Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words

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?

That trouble coming every day

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 shit 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.

Fuck 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 fucked, 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 shit.

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 this rhythm and blues band.

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.

So the music came before the lyrics.

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.