Why
are you such a prolific composer? I'm different.
Do
you have an inherent desire to put out a
lot of records?
Well,
the putting out of the material is not
the desired end result. I mean, I really
don't I care whether it comes out; I like
to hear it. I write because I am
personally amused by what I do, and if
other people are amused by it, then it's
fine. If they're not, then that's also
fine. But I do it for my own amusement.
The fact that it comes out is just
something that has to do with the
business world, rather than the artistic
world. Even if I wasn't releasing records
I would still do it.
How
do you budget your time between audio and
video recording and composing?
The
composing actually takes up the smallest
amount of my time. I wish I could spend
more time doing it, but for everything
that you write down, that engenders 20
other mechanical procedures further down
the line that you have to go through in
order to hear what you wrote. So I've
pretty much limited the amount that I
write. I've already written so much that
hasn't gone through all those in-between
steps before it turns into music on tape,
or music in the air, or whatever, that I
could sit still for five years and have
tons of stuff coming out.
Do
you spend much time, then, working with
your guitar?
I
hardly ever touch it. The only time I
play my guitar is when 1 know I'm going
to tour. I practice a little bit before
we go into rehearsal to get the calluses
built up again. Then I play during
rehearsals, and when we get out on the
road, I usually practice an hour a day
before each show. Once the tour is over,
I don't touch it. I haven't touched my
guitar for about six months.
Do
you miss playing guitar at all?
ln a
way, yes; in a way, no. I really like the
instrument and I really like to play, but
when the responsibility for running the
business rests on my Shoulders, there
isn't Any time to practice. There's no
time for the kind of guitar player
enjoyment that the readers of your
magazine might imagine a person would
indulge in. If you really love the
guitar, then you're going to spend every
waking hour stroking the thing and
playing through peculiar rituals.
Is
your having to devote more of your
energies to other projects besides
playing guitar the reason why you have
other guitarists in your band?
No.
What usually happens is this: If I put
another guitarist on my album, I hire
that person because he plays things that
I can' t play. And if the music requires
a certain type of performance, and the
composition is the real crux of the
biscuit, then you don't want to be unfair
to the composition and play it yourself
if you're going to play it wrong. So I
get people who can do it. It's not a
matter of being lazy: If there's
something on a given song that I think is
in my department, I'm going to play it.
But if it's something that will be
difficult or impossible for me to do, I'd
just as soon get somebody who feels
comfortable with that style and have them
do it.
In
concert, you often put down your guitar
altogether.
Right.
There's a good reason for that: I'm not a
very good singer and I don't have very
good breath control. And the weight of
the guitar on your shoulder pushes down
on your lungs. I find it easier to sing
in tune with the other guys on-stage if I
don't have that weight on my body. It's
easier to take it off, and it also allows
me to give it to a roadie to tune it up,
rather than be standing there with a prop
like the Bruce Springsteen syndrome:
swinging your guitar around your back
just so you look good with a guitar on.
Why dirty up the arrangement, which is
planned to be concise and accurate, by
randomly whacking a couple of chords or a
couple of extra tweezy notes just because
that's what everybody else would do? The
music isn't designed that way. That's not
the reason why I have the thing out
there. It's some- thing to make music on.
And I really don't care what I look like
out there as long as I can get my work
done.
Is
the weight factor behind your choice of
small guitars?
Yes. I
have three of them, and I don't wear
them: I play them. I have one Strat and
two baby Les Pauls. They were made by
D'Mini. [Ed. Note: These models are
called the Les Paule and the Strate by
their manufacturer, Phased Systems.] The
D'Mini Strat that I have is unbelievable;
you can't believe the noises that come
out of that thing. It's ridiculous. I'm
having a special one made with a little
bit deeper body on it so that I can have
a locking vibrato put on.
How
are those guitars tuned?
The
little I.es Pauls are tuned up to A, and
the Strat is tuned to F#. The
relationship between the strings is the
same as on a standard guitar.
Are
special strings used on those guitars?
On the
little Strat, I use Gold Maxima strings.
On the little Les Pauls, I use Black
Maximas, which are Teflon-coated. They
don't make them anymore, but I had a lot
of them lying around. The upper unwound
strings are platinum-plated.
What
modifications have you had done to your
D'Mini Strate?
The
neck and body are stock, and it has
Seymour Duncan pickups, and a built-in
parametric equalizer with variable
"Q" [resonance]; that's the one
with the concentric knobs. lt was
custom-designed here at the Utility
Muffin Research Kitchen [Zappa's
studio/workshop]. There's a volume
control and a silver plug that takes the
place of another parametric that failed
when I was out on the road. lt has a
three-way selector, and the toggle switch
used to be for switching between the two
parametrics. By having two parametrics, I
was able to preset two different types of
feedback boost. The circuit boards were
worked on by Midget Sloatman and Eddie
Clothier. David Robb, who was the guitar
tech on the last tour, also did some work
on it.
In
generating your pieces. what comes I
first?
Every
song is different. It just depends on
what it's eventually going to wind up
being. It could start off with just two
or three words. And I always write a few
songs when I'm out on the road.
Do
you start with a rhythmic framework?
Songs
that are basically vocal-oriented, I
usually start off with a story idea or
just a phrase. There's one song I made up
on the last tour called "Baby Take
Your Teeth Out." Just those words
turned into a song. Other ways: You can
start off with something from a sound
check, where you're playing a few chords
while warming up. You say, "Those
chords sound good," and the next
step is to decide what you're going to do
with it. That's for the most basic type
of material- the easy stuff where you can
just hum it to the band and say,
"Okay, I'm doing this, you do that,
you play this beat, and you come in
here." That's the easy way of
putting rock and roll together. The
compositions on paper are done a totally
different way.
To
put together the type of song where you
can just hum the words, do you sit at the
piano and arrange?
