It’s impossible to measure the influence of Frank Zappa on today’s musical landscape and incredible to think that he’s been gone now for 24 years. His huge body of work is as varied as it is at times impenetrable, releasing 62 albums in his lifetime and 40 or more and counting posthumously. Stylistically he was always out there on his own moving fluidly through genres and mixing sounds like no one before or since. Avant-Garde, Jazz, Classical, Progressive, Experimental the list could go on but it’s largely irrelevant Zappa was just Zappa, a true one off, inimitable and unique.
From 2006 to 2016 Dweezil played his father’s music as ‘Zappa plays Zappa’ but after his mother Gail’s death in 2015 he received a cease-and-desist letter from the Zappa trust for using that tag. In response to the trust’s action, he renamed his performance series “50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F@%k He Wants” and it’s under that banner that that he tours Australia and New Zealand in 2018. We caught up with Dweezil to find out all about the show…
Mark: 50 years is an incredible milestone, it’s hard to believe it’s that long since Frank’s first record ‘Freak Out’, how do you even begin to put together a set-list for a show like this?
Dweezil: Well I try to consider that there are still some people that have never heard the music and a whole lot more that are long term fans. The adjustment I made for this show when we were celebrating the 50 years of Frank’s career including a bunch of material from the early Mothers of Invention stuff and the first album ‘Freak Out’ I decided to make it a pretty specific chronological experience, so that it started with ‘Freak Out’ and then some other early Mothers of Invention stuff for the first 40, 45 minutes of the show and then we start to get into the early 70’s and then jump around from there. And it became a fun exploration of that Mothers of Invention stuff that led us to things that we hadn’t touched on before in the entire time I’d been touring since 2006. So we would go through and find things that we hadn’t played and that for the audience who had seen us before it was a fun change of pace. And we had a couple of new people in the band very talented that added to it especially vocally, so there’s a lot more range, a lot more going on. I think that was one of the things that helped us put the set together, but one of the challenges always is how do you put something together that will showcase some things that maybe are lesser known but also give people enough of the things that they may come to expect or hope to hear – the ‘fan favourites’. And that’s always a balancing act.
Mark: With someone as prolific as Frank it must be incredibly hard to choose but I guess it also means there are endless possibilities too. I was actually looking at some of your father’s old Australian Tour set-lists, I think there was a ‘Mothers’ tour from ’73 and Frank’s tour in ’76 – do you ever do that – take a step back in time to see what he was playing at a certain point?
Dweezil: Yeah, we have done that in years past and when we did get to come down to Australia we played some of the songs that he had previously played down there there was even a record that came out called ‘FZ:OZ’ and we learned certain versions of those songs that were from those concerts that were from Australia and we’ve played some of that stuff in the past. But you know when we do come down, especially to places that we haven’t been frequently we do look back at what we played the last time we were there so that we can mix it up, so that if somebody is coming to see us again they won’t be saying “hey they played those songs last time.” Sometimes we’ll recycle songs that maybe have been out of the set-list for a while in some places but by the time we get back to somewhere that we haven’t been for a while it may be very close to the same set-list they saw last time, so I do check on that so we have more variety every time.
Mark: So you’re here in February and as well as the shows you’re putting on some guitar masterclasses, can you tell us a little about what you’ll be dong in those?
Dweezil: Well I’ve done a few in different places, in the US and Canada and we’ve done it in Europe before but this will be the first time in Australia. I guess there’s a couple of little things that I think can really help people quickly to find new ways to ‘ride the neck’ and get access to a lot more new ideas quickly just because they are able to take what they already know and expand it with this process. It’s much easier when there’s a guitar but essentially it only has six strings and I sort of divide it into three sets of two strings and when you do that it makes things much more specific and simplified because you can see what’s possible on one or two strings – you have less options you have to worry about and when you see it there you can see it identically on the next two sets of strings, it’s just that it’s an octave apart. And when you see it like that you start to see these shorter fragments of ideas and just kind of move them around much more quickly. So it’s kind of like a modular system for operating a guitar!
Mark: That’s a really interesting way at looking at things. What equipment are you bringing over with you? When we let people know we’ere talking to you all the guitarists out there asked if you’d be bringing your “Roxy” SG over?
