Frank Zappa 1991
A never-published interview with Frank Zappa
When I asked Frank Zappa if he had any regrets about the first 25 years of his career, he was blunt, as he always was.
“There are certain things I might have said in a different way,” he said. “But basically, there it is.”
And that’s why Frank Zappa was and is still revered by his fans—because he said and did what he believed and never let commercial considerations deter him.
In this 1991 interview from The Tapes Archive, Zappa, then 50, talked about standing up to the Parents’ Music Resource Center and its warning labels on record albums, how he stepped into Eastern Europe to help American businesses establish ties in formerly communist countries, and why he refused to apologize for songs such as “Jewish Princess,” which offended some organizations.
There’s also talk about his anti-bootlegging project, “Beat the Boots,” and he tells a classic story about one of his greatest songs, “Black Napkins.”
A couple of items that need context:
-At the beginning of the interview, when he mentions “swine,” he’s referring to a show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds where he remembered seeing the Swine Barn.
-Later, when I refer to “the book,” I’m talking about “The Real Frank Zappa Book,” which was published in 1989.
More about Frank Zappa is at https://www.zappa.com/.
Frank Zappa Links:
Frank Zappa Interview Transcription:
Marc Allan: It’s actually kinda nice for a change.
Frank Zappa: Yeah I’ve been there for a while.
Marc Allan: Yeah, that was one thing I was gonna ask you about. You ever coming back?
Frank Zappa: Well not likely, I’m not touring anymore so. We still have fond memories of that one building on the fairgrounds that says, Swine.
Marc Allan: Yeah so lets talk about bootlegs for a while. Have you seen a lot of bootlegs of your stuff?
Frank Zappa: Somebody recently sent me a book called, The Guide to the Alternative Recordings of Frank Zappa, there were over 400 titles listed in it.
Marc Allan: Oh man, 400.
Frank Zappa: That’s right. 25 years I’ve made over 50 albums, so like eight times as many bootlegs as real albums that I don’t anybody else has been subjected to that kind of bootleg scrutiny.
Marc Allan: And so I take it you’re looking at this and figuring that other people are making a lot of money that you’re kind of a cottage industry for a lot of people.
Frank Zappa: Well I would say that I probably put a lot of other people’s kids through college. The fact that they sent them to college.
Marc Allan: Other than the idea that obviously they’re making money off you, are there other problems that you have with bootlegs?
Frank Zappa: Well if you spend a lot of time producing an album and trying… You know producing a real album, try to get the sound right, get the performance right and slave over that, and then somebody comes along with a bootleg piece of shit and seems to some people it doesn’t make any difference whether you worked hard on it or it’s the result of somebody with a cassette machine in the back of the room. Somebody’s buying these things.
Marc Allan: Right.
Frank Zappa: So yeah I have a problem with that.
Marc Allan: Well obviously you’re a lot more generous than a lot more artists in terms of putting out a lot of product for people to buy, but you don’t see any reason that you could you think of yourself as a fan and wanting more than the artist put out to buy these bootlegs?
Frank Zappa: I can understand what the fans motivation is but whether or not they get satisfied at the point where they spend the money for the bootleg is the question, because I think a lot of the bootlegs are just ripping them off. The sound quality is so bad and some of them have tried to make themselves look like official recordings like releasing them on a ICA label and putting sort of misleading information on the packages to make it look like I actually had something to do with it.
Marc Allan: Why aren’t you cleaning the sound up on these bootlegs?
Frank Zappa: Well we did to a certain extent, most of the stuff was stolen back, the vinyl force. We spend quite a bit of time chopping out the record clicks of the digital editing system and they’ve been EQ’d a little bit, but the basic idea was to steal it all back, covers and all and sell it for less.
Marc Allan: So what do you think about the bands like the Grateful Dead who basically encouraged bootlegging.
Frank Zappa: Well what they encourage is self-taping.