I very
seldom touch a piano unless I'm writing
stuff for orchestra. That's the only time
I need it. I can just sit in an airport
and write it down on paper, too. Some of
the pieces to be performed by the London
Symphony were written in airports or
hotel rooms, with no appliances
whatsoever.
Once
you get a piece composed -- especially
something on a grand scale such as an
orchestral work -- do you make a demo
tape for yourself to see if you like the
final composition?
No.
What I usually do is come back from a
tour with a briefcase full of sketches
and I'll test the parts of the harmony
and the lines on the piano, refine it,
and then generate a handwritten score in
fairly messy condition, which I then give
to the copyist I have on the payroll.
He'll ink it and copy the parts, and it's
done. Usually, something that complicated
doesn't roll very fast, such as this
orchestral stuff we've been trying to get
played for about five years now.
What
pieces will be included in your
orchestral set? Will The Sinister
Footwear be included?
No. The
Sinister Footwear is going to receive its
world premiere in the spring of 1984 with
the Berkeley Orchestra and the Oakland
Ballet Company.
Is
it difficult to line up these concerts?
Part of
the problem is that we've been promised
performances by certain other people at
certain other times who want to do
premieres. This included
[composer/conductor] Pierre Boulez, who
commissioned one piece. That's set for
January 9, 1984, in Paris; it's a piece
called The Perfect Stranger. It was
written for his little orchestra, a 29-
or 30-piece group. I wrote three pieces
to be performed with that orchestration.
Right now, we don't have any guarantee
that even if he conducts the premiere
that it will get recorded. And I'm
interested in getting it recorded so that
I can hear it. It's never enough just to
hear it played once live in a hall. You
may be able to listen to the stuff
carefully so that you can go further and
advance your craftsmanship, but it's just
a little bit hard to do that by hearing
it only once, so I do want to get it
recorded.
Who
will be performing your pieces?
We were
planning to have them done with the
Syracuse Symphony, but we have since made
other arrangements with the London
Symphony. So we will be doing a concert
at a hall called the Barbicon on January
11, in London, followed by three days of
digital recording. The pieces to be
played, in order, are
"Envelopes," "Mo 'n Herb's
Vacation," "Bob in
Dacron," "Sad Jane,"
"Pedro's Dowry," and
"Bogus Pomp." Here are the
instruments that are going to be in the
orchestra: 12 first violins, 12 second
violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos, eight
basses, one harp, one piano, five flutes,
four oboes, five clarinets, including Eb
clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass
clarinet, five bassoons, one of which
stays on contrabassoon all the time and
another that doubles contrabassoon, eight
French horns, four trumpets, four
trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba,
one set of timpani, six percussion, and a
drum set.
Will
any members of your regular band be
included?
From
the United States, I'm bringing with me
Ed Mann, our regular percussionist, and
Chad Wackerman, our regular drummer, as
well as David Ocker, who is going be
playing the clarinet solo in "Mo 'n
Herb's Vacation." The conductor will
be Kent Nagano, who is currently the
conductor of the Berkeley Symphony
Orchestra. I'm taking Mark Pinske, the
engineer who also did all the live stuff
on the last tour. And the whole thing is
going to cost us far less than what it
would have cost us in Syracuse.
Who
will take on the expense?
Well,
the entire orchestral thing is on my own
budget. I've had requests from orchestras
all over the world asking to play music,
but basically it comes down to one thing:
They want me to pay for it. Because once
it's recorded, they all want to get
recording scale for doing it - 110
people. We're talking basically about
several recording sessions for 110
people. If you were to do that in
Hollywood, and say, "Okay, I'm going
to do five or six sessions with 110
guys," and have them come in and
sight-read it, I don't think you would
get a good performance out of it. What
I'm hoping to do is have them rehearse it
for about a week, and it may turn into
something that they will keep in their
repertoire, and it will continue to be
played especially after the record comes
out because then it will be something
that will sell tickets for them.
What
kind of material will be on your new
album?
The new
album will have "The Man from Utopia
Meets Mary Lou," a medley of two
rhythm and blues songs from the '50s
drastically rearranged. "Mary
Lou" was written by Young Jesse, and
"The Man from Utopia" is by
Donald and Doris Wood. That's followed by
"Stick Together," a song about
union stupidity. lt goes into
"Sex," which is followed by
"The Jazz Discharge Party
Hats," and is then followed by an
instrumental, "We Are Not
Alone." Side two starts off with
"Cocaine Decisions," followed
by "The Dangerous Kitchen,"
then "Tink Walks Amok," an
instrumental featuring Arthur Barrow
playing three basses doing some strange
things. Next is "The Radio Is
Broken," a song about a science
fiction movie, and the last song on the
side is "Moggio," which is a
very complicated instrumental for the
full ensemble, featuring Steve Vai
playing some very hard guitar stuff.
How
well have the Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar
records sold?
Good.
Actually, they have surprised everybody
because the quantity that we sold mail-
order went into a profit within two weeks
of being out there. That is, they paid
for the cost of manufacturing within two
weeks. At the same time, the contract
with CBS was structured like this: They
had the right to put the records out
outside of the United States as a
commercial release, and they put them in
a three-record boxed set. That did really
well in Europe, and suddenly they started
importing them into the United States. So
all the people who purchased them
mail-order were saying, "Hey, look.
It's in the store in a nice boxed set and
we were buying them as three individual
records through the mail." I didn't
have any control over it. There was no
way I could stop what was happening, so
the only thing I could do was put it out
as a commercial release myself in the
U.S.
Is
it doing well as a set?
Well,
they pressed 5,000 sets to begin with,
and they went immediately like that
[snaps fingers]. So, they ordered another
7,000. It's kind of an unusual item since
it is fairly expensive, it's in a box,
it's hard to rack, and you wouldn't think
there'd be much demand for it because it
is instrumental music by some guy who is
not normally recognized as being a
musician. People think of me as some kind
of deranged comedian. So CBS was kind of
surprised that there were that many
orders coming in.
