Rolling Stone Interview, 1988 - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 14:27, 8 August 2026

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Jason.Kreitzer at 16:05, 14 December 2021

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Jason.Kreitzer at 13:28, 4 October 2021

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Spider of Destiny at 21:19, 17 November 2020

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 '''By the early Sixties, you'd moved to [[Cucamonga]] and started working in a small recording studio there. What kind of place was that?<br>
-It was built by a guy named [[Paul Buff]]. Paul is a genius, a great guy. Most places in those days were far-out if they had a three-track machine. Paul built his own five-track recording machine so he could do overdubs. He built this studio from scratch out of just garbage, using knowledge that he learned when he was in the [[Marines]]. And it was a great place. "Wipeout" was recorded in that studio, in one session. A little-known fact. I was brought over there by [[Ronnie Williams]], a musician I'd been jamming with in local bars. During that period of time, which was roughly '61, '62, there were these things called novelty records, you know? Like "Please, Mr. Custer." Radio still had a slight sense of humor. So if you could do a novelty record, the chances were you could lease it to a record company. I wrote one, and Paul and I leased the master to [[Capitol Records|Capitol]] for the unheard-of sum of a $700 advance. I mean, that was a whopper. And the reason was because this record looked like it was gonna be unbelievably hot. You know why? It was called "The Big Surfer," and what it was, it was a guy – a [[San Bernardino]] disc jockey named Brian Lord – who could do Kennedy's voice better than Kennedy. It was like a take-off on the First Family album, where Kennedy is judging a surf contest. And totally produced – sound effects, the whole business, okay? The unfortunate part of the record was the punchline: the winner of the contest got an all-expense-paid trip as the first member of the Peace Corps to be sent to Alabama. Well, shortly after we signed the contract, Medgar Evers got killed, and Capitol refused to release the record.
+It was built by a guy named [[Paul Buff]]. Paul is a genius, a great guy. Most places in those days were far-out if they had a three-track machine. Paul built his own five-track recording machine so he could do overdubs. He built this studio from scratch out of just garbage, using knowledge that he learned when he was in the [[Marines]]. And it was a great place. "Wipeout" was recorded in that studio, in one session. A little-known fact. I was brought over there by [[Ronnie Williams]], a musician I'd been jamming with in local bars. During that period of time, which was roughly '61, '62, there were these things called novelty records, you know? Like "Please, Mr. Custer." Radio still had a slight sense of humor. So if you could do a novelty record, the chances were you could lease it to a record company. I wrote one, and Paul and I leased the master to [[Capitol Records|Capitol]] for the unheard-of sum of a $700 advance. I mean, that was a whopper. And the reason was because this record looked like it was gonna be unbelievably hot. You know why? It was called "The Big Surfer," and what it was, it was a guy – a [[San Bernardino]] disc jockey named Brian Lord – who could do [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy's voice]] better than Kennedy. It was like a take-off on the First Family album, where Kennedy is judging a surf contest. And totally produced – sound effects, the whole business, okay? The unfortunate part of the record was the punchline: the winner of the contest got an all-expense-paid trip as the first member of the Peace Corps to be sent to Alabama. Well, shortly after we signed the contract, Medgar Evers got killed, and Capitol refused to release the record.
 '''You were expecting this to be your big breakthrough?<br>

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 Yeah, well, it could've been. It was a cool record.
-'''You also did the soundtrack for a movie called [[The World's Greatest Sinner]] at that Cucamonga Studio. What kind of movie was that?<br>
+'''You also did the soundtrack for a movie called [[The World’s Greatest Sinner (The Film)|The World's Greatest Sinner]] at that Cucamonga Studio. What kind of movie was that?<br>
 It was a feature film produced, directed by and starring Timothy Carey ... I did the score and the rock & roll theme song for it. The premise of the film was: a man believes he's God, doubts himself, breaks into a church, steals the communion bread, sticks a pin in it to find out whether or not it will in fact bleed, it bleeds, and he realizes he's not God. How's that for a great plot?