Marc Allan: Right.
Frank Zappa: I don’t know whether they encourage somebody else put their performance on vinyl or on CD and sell it.
Marc Allan: No I guess you’re probably right.
Frank Zappa: See that’s the difference. I mean they put up a section in their concerts where the other guy comes in there with a cassette machine, record here. That’s different than saying, “yeah Mr. Entrepreneur out there in the weeds some place make your own fake Grateful Dead album and sell it and collect the royalties”. That’s another story altogether. I don’t think the Grateful Dead wants you to do that.
Marc Allan: No no, you’re right. Have you ever heard many of the other bootlegs besides these 10?
Frank Zappa: I haven’t even listened to these 10.
Marc Allan: Okay.
Frank Zappa: And I didn’t even select them, they were done. That was done by a guy who works with Rhino who was an expert on this kind of stuff.
Marc Allan: On to other things, tell me about Why Not Ink.
Frank Zappa: I haven’t really been doing too much why Why Not for the last year, but I’m getting ready to make another trip to Eastern Europe I’ve been invited by the mayor of Budapest to come there on the 30th of June, they’re having this big celebration because it’s the day last Russian soldier leaves Hungary. So at that point I hope to meet a number of Hungarian businessmen and government officials and get some idea what kind of things their interested in doing and see if I can help out by helping businessmen find out who to talk to and what’s wanted or what’s needed at different points.
Marc Allan: Okay so will you be doing much business or are you more of a link between business and the people over there?
Frank Zappa: More of a switchboard kind of a function.
Marc Allan: Uh-huh. Why did you want to do this?
Frank Zappa: I think it needs to be done, I think if you believe that democracy is a good idea and you want to see it spring up all over the world and if you think that free-market economy is a good idea and you want to see that spring up all over the world, I think you have to do more than just wave a flag at it.
Marc Allan: Yeah. And you don’t think that our government would have taken on such a duty?
Frank Zappa: Well I think that our government should have, be built in to our foreign policies. Fact is we’ve spend God knows how many trillions since the Cold War began fighting Communism, okay.
Marc Allan: Yes.
Frank Zappa: It collapses under its own weight right before your very eyes, what do we do? You remember what Bush’s response was when the Berlin Wall came down kinda like a ho hum?
Marc Allan: Mm-hm.
Frank Zappa: I mean there’s something that smells bad here. If what they’ve said all along about the dangers of Communism how evil it is, and how undesirable it is and how people suffer under this system, and when there’s an opportunity to help a country move in another direction and the US Government doesn’t step right in to help make it work, I think that’s a mistake, and it belies all the other rhetoric that we’ve been listening to since the end of World War two.
Marc Allan: You have any theories on why the government has been slow, or not even slow to act but inactive?
Frank Zappa: Well I think there are a couple different reasons, one because the whole Cold War was a joke. Two the rhetoric never really squared with reality with what the United States Government has been telling the US population. And another reason is I don’t know whether or not we can really afford it.
Marc Allan: You I would say are probably with along with The Dead and Todd Rundgren one of the artist that are really revered and loved deeply by their fans, do you think about that much?
Frank Zappa: Well yeah sure, especially when you get wonderful letters.
Marc Allan: And what are people…
Frank Zappa: They’re about satisfaction that you’ve had a positive influence on somebody’s life.
Marc Allan: And in general what kind of influences have you had on people, have they told you?
Frank Zappa: Well a lot of the letters that we get have to do with the fact just because I stood up for what I believed in and didn’t turn into a commercial act and just kept being myself, it gave other people courage to do the same thing in their lives, and that makes me feel good.
Marc Allan: Does it make you at all nervous that people put so much faith in you?
Frank Zappa: No it doesn’t make me nervous, I don’t expect that I’m ever gonna let them down.
Marc Allan: Okay.
Frank Zappa: I mean I don’t feel like, “Ou I’m trembling on the edge of suddenly going commercial and everybody will go ‘oh he let us down'”. I mean that aint ever gonna happen.
