Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
- R
- Year:
- 2016
- 93 min
- $354,981
- 53 Views
1
How does this camera look?
Is it nice?
Okay, how about this?
How about saying, "Hi, this is Frank Zappa.
"I guess... I... I guess you
don't have anything better
"to do tonight, huh?"
I mean, assuming that
they've flicked on the set
and they're sitting there, absorbing the rays.
"Well, you might as well sit back
and watch Take Off, then."
All of that?
Yeah.
You don't have to say
the stuff about the rays.
That's parenthetical.
Say it again?
Something like, "Hi, this is Frank Zappa.
"I guess you don't have
anything better to do tonight, huh?"
Yeah. Ready?
Hi.
This is Frank Zappa.
I guess you don't have anything
better to do tonight, huh?
That's why you're watching Take Off.
Huh?
Nothing better to do, huh?
Hello, we're talking with Frank Zappa,
a musician, filmmaker,
an independent thinker,
and a personal favorite of mine,
who's been in rock music
for almost two decades.
Well, I'm about to get sick
From watching my TV
Been checking out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see...
Zappa is the leader of perhaps
the roughest and farthest-out group
in the scene today, the Mothers of Invention.
Is anybody's guess...
And ever since 1967,
he has left an explosive trail of music
that has had one constant throughout:
biting social commentary.
You're being victimized right now.
Do you know it?
No way to delay that trouble
Coming every day...
You have a classical background.
That intrigues me. Are you doing...
Not really. I'm just... You know?
Frank Zappa is one of the most controversial
modern composers and musicians.
Zappa is perhaps most famous for a style
of musical satire
involving lavatorial expletives
and outrageous happenings.
Those are the same people who say,
"Yeah, he eats sh*t on stage
and steps on baby chickens."
The distorted mirror through which
we experience ourselves
and the neurotic, perverted
society that man has created.
On his street would take a turn...
The guy who sat on the toilet seat,
some kind of hairy monster from the '60s.
Well, let's face it, I sit on a toilet seat,
and so do you.
The only problem is that
somebody took my picture while I was there.
Every time I hear 'em
Sayin' that there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day...
Zappa is irreverent.
Some people think he is downright offensive.
What about this suggestion?
But I guarantee you this,
he absolutely will not bore you
and he very well may surprise you.
Well, hello.
F*** the union.
Well, what does it all add up to?
What is Frank Zappa about?
Well, I don't think that anybody
has ever seen the real Frank Zappa,
because being interviewed
is one of the most abnormal things
that you can do to somebody else.
It's two steps removed from the Inquisition.
All right. Are you rolling?
- Yep.
- What?
You okay? We can start? Okay.
It seems that the business thing
is usually the thing that
drags most artists down,
but I hear you're quite a great businessman.
Well, how have you managed
to survive so long?
Well, it is just a matter...
It's a matter of survival
more than success.
I have survived for 17 years.
Successfully? Survived?
I'm still in the business, that's something.
Are you happy?
Sure. I love what I'm doing.
I have the best job in the world.
If you had to define your job,
how would you define it?
I'm an entertainer.
Pure and simple.
Right.
Do you think the kind of entertainment
that people are craving now is much different
than it was when you first emerged?
No. I don't think so.
There's several different kinds of people
who listen to what we do.
You can't please 'em all.
I mean, there are some people that
only like the earliest albums,
and they think they're really true fans,
but actually they're just f***ed, you know?
They're just these snotty little people
who don't really understand what's going on.
These are the people
who know everything they know
about me from Rolling Stone magazine.
People just crave those early albums
and don't know anything about
what we're doing today.
Does that upset you? Obviously, it's...
Well, I hate to see anybody
with a closed mind on any topic.
So, I just feel sorry
that they're missing out on a lot of good stuff
that's happened since 1967.
Your mothers and fathers
are all drinking beer...
Watching...
They're watching Roller Derby,
and then they change the channel.
And then they see you guys on the floor,
and they say, "Oh, boy, they're really sick."
I think I might be calling you something
that most of America wouldn't call you.
They'd look upon you as an exploiter.
Why an exploiter?
An exploiter of a... Of a... Of a revolution...
Someone hoping to sell tickets to a concert
on the basis of a social revolution.
Did we ever advertise
that we were going to promote a revolution,
display a revolution, discuss a revolution,
or have anything to do
with a revolution at a concert?
In many ways, you epitomize the revolution.
Well, that has nothing to do with the means
by which we advertise a concert.
We advertise that we're coming there to play.
The word gets around.
Plastic people
You gotta go
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Plastic people
You gotta go...
Hey, that sounds like sh*t.
Frank, a few questions
that we'd like to ask you this evening
come from high school students
in southeast Pennsylvania.
And the first question
that we'd like to ask you is,
how did you start out in the music business,
and how old were you
when you first got started?
Well, the first time I ever
got paid for playing music
was when I was 15.
And I started off as a drummer,
and before I actually had a drum set,
I used to play...
I was rehearsing with
We used to rehearse over
at this preacher's house,
and since I didn't have any drums at all,
I had to borrow two pots from the kitchen,
and I used to put them
between my legs, like bongos,
and play on them with the drumsticks,
and that's how I started off.
I was reading about the first time
you ever composed a piece of music.
And I don't know if it was
really a piece of music,
but you actually went and you ruled out
the way it should look,
and you started drawing
the notes on the page...
That was a pretty great story.
- Well...
- What inspired you to do that?
I always thought music looked nice on paper,
and since I had a kind of interest in art
when I was a kid, I could draw pretty good.
I used to draw dollar bills
and things like that.
They were the wrong color,
so I couldn't pass 'em,
'cause all I had was pencils and white paper.
You know, I couldn't get the green right.
But...
I figured, well, if I could
just draw those things on the paper,
then you hand it to a musician,
and a musician knows how to read it,
and then he can play it, so that's what I did.
And then I started drawing music.
I hadn't the faintest idea
what it sounded like.
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"Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/eat_that_question:_frank_zappa_in_his_own_words_7434>.
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