Do
you plan to come out with follow-ups to
the Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar series?
I
could; a lot depends on the final results
of the sales of these. Because, as I've
said in many interviews before, I'm not
funded by any foundation or grants or any
money from the sky, so what comes in gets
transferred again into the next product
that goes out. And I can only spend the
money to make the next product vs. the
profit that comes in on the previous one.
I have to I budget my time to work on
certain things that are going to
perpetuate my payroll for the 30-
some-odd people who are working around
here. And unless the guitar album sells a
lot of units, that would be a luxury in
terms of the time spent on another one.
It's a big project to edit that stuff
together, follow it through the mastering
process, and all that. lt takes quite a
while. And once I start working on a
project, I don't do anything else. I just
do that until it's done.
How
do you determine which guitarist in your
band does what part, and do you record
several solo tracks on a song and edit
them together?
It
depends on whether it's a studio song or
a live song.
Some
of your songs are mixtures of live and
studio recordings.
Okay,
then that's a third category. But we're
talking about the solos now. In the case
of a live take, I will find a solo that I
like from a live performance and edit it.
I wouldn't play any extra on it, I would
just shorten it to fit the time frame
that it's supposed to function in. And as
far as the ones in the studio go, I very
seldom play studio guitar solos. On the Drowning
Witch album, the solo on "I
Come from Nowhere" was a studio
solo, and that was like two hours' worth
of work to get a sound that I thought was
suitable. And then about 20 minutes'
worth of playing: punching in or doing a
take and not liking it and wiping the
whole thing, or fixing part of it, or
just tweezing it up.
Do
you usually wait until after you've
edited a part to add the effects?
Not
necessarily. Sometimes I record with the
effects, and sometimes they're added
later. It just depends.
Steve
Vai said that the "Peter
Gunn-sounding guitar in "Teenage
Prostitute" [Drowning Witch]
sounded much different after it was mixed
than when he recorded it.
We can
change the sound of just about anything
because we have a lot of sound-modifying
tools in the studio. When you arrange
something, the arrangement is always
modified by what comes before it or after
it on a side. If you want the side to
play smoothly, you may equalize all the
different parts of a tune to sound one
way, but when you start mixing a whole
side - that's what we do: We start on
song one and work through to the end - to
make the continuity work in terms of the
tonal quality of the whole side,
sometimes we have to change things around
drastically
Then
you don't follow a brittle-sounding song
with a mushy one.
Right.
You want to smooth out the whole spectrum
so that when a person puts the needle
down at the beginning of the record, they
feel that there's a continuity through
the whole side. It just makes it easier
to listen to.
What's
the biggest problem in creating a record
from a final tape?
The
biggest problem about making a record
occurs when you go from the magnetic
medium to the mechanical medium. Sound on
tape has certain problems that you have
to deal with just because of the way that
tape works. Sound on a disc has other
types of problems that you have to
correct because of the way a record
works. A record is a mechanical medium -
it's based on a little thing wiggling
around in a groove. And it's a miracle
that a stylus can actually produce music
- especially when you're talking about
things that are drastically
stereo-imaged. You get into situations
with phase cancellation and all sorts of
weird stuff that goes on when you try to
put it onto a record. And there are
always equalization changes between when
you finish your master tape and when you
send it down and get a ref [reference
copy]. It never sounds the same when it
comes back from the disc cutting place.
And so you have to take the time and
tweeze it up. Sometimes there are
problems on the tape that just can't be
fixed.
What
are some examples?
Those
problems usually involve the letter
"S" in a vocal part, or a
hi-hat that's half open. Those things are
sometimes really obnoxious on a record.
And the remedies just to fix that kind of
sound-just to get it to track correctly
on a disc-involve radical measures, such
as using these things called acceleration
limiters, which are built into the
recording lathe. These are pretty
drastic. Let's take a bad "S"
in a word like surprise. It sounds okay
on tape, but when it comes back on a
record, it's all distorted because it's
difficult for the needle to track it. So
you either have to use an outboard
de-esser [an electronic device that
senses powerful highs and selectively
chops them out], which finds that
frequency and suppresses it for an
instant, or use the acceleration limiters
on the lathe.
How
do they work?
They
function very drastically. They start at
4k [4,000 cycles per second], and at that
point when an "S" appears, they
dump the whole top end. So, when it's
triggered, it takes the whole top off the
tape, and not just the "S." So
it's very critical to tweak those things.
The guy who cuts the lacquers [the
earliest disc in the mastering process]
for us is very careful about leaving it
on when it's time to get rid of the S's,
and turning it off right afterwards. It
makes for a lot of manual work, and in
order to do it, he works from a sheet of
paper with timing numbers. So he'll, say,
at one minute and 28 seconds turn on the
high-frequency limiter to "4,"
look at the timer, and turn it on at the
right time. He doesn't listen to the
music, he does it by the numbers. Just
turns it on and off. The easy way to do
it is to turn on the high-frequency
limiter and leave it on. There won't be
any S's on the record, but there won't be
any top end on it either. We fuss with
that type of stuff. We have 30 or 40 refs
for the new album [The Man from
Utopia] and most people don't do
that; they do one, and that's it.
Do
you prefer to have your records done with
half speed mastering?
The
only album that we ever did with
half-speed mastering was Joe's Garage. It
helps your top end, but it ruins the low
end. Let's examine the frequency spectrum
of what we're putting on the record. The
new album has a lot of information around
30 cycles [Ed. Note: Low E on a bass
guitar is 41.2 Hz], and there's a
very full-sounding bottom on some of
these tunes. If you were to master that
at half-speed, you'd need an equalizer
that would have to be looking at 15
cycles. So you get a crisper, but a
thinner-sounding record if you master at
half-speed. On the Joe's Garage
albums, we used half-speed mastering on
all three of those discs, and I'm not
totally delighted with the results.