Marc Allan: No I didn’t think that, but it just seems like it’s a huge amount of responsibility for somebody to take on.
Frank Zappa: Well I didn’t get into it in order to take on that responsibility its just something that seemed to develop, but no I do respect the position that I’ve been placed in and just to the imagination or perception of the people who like what I do. I have no intention or desire to let them down, I hope to always be able to continue to stand up for what I believe in and keep doing it.
Marc Allan: In the past, well I guess it’s about 30 years now that you’ve been doing this almost, you’ve gone from…
Frank Zappa: Only 25.
Marc Allan: Oh okay 25 years. You’ve gone from being the you know outlaw-ish in a way to a sort of respectable for lack of a better word. I mean between being on Johnny Carson and testifying before congress. What does that say?
Frank Zappa: Well first of all I think your evaluation is not correct.
Marc Allan: Okay.
Frank Zappa: Because I doubt whether I’m respectable but there’s certain people who respect me and there’s a difference there. I’ll say that Mainstream Press does not find me respectable at all and will do everything they can to make sure that I never become that way. One of the reasons why it’s difficult for me to trust anything that I read in the Press because I think I am respectable and always have been.
Marc Allan: I’m a member of the Mainstream Press I suppose and I find you respectable, but then again I didn’t find you, you know all that outlandish when other people were freaking out over what you were doing.
Frank Zappa: Yeah but your attitude may be somewhat different than the guy who owns the newspaper you work for.
Marc Allan: Yeah.
Frank Zappa: That’s the point. It’s made from the top down, not from the street up. What’s really happened in this country never really gets reported because of the filtration system and all it takes is one phone call from one of the big guys to another one of the big guys and certain important stories disappear and other stories of no importance become major world news. I’ve spent the last well five or six years being pretty deeply involved in that. I went to Washington and testified and just got a whiff…
Marc Allan: The word you created, you know weren’t you given an incredible amount of credence going before congress from the news media?
Frank Zappa: Not really because here’s what happened, I testified, well I was on the stand maybe 40 minutes and I read my prepared statement for amount 10 minutes and then asked some questions. And out of all that the only thing that CNN ran on the air was the… When Slade Gorton this apoplectic Republican from Washington state who I guess was the designated hit-man on the team. See under the senate rules you can’t speak unless spoken to and unless the guy asked you a question you can’t open your mouth, so when it was his turn to ask a question, instead of asking a question he made a speech which basically was, “Mr. Zappa you don’t anything about the first amendment”. And that’s all he said and that’s all CNN ran.
Marc Allan: Oh.
Frank Zappa: You see what I mean.
Marc Allan: Yeah no word about the TV Networks and New York Times things like that, was the coverage more balanced?
Frank Zappa: I’m not sure that it was. I’ll tell you one place that was really very unbalanced was in Rolling Stone. Because prior to the senate hearing Rolling Stone which is basically financed by the record industry took a pro PMRC stance, I don’t know whether you know that part of recent American History. Before the senate hearings occurred, they had an article that was kinda pro PMRC and the reason was that the record companies had always intended to cave-in on this because they were trying to protect a piece of legislation called the Blind Tape Tax. And so the editorial spin as far as Rolling Stone went when they first covered the issue of record ratings was basically on the side of the PMRC which very shocking thing to find in a rock and roll publication of any description. So after the senate hearings occurred, I was getting short shrift in a reportage of the senate hearing and the major positive puffery in a piece was given to Danny Goldstein who wasn’t even there and…
Marc Allan: Who is that? I don’t know who that is.
Frank Zappa: He’s a guy who at that time was running an outfit called Gold Mountain Records and had made some anti censorship statements and eventually became the head of the ACLU in Southern California, he wasn’t then. But he was like a record industry guy.
Marc Allan: Oh I don’t know, that seems strange.
