this celebration of Frank’s music off the ground?
Where do I begin? My main priority was to make sure the group truly represented the spirit of Frank’s music—which means we have to play the music accurately. I didn’t want this to be thought of as some specialized tribute with a circus atmosphere preying on the mind of the consumer, because Frank’s audience knows that there was integrity in everything he did. We’re not trying to turn this into an overly commercial event. First of all, you can’t commercialize something that’s not commercial. And I don’t say that begrudgingly. I think Frank’s music has the potential to be commercial, in the sense that, if it had exposure, people would like it. But will it be played after an Ashley Simpson song on the radio? I don’t think so.
You’ve said the ZPZ tour is an “official” representation of Frank’s music. What makes it official, and is the ZPZ tour in any way a reaction to other Zappa tribute bands?
On a certain level it is a reaction to those outfits. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why people go out and play Frank’s music. And in some small way, they’re contributing to building an audience. But it’s not the same. I feel we’re official, because, well, I’m related, and I believe that makes me the most appropriate person to mount this project. I think my dedication will come across quite easily.
What specifically bothers you when you hear other groups playing Frank’s music?
I’ve heard a lot of different people do versions of Frank’s music, and I’ve never once heard one that made me say, “Wow, they got it right.” Not once. Believe me, if I did hear that, I’d be psyched. You know, “Who are these freaks who can do this?” The versions I hear are usually in the ballpark, but you’re not playing the music correctly if you’re putting your own stuff in there. That’s what I really don’t like. I know how hard it is to play Frank’s music, and I feel for anyone who is trying to do it. But if they’re going to do it, I want them to do it right, because if an audience hears a bad version of his music first, they may not give it a fair chance. That’s what ZPZ is all about—getting people interested in exploring more of Frank’s music.
You’ve put together a band of young, unknown players. Was this intentional?
Yes. I feel Frank’s music is very contemporary, so I wanted to present it onstage in a way that a young person can embrace—and that means seeing someone around their age playing it. I think college-aged kids—and even younger—would be fascinated by this music. They just don’t know about it, because it seems that Frank’s music has skipped a couple of generations.
Why is that?
Much of it is due to the way the media has reported on him throughout his career. Some of it is also because the stuff of his that did make it on the radio—such as “Valley Girl”—really didn’t represent what he was about. Ask a person who doesn’t really know Frank’s work what song they’ve heard, and invariably it’s “Titties & Beer,” or maybe “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” Sure, those songs represent his sense of humor, but he’s not Weird Al Yankovic. He’s a bonafide brilliant composer whose music will stand the test of time. I want people to become more familiar with that aspect, rather than what may have made its way to the public consciousness by accident.
Another reason I feel his music has been overlooked by younger generations is because of the high level of musicianship it takes to play it. Years ago, musicians would aspire to that level. Now, a lot of musicians worry more about achieving the right look, and hoping the label’s clever marketing can put them over the top. There hasn’t been an emphasis anywhere that I’ve seen on finding the best musicians out there, and then giving them an opportunity to play. Maybe in a jazz context, but strictly jazz.
But Frank blended so many styles together—and there was so much going on musically—that once you’re exposed to it, you’re so disappointed that no one else is even trying to do something like that. Who is writing music this hard? And it’s not hard for the sake of being hard. It’s very musical and memorable and cleverly arranged. It’s not an exercise. That’s another reason why I feel younger fans will be inspired by this music, because they may not know there’s a reason to go out and be that good on your instrument.
Was it hard finding young guys who could play Frank’s more difficult stuff?
Yeah. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to find them, but I did. The spirit of the band is amazing. It’s almost like we’re training for the Olympics. It’s difficult music that requires many of the band members to be well-versed in jazz, rock, and classical music, as well as having big enough ears to wrap themselves around the improvisational nature of his music.
What period of Frank’s guitar playing do you find the most inspiring?
The years that make up most of our two-and-a-half-hour set list, 1972-1979. That’s when his tones were the best, he was touring more frequently, and he was playing more. Listen to the Apostrophe’, Over-Nite Sensation, and Roxy & Elsewhere albums—those are milestone records not only for his guitar playing, but for his writing and arranging as well. He was blending rock, jazz, classical, and funk.
You’re playing extremely difficult tunes such as “Black Page #2,” “St. Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast,” and “Inca Roads” on the guitar. What did you do to work your playing into shape to handle that music?
