Thing-Fish Rap. - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 02:27, 28 January 2025

2025-01-28T02:27:45Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 20:19, 30 July 2021

2021-07-30T20:19:19Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:56, 30 July 2021

2021-07-30T19:56:05Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:17, 30 July 2021

2021-07-30T19:17:00Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 23:10, 27 July 2021

2021-07-27T23:10:31Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 23:31, 19 July 2021

2021-07-19T23:31:23Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 01:43, 16 July 2021

2021-07-16T01:43:02Z

Spider of Destiny at 09:36, 4 October 2020

2020-10-04T09:36:58Z

Spider of Destiny at 19:23, 6 October 2013

2013-10-06T19:23:08Z

Spider of Destiny at 15:48, 17 December 2010

2010-12-17T15:48:11Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:27, 28 January 2025
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	I was at home having my children. I was starting a family, in 1981 and 1982. I stayed home until my son was born in 1982. I was still doing the albums, and I went out in 1984 because that was after both of my kids were born. My wife wanted me to take a little break.		I was at home having my children. I was starting a family, in 1981 and 1982. I stayed home until my son was born in 1982. I was still doing the albums, and I went out in 1984 because that was after both of my kids were born. My wife wanted me to take a little break.
	[[Category:Bandmember Interviews]]		[[Category:Bandmember Interviews]]
		+	[[Category:1996]]

@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 '''How were the lead vocalists and harmony singers chosen for each Zappa song?<br>
-That would just depend on the song. When [[Ray White]] was in the band, as he has the higher voice, that would change things. For example 'Doreen' is no longer in my range, so Ray would take it. But Frank would write most of the songs in my range. In 1980, Ray did '[[City Of Tiny Lites]]' which was before [[Bobby Martin]] joined the band and he did it in 1988. In the 1980 band, the vocals were Ray, and me, Frank and Tommy essentially. In the second 1980 band, [[Bob Harris I|Bob Harris]] was in there. It depends on the personnel of the band. Bob Harris used a lot of falsetto. He's got a lot of that natural range but he doesn't have the pure power of a Bobby Martin, power which is very scary actually.
+That would just depend on the song. When [[Ray White]] was in the band, as he has the higher voice, that would change things. For example 'Doreen' is no longer in my range, so Ray would take it. But Frank would write most of the songs in my range. In 1980, Ray did '[[City Of Tiny Lites]]' which was before [[Bobby Martin]] joined the band and he did it in 1988. In the 1980 band, the vocals were Ray, and me, Frank and Tommy essentially. In the second 1980 band, [[Bob Harris II|Bob Harris]] was in there. It depends on the personnel of the band. Bob Harris used a lot of falsetto. He's got a lot of that natural range but he doesn't have the pure power of a Bobby Martin, power which is very scary actually.
 '''Were the instrumental vocal bits on things like '[[Montana]]' difficult to sing?<br>

@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 '''How were the lead vocalists and harmony singers chosen for each Zappa song?<br>
-That would just depend on the song. When [[Ray White]] was in the band, as he has the higher voice, that would change things. For example 'Doreen' is no longer in my range, so Ray would take it. But Frank would write most of the songs in my range. In 1980, Ray did '[[City Of Tiny Lites]]' which was before [[Bobby Martin]] joined the band and he did it in 1988. In the 1980 band, the vocals were Ray, and me, Frank and Tommy essentially. In the second 1980 band, [[Bob Harris]] was in there. It depends on the personnel of the band. Bob Harris used a lot of falsetto. He's got a lot of that natural range but he doesn't have the pure power of a Bobby Martin, power which is very scary actually.
+That would just depend on the song. When [[Ray White]] was in the band, as he has the higher voice, that would change things. For example 'Doreen' is no longer in my range, so Ray would take it. But Frank would write most of the songs in my range. In 1980, Ray did '[[City Of Tiny Lites]]' which was before [[Bobby Martin]] joined the band and he did it in 1988. In the 1980 band, the vocals were Ray, and me, Frank and Tommy essentially. In the second 1980 band, [[Bob Harris I|Bob Harris]] was in there. It depends on the personnel of the band. Bob Harris used a lot of falsetto. He's got a lot of that natural range but he doesn't have the pure power of a Bobby Martin, power which is very scary actually.
 '''Were the instrumental vocal bits on things like '[[Montana]]' difficult to sing?<br>

