There are some people you just know are going to be great to interview.They have a reputation for outlandish quotes, or good give-and-take, or are just flat-out interesting.
Frank Zappa was one of those people.
Zappa went through bouts of not talking to anybody, then talking to everybody. He was having a problem with Warner Brothers, his record label. In fact, he was pissed off because to fulfill a contract, they issued a series of three albums in rapid fire. Frank was, apparently, taking too long to fill the contract so the label did what most labels used to do -- take outtakes, live stuff and create an album out of it.
So, I get a phone call from his publicist.
"Frank's mad at the label and he wants to talk about it," I was told.
OK, a little tension in the creative world was not that unique, but, well, it was Frank Zappa, so we set a day and time.
"Where?" I asked.
"His house up near Mulhulland, on Woodrow Wilson Drive," I was told, with an exact address given.
Turns out I didn't need an exact address. The Zappa abode was easily identifiable. It was the only purple house on the block. No, really purple. Bright purple. The kind of purple that hurts your eyes. But, nobody really seemed to care. A bunch of rock stars and record company bigshots lived in the neighborhood at the time and, well, it was Frank Zappa after all.
I pull into the driveway, knock on the door and he answers. He was a tall, lanky guy with an impish grin and the wildest eyes I think I have ever seen. He spoke slowly in a deep voice that resonated and welcomed me to his home. There was no manager or publicist present to oversee the interview, just Zappa hanging out at home.
I walked into the house and realized that, for the most part, there was no house. The living room was jammed with state-of-the-art video equipment where Zappa was experimenting with claymation figures. On one wall was a piece of art, Zappa called it, consisting of the hood of an old automobile, the guitar Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock and some other odd ornamentation. In a side room was a table with one of those old 45 rpm record players on top. It was like one I remember from when I was a kid. You could put a stack of 45s on the thing and listen for about five or six songs through a cheap little eight-inch speaker. On the floor were stacks and stacks and stacks of old 45 records from the '50s and very early '60s.
"Captain Beefheart comes over and we listen to those all the time," Zappa told me.
"Cool," I thought.
Then the room was filled with the shrill of banshees. Well, actually two kids -- Dweezil and Moon Unit. Dweezil came running through the door screaming.
"Frank! Frank! Frank! Stop her! She's going to kill me!" the boy -- he was just a little kid then -- said, running for his father.
In hot pursuit was his sister Moon, a pair of heavy drumsticks in her hand.
"He called me a fuckin' bitch, Frank!" she said.
"Dweezil, why did you call your sister a fucking bitch?" Frank asked calmly.
"Because she is!" the kid said, diving behind his father to avoid the beating he was sure would come from his sister.
About then, Zappa's wife Gail walked in with a tray, glasses and pitcher of lemonade.
"Care for a drink?" she asked, the epitome of calm, cool and serene despite the noise surrounding her.
She poured us a couple glasses, hustled the kids off and, suddenly, it was quiet.
Zappa explained his beef with the record label.
"Tell people not to buy my albums," he said. "I will be releasing better versions of them on my own soon and I'd rather have the money."
I asked Zappa about the business end of music and he fumed about label executives who had no clue about what music was really about, promotion teams that were always looking for money on the backside to ensure airplay and touring, which is what he seemed to like the best. He was a player, not a business guy. He liked the studio, but loved the stage. At least that was my impression.
Then he dropped a line on me that went on to become one of his most quoted ever. I'm really not sure if he said it to me first, but it was outside my world of knowledge at that point and in those days, there was no Internet to search to see how fresh it might actually be.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write doing interviews with people who can't think in order to prepare stories for people who can't read," he said.
Hmmm.
"You're a rock star, we're talking and I don't think I've asked you anything stupid," I countered.
"I am not a rock star," Zappa insisted. "If I was, I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd be in my room putting funny powders in my nose."
I had never been a huge fan of Zappa's music. Although I did have a healthy respect for what he was doing, it just wasn't my cup of tea. But, he was gaining quite a following among some of the more avant garde members of the classical music establishment. Zubin Mehta, who conducted the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, had been called upon to conduct the score to Zappa's hilarious film "200 Motels," with Flo and Eddie, Keith Moon and other lunatics who travelled in the Zappa universe at that time.
Mehta was doing a good job of talking Zappa up among his peers and the classical world -- at least a segment of it -- was interested in this guy who wrote songs with very innovative chord changes and time signatures.
And, they liked him because radio didn't play much of his stuff, either.
The real weirdness actually came after the interview.
I had recently bought a new tape recorder to help with my notes when I did interviews. Being old school, I also used a notebook as well, just because it was how I had done it for years and I never really trusted tape machines, even though I had used this one for a couple of other interviews.
We sit down to do the interview in adjoining chairs with the tape recorder between us. I tested the levels, everything seemed cool. Well, it's a good thing that I took notes because when I got back to the office to transcribe them, the only voice on the tape player was mine. I would ask Zappa a question and there would be this long, muffled gap until I asked another.
I know he didn't fiddle with the controls because his hand never went near them. Maybe he was speaking softly, but I was able to hear him.
Still haven't figured how that one went down, but it was the perfect ending to my interview with the legendary Frank Zappa.