Do
you have any examples?
Let me
give you a very graphic one. We cut it at
half-speed, and the stylus can carve very
careful, perfect, little high-frequency
wiggles on the record. That doesn't mean
when it's turned into a stamper and goes
onto vinyl that those wiggles are
necessarily going to be there. You may
just be fooling yourself You may hear it
great coming off of a reference disc, but
not off of a pressing. And that's what I
think happened with Joe's Garage. lt just
didn't carry through all the
manufacturing processes. Recently, I've
cut some normal-speed refs on the Joe's
Garage albums, and since the time of
the original mastering, there have been
some advancements in normal-speed lathe
technology. You can get more level on the
record, and so forth. So the new refs
sound fantastic. They have plenty of top
end and plenty of bottom; they sound much
more like the master tape than the
half-speed version did.
In
terms of stereo imaging, do you have to
make trade-offs when mixing guitar or
other parts in order to avoid phase
cancellation when the music is played
back in mono?
Who
listens to it in mono?
Many
engineers play music through small
speakers in mono occasionally to hear
what it might sound like on a car radio.
But I
don't have that problem, because nobody's
ever going to be playing my stuff on an
AM radio, so what's the difference? And
besides, I believe that most of the
people who buy my records have
better-than-average reproduction
equipment. They may not be in the
audiophile class, but I don't believe
they listen to them on mono cheese-o
equipment. So I try to go as stereo as
possible and plan it for the end result
of who's going to consume it. Nobody's
going to take "Heavy Duty Judy"
[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar] and
play it on mainstream AM radio.
The
Drowning Witch album had a
suggestion on it to the effect that it
should be listened to on JBL 4311
speakers. Why so specific?
That
album was mixed on 4311s, and it sounds
better through 4311s than just about any
other kind of speaker. It was the first
time I've done that. I heard a lot of
people own those kinds of speakers, and I
thought, "Well maybe we can optimize
it for what is actually in their
homes." One of the problems when you
make a record is that you don't know
actually what they're going to be playing
it on. You don't know what the anomalies
of the person's speakers are going to be
- or the cartridge, or the condition of
the stylus, or whether they like to turn
up the bass all the way. All these
things. Everything that happens changes
the sound of what you put onto the tape,
and there's no way to make it perfect,
unless the listener has some kind of
scientifically flat reproduction system
in their home. And that's just not going
to happen.
What
becomes of your band during a hiatus from
touring?
Well,
whenever we go off the road, there isn't
any band. Everybody is hired for the
tour; nobody is on a yearly salary. I
used to do it differently years ago:
Everybody was employed, and they got the
same amount of money every week whether
they worked or not. And some of the guys
said, "I'd rather get paid more
money just for the time I'm on the
road." And I said, "Fine,"
and that's the way it is now. So when
they're not on the road with me, they go
out and do other work. It's going to be a
while before I'm back on the road, so
it's good they have other work.
Are
you just trying to clear out the back-log
of tapes, compositions, and other
business?
Oh,
it's a lot of different factors. I have a
lot of things to do that can't be done
while you're on the road. We've got video
and movie stuff happening right now, and
you can't be a touring musician and still
have control over that stuff.
What
prompted you to put out the book of solo
transcriptions?
There
were lots of requests for it. We've got
over a thousand postcards from people
interested in that type of music. It's
really thick: it looks just like a little
telephone book. And that's not even all
the stuff that's on the guitar albums.
Do
you ever listen to your older material to
pull things out for use as a catalyst for
new pieces?
Well,
I'll be listening to those things a whole
lot because we plan to re-release the
entire catalog of my albums next May.
We're remixing everything. As a matter of
fact, the board is set up to remix The
Mothers, Fillmore East-June 1971,
and what we've been able to do to that
album is science fiction. You can't even
believe it. lt doesn't even resemble the
original.
Will
the albums hold basically the same
material?
I'm
going to add to it. The whole idea of
this package is. . . . I don't know
whether we'll be able to pull it off in
time because there's an awful lot of work
to be done to meet the deadline, but I'm
hoping by Mother's Day to have five boxes
with seven albums in each of them,
covering the entire catalog. And we'll
divide them up so that the first box is
like all the early Mothers stuff plus one
extra disc of material from that era
that's never been released before. And
the same goes for the rest of the boxes:
Each will have one disc of things that
were done during that time that never got
released.
So
they're not just the same records in a
new package?
All the
stuff is either going to be remastered,
as is the case with the things that
already have a good mix, or completely
remixed. This includes 4-track, early
8-track, or early 16-track - or anything
done when science wasn't there to make it
sound right.
Your
music embraces satire and complex
rhythmic and harmonic concepts. Where do
you derive your ideas from? Do you watch
a lot of TV or hang out in unusual
settings?
I do
not hang out anywhere but my own house,
and the TV I get to watch is usually the
late-night stuff. And I like to watch the
news.
Do
you have any favorite contemporary
musicians?
No.
Are
there any that you severely dislike?
No. I
think that if a person is making music -
even if it's the most crass, commercial
kind of crud - that person should be
doing that because there are people who
want to consume crass, commercial crud.
And they're doing a necessary function
for the audience that needs to be
entertained. Just because I'm not the
consumer of that stuff, it's no reason
for me to go on some big campaign against
it. I don't think it's particularly
aesthetic, but then again, if it's
providing enjoyment for somebody, then
fine.
So
for you it's easier to ignore it.
Well,
I'm not a consumer of pop music. I don't
listen to the radio. I don't go to see
groups. I don't buy albums. I've got too
much other stuff to do; that world is not
for me. I'm not interested.
How
important do you think the video medium
is becoming, for music?
