Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa December 1, 2010

Dweezil Zappa - Lead Guitar and Vocals
Joe Travers - Drums and Vocals
Scheila Gonzales - Saxophones, Keyboards, Flute and Vocals
Pete Griffin - Bass and Vocals
Jamie Kime - Guitar and Vocals
Billy Hulting - Marimba, Percussion and Vocals
Ben Thomas - Lead Vocals on "Montana" and "Zomby Woof"
Aaron Arntz - Keyboards and Vocals
Ray White - Special Guest Vocalist
"For a long time there's been a real lack of understanding of Frank's music, mainly because the real bulk of his iconic work has been under exposed," says Dweezil Zappa. It's no surprise -- the word "impossible" is often associated with his father's combination of sophisticated rhythms and complex sounds and melodies. His compositions, spanning some 80 recordings, can seem weird, challenging or even intimidating to pedestrian ears and baffling to many musicians. Consequently, the Zappa fan base is a niche occupied by people attuned to such aural exotica; discerning listeners who aren't frightened or offended when confronted with topics like monsters, sex, politics, more monsters, and scathing social commentary.
Misconceptions, then, are inevitable. Zappa's music demands an open mind, and it's far easier to keep our lids hermetically sealed, opening them only to the easiest, least threatening concepts. There's a lot of that out there, after all, and composers like Frank Zappa are few and far between. Zappa was a self taught musician who ignored musical boundaries and operated out of his own carefully crafted playbook. "Anything At Anytime For Any Reason At All" was his credo.

Over the past five years, his son Dweezil has been on a grass roots campaign to expose his father's music to a wider audience and in the process educate the audiences to the musical depth beyond the humorous songs that may have accidentally been broadcast on the radio. Return of the Son of..., the second release in Dweezil's ongoing endeavor to keep Frank's music alive. Too often, he says, people's opinions of Frank's work are based on casual exposure to his "novelty" crossover songs. "If the only thing you ever heard is "Dancin' Fool" or "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" or "Valley Girl," says Dweezil, "then you really haven't even scratched the surface of Frank's music. In our shows we make a concerted effort to give people a broader perspective of his music and it really speaks for itself."
Although Dweezil had grown up with Frank's music, and is himself an accomplished guitarist, neither environment, genetics nor osmosis prepared him for the task. "There's a difference between merely learning it and being able to execute the parts on stage in front of an audience. It was an intense amount of work to transform my playing abilities up to the level required to do this right," Dweezil says. Knowing he'd be subject to both the scrutiny of casual fans and Zappa zealots, and wanting to do justice to his father's work, Dweezil felt he'd "have to do something that made it obvious that I put in the time; I wanted to learn some of the melodies that were written for mallets and keyboards mostly to better understand the compositions but secondarily to display these melodies to the audience from center stage. The audience usually doesn't have a clear view of the performers who are working so hard to play these impossible parts. I thought if they could see it on guitar it would help people understand how hard it is to play this stuff. Audiences have shown a lot of respect for this band and the way we approach the music."
ZPZ sticks as closely as possible to recorded versions of FZ tunes, since they are the official representations of the composer's work. That is not to say that the band cannot soar into the stratosphere during improvisational sections. The musicians, handpicked by Dweezil all have the required skills to navigate this amazing musical terrain. "In order to give people an authentic experience we treat the music with the respect it deserves," he says. And just like the versatile virtuosos that passed through FZ's ranks, ZPZ lets their own personalities shine through in the improvisational sections.
Now, whereas fans showed up to early ZPZ shows with folded arms and a show me what you've got attitude, they've now embraced the band as a real band -- not a cover band. Dweezil's aim to hit a younger, larger crowd is being realized. As with Frank's band, ZPZ garnered repeat customers with fans seeing every tour and often several shows per tour. "I've met people that have seen us 40 times, which is insane to me," says Dweezil. "People have really adopted us now as a band and have been asking for us to make some of our own original music. I never thought that would happen. They're fascinated by the constant evolution and they really get what we're about." Even the music industry gets it: In 2007 ZPZ won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance ("Peaches En Regalia," from the eponymous live CD and DVD). "Now people are gonna have to say, 'Grammy-winning cover band,'" laughs Dweezil. "If they still wanna call us that."
Return of the Son of... reinforces Dweezil's reasons for being confident in his band, and gives fans even more. Culled mainly from the band's three-night residency at Chicago's Morse Theater in October 2008, but featuring tracks from Halloween 2008 in NYC ("The Torture Never Stops") and a Manchester, England 2009 performance ("Zomby Woof," "Montana"), it captures a band that has fully filled some big shoes. Even Dweezil is impressed, writing in the liner notes, "It's always a big challenge to capture the true essence of a live performance. Character, conviction, raw energy and musicality don't always conspire in peaceful co-existence with sonic fidelity. On rare occasions you get lucky and all of the aforementioned details are present in a recording. I think we got lucky this time."
On a more personal level, Dweezil was pleased to show off the ways in which studying and playing his father's music impacted him as a guitarist and an extemporaneous composer. "This record has a lot of extended solos," Dweezil says. "The solo sections are where I really connect to the music and what my dad really did." As a kid watching his father perform, this is what Dweezil really looked forward to. Then it was for the thrill of Frank's reckless abandon and aversion to repetitive themes or ideas within the solos. Now it's also "a bonding moment when I get to do that stuff."
The songs on Return of the Son of... were chosen to best represent that ethos, and the solos, particularly on songs like "Inca Roads," "Billy the Mountain" and "Zomby Woof," take the concept to crazy levels. Dweezil calls the "Zomby Woof" solo "insane" and probably the furthest departure from his personal style. Adopting a strategy for the break -- "which I never do" -- Dweezil "just dances around" the tonal center of the song augmenting passages with a psychedelic swirl of oddly grouped notes. "It was a real challenge to do... there's a lot of randomness in that guitar solo. But it was a fun experiment and I'm glad that I captured it on tape."
Dweezil looks forward to sharing these new ideas when Zappa Plays Zappa embarks on a two-month tour to coincide with the June release of Return of the Son of... The sets will include a wide range of material including hybrid arrangements that marry album versions to noteworthy live renditions. There are always new surprises too. "Every tour we learn one or two songs that Frank rarely performed and sometimes things that have never been performed live. So we're always giving them a taste of obscure things as well as things that they know."