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 '''Have you any distinct memories of any particular song, concerning this stretching biznis?<br>
-There were times when we would do those things like '[[Black Napkins]]' or '[[Zoot Allures]]'. Some of that stuff from 1988 has very fond memories because Frank was a very underrated guitar player and he was such a fine player that a lot of people didn't realise or get the chance to hear him play. There were times when you could really hear what was going on there. When we went out as the Banned from Utopia and started doing the tunes, it would be like the old days because let's face it, these were the guys I recorded the albums with. Now with my guys in this band, we're going to take it to another level. As my bass player just said, we're going to be pushing the envelope. The thing is that with the ''Muffin Men'', I'm playing Frank's stuff; with the ''Banned from Utopia,'' I'm playing Frank's stuff; but with the ''Ike Willis Band,'' we're gonna be doing what we want to do because that's also what my fans want to see and hear also.
+There were times when we would do those things like '[[Black Napkins]]' or '[[Zoot Allures (The Track)|Zoot Allures]]'. Some of that stuff from 1988 has very fond memories because Frank was a very underrated guitar player and he was such a fine player that a lot of people didn't realise or get the chance to hear him play. There were times when you could really hear what was going on there. When we went out as the Banned from Utopia and started doing the tunes, it would be like the old days because let's face it, these were the guys I recorded the albums with. Now with my guys in this band, we're going to take it to another level. As my bass player just said, we're going to be pushing the envelope. The thing is that with the ''Muffin Men'', I'm playing Frank's stuff; with the ''Banned from Utopia,'' I'm playing Frank's stuff; but with the ''Ike Willis Band,'' we're gonna be doing what we want to do because that's also what my fans want to see and hear also.
 '''How would you compare playing in Frank's band with playing with the ''Muffin Men'' or ''Banned from Utopia?''<br>

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 '''What were your primary influences and your education in music?<br>
-There were a lot. First my mother and then she was like kids with [[Wikipedia:Lou Rawls|Lou Rawls]], [[Miles Davis]] and people like that so I had a heavy jazz background and a little classical background. I used to listen to [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Wikipedia:Sergei Rachmaninoff|Rachmaninoff]] and [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] ... But also musically in there was [[Chuck Berry]] and the Beatles and [[Stevie Wonder]] and the [[The Rolling Stones|Stones]], [[Cream]]; all through the 1960s there were so many influences. Those are the people I really liked. Then through the 1970s, I got into people like [[John McLaughlin]], [[Wikipedia:Yes|Yes]], [[Led Zeppelin]] and [[Jimi Hendrix|Hendrix]] of course. I had no formal training at school.
+There were a lot. First my mother and then she was like kids with [[Wikipedia:Lou Rawls|Lou Rawls]], [[Miles Davis]] and people like that so I had a heavy jazz background and a little classical background. I used to listen to [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Wikipedia:Sergei Rachmaninoff|Rachmaninoff]] and [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] ... But also musically in there was [[Chuck Berry]] and the Beatles and [[Wikipedia:Stevie Wonder|Stevie Wonder]] and the [[The Rolling Stones|Stones]], [[Cream]]; all through the 1960s there were so many influences. Those are the people I really liked. Then through the 1970s, I got into people like [[John McLaughlin]], [[Wikipedia:Yes|Yes]], [[Led Zeppelin]] and [[Jimi Hendrix|Hendrix]] of course. I had no formal training at school.
 '''How did you meet Zappa for the first time?<br>

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 Yes. Actually, this album has a couple of collaborations with my guitar player. One is called 'Planet Number Three' and the other is called 'Inside Out'. There's a sort of combination of both of our writing styles on there. It'll be still be very familiar though.
-'''What has been your concept of survival in the music business outside [[Frank Zappa|Zappa]]? Have you made a living out of your own projects?<br>
+'''What has been your concept of survival in the music business outside [[Biography|Zappa]]? Have you made a living out of your own projects?<br>
 Yeah, but it hasn't been as good a living. I've been in the music business for thirty-two years now and I seem to be able to make a living out of it. Sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's OK.

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 '''What do you think of the Grandmothers?<br>
-When the Grandmothers first started, that was [[Arthur Barrow|Artie]], [[Don Preston]], some of the Fowlers and me, [[Jimmy Carl Black|Jimmy Carl]], [[Motorhead]]; this was back in LA. That was way back in the early 1980s. That was the first and last time I did something with them. After that, they became something else, altogether different. I don't know, I'm telling you. I end up getting in trouble evry time I talk about the Grandmothers, basically because a) [[Gail Zappa]] hates them; and b) Gail Zappa hates them (laughs).
+When the Grandmothers first started, that was [[Arthur Barrow|Artie]], [[Don Preston]], some of the Fowlers and me, [[Jimmy Carl Black|Jimmy Carl]], [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood|Motorhead]]; this was back in LA. That was way back in the early 1980s. That was the first and last time I did something with them. After that, they became something else, altogether different. I don't know, I'm telling you. I end up getting in trouble evry time I talk about the Grandmothers, basically because a) [[Gail Zappa]] hates them; and b) Gail Zappa hates them (laughs).
 The thing is she's got a problem with Jimmy Carl and Don Preston. When we did our first major gig at the Roxy back in 1981 or '82, it was cool, because there was [[Tony Duran]], [[Bunk Gardner|Bunk]] and [[Buzz Gardner|Buzz]], the Fowlers, Artie Barrow, Jimmy Carl Black and Don Preston. It was a totally different thing back then. For years, I'd been touring and I'd hear things about the Grandmothers. When I signed with Muffin Records, I didn't know that the Grandmothers were with Muffin. Since I signed with Muffin and got involved with them, Gail did not want them around at all. She gave us a whole bunch of problems which is why they ended up being dropped from the label. Otherwise Muffin wouldn't have been able to get off the ground and we wouldn't have been able to get anything done, because Gail was doing everything in her power to stop the Grandmothers doing anything. This was because of the law-suit that was brought when Frank was still alive over lost royalties and things like that. Jimmy and Don are good friends of mine, but professionally we can't be seen together.