It's
becoming more important for the people
who own the cable companies because the
artists who are doing the video things
are being ripped off. And here's how the
rip-off works: If you're a person who has
a band, and you make a video, you do this
because you think if you get your video
on TV, everybody will go out and buy your
album and think you're fantastic. And
this myth is perpetuated by cable
companies who show these things, but they
don't pay you. And it costs a lot of
money to make these videos.
They
don't have to pay ASCAP or BMI for
performance rights?
Well,
when you consider what it costs to make a
video vs. what they have to pay any
performing rights society, you can see
it's not even close. Look, a
decent-looking video is going to cost you
$40,000 or $50,000; some groups have
spent $150,000 for just a few minutes'
worth of video. So the way it usually
goes, some record companies will put up
the money to begin with to make the
video. But that's only like going to the
bank to get a loan, because the real
cost of the video comes out of the
artist's pocket. The record company
deducts all that out of the artist's
royalties, if there are any. Before the
artist sees a nickel for his work, the
record company makes sure they get their
investment back for making the video. The
artist is really the one who has to pay
for that advertising, ultimately. And in
most record contracts, any money that is
spent promoting the product comes out of
the artist's pocket - usually by some
roundabout accounting method. They cover
it up, but you're paying. No record
company does you any favors. Then, to add
insult to injury, the cable companies
that show these things never give any
money for this material. And what it does
for them is fill up their air time with
colorful pieces of videotape and they get
to sell commercials; they get revenues
from advertisers who want to have their
spots included in the middle of all this
colorful musical videotape menagerie, and
the cable company gets a free ride.
And
their productiou costs are zip.
That's
right. All they do is sit there and wait
for the cassettes to roll in, because all
these groups want to get their things on
TV. They think, "Oh, boy, we're
really going to be famous now." And
they're getting hosed.
So
the only one benefitting, then, is the
guy sitting at home watching.
Well,
no. Because he doesn't make any money
from it. The cable company that sells
commercials for the thing is really
benefitting, and the guy sitting at home
may or may not get any benefit from it
because the cable company is only going
to show those videos which are tame -
within a certain framework. You know, the
weirder stuff never gets on. It's the
same as the control they have on AM
radio. It's all formatted to look and
feel a certain way.
Hotu
do you think the video medium will affect
guitarists in general?
If you
have to function in a visual medium,
you're going to wind up doing things that
look good instead of sound good. I mean,
you can be playing the most beautiful
music in the world, but if you're just
sitting there like a lump, that really
doesn't stimulate the video viewer, nor
does it stimulate the guy who programs
the videotapes. And it probably won't
even get on the air.
So
it's time to do cartwheels.
That's
right. Make faces, jump up and down. . .
.
What
do you think of the fire-breathing young
guitar players who play in the Randy
Rhoads vein?
Randy
Rhoads was my son Dweezil's favorite
guitar player. He really loved Randy. For
the people who love that kind of music,
there should be those types of guitar
players doing that kind of stuff to
entertain them.
Do
you think young guitarists who start by
learning every flashy technique are
missing anything by not learning basics
such as blues a la Elmore James?
Well,
Elmore James is an acquired taste, and I
happen to really like Elmore James, and I
like all blues-type guitar players and
all that sort of stuff. I happen to think
that what they play really means
something, as opposed to most of what
happens on most rock and roll records -
it's very calculated sound effects that
fit the song. But to say that a person
has to start with Elmore James before he
graduates up to fire-breathing guitar
playing status is stupid, because you
really don't need to. If you don't have
any feeling for that type of music, why
involve yourself with it? I would rather
see a guitar player totally ignore that
realm of music in an honest way - saying,
"that's just not my stuff" -
than get a cursory glance of it and say,
"Now I understand it," because
they'll just do a parody of it. You've
really got to love that stuff. I really
hope that one of these days that sort of
blues comes back. Everything else comes
back. And I think that kind of music is
great.
But
the recording of the great bulk of
original old blues material isn't that
great.
Well,
I'm not talking about re-releasing those
old things. I'm talking about the idea
that a person can stand up there with a
guitar and just play blues on it. Not
just play flash and trash, but play the
fucking blues, because it's good to
listen to.
Do
you ever give Dweezil guitar tips?
He
asked about some chords one time, and I
showed him some. Other than that, he's
pretty shy about asking me about stuff.
He watches a lot of videotapes and he
listens to a lot of heavy metal
cassettes. His main interest is really
heavy metal.
So
he doesn't ask for guidance.
Well, I
don't think there's any reason for him to
want to play what I play, because it's
not his world. So he should go off on his
own and get his own resources.
Were
your parents music fanatics?
No.
Dweezil's
situation is different in that he has a
father who is a guitarist, and he aspires
to be a guitarist; it seems like an
entirely different ball game.
Well,
every once in a while when his band's
rehearsing, I'll help them with the
machinery they're using. Like, if they're
having a problem getting a sound that
they want, I'll explain how equalizers
work, and how to get certain sounds out
of their equipment. But what he plays is
his own business.
What
do you think would be a good guitar and
amp complement for a beginning guitarist?
Depends
on what kind of music they want to play.
If they want to be a fire-breathing
guitar player, they go out and get a
Marshall 100-watt and turn it all the way
up. And a Stratocaster all the way up.
What else do they need? Playing music is
different, though. If you're just going
to get started in that rock and roll
world, that's the way it goes.
What
kind of hours do you generally keep?
I work
until I can't stand it, and then I go to
sleep. It varies from day to day. I've
been working a few 20-hour days recently,
but it's settled down to a mild 12 hours
in the last couple of days.
What
was the full story on the Zappa in
New York, Sleep Dirt, Orchestral
Favorites, and Studio Tan albums?
Usually your albums give full credits to
the musicians and in many cases lyrics;
however, on all but Zappa in New
York there was nothing.
That
was part of what started my lawsuit with
Warner Bros. It's a really complicated
legal story, and I don't want to recite
it again. But the fact of the matter is
that part of the lawsuit was settled out
of court, and I got the rights to all of
those masters back; I got all the tapes
back. They're going to be part of the
sets that are going to be remixed,
remastered, and re-released.