Dweezil: Yes I’ll be bringing that one. The one I have is customised it has a few other things on it that the original “Roxy” SG didn’t have I have a different pick-u so I can get some dial sounds and I have something called a ‘sustainiac’ which gives me infinite sustain when I need it for certain things and between all of that I can cover the different textures needed for playing ensemble parts and other kind of lead tones and stuff like that. So that’s the main guitar. I don’t know if ‘ll be bringing a Strat or not, that depends on the list. As far as guitar amplification, I’ve been using a digital set-up for at least the last eight years, maybe longer – and Axe-FX and this version I’m binging down is the smaller 8. I’d really like to bring my bigger systems but since we’re flying to each show I needed something that would be easy to bring and this will break down and fit in an overhead compartment.
Mark: You’ve been to Australia and New Zealand before…
Dweezil: I have been to Australia but not New Zealand this is the first time.
Mark: That will be interesting it’s a beautiful place to visit. Do you have any time this time around to get out and see any of the country?
Dweezil: On the tour we generally don’t have much time to go see stuff but I usually try to plan to have some time on either end of the tour to stick around and travel a bit. we have friends in Sydney so my wife and I are gonna spend a little extra time with them after the tour and it would be nice to check out New Zealand a bit more.I’ve only been to Perth once, so this will be our second time coming there.
Mark: Yes, I’m not even sure that Frank ever got to Perth, looking at his old set-lists I see he played multiple dates in Sydney, Melbourne, even Adelaide and up to Brisbane but I don’t think he ever made it out West.
Dweezil: I don’t think he did, so it’s nice to be able to bring his music out to you.
Mark: Your last solo album was a few years ago now, are you looking at putting out any new music?
Dweezil: Yes, it’s been a slow process with our own music because we play about eighty to a hundred shows a year,so that’s about six months of traveling give or take a few weeks here or months there for rehearsals, but generally with that much time spend doing the touring I do try and balance it out by sticking around and being with my kids so other music projects I usually don’t have a lot of time to work on them but the thing that will be different going forward is by summer of next year I will have a studio of my own up and running so I will be able to do more stuff. I do have plans to do more but it’s going to take a little while to ramp up. But one thing that is definitely happening is that I’m putting out a record that is… my dad made a record called ‘Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar’ and I have my own series called ‘Live in the Moment’ so I did one version that came out a couple of years ago and the next version is coming out in a few days called ‘Live in the Moment Part Two’ and its the same kind of thing – more guitar solos extracted from different songs and lots of oddball connected parts stringing it all together. That’s out first just on Pledge Music under ‘Dweezil Zappa and the Others of Intention’ and I plan to put that up either Monday or Tuesday and that will be just a digital version but a CD version will come out later. The the other thing is in about a week I’m doing a concert in Poland where I’m premiering some of my orchestral music – I got to write some music for a hundred piece orchestra! It’ll be my first time doing a project like that and we’re gonna be recording that and maybe even filming it so hopefully we’ll be able to release something from that at some point early next year. Which will be good as it’s a totally different kind of thing to any of my other music.
Mark: That will be incredible. Thank you so much for your time today Dweezil. Traditionally we always end with an easy one, so can you tell me what is the meaning of life?
Dweezil: (laughs) Well the older I get I think about these things in a bigger picture way when it comes to my kids. The simplest things that I can enjoy, that make me happy are just seeing kids learn to navigate and be themselves but be responsible for their actions, and when they are able to really do that and show that they’ve learned how to navigate life and I ca see that they can really do things on their own that’s great, that makes me feel good. The world we live in is not necessarily the greatest place but we have to give them the greatest tools, my kids are 9 and 11and I have a 15 year old step-daughter so we’re just getting to that place where we’re seeing the next generation become who they’re gonna be and it’s great to see that they’re turning out to be great people.
Mark: That’s wonderful that’s what it’s all about, hoping that the next generation is going to learn from us, think for themselves and make the world a better place. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you today see you in the new year! And good luck with the show in Amsterdam.
Dweezil: I appreciate that thanks, see you at the show. Bye.
DWEEZIL ZAPPA CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF FRANK
February 2018
Tuesday 20th Feb – Auckland, Bruce Mason Centre
Thursday 22nd Feb – Brisbane, The Tivoli
Friday 23rd Feb – Sydney, Enmore Theatre
Saturday 24th Feb – Melbourne, Forum Theatre
Sunday 25th Feb – Adelaide, The Gov
Tuesday 27th Feb – Perth, Astor Theatre
