Dweezil Zappa
Get ready for 50 years of Frank and the Mothers.
The 47-year-old son of late music icon Frank Zappa returns with an outing billed as 50 Years Of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever The F@&k He Wants.
This tour celebrates the halfcentury since your dad’s band The Mothers Of Invention first appeared in the UK. Are you playing their Freak Out! album, which was issued the previous year, in its entirety?
Not all of it, no. We are revisiting his earliest period. The first forty-five minutes is a bunch of early Mothers stuff, including material from Freak Out!, followed by the sixties era into the seventies and the eighties.
There’s room for spontaneity? Oh yeah. Each night we choose from around thirty songs and a lot of the music itself requires improvisation – the interplay between the ensemble is a part of the composition. We do have a set-list, but we can jump around a bit with it depending on how we’re feeling.
A couple of months ago, via your website, you invited male singer/multi-instrumentalists to audition for your band. How did that go?
Generally I audition people based upon word of mouth or who
I know, but I thought it might be interesting to throw the net a little wider. You never know where you’ll find the next talented guy. For instance, my dad found Napoleon Murphy Brock [singer/saxophonist] in a small club in Hawaii.
Were the auditions successful? We received lots and lots of videos and we saw many people. I didn’t select anyone from that process for this UK tour, but we found a guy called Adam Minkoff who will be involved with us in the future, should his schedule allow.
Since 2006 you’ve dedicated your life to maintaining the legacy of your father. How do you think he would feel about that?
Ultimately I think he would appreciate the levels of commitment that come from the band. At a certain point in his career he began referring to musicians as mercenaries – so many of them were just on the clock.
Your own career has been put on hold. Is there a part of you that’s left artistically unfulfilled by such a responsibility?
I don’t look at it that way. This has been an enormous education, and when I do make more of my own music, and I will, I will have an entire new toolbox.
“The first fortyfive minutes of the show is early Mothers stuff.”
Frank exerted such a cultural effect on rock music. Will we ever see his like again?
I don’t know. There’s no more artistic development. It’s possible that someone’s out there, but my dad was so politically minded… he stood for truth and integrity, in music and in life. That’s another element that makes it harder to find another like-minded individual. DL
The tour begins on October 8.