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 '''Apparently, [[Tom Wilson]], the young staff producer who signed the Mothers to [[MGM Records|MGM]], did know.<br>
-Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us. When we did that first album, he was definitely in a state of "I don't know!" by the time we did the second song. I remember the first thing that we recorded was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows]]," and that was okay. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, "I don't know!" Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess. Some things you just don't break easily, though.
+Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us. When we did that first album, he was definitely in a state of "I don't know!" by the time we did the second song. I remember the first thing that we recorded was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows (The Track)|Any Way The Wind Blows]]," and that was okay. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, "I don't know!" Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess. Some things you just don't break easily, though.
 '''What did MGM make of Freak Out! when it was done?<br>

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 '''And you perceived the of a scene erupting?<br>
-Yeah. I figured, look: If it could happen in Los Angeles, where nobody really walks around) what could happen in a place where they had neighborhoods? Think of it: endless potential. So we set up in the [[Garrick Theater]], on Bleecker Street. Four-walled our own show in there. And pretty soon the [[The Fugs|Fugs]] were four-walling theirs around the corner, and there was a lot of stuff goin' on. It was neat.
+Yeah. I figured, look: If it could happen in Los Angeles, where nobody really walks around) what could happen in a place where they had neighborhoods? Think of it: endless potential. So we set up in the [[Garrick Theatre|Garrick Theater]], on Bleecker Street. Four-walled our own show in there. And pretty soon the [[The Fugs|Fugs]] were four-walling theirs around the corner, and there was a lot of stuff goin' on. It was neat.
 '''How were the Mothers received in New York?<br>

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 '''You finally did land a record deal, though, and you've been at it ever since. Do you think the music business has changed at all since those days, for better or worse?<br>
-Oh, I can't imagine one instance in which the music business has changed for the better. Not one. Twenty-three years before the mast, me boy, and I can't think of one thing that is better about the business than when I started. The fact of the matter is, it's gotten to be more business and less music. Now, all the decisions about what is musical are made by accountants and fashion advisers. In the old days, they had these guys with cigars sticking out of the side of their mouths – this was before they had nonsmoking areas in the office buildings. A new act would come in, and these guys with the cigars would shrug their shoulders and go, "I don't know!" And because the signing fee was so cheap ... I mean, our fee with [[MGM]] to make Freak Out! was $2500 – yeah, split between four guys. And we were lucky to get it. And the reason we did was because somebody went, "I don't know! Who knows what these kids are listening to?"
+Oh, I can't imagine one instance in which the music business has changed for the better. Not one. Twenty-three years before the mast, me boy, and I can't think of one thing that is better about the business than when I started. The fact of the matter is, it's gotten to be more business and less music. Now, all the decisions about what is musical are made by accountants and fashion advisers. In the old days, they had these guys with cigars sticking out of the side of their mouths – this was before they had nonsmoking areas in the office buildings. A new act would come in, and these guys with the cigars would shrug their shoulders and go, "I don't know!" And because the signing fee was so cheap ... I mean, our fee with [[MGM Records|MGM]] to make Freak Out! was $2500 – yeah, split between four guys. And we were lucky to get it. And the reason we did was because somebody went, "I don't know! Who knows what these kids are listening to?"
-'''Apparently, [[Tom Wilson]], the young staff producer who signed the Mothers to [[MGM]], did know.<br>
+'''Apparently, [[Tom Wilson]], the young staff producer who signed the Mothers to [[MGM Records|MGM]], did know.<br>
 Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us. When we did that first album, he was definitely in a state of "I don't know!" by the time we did the second song. I remember the first thing that we recorded was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows]]," and that was okay. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, "I don't know!" Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess. Some things you just don't break easily, though.

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 '''What was it that first attracted you to music in the early Fifties?<br>
-The first music that I heard that I liked was Arab music. But I can't imagine where I heard it, because my parents didn't even have a record player until I was fifteen. Then, finally, they got a record player, and I think the first rhythm & blues record that I got was "Riot in Cell Block #9" by [[The Robins]]. And shortly thereafter, I read an article about [[Edgar Varèse|Edgard Varese]] in ''Look'' magazine, and I found the Varese album, and so that's what I had. I had the Robins and Varese, and I think I got "Work with Me, Annie," by [[Hank Ballard]] and the Midnighters, too.
+The first music that I heard that I liked was Arab music. But I can't imagine where I heard it, because my parents didn't even have a record player until I was fifteen. Then, finally, they got a record player, and I think the first rhythm & blues record that I got was "Riot in Cell Block #9" by [[The Robins]]. And shortly thereafter, I read an article about [[Edgard Varèse]] in ''Look'' magazine, and I found the Varese album, and so that's what I had. I had the Robins and Varese, and I think I got "Work with Me, Annie," by [[Hank Ballard]] and the Midnighters, too.
 '''Did you see any sort of dichotomy between the Varese and the R&B records?<br>