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 '''How did it all start?<br>
-I started back in the 1960s when I was eight. My mother was a jazz singer and I started singing when I was about two or three years old. I've been singing ever since until I saw [[The Beatles]] on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and I decided to start playing guitar. I was then eight and basically took it from there.
+I started back in the 1960s when I was eight. My mother was a jazz singer and I started singing when I was about two or three years old. I've been singing ever since until I saw [[The Beatles]] on the [[Ed Sullivan]] Show in 1964 and I decided to start playing guitar. I was then eight and basically took it from there.
 '''What were your primary influences and your education in music?<br>
@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
 '''What about the 1988 Beatles' mutilations?<br>
-You have to remember that 1988 was an election year in the US. We had these big fundamentalist Christian assholes (sound of laughter in the background) semi-Republicans running for office and they wanted no abortion and to put everyone in jail and that kind of stuff. Essentially all these Evangelists were getting arrested for being with prostitutes in hotels; and at the same time, Frank was a good friend of John Lennon. In 1980, when we were on tour, we were just about to go on stage in Milwaukee and that's when we heard that Lennon had just been killed.
+You have to remember that 1988 was an election year in the US. We had these big fundamentalist Christian assholes (sound of laughter in the background) semi-Republicans running for office and they wanted no abortion and to put everyone in jail and that kind of stuff. Essentially all these Evangelists were getting arrested for being with prostitutes in hotels; and at the same time, Frank was a good friend of [[John Lennon]]. In 1980, when we were on tour, we were just about to go on stage in Milwaukee and that's when we heard that Lennon had just been killed.
 When we came to the 1988 tour, we had all this material about [[Jimmy Swaggart|Swaggart]], [[Pat Robertson|Robertson]] and [[Jerry Falwell|Falwell]] and all these guys who had all this money and were trying to influence American opinion about morality. Frank one day just came into rehearsal and asked if we knew any of those Beatles' tunes because he'd never played them and he'd never heard some of them all the way through. We worked out the tunes and then he got the idea into his head of twisting the words up and using that to make a statement about these evangelist guys. That's basically where it take from. Since it was an election year and as we were also doing the voter registration thing, we wanted to make it count for something.
@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 '''Linked to the secret word tradition was the idea of replacing the lyrics of the songs. How did that come about?<br>
-It was the same thing. If something silly happened that day, and depending on where we were playing and how the audience was ... I have a habit of being able to change the words to a tune but they will still rhyme and they would still work. Frank would then laugh and do it back to me and I would do it back. There was a show we did back in Nantes in 1984 and we did almost the entire show by changing the words round, and it still worked. It was great and we laughed all night long. That's how it works. Frank hated being in France. There's nothing wrong with France, but we had been there almost two months and we were ready to go home. He said it was the attitude, and the audience and what was going on backstage; it was a combination of all of those things. It just so happened that night that we changed everything and it was the funniest thing we'd ever done. We want to be laughing more than the audience. The audience seem to think it's a written part of the show and it isn't. After all, the band members have to have fun too. It's a good attitude.
+It was the same thing. If something silly happened that day, and depending on where we were playing and how the audience was ... I have a habit of being able to change the words to a tune but they will still rhyme and they would still work. Frank would then laugh and do it back to me and I would do it back. There was a show we did back in Nantes in 1984 and we did almost the entire show by changing the words round, and it still worked. It was great and we laughed all night long. That's how it works. Frank hated being in [[France]]. There's nothing wrong with France, but we had been there almost two months and we were ready to go home. He said it was the attitude, and the audience and what was going on backstage; it was a combination of all of those things. It just so happened that night that we changed everything and it was the funniest thing we'd ever done. We want to be laughing more than the audience. The audience seem to think it's a written part of the show and it isn't. After all, the band members have to have fun too. It's a good attitude.
 '''Were you ever worried how Frank would react to your outbursts of laughter in a song that might end up on a record?<br>
@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 Well ... Basically it has several messages. It was part of a government thing that we'd found out about. AIDS suddenly appeared out of nowhere back around 1983 and there were rumours that the government had something to do with it. Secondly, how they tried to manipulate people and put them in prison – that's another message. And the main message is 'Don't trust everything the government says because they're not always right'. Very seldom are they always right (laughs).
-'''How do you see '[[Joe's Garage]]' in the light of 'Thing-Fish'?<br>
+'''How do you see '[[Joe's Garage Acts I, II & III|Joe's Garage]]' in the light of 'Thing-Fish'?<br>
 It's sort of like the same thing, it's another part of that, part of Conceptual Continuity, if you know what I mean. That's why we used some of the things from 'Joe's Garage' and combined them with the concept of 'Thing-Fish'.