Frank Zappa: Well all you gotta do is go back and look at the coverage and you’ll see that I’m not making this up.
Marc Allan: No no.
Frank Zappa: The other thing that was very odd about what Rolling Stone did with it, in that second article the second major article which came out after the senate hearings they had like kind of a Rolling Stone editorial point of view which was enclosed in a box inserted into the article. Basically what they had in the box was gleamed from my testimony with not credit given to me for the source of the stuff. It was just a weird thing.
Marc Allan: Are you in a position where you could call Rolling Stone and find out why that happened?
Frank Zappa: I don’t even care because you know my basic speculation is that Rolling Stone is an extension of the personality of the guy who runs it. Although I’ve never met this man I don’t think he likes me very much based on how they’ve covered me and the way they’ve treated me over the years. Knowing that all publications live or die by the revenue offered by the advertisers, if your publication is basically owing its existence to major record manufacturers I think that there has to be a certain amount of input into the editorial policy from those guys.
Marc Allan: Alright. On the other hand, one other question in this vain and that is when you were on The Tonight Show, I thought that you got a pretty tremendous reception from the audience, they seem to be in support of what you were saying.
Frank Zappa: Well that’s the discrepancy that has always freaked, because the way in which I’m treated in so called Mainstream Press is always to regard me as a lunatic. I’m the convenient lunatic whenever they want to have the whole of an example of what you shouldn’t be as an American they’ll often point to me. But if I get in front of a, let’s say an audience like a Johnny Carson audience which is not very would you say.
Marc Allan: I would agree with that.
Frank Zappa: They know me and they like me and they treat me like I’m okay like I’m a human being, and this is a, this kind of reception is at odds with the official line that is deucedly maintained by all Mainstream Press. The only reason that I can see that this continues it’s an editorial policy which is decided for political reasons.
Marc Allan: Onto other things. Any thoughts on turning 50?
Frank Zappa: Well I’ve already turned 50.
Marc Allan: Yeah I realize that, but what you know just seems to be kind of a threshold. You turned 50, Bob Dylan turned 50 and I wonder if you go through any trauma.
Frank Zappa: I didn’t.
Marc Allan: No, okay.
Frank Zappa: Didn’t go through any trauma when I turned 20, turned 30 or turned 40, you know I hope I get to turn 60.
Marc Allan: Yeah. So not exactly a milestone in your life?
Frank Zappa: No.
Marc Allan: In over the 25 years, you done anything that you’d like to take back?
Frank Zappa: No not really.
Marc Allan: Nothing in the lyrics or anything you’ve said or anything you’ve done, nothing?
Frank Zappa: Well there’s certain things I might have said in a different way you know. But basically there it is.
Marc Allan: Can you give me an idea of what that might be?
Frank Zappa: Well I think I probably would’ve handled the song Jewish Princess in a different way. Not that I wouldn’t have written it but based on all the uproar that came afterwards I think I might’ve maybe made it stronger.
Marc Allan: Yeah that’s another one of those kind of crazy things that blew up over really nothing.
Frank Zappa: Well yes. Very difficult not out of a molehill. They demanded that I apologize for doing it and I told them no. I guess there’s not too many Americans who will stand up to an organization like that and say no, and if you look at the way politicians cave-in whenever the… That law begets a hold of them, they quake in their boots.
Marc Allan: Yeah when Alan Dershowitz was on the radio last night he was saying somebody called, I think it was on Larry King and somebody called and said, “would you think about running for the senate in Massachusetts?” And he said, “politicians are not free to say what they want, I like to say what I want”.
Frank Zappa: Well I respect Alan Dershowitz I don’t always like the people that he represents but Alan Dershowitz is a Talmudic scholar that’s what he was before he became a lawyer. I think that he’s got a lot of depth and his appreciation for the constitution is really quite fundamental, I’m always interested in what he has to say. I think that he does say what’s on his mind, I don’t always agree with it but this is a guy with a brain and I’m glad that he gets a chance to be on television, because there are too few guys with brains any place on television.