In order for me to play the really hard stuff on guitar, I had to completely revise my picking technique, as I found strict alternate picking to be too cumbersome. So I studied Frank Gambale’s method, which a lot of people call Economy Picking. The basic idea of that method is to economize your picking hand’s motion by using successive upstrokes and downstrokes. For example, if you’re playing three-note-to-a-string scales, the picking motion, starting on the low-E string, goes down, up, down, then down when you move to the A string. This allows for high speed with clean execution, and with very little hand movement. It changed the way I play entirely, and it has allowed me to play what I hear in my head.
I also took lessons from players such as Jean-Mark Belkadi and T.J. Helmerich. It was like Guitar University here! And I worked with Brett Garsed, who he showed me how to incorporate the fingers of my picking hand to get to some of the wide intervals in Frank’s music that I couldn’t get to with a pick. I use that technique to play “Black Page #2.” I also took some lessons from the late Ted Greene to round out my knowledge of chords and harmony.
You’re also taking a ton of extended solos during the ZPZ show. Did you refine your improvisational chops, as well?
Oh yeah. I worked from a book by Wayne Krantz called An Improviser’s OS For Guitarists, which I’ve barely scratched the surface of. It’s brilliantly executed with great concepts and exercises, and is somewhat similar to Nicholas Slominsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. My dad loved that book, and he was a friend of Slominsky’s. The coolest thing about the Krantz book is the types of exercise it teaches you to jump start your solos. For example, to limit yourself to, say, three notes. They are the only notes you can play, but you can play them in any order in any octave. Say you’re limited to the 1, b2 and b5. You think you’ll run out of ideas almost instantly, but when you dig in, and try to mix them up rhythmically and by jumping octaves, the possibilities are endless. A lot of those concepts are actually in Frank’s playing and writing.
That kind of discipline is a whole new world for me. In the past, I had my pet, specialized licks that I would just plug in. I was from the “rock guy” school, where a solo means getting your stock licks out. Frank came from an entirely different headspace. He described a solo as “air sculpture,” and that is such a fascinating concept that makes not only improvisation more satisfying, but guitar playing in general more satisfying. His perspective on soloing also required me to listen more to what’s going on around me and react to it, as opposed to only listening to what I’m doing.
Are there aspects of Frank’s playing that show up in your playing simply as a result of DNA?
It’s funny, but his bizarre phrasing and odd note groupings have always been relatively easy for me to capture. That’s probably because I heard him play so much growing up. I’ve heard tapes of me playing when I was 12 years old, and I sound more like Frank than the guys I was trying to sound like—such as Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads.
I’ll tell you, before I decided to better myself as a guitarist, I was a player who couldn’t talk to you about scale degrees and intervals. Studying all of this information has made me a better player, a better musician, and a better improviser. The work was overwhelming—it literally took me six months to work out parts that are less than 30 seconds long—but it was all so much fun. I only wish I had been motivated to do this 15 years ago. Then I would have had the chance to talk to Frank about it. It’s such a pity that it dawned on me too late, but I’m doing the best I can.
The Vaultmeister
Joe Travers is not only the drummer and co-musical director for the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, he’s also he man whose job it is to sort through and chronicle the extensive vault of recorded work left behind by Frank Zappa. “I knew there was a lot of stuff in there when I took the ‘Vaultmeister’ gig,” says Travers, who has been combing the vaults since 1996. “But the sheer volume of work Frank left behind was still surprising.”
Travers, who has played drums with Z (a group that featured Dweezil Zappa and brother Ahmet on vocals, as well as Mike Keneally on guitar), Duran Duran, Warren Cuccurullo, and former Ratt bad-ass Warren DeMartini, has unearthed such Zappa treasures as FZ’s 1976 Australian shows (FZ:OZ), some of the earliest incarnations of the Mothers of Invention (Joe’s Corsage), and a revealing album of outtakes from 1972, when Zappa was confined to a wheelchair and began rehearsals for what would eventually be the albums, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo (Joe’s Domage).
“Coming soon is another album in the style of the Shut Up N’ Play Yer Guitar series and Guitar,” says Travers. “It’s called Trance-Fusion, and it was one of the last masters Frank finished before his passing. It’s a single disc culled mostly from the ’84 and ’88 tours, although one solo was compiled from ’77 and ’79 performances.”