Do
you foresee any way that musicians can
avoid being burned by a record company?
No. Not
unless that musician also happens to be a
combination of expert lawyer and maybe a
billionaire. Because the only way you can
fight a record company is to be able to
afford the legal battle that they'll
whipon you. A company as big as Warner
Bros. has lawyers from here to Pacoima.
And all they do is smother you in
paperwork, and then you have to wait five
years before you go to court.
Will
the musicians from those albums be
credited on the reissues?
Yeah. I
don't know how familiar you are with the
sound quality of those albums, but
they're really disgusting. I've got some
new refs of the same material made from
the same masters, but done up to Barking
Pumpkin standards, and they'll scare you
to death. Because there's good music on
those records; there's a lot lurking in
there.
How
does somebody get to play guitar or bass
for you?
If
somebody has the desire to play guitar or
bass for me at this moment in time, I
would say just forget it. I'm not hiring.
What
about in the general sense?
In the
general sense, anybody who has a job in
the band got there through an audition.
Do
you hold large, open auditions, and put
ads in music trade magazines?
No,
because I would wind up auditioning a
bunch of people who would do it just to
say they auditioned, which would be like
a professional credit feather in their
cap. I don't want to have to sit through
hundreds and hundreds of guys who really
have no chance of getting in. You know,
people are recommended by other people,
or tapes are sent in, and I hear that
there is some talent there suitable for
working in the band. That's the way it's
done. I have flown people in from all
over the country to try out if I thought
that there was some chance. They're
brought in and I pay for their ticket and
their hotel, and then send them back if
they flunk. I don't say, "You
failed"; I always thank them for
trying out, but you have to be honest
about it.
You
change your personnel fairly often almost
with each album.
Not
really. Because the band that did the
tour in Europe in 1982 was exactly the
same band that was out on the U.S. tour
the year before. You have to understand
that when a guy comes into the band, he's
not in indentured servitude for life. A
lot of these people come in because they
want to come in and do one semester and
go out and have their big career. They
use it as a stepping stone for someplace
else to go. I can't make a guy stay in
the band. If he wants to leave, he's free
to leave anytime because I've got a
drawer full of other applicants who want
his job. That's just the way it is.
Do
you think that a lot of time is wasted by
training new people?
Yes.
There is a lot of time wasted, and it's a
boring procedure. But then on the other
hand, think what you gain. You get a
chance to refine some of the things that
have already been done. You might get a
guy in there who's a lot more technically
skillful than the one who left. And it
also gives the ones who are still in the
band a feeling of accomplishment because
they're veterans now, and they play with
a little bit more authority. So it's a
refinement process.
Of
the many guitarists that you hired in
recent years - Adrian Belew, Warren
Cucurullo, and Ray White - what did you
like about each one that made you want
them in your lineup?
Adrian
Belew, I thought, had potential to add
something to the band as it was
constituted at that time [1977], which
was kind of a funny band. We blew out a
lot of comedy stuff like "Punky's
Whips" [only released on the first
editions of Zappa in New York;
otherwise unavailable]. That was the band
that originated "Broken Hearts Are
for Assholes" [Sheik Yerbouti]
and that kind of material. And Adrian
just fit in with that, and so that's why
he got the job. And Warren Cucurullo was
and still is a talented guitar player who
had a desire to play standard repertoire
songs he already knew from all the other
albums. And he knew a lot of tunes;
probably as many, if not more, than some
of the other guys who were in the band at
the time. And on the tour he did with us,
we were doing a lot of the complicated
songs off the records that people thought
they would never hear on a stage. We were
doing "Brown Shoes Don't Make
It" [Tinsel-Town Rebellion],
"Inca Roads," and
"Andy" [the latter two from One
Size Fits All]. We were doing a lot
of hard repertoire. And he was good for
that. Ray has been in the band twice. The
first time, he felt a little bit out of
place because he is an extremely
religious person, and our band is not.
And I think that there was some
religious/emotional conflict the first
time that he was in the band. He was
always great: He had a good attitude
about working and he did a good job. But
I sensed that there was a certain amount
of discomfort about him being in there
vs. the type of material we were playing.
So I let him go. And later on I said,
well, why not try him again, because I
had a band that I thought his personality
would fit in with. So I called him up, he
came down and tried out, and it clicked
right away. So he's been with me for the
past two or three years.
He's
got a really good blues style.
He's
wonderful; he just loves that kind of
music.
What
attracted you to Steve Vai?
Steve
Vai got the job because he sent a
cassette and a transcription of "The
Black Page" [Zappa in New York],
and from hearing that, I could tell that
he had a superior musical intelligence
and very great guitar chops. And this
showed me that there was a possibility to
write things that were even harder for
that instrument than what had already
been used in the band. That's why he got
the job.
What
do you look for in a guitar?
If you
pick up a guitar and it says, "Take
me, I'm yours," then that's the one
for you. You don't go into a guitar store
and say, "Hey, what a great paint
job." You have to put it in your
hand, because a real guitar that's going
to be something you make music on - as
opposed to a piece of machinery that
makes you look good onstage - is going to
have some relationship to your hand and
body. It feels right when you pick it up.
And that's the way I felt when I got the
first SG that I had. It felt right in my
hand, so I got it. Same thing with the
Gibson Les Paul.
Will
you overlook such things as lousy
pickups?
Well,
you can always change the pickups.
Do
you collectguitars?
I don't
go out and buy guitars all over the
place. I'm not one of those kinds of
guys. I do have a lot of guitars, but I
don't know how I accumulated them. I've
got about 25 guitars. They just keep
piling up.
Do
you have a top five favorites?
I've
got the Les Paul that I use. It was a
brand-new guitar when I bought it. It's
not a vintage thing. It was a very well
made production-line Gibson Les Paul
right off the rack.