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−	This interview appeared in 1988 in [[Rolling Stone]]. It was conducted by Kurt Loder, and appears in his book ''Bat Chain Puller.'' [[Biography\|Frank Zappa]] is a very smart and funny man who could still make it as a stand-up monologuist, should he ever so choose. But Zappa has instead chosen to pursue his musical inclinations into an area of compositional sophistication that pretty much eliminates any chance of scoring a Top Ten teen single any time in the near future. So does he give up, give in, reunite the Mothers of Invention for a twenty-fifth-anniversary reunion tour? No way. Zappa runs his own record label these days, catering to his hard-core audience. He also does business commentaries for the Financial News Network and has audiences with the president of Czechoslovakia – a newly liberated land in which, as this is written, he's attempting to facilitate the installation of a Ben & Jerry's ice cream outlet. A self-taught musician and social theorist, Zappa made challenging records with the [[The Mothers\|Mothers of Invention]] back in the Sixties (including the first "concept" album, [[Freak Out!]], which predated [[The Beatles\|the Beatles]]' [[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band\|Sgt. Pepper]] opus by two years). Apart from his generational fondness for Fifties doo-wop and R&B music, he has little Interest in commercial teen pop, and if that precludes him from ever having a megamassive multiplatinum monster chart hit ... well, okay. He'll find other things to do – such as lambasting the hapless ladies of the [[~~PMRC\|~~Parents' Music Resource Center]] (the rock-record rating group) and lecturing the feckless music industry itself on the importance of the First Amendment. The objects of his ire rarely find much to laugh about in such broadsides, but Zappa remains one of rock's sharpest wits.	+	This interview appeared in 1988 in [[Rolling Stone]]. It was conducted by Kurt Loder, and appears in his book ''Bat Chain Puller.'' [[Biography\|Frank Zappa]] is a very smart and funny man who could still make it as a stand-up monologuist, should he ever so choose. But Zappa has instead chosen to pursue his musical inclinations into an area of compositional sophistication that pretty much eliminates any chance of scoring a Top Ten teen single any time in the near future. So does he give up, give in, reunite the Mothers of Invention for a twenty-fifth-anniversary reunion tour? No way. Zappa runs his own record label these days, catering to his hard-core audience. He also does business commentaries for the Financial News Network and has audiences with the president of Czechoslovakia – a newly liberated land in which, as this is written, he's attempting to facilitate the installation of a Ben & Jerry's ice cream outlet. A self-taught musician and social theorist, Zappa made challenging records with the [[The Mothers\|Mothers of Invention]] back in the Sixties (including the first "concept" album, [[Freak Out!]], which predated [[The Beatles\|the Beatles]]' [[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band\|Sgt. Pepper]] opus by two years). Apart from his generational fondness for Fifties doo-wop and R&B music, he has little Interest in commercial teen pop, and if that precludes him from ever having a megamassive multiplatinum monster chart hit ... well, okay. He'll find other things to do – such as lambasting the hapless ladies of the [[Parents Music Resource Center]] (the rock-record rating group) and lecturing the feckless music industry itself on the importance of the First Amendment. The objects of his ire rarely find much to laugh about in such broadsides, but Zappa remains one of rock's sharpest wits.

	'''Were you a comedian as a kid?<br>		'''Were you a comedian as a kid?<br>

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 I was getting thrown out all the time for various antisocial acts. My father was worried about keeping his security clearance.
-'''One of your fellow students was [[Don Van Vliet]] whom you later recorded as [[Captain Beefheart]]. What was he like then?<br>
+'''One of your fellow students was Don Van Vliet whom you later recorded as [[Captain Beefheart]]. What was he like then?<br>
 He drove a light-blue Oldsmobile with a hand-sculpted werewolf head that replaced the Olds emblem in the center of the steering wheel. His father was a Helms bread-truck driver. Don didn't spend a lot of time in school; most of the time I saw him was at his house. We would listen to rhythm & blues records in the afternoon, and then at night the most exciting thing to do in [[Lancaster]] would be go to Denny's and have a cup of coffee. 'Cause there was nothin' – I mean, places shut down at six o'clock. Really bad. So in order to afford this trip to Denny's, Don would have to acquire the finances by opening the back of his father's bread truck. See, the cab was locked, and the change maker was hanging in the front. He had to undo the back door, pull out this bread drawer which was about from here to the wall, put it in a driveway and force Laurie, his girlfriend, to crawl through this slot like a squid to get in there and steal change. Then he'd pull her out by the ankles, and that's how we would finance our entertainment.