Marc Allan: Do you think you’re intimidating?
Frank Zappa: To some people sure.
Marc Allan: I take it that, is that good?
Frank Zappa: No it’s just a fact.
Marc Allan: Yeah. I wondered if that works to your advantage or your disadvantage.
Frank Zappa: Depends on the situation, I mean I’m really not a one of these guys who thinks about power lunch or whether you have a psychological advantage over somebody. I don’t deal in that world, I mean I do what I do, I am what I am, if you like it fine, if you don’t that’s fine too. The people who are usually intimidated by me if they can ever get over it they wind up liking me. You see most people don’t know me that is also a fact, a statistical fact.
Marc Allan: Yeah well.
Frank Zappa: What they do know about me is a product of what they really read about me or what they’ve heard about me or something, very little of that has to do with reality. It’s possible that any intimidating aspect of my personality is a figment of their imagination, not something that I projected.
Marc Allan: I think you’re right, you’re probably as misunderstood as anybody because of selected things that are said or written about you. I remember I think it was Dave Barry the Columnist for the Miami Herald read something about your appearance before congress and said, well I think he said well in general he agreed with what you had to say, he said you were also a guy who once wrote a song about having sex with a rutabaga.
Frank Zappa: That’s not even accurate.
Marc Allan: Yeah I think he was joking but I.
Frank Zappa: But you know sounds like a good idea for a song though.
Marc Allan: Yeah. In the book you said there are several reasons why my music has never really been explained in the Press, for one thing people don’t care how it works or why it works and I care so can you explain it?
Frank Zappa: Well I think that it’s gonna rely on the book that there’s probably better explanation and more detailed explanation in there and rather than have me answer it off the cuff use the precise terminology that’s in the book, that would be the best way to do it.
Marc Allan: You also say in the book, “I’m not a virtuoso guitar player at night you still have to look at the neck to see what you’re playing”. Which comes as something of a surprise at least to me, because I always thought of you as one of the more amazing guitar players.
Frank Zappa: Well the thing that’s amazing about what I play is that I manage to get away with it.
Marc Allan: Yeah well that’s…
Frank Zappa: A lot of wiggling your fingers and hoping that you get it right involved in there. And I really am not a virtuoso but I can’t read music and I don’t practice and I can’t play anything, virtuoso’s can play anything, I can’t, I can only play what I imagine. And there’s something interesting about what I play it has more to do with what I’ve imagined then my technique.
Marc Allan: So how does that work? You hear it in your head or you’re thinking about the sound that you’d like to create and then you go about trying to create it?
Frank Zappa: Well it’s situational. And it’s also kind of Ouija board like. You know you have to have a optimum environment in order to play a really good solo. If the collective expression you are at the mercy of the room or section. If they are sensitive and in tune with what you’re doing and happen to dire to make what you’re doing sound good then you can produce good music, if their just scrumbling through their day then no matter what you play it’s gonna come out half-assed. Because it doesn’t mesh with the rhythm.
Marc Allan: Okay let me give you a song if I can if you could tell me how Black Napkins is one that I’m real interested in. How did that come about?
Frank Zappa: Well Black Napkins was a piece that I wrote and that’s a planned piece of music. The solo itself is an improvisation, but you know it’s one of the first tunes that I wrote for the guitar, the guitar solo instrumental.
Marc Allan: That’s one of those songs where when I hear it you know it just shakes you up, because the playing is like nothing else. I’ve never heard guitar played that way and I guess I think it’s really great, but I also…
Frank Zappa: I played that song every night on that tour practically.
Marc Allan: Yeah.
Frank Zappa: You know some nights it was better than the recording, some nights it was not. That was the smallest band that I ever had on the road I think. Pretty compact just bass, drums, keyboard, sax and me. So maybe during that tour I had to put a little bit more effort into what I was playing because there wasn’t anything else.