You
didn't go to the Gibson factory and have
them build one to your specifications?
You
know, considering how long I've been
playing Gibson guitars, I've never spoken
to or heard from anyone connected with
that company. There's no factory
connection with Gibson whatsoever. I also
have a Stratocaster with a Floyd Rose
[Tremolo System] installed on it. It was
the guitar that I used the most on the
last European tour. And the Hendrix Strat
[a burned Stratocaster formerly owned by
Jimi Hendrix], which has a special neck
on it. It's an SG-size neck. lt does
certain things that other guitars won't
do. The width and depth of the neck is
different from that of a Strat, so you
can do all kinds of things that just
don't feel right on another guitar.
What
distinguishes one instrument from
another?
Each
guitar has its own character and its own
sounds that it likes to make that come
naturally to that instrument. So I'm
going to choose an instrument that
matches the character of the song. I also
have a Telecaster - one of the copies of
the originals that Fender put out about a
year ago. It's a real good blues guitar.
The fifth guitar would be the SG copy
that I got from this guy in Phoenix,
Arizona. It says "Gibson" on
it, but it's handmade, and it's got an
ebony fretboard with 23 frets on it; it
goes one fret higher than a normal SG. I
play that a lot.
Do
you use the 23rd fret often?
Since
the cutaways on that guitar are so deep,
it's very easy to get up all the way to
the top. So I can play higher on that one
than on any of the other ones that I
have.
How
many guitars do you usually take out on
the road?
On the
last tour, I took out a Fender XII
12-string, the Telecaster, the Les Paul,
the Hendrix Strat, my old
mirror-pickguard SG, and the Stratocaster
with the Floyd Rose on it. Plus the mini
Strat and the mini Les Paul. Right now
the only thing I miss on my D'Mini is the
vibrato arm.
Do
you use the vibrato that much?
On the
last tour I used it to excess because the
Floyd makes it possible to come back in
tune after you go down to the sub-sonic
regions. You can dump all the string
slack and come back up and be in tune.
And the way my Floyd is set up, you can
go down two octaves practically, then
back up to normal position, and then bend
up a whole-step and sometimes even a
third. It's balanced so well that I can
just wiggle it a little bit and get a
real nice vibrato.
What
kind of effects did you take out on the
road with you on the last tour?
I took
three MXR Digital Delays - two with
minimum memory storage, and one with tons
of it. I also used two MicMix
Dynaflangers. I didn't have any fuzztones
or octave dividers. I used three
different amps: a Marshall 100-watt, a
Carvin, and an Acoustic - and each was
interfaced with a different digital
delay. So I could store three different
signals and get some weird sounds. For
instance, you take your whammy bar and
get some terrible tweezed noise, and
store that. Then it would come out of the
right, and another one would come out of
the middle, and a third one would come
out of the left one, and you could play
over the top of it all. I've got a lot of
recordings of that from the tour, and
it's really an ungodly sound.
Did
you take a pedalboard on the last tour?
My
setup was pretty basic for that
particular tour. You see, things don't
always go according to plan here at the
Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. A very
elaborate digital setup that had been in
preparation for about six months prior to
the tour turned up a semi-fatal design
flaw, which was allowing some digital
grit to get into the audio path, just at
the last minute as we were getting ready
to pack up. And a lot of the work on it
had to be redone - and it still isn't as
perfect as I would like to have it before
I take it anywhere. That particular rack
had some unbelievable features, because
it allowed you to do presets of any
combination of effects that you might
want with preset levels to each effect
and preset control to all the parameters.
So during the sound check, you could set
one sound with a flanger and a fuzz and
an octave divider and a [Mu-tron]
Bi-Phase, and set all those parameters in
a memory storage. And when you'd hit your
switch, it would go exactly to that
sound. With the use of a pedal you'd be
able to crossfade to any other preset
using any other combination of devices
that you had in the rack. It was a really
great idea, but so far we haven't gotten
it perfected.
You
really put yourself at the mercy of that
digital equipment on the road.
Well,
I'm perfectly comfortable going out and
doing a tour with nothing but an on off
switch on the amplifier. For much of the
tour I wasn't using the effects at all.
The only time I would turn them on at all
was when it seemed appropriate for some
event during a solo. The guitar I played
the most was my Strat with the Floyd Rose
on it, and it was capable of such ungodly
noises with the parametric EQ and the
pickups that were in it. It made plenty
of noises without any fuzztones or other
crap.
Did
you use a Strat on the song "You Are
What You Is" [from You
Are What You Is]?
No.
That's the Les Paul. I also used a
Mu-tron Octave Divider.
On
"No Not Now" [Drowning
Witch] there's an extremely
distinctive bass line. Did you write lt?
I just
made it up. The bass part was done like
this: Arthur Barrow came in to play bass
and, bar by bar, I would hum it to him.
We'd play it, and he'd go as far as he
could, and then he'd make a mistake, and
then I'd show him the next part, and then
we'd punch him in. And that's how it was
done: like eight bars at a time. It's a
wonderful bass line.
The
entire album's bass lines are played up
quite a bit. Did you purposely spotlight
the bass on the album?
I think
that's a result of mixing on the 4311s -
it just gets accentuated. It's up in the
mix, but not to a radical extreme for a
comfortable listening level. I like bass
lines. They're good, because for people
who don't understand what's going on in
the rest of the song, there's always the
bass line.
What
kind of effects did you use on the guitar
throughout the album?
I used
a MicMix Dynaflanger and Aphex
compressors. The signal is compressed
after the flanging. And the flanger is
set to follow the envelope of the
high-frequency decay, rather than the
amplitude envelope.
What
kind of difference would that make?
It
gives a totally different sound. It makes
a more pillowy effect from that
particular device.
Why
would you compress the signal after the
flanger?