For many hardcore Zappa fans, the film footage of Frank Zappa and the Mothers’ December ’73 shows at the Roxy in Hollywood (performances which make up much of the classic Roxy & Elsewhere album) is one of the more salivating projects mired in the vault. So what’s holding up its release?
“The footage the film crew shot isn’t in sync with the audio mixes,” laments Travers. “Unfortunately, that project doesn’t really have a budget. And what needs to be done is the original negatives need to be transferred to digital, and then synced up with Frank’s stereo mixes.”
Even though there’s a ton of unheard tapes in the vault, Travers is occasionally vexed by what he knows is missing. “I’m disappointed that all of the Halloween shows over the years weren’t taped,” he explains. “And I was a bit distressed when I discovered that Frank would use a reel of tape from one tour to record later tours, thus there are some shows that have simply been recorded over. Frank must not have felt a need for them to exist.”
Even after ten years of sniffing around the vaults and hearing thousands of reels of tape, Travers is still amazed at how far ahead of his time Zappa was. “With nearly every box I pull down, I’m amazed how Frank always took full advantage of the technology of the time—whether it was quadraphonic mixes in 1970, or six-channel mixes in the ’90s,” explains Travers. “He was pushing the envelope from the very beginning of his career, experimenting with new sounds, shapes, and textures. It took a while for the technology to catch up to him.” —DF
Frank’s Little Italian Virtuoso
At the age of 18, STEVE Vai was employed by Frank Zappa as a music transcriber, and, inevitably, had the role of “Stunt Guitarist” in Zappa’s band bestowed upon him. Check out the albums Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, The Man From Utopia, and Them or Us for examples of his work with the Central Scrutinizer himself.
During your time in FZ’s band, the tune “Stevie’s Spanking” was a guitar extravaganza for you and Frank to just go off. What was he like to improvise with?
When you are improvising with another musician, you get to enter a private place with that person and share an intimacy that you don’t have in any other kind of relationship. For a
20-year-old guitarist like myself, entering that space with Frank Zappa represented a very challenging process. At first, I had to get over the fact that it was really happening. Then I’d be afraid to step on his toes, and I’d worry about things like: “Am I in tune? Is he listening to what I’m doing? Does he think it’s good, or am I crap.” In a short while, I started to get over all that, and I just started jamming—hard. Then, that space became a sort of sanctuary. I learned how to listen and speak at the same time. It’s about relaxing and spontaneously creating, and having fun doing it. I believe that’s one of the things Frank was looking for. If it wasn’t happening for him musically, he would have shot it down in a minute. But it turned into a special moment in the show.
What period of Frank’s playing resonates with you the most as a guitarist?
The period I was with him, 1980-1982. His tone was gargantuan. Technology had evolved, and Frank was abusing the hell out of it. The Floyd Rose vibrato system had just come out, and it changed the way he approached the guitar. He was dialing in clean tones that could cut glass, and filthy tones that could level a city. I watched him build these multi-dimensional tones by
combining different amps and effects in his
live rig. His approach to what he played
during this period was like controlled chaos. He also seemed to be playing more guitar during this time.
Is there anything in your playing that you can trace directly to Frank?
I believe our styles are worlds apart, but there are conceptual elements I contemplate. For example, Frank felt like he was creating sonic sculptures with his guitar, and that what he was playing was a spontaneous composition. If you keep that in mind when you’re soloing, you’ll get a much different perspective on how you focus when you’re searching.
Did any of Frank’s skills as a bandleader rub off on you?
Tremendous amounts! But the outstanding lesson was, in order to get a musician to play their best for you as they perform your music, they must have respect for you. And respect is not something you can command. It has to come from the fabric of your being. All the people around Frank respected and loved him. When he came into the room, you were just lit up. You wanted to do your best to impress him with the way you could play his music. Frank was never late, he always paid you what he told you he would, he never lied or placated you, he was able to identify with your potential as a musician better than you could, and his vision for his creations was paramount, so you better be prepared to play your part correctly. It was easy to see all these things, but incorporating them into my own work habits has been an education—especially the respect thing. You can’t fake that. It’s something I work on every day by trying to embrace the qualities that make a good leader. It takes some humility.
Do you think a young musician today has any inherent advantages or disadvantages when it comes to playing Frank’s music?