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-This interview appeared in 1988 in [[Rolling Stone]]. It was conducted by Kurt Loder, and appears in his book ''Bat Chain Puller.'' [[Frank Zappa]] is a very smart and funny man who could still make it as a stand-up monologuist, should he ever so choose. But Zappa has instead chosen to pursue his musical inclinations into an area of compositional sophistication that pretty much eliminates any chance of scoring a Top Ten teen single any time in the near future. So does he give up, give in, reunite the Mothers of Invention for a twenty-fifth-anniversary reunion tour? No way. Zappa runs his own record label these days, catering to his hard-core audience. He also does business commentaries for the Financial News Network and has audiences with the president of Czechoslovakia – a newly liberated land in which, as this is written, he's attempting to facilitate the installation of a Ben & Jerry's ice cream outlet. A self-taught musician and social theorist, Zappa made challenging records with the [[The Mothers|Mothers of Invention]] back in the Sixties (including the first "concept" album, [[Freak Out!]], which predated [[The Beatles|the Beatles]]' [[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band|Sgt. Pepper]] opus by two years). Apart from his generational fondness for Fifties doo-wop and R&B music, he has little Interest in commercial teen pop, and if that precludes him from ever having a megamassive multiplatinum monster chart hit ... well, okay. He'll find other things to do – such as lambasting the hapless ladies of the [[PMRC|Parents' Music Resource Center]] (the rock-record rating group) and lecturing the feckless music industry itself on the importance of the First Amendment. The objects of his ire rarely find much to laugh about in such broadsides, but Zappa remains one of rock's sharpest wits.
+This interview appeared in 1988 in [[Rolling Stone]]. It was conducted by Kurt Loder, and appears in his book ''Bat Chain Puller.'' [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] is a very smart and funny man who could still make it as a stand-up monologuist, should he ever so choose. But Zappa has instead chosen to pursue his musical inclinations into an area of compositional sophistication that pretty much eliminates any chance of scoring a Top Ten teen single any time in the near future. So does he give up, give in, reunite the Mothers of Invention for a twenty-fifth-anniversary reunion tour? No way. Zappa runs his own record label these days, catering to his hard-core audience. He also does business commentaries for the Financial News Network and has audiences with the president of Czechoslovakia – a newly liberated land in which, as this is written, he's attempting to facilitate the installation of a Ben & Jerry's ice cream outlet. A self-taught musician and social theorist, Zappa made challenging records with the [[The Mothers|Mothers of Invention]] back in the Sixties (including the first "concept" album, [[Freak Out!]], which predated [[The Beatles|the Beatles]]' [[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band|Sgt. Pepper]] opus by two years). Apart from his generational fondness for Fifties doo-wop and R&B music, he has little Interest in commercial teen pop, and if that precludes him from ever having a megamassive multiplatinum monster chart hit ... well, okay. He'll find other things to do – such as lambasting the hapless ladies of the [[PMRC|Parents' Music Resource Center]] (the rock-record rating group) and lecturing the feckless music industry itself on the importance of the First Amendment. The objects of his ire rarely find much to laugh about in such broadsides, but Zappa remains one of rock's sharpest wits.
 '''Were you a comedian as a kid?<br>
@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
 '''What did MGM make of Freak Out! when it was done?<br>
-Well, they were violently opposed to it for several reasons. One, they were convinced that no radio station would ever play a record by a group called the Mothers – and by God, they were right! But not for the reason they thought. Anyway, they demanded that we either change the name of our group or not be recording artists. So, out of necessity, we became the [[Mothers Of Invention]].
+Well, they were violently opposed to it for several reasons. One, they were convinced that no radio station would ever play a record by a group called the Mothers – and by God, they were right! But not for the reason they thought. Anyway, they demanded that we either change the name of our group or not be recording artists. So, out of necessity, we became the [[The Mothers|Mothers Of Invention]].
 '''And how did the album do?<br>

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 '''But you've soldiered on. Do you find that your audiences today come mainly to hear your new music – or to see a living legend from the fabled Sixties?<br>
 Look, the people at these concerts are literally fanatic. There's kids that have tickets to nineteen shows. They've taken off from work, they're living in the park – they're way into it. That's not living-legend time. I think the whole idea of a resurgence of interest in things from the Sixties is grossly over-estimated. There's a huge wishful-thinking factor attached to it on the part of Sixties-age people who wish that it were so. But younger kids don't give a rat's ass about the Sixties, and there's no reason why they should. I did an interview with a guy from a paper, and he said, "What do you think of today's music?" I said, "We are today's music. We are it, like it or lump it. What do you mean? Do you think that what I'm doing is something imaginary? We're out there today. We're doing it. It's alive."
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]