Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words Page #2

Yeah. I didn't write a rock-and-roll song

until I was about 21 or 22 years old.

Or any song with any lyrics to it.

And prior to that time,

the only thing that I was writing

was chamber music and orchestra music.

I started when I was 14.

You play a bicycle?

I... Yeah.

Are you in the musician's union?

No.

Do you play any other musical instrument?

Anything more conventional, perhaps.

Guitar, vibes, bass and drums.

How long have you

been playing bike, Frank?

About two weeks.

He probably was selling

insurance or something,

and he thought, "What's something real jerky

"that'll get me on The Steve Allen Show?"

Playing bicycle.

What could be sillier than that?

And he did it, and here we are.

That's probably how it happened.

You really only been playing two weeks?

Yes.

What do you do ordinarily, besides this?

I'm a composer.

Now, the whole idea that

we're going to do here

in this improvised concerto for two bicycles,

a pre-recorded tape,

and the musicians in the back,

is that you're supposed to

express yourself freely,

without any kind of...

You have to let your front down and...

All right.

Now, the tape is pre-recorded electric noises

that I stuck together.

But now the... The way we work this is,

when the man in the control booth

feels moved

to add his electronic part to our work here,

he will throw a little switch,

which just lets some of this noise through,

and then I requested the musicians that,

if they feel so moved,

make any noise possible on their instrument.

No... Try to refrain from musical tones.

And, in fact...

They won't have any trouble with that order.

Bravo!

I must say that I am always

in favor of enlarging the horizons,

at least in peering anxiously

beyond the horizons

of any field of human endeavor or interest,

and, therefore, I congratulate you

on your farsightedness.

And as for your music,

don't ever do it around here again.

Some people like to

be a carpenter, you know.

They're interested

in working with their hands,

or they... Or they're interested in electronics.

They like to solder wires together.

Or they're artists, or they're something.

That's their field of interest.

Unfortunately, I like to play music.

Now, when you want to play music

and you want to earn a living

from playing music,

you have to work under the conditions

that the environment imposes on you.

They don't make it easy

for you to be a musician.

They don't...

In the United States especially,

musicians are generally regarded as sort of

useless adjuncts to the society,

unless they do something creative like

write a Coca-Cola jingle,

and then they'll be accepted.

But musicians usually are regarded

as sort of the scum of the earth,

and so, if you want to be a musician,

you just have to realize before you start

that nobody is really gonna care.

Wait a minute. It's time to hype an album.

Okay, go ahead.

This particular project

has been very expensive.

This is our third album. Can you see it?

Have you got a picture of it,

so we can all see it?

It's called We're Only in It for the Money.

We are the other people

We are the other people

We are the other people

You're the other people, too

Found a way to get to you

Do you think that I'm crazy

Out of my mind?

Do you think that I creep in the night

And sleep in a phone booth?

Let me take a minute to tell you my plan

Let me take a minute and tell who I am

If it doesn't show, think you better know

I'm another person...

All of a sudden, your music is...

Is selling and making a lot of money.

You dig the bread?

I think that it's very pleasant,

but I'd like to see some of it.

You're not getting any of it?

Well, it seems to take a long time

getting there, you know?

Record companies have

a peculiar way of making sure

that your expenses always

exceed your profits.

It's very...

You know how they do that, don't you?

Yeah, I know how they do that.

And don't you get a feeling that now,

with your records moving up in the charts,

you're moving into

the establishment very much?

I don't know.

- I've been hearing that.

- Do I look like

I'm moving into

the establishment very much?

Before that, you never got your music

heard by anybody, isn't that correct?

- Absolutely true.

- Okay.

- Nobody cared.

- Nobody cared.

- And now...

- And they still don't care,

- but they pay for it.

- Right.

Well, you know who's buying

the albums, don't you?

Yes, I do.

I've examined my market rather thoroughly.

And who's buying it?

- That's none of your business.

- Okay.

But then, isn't it...

The minute you look at you,

don't you get a feeling

that you're part of the hippie establishment?

- Just because of the looks.

- Maybe.

I'm not talking about what

you say or do, or how you play.

You're very packaging oriented, aren't you?

Yeah. I think everybody is, to a degree.

That you look, when somebody

sees you for the first time,

as part of the hippie establishment.

- Or worse.

- Or worse, right?

Yes. Yeah.

All right, let me ask you this, Frank.

You want to be a serious musician, I assume.

I've always wanted to be a serious musician.

And where are you going from here,

besides the bizarre that

you're doing at this point?

I mean, where are you going to go from here,

and what do you want to achieve,

at this point now?

Well, I think one thing

that I'd like to do is to not work.

- Not work.

- Yes.

- In any field? Not write?

- For a while.

I'd like to write, but that's not work.

Meaning composing isn't working.

No.

Well, isn't that what you're going to do

for a livelihood, eventually?

People don't compose for a livelihood,

especially in the United States.

The composition end of

my musical experience

started in high school,

when I heard an album by Edgard Varse.

I said, "Boy, that sounds great.

"I have to write some of that."

I also got ahold of an album

called The Rite of Spring.

It was on a little cheapo label.

Little $1.98 thing.

And that excited me, too.

I thought, "Boy, if anybody

could make a missing link

"between Edgard Varse and Igor Stravinsky,

that'd be pretty nifty."

And then somebody turned me on

to an album of music

by Anton Webern, and I said, "Wow!

"If anybody could get a missing link

between Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern,

"and Edgard Varse, that'd be really spiffy."

Then I heard what some of

the stuff sounded like that I'd been writing,

and it was so ugly

that I decided to go backwards

and get into the melodic area again.

And then people started telling me

that my melodies were ugly, so...

I guess I'm successful.

And bang, here we are

with the Mothers of Invention,

so now it's going

to be a bit special.

It's an American pop music band which is

connected with pop in a certain way,

by jazz, rhythm 'n' blues and blues.

But their leader Frank Zappa

that you'll see later on and who is noticeable,

is interested in contemporary music,

and while their stage attitude might shock,

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