"I haven't really decided what's gonna make the cut for this tour," Dweezil teases. "I've been thinkin' about things from the Fillmore record and lots of other little random things I know he didn't play much but I think I'll keep it more of a surprise. We have a lot of work ahead of us for May, because that's when we start rehearsing for the two-month tour in June."
June also brings the opening of the Dweezilla music school, a pet project in which musicians of any skill level, interest or instrument can study music with ZPZ'. "It's not about learning Frank's music," says Dweezil. "A lot of people ask us how we do what we do, how did we practice, what did we practice? We all have our own methods but what we as a band have in common is a love for what we do and also sharing that knowledge. I've had several moments in my musical life where I've said to myself, why didn't I learn that sooner? We hope to be able to share some inspirational information and help better get even more enjoyment out of their musical pursuits. The school credo is "Learn and Destroy" -- just learn as much as you can and then break down the barriers and go out there and make it your own."
Something else interesting that ZPZ may do in 2010 is record original music. "I'm hearing a lot from people that we should write some new music specifically to challenge this band," says Dweezil. "That's something I didn't plan for, but I probably will start thinkin' about a little bit more and perhaps may make an appearance at some point this year."
For now, Dweezil's content with the musical challenges and posthumous paternal bonding he enjoys with Zappa Plays Zappa. By taking the music to a new, younger audience Dweezil hopes to put the emphasis back on musicianship as opposed to smoke and mirrors.
"When they come to our shows, they see this human element in the musicianship and the way the band works within itself -- it's pretty rare. Modern musical performances don't often rely on musicianship; they rely on other things like back-up dancers to make it a spectacle. There's room for all of that, but I think when people see what we're doing, there's sort of a universal appreciation of the level of skill required to do this. They watch and say, "I don't even know how they can remember this stuff. How can they do that?!" Which is what I felt like when I would see my dad's shows. 'That's impossible!" And yet, here we are doing it."

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