Well,
for one thing, you would compress it if
you didn't want more flanger cycle. And
flangers boost certain frequencies in the
midrange that go hog-wild if you don't
control them. So we started off just to
control those frequencies, and then by
cranking that Aphex compressor to some
ridiculous extent we got this other kluge
sound.
On
"Valley Girl" there's some
red-hot guitar way back in the mix. Why
didn't you mix it up higher so that it
could be more easily discerned?
Because
it conflicted with the vocal part. And
that red-hot-sounding guitar was just me
and the drummer jamming at three o'clock
in the morning. That track was the basis
for the song. It was a riff that started
off at a soundcheck about a year before,
and I had been piddling with it for a
long time. One night, we finally did it,
saved the tape, and little by little we
added all of this other stuff to it, and
we got "Valley Girl."
The
bass line was written later?
The
bass line was never written. It was the
last thing that was added to the track.
The track didn't even have a bass part;
it was just guitar and drums. And when
Scott Thunes came in to do it, it was at
a point where I thought if we left the
guitar up high enough in the mix it would
probably be thick enough where we
wouldn't even need a bass. But the
engineer, Bob Stone, said, "Aw, go
ahead and put on a bass line." We
were just about ready to go out and do a
tour, and I brought Scott up to the
studio one night after rehearsal. It took
about an hour and a half, the same way as
with Arthur Barrow on "No Not
Now" - I said, "Play this:
Boop, boop, boop," and he did it. He
was playing the bass through a Vox amp,
and that's what gives it that particular
sound.
After
returning from your European tour, how
did you feel when you found out that
"Valley Girl" had become a big
hit?
There
are a couple of things about "Valley
Girl" being a hit: First, it's not
my fault - they didn't buy that record
because it had my name on it. They bought
it because they liked Moon's voice. It's
got nothing to do with the song or the
performance. lt has everything to do with
the American public wanting to have some
new syndrome to identify with. And they
got it. There it is. That's what made it
a hit. Hits are not necessarily musical
phenomena. But as far as my feeling about
it goes, I think that if that amuses
Americans, well, hey! I'm an all-American
boy, and I'm here to perform that
function for you. Since that time, we've
hired a guy to make merchandising deals
on that song. And you wouldn't believe
what kinds of things will be coming out
with the words "Valley Girl" on
them. You name it, everything from lunch
boxes to cosmetics, including a talking
Valley Girl doll in February.
On
"I Come from Nowhere" there's a
strong dissonance, like a minor second
clashing in the first few bars. Is that
guitar?
That is
a bunch of bass harmonics a half- step
apart. He's playing what I think is a
little three-part harmonic chord.
What
kind of guitar and enhancements did you
employ for the solo about two-thirds of
the way through that song?
It was
the Les Paul played through a Carvin amp.
I think it's straight, no effects. That
was just what it needed, I thought.
Did
you record the rhythm track live and then
mix in the solo and overdub parts?
Oh, no.
Here's how that song started off: , The
original track was a rhythm box, and then
the vocals were added. Then some guitar
parts were added - not the solo, just the
orchestrational parts. Then the guitar
solo was added on top of the rhythm box
track, and the drums were added to play
along with the guitar solo. The bass
track was added last.
What
guitar did you use on "Drowning
Witch"?
I think
both solos are with the Hendrix Strat.
How
did you get the feedback that pervades
throughout?
It's
live. Those were live tracks that were
overdubbed. There are some equalizers in
my guitar - a parametric EQ with a
little, narrow peak. And once you find
the feedback range in the room, you can
turn it up, and the guitar doesn't have
to be loud to just feed back at that
frequency.
Do
you usually twiddle with it during a
solo?
Yeah.
First I set it during the sound check,
and then if the acoustics of the room
change due to the audience, I can just
reach over and tweeze it while I'm
playing.
How
do you synchronize parts from different
performances for final mixing into one
song?
First
of all, you start off with a band that is
highly rehearsed, that maintains their
tempo. They learn it at a certain tempo,
then they'll play it the same way night
after night. Do you know how many edits
there are in "Drowning Witch"?
Fifteen! That song is a basic track from
15 different cities. And some of the
edits are like two bars long. And they're
written parts - all that fast stuff. It
was very difficult for all the guys to
play that correctly. Every once in a
while somebody would hit the jackpot, but
it's a very hard song to play. So there
was no one perfect performance from any
city. What I did was go through a whole
tour's worth of tape and listen to every
version of it and grab every section that
was reasonably correct, put together a
basic track, and then added the rest of
the orchestration to it in the studio.
Besides
switching up the rhythm, how did you deal
with variations in pitch?
Do you
hear any? There were no VSO
[variable-speed oscillator, which
controls the speed of the tape recorder]
changes of the sections at all, because
when we go out on the road, everything is
tuned to a tune-up box every day. We have
a standard: Everybody tunes to the vibes,
because their tuning doesn't drift. We
calibrate all our Peterson Strobe Tuners
to them. That gives you consistency.
Last
year you were doing the Allman Brothers'
"Whipping Post" [At
Fillmore East, Capricorn].
Why?
It
started about ten or twelve years ago
when some guy in the audience at a
concert in Helsinki, Finland, requested
it.
In
English?
Yes. He
just yelled out "Whipping Post"
in broken English. I have it on tape. And
I said, "Excuse me?" I could
just barely make it out. We didn't know
it, and I felt kind of bad that we
couldn't just play it and blow the guy's
socks off. So when
[pianist/vocalist/saxophonist] Bobby
Martin joined the band, and I found out
that he knew how to sing that song, I
said, "We are definitely going to be
prepared for the next time somebody wants
'Whipping Post' - in fact we're going to
play it before somebody even asks for
it." I've got probably 30 different
versions of it on tape from concerts all
around the world, and one of them is
going to be the
"Whipping Post" - the apex
"Whipping Post" of the century.
Maybe
they mistook you for Duane Allman.
Oh sure
they did. People do all the time.
FZ
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