The disadvantage is that Frank isn’t there to tell you what to play, or give you a piece of music. But Dweezil and the band have done an admirable job of finding the right notes. Another disadvantage is that young musicians missed a particular moment in time when it was cool to be able to play your instrument this way.
Musicians today can challenge themselves with all types of music, but it takes a different kind of brain muscle to play Frank’s music. Much of it is tailor-made for performing live onstage, and though it’s not impossible to play, it can be challenging. As a result, if you’re someone who is interested in expanding your horizons on your instrument, Frank’s vast catalog will open up a different harmonic dimension—a stark contrast to what is happening in current music today. Frank’s music makes you want to play. —DF
Dweezil On His New album And Old Masters
On his new, soon to be released solo album (tentatively titled, Go For What You Know), Dweezil Zappa not only flaunts his new-and-improved guitar chops, but also an impressive set of newfound production skills. The record, which features guest appearances from Blues Saraceno and T.J. Helmerich (who also helped engineer the album), couches Zappa’s spidery, authoritative lines and chest-crushing riffs with cinematic textures, reminiscent of his father’s masterwork, Civilization Phaze III, as well as electronic and live band elements. The result is a seamless, ambitious, freak-
guitar record.
“I’ve spent the better part of the last seven years working on the craft of recording and engineering,” says Zappa. “The reason being, is I’ve always been fascinated with the science of sound, and having worked with engineers in the past, and not being entirely pleased with the results, I wanted to have the skills required to think of the sound, get the sound, record the sound, and mix the sound. There’s a lot of responsibility if you’re doing that, however, and doing that much work can slow the creative process down. But I just enjoy it so much, it doesn’t seem like work. I think I’ve developed the same ability to focus on one thing for an extended period of time and find it enjoyable, like Frank. He could work on one thing for 17 hours straight!”
Frank’s influence stretches well beyond the legendary sadistic work ethic, however. The track, “All Roads Lead To Inca” features Zappa deftly soloing over the classic vamp that Frank used for so many of his solo flights, as well as a version of the classic, “Peaches en Regalia.” “I did an arrangement with guitars doing all of the horn parts,” says Zappa, who actually built the track off of his father’s master tapes from the 1969 album, Hot Rats. “When we were listening to those masters it was illuminating because, it was a 16-track session, but there were still a lot of instruments sharing tracks. And one of the sounds Frank used was really interesting.
During the intro there’s this thick, rubbery-
sounding bottom-end thing going on, and I never knew how he did it. But with the masters, we were able to decipher that it was actually seven tracks of bass guitar recorded at half-speed, tremolo picked. I left all of that in this new version.
“And for the section before the solo, I actually did the guitar version of the Natalie Cole/Nat King Cole thing. I pulled Frank’s parts—the little pre-solo thing, and the solo itself—from the master track, and played along with him on the new version. That little acoustic solo is one of his best.” —DF
Shut Up N’ Play Yer Guitar
“For the Zappa On Zappa tour, I’m playing an antiquated Gibson SG Standard with a Maestro vibrato,” says Dweezil Zappa. “Frank played my favorite stuff on an SG, and when I play one, it really helps set the mood. It’s a definite motivator for conceptual continuity, because, lets face it, it wouldn’t be the same if I walked onstage with a silver-sparkle Iceman. In the past, all I could play were Stratocaster-type guitars, but I kept woodshedding with the SG, and now I can’t play any of my old guitars. I love the SG’s easy access to the higher frets.
“Onstage, I’m running two Cornford heads—an MK50H II and an RK100—as well as a Blankenship 18-watt head. I use two Cornford 4x12 cabs, with one handling the signal from the RK100, and the other handling the MK50H II and the Blankenship, and I switch between those two amps.
“For effects, I’m using a combination of stompboxes and rack gear. For pedals, I’m running a Keeley Java Boost, a Tech 21 XXL, a Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz, a DOD FX25B Envelope Follower, an old Octavia, a T.C. Electronic Chorus/Pitch Modulation/Flanger, and an old Korg Flanger. My rack gear consists of a T.C. Electronics 2290, which I use for short delays, and an Eventide Orville which handles all of my reverbs. Everything is routed with a Switchblade GL MIDI system, and I switch it all with a Bradshaw pedalboard that also sports a Dunlop CryBaby.” —DF
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