For the last six years, under the banner of Zappa Plays Zappa, Dweezil Zappa has set about touring the world taking the music of his father Frank Zappa to audiences both old and new and celebrating Frank Zappa’s extraordinary achievements in music. In April, Zappa Plays Zappa returns to Australia for it’s third visit and will feature a performance at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, as well as a few other select shows around the country.
We recently chatted with Dweezil about what’s in store for the band’s return to Australia, his evolution as a guitarist as a result of learning the music of his father, and his thoughts on whether in 2012, the world has yet caught up with what Frank was doing some 40 plus years ago!
Hey Dweezil, thanks for taking the time to chat today! So firstly, how has 2012 gone for you so far, I see you have already been busy touring?
Yes it’s been pretty busy so far, we’ve finished a short little California tour that I’ve been wanting to do for a lot of reasons, but one of them was Scott Thunes who used to be in my Dad’s band and also my own band “Z”, he joined us for this particular run, so it was good to be able to play Frank’s music with Scott. We also had some other interesting things that happened on the tour, Allan Holdsworth joined us for a couple of shows and that was pretty interesting to play with him. His whole harmonic approach is pretty different to virtually anyone else on the planet really, so it was interesting for me to be able to play with him. If you had of said to me 5 or 6 years ago, why don’t you go and join Allan Holdsworth on stage for a little jam session and I would have said “yeah….good luck with that”. I just would have thought it would never happen as I wouldn’t have had any real clue about what he was doing. I mean I always liked his stuff, but I just didn’t really have that kind of background, that whole education background. I guess it’s a testimony to having played Frank’s music for these past several years, a lot of these things have soaked in and I was comfortable enough to do that and play within the same sort of context and idiom that he was playing.
So, Zappa Plays Zappa is returning to Australia to play Byron Bay Bluesfest, in April, which will be a great tour for you!
We always look forward to coming down there and this time it’s no different. The goal is to present a show that is completely different to the last time we were there in terms of the material and I think we’re going to focus on some stuff from earlier periods, similar things to what we just did on this past Californian run. Stuff from Freak Out and We’re Only In It For The Money and maybe some obscure stuff from the 70’s and some additional things from the 80’s, try and balance it over the three decades worth of music!
How intense are the rehearsals for a show such as what you are delivering, particularly if it might involve playing stuff you don’t regularly play…I think I have read/heard you compare them to training for the Olympics (laughs)!?
Well this time it’s a bit of a tricky situation as all of March I’m going to be on this Jimi Hendrix tour and I don’t get home until 2 days before we leave for Australia. So I won’t actually get to rehearse with the band prior to Australia, but the band will rehearse together and go over some things and obviously I’ll be doing some stuff on my own. But it’s going to be stuff we’ve just played on this recent tour and others that we are familiar with from the past, but I don’t want to focus on a show that covers a lot of material we’ve done previously in Australia. So that it’s different enough for people that are repeat customers.
So what is the lineup you have coming out to Australia, are there a few new faces to Australian audiences this time around?
Well let me see, the new people who weren’t there last time would be Ben Thomas who’s the singer, then there’s Chris Norton who’s on keyboards who also sings and then the newest, newest member who joined just a few weeks ago is the bass player, Kurt Morgan, so there’s three new faces!
Having done these shows now annually, how diverse have you noticed the demographics of the audiences to be…and more importantly, have you noticed a shift since you first started?
That was always the goal and we’ve noticed that from continued touring and through what we like to refer to as the “outreach program”. The thing is, it’s only really been in the last two years that we’ve seen a big change in who comes to the shows. In the early days we would rarely have any women, if they were there, they were being brought by their husbands and boyfriends and likely to not be very happy about it. Oddly enough, we are now finding a lot of women who know the music and are coming on their own, or in groups with other women. That’s been one of the head scratchers as traditionally Frank’s music has not had a strong female fanbase, so when it started to increase on our tour, obviously it’s a good thing, but it’s got us wondering whether there’s a change in the water or whatever to cause that (laughs)! We are also noticing an increase in college age kids and even younger. Even as a result of playing festivals and things that put us into a different audience, that has probably also made a difference in broadening our audience.
Having done this since 2006, is seeing this growing diversity of the audience base one of the most satisfying things for you, knowing that the music is reaching out to people it otherwise may never have?
Yeah, well it’s a lot of work! It’s certainly rewarding in the sense that people really appreciate the efforts that we’ve done to present the music and the fact that they have the opportunity to see and hear it. For me it’s a continuation of a relationship with my Dad through the music and it’s a real labor of love to do it. There’s a lot of hard work and sacrifice that goes into it, such as this year we are going to be playing a lot of shows and I’m going to be away from my children a bit more than what I would like, but that’s the nature of the business I guess.
Saying that the music of Frank Zappa was well ahead of its time is an understatement, but how do you view it now in 2012 in the context of what’s out there, has the world caught up yet?
I think there’s examples of stuff that he did, even in his first seminal records that still sound like they’re from the future, there’s just nothing that sounds like that stuff. You can put things into context, Frank was 25 when he wrote the song Trouble Every Day, which came out on the Freak Out album in 1966 and these days people tout it as the first “rap” song ever performed. But the lyrical content of that song still remains true today, so it’s not just a catchy tune that has a great melody. Frank was actually making statements, prognosticating things and that’s what’s so startling about that earlier work and what he was taking about politically and only being 25/26 years old when these early records were being made and a lot of this stuff still remains true and it still seems like it’s from the future!
Elaborating a bit more on something you mentioned earlier when talking about playing with Alan Holdsworth, In what ways do you feel learning and performing the Zappa songs has better equipped you as a guitarist?
Well my own guitar playing has progressed to a place that I never thought that it would. I’ve been interested in sounds and music that previously didn’t hold that much appeal for me, so my exposure to whether it be jazz or other classical things and just the stuff that my Dad was heavily influenced by, that stuff is making it’s way through my own filtering process and changing my own playing quite a bit. So technically, I’ve surpassed anything I could have done before and I was already pretty proficient as a guitar player. Now it’s just a whole another world and I think I’m on the precipice of finding my own voice of what I like to do with guitar, having come through the other end of having played what I’ve been playing the last six years.
So outside of Zappa Plays Zappa, do you have any new music or projects you are currently working on you wanted to mention?
It’s a challenge for me to even think about playing my own kind of music, but in the past several months I’ve made some efforts to begin doing some of that stuff. I’ve started on a classical piece that I’m hoping to premiere later in the year and get an orchestral performance out of it. That’s been something that’s been taking up some of my time and effort. As far as guitar oriented, or song oriented stuff, I do want to jump back into doing some of that stuff of my own at some point this year and start diversifying a little bit because we have been doing Zappa Plays Zappa now for about six years and I haven’t really had any time to do any of my own music during that time.
Well Dweezil thanks for giving up your time today, hope you have a great tour in April!
I really do enjoy my time down there and I’m planning on spending a little extra time at the back end of the tour, so that will be fun!
Essential Information
From: USA
Website: DweezilZappaWorld.com
Blue Murder presents: ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA – Accept No Substitutes
Tickets on sale now!
Friday 6th April Palace Theatre Melbourne
Tickets from www.ticketmaster.com.au
Saturday 7th April Metro Theatre Sydney
Tickets from Metro box office 02 9550 3666, www.ticketek.com.au 132 849
Sunday 8th April Panthers Newcastle
Tickets from the venue www.panthers.com.au
Monday 9th April Bluesfest
www.bluesfest.com.au