Marc Allan: How we doing time-wise, because I got a bunch more stuff I want to ask?
Frank Zappa: Well you can go on until somebody says, “Frank you gotta get out of here”. I do have another appointment that I have to go to but they haven’t buzzed me yet.
Marc Allan: Okay let me ask you about some songs, projects and lyrics and you can’t tell me whatever…
Frank Zappa: By the way I’m glad to hear that about Black Napkins, I always liked that song too, want an anecdote about that?
Marc Allan: Yeah sure.
Frank Zappa: We were playing in New Jersey and this is I guess in the late 70s. We were in this small theater and a woman, I guess she was in her 40s asked to come backstage and talk with me. So the guard let her in and she was really very nice and she showed me a picture of her son. He had just died he wanted to be buried in my tshirt and he wanted to have Black Napkins played at his funeral.
Marc Allan: Wow!
Frank Zappa: And so she wanted to meet me. That’ll shake you up before you go back on stage.
Marc Allan: Yeah did you accommodate her?
Frank Zappa: Well yeah.
Marc Allan: I’d give her a tshirt I mean basically is…
Frank Zappa: No he had the tshirt.
Marc Allan: Oh he had the tshirt I see. I thought he wanted your tshirt. Oh okay.
Frank Zappa: She wanted to tell me that you know, the impact that that song had had on her son. Okay so listen I’ve just been given a notice and this is the last question.
Marc Allan: Oh boy okay, well then my last question is, is music better or worse than when you started? And I don’t mean your music I mean music in general.
Frank Zappa: Well if you’re talking about the known musical universe in other words what you can hear on the radio and what they show you on MTV it is way worse. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good things out there that we don’t know about it’s just that the broadcasters are not letting us find out about it. Because it’s hard for me to believe that all the sudden with the advent of MTV all good songs ceased to be written, all good bands ceased to be formed. I just don’t think that nature works that way. In some place there’s good musicians and good composers and good tunes all over this country and other countries, we just don’t know about them because the people who determine what you get to see and hear have no taste.
Marc Allan: Let me squeeze one other one if I can, you’ve been a great facilitator on a critical number of amazing players that have been in your bands over the years. Are they people that you generally find do you hold open auditions how do you get the people who have come through your band?
Frank Zappa: Well I’m not doing it anymore that’s for sure.
Marc Allan: Yeah.
Frank Zappa: But yeah we used to hold open auditions.
Marc Allan: Yeah how did you, and Lowell George, how did he come to you?
Frank Zappa: Well I knew him when he had a band called The Factory and I produced two tunes for him in 1965 or 1966 and he was a musician on the LA scene so I knew him before he got into the band.
Marc Allan: I interviewed him just before he died and he said that he had come to you at one point and said “I’ve written some songs”, and you basically said to him, “great you want to write your own songs, start your own band”. Is that true?
Frank Zappa: No that’s not true actually. I helped him get his contract at Warner Brothers. What kind of drugs he was using at the end there you know, I think that a lot of people who are in that early band took it as a positive career move to say negative things about me in whatever interviews they can do but I think it could be researched and discovered that Little Feet wouldn’t have had a contract at Warner Brothers if it hadn’t been for me helping him get it and I knew him that he wrote songs, and everybody who writes should have a chance to record their own songs, why should he do it as a member of another band, he had his own band before he was in my band, why shouldn’t he form another one and go do his own thing? Because at that time The Original Mothers Of Invention had broken up that was around 69 so what was he gonna do?
Marc Allan: Yeah so, anyway I really appreciate your time and I’m glad that, I never thought that I’d have a chance to talk to you so I’m really glad that I did and I hope I get a chance another time because there are a bunch more things I wanted to ask you.
Frank Zappa: Okay well the future lies ahead, Mort Sahl said that.
Marc Allan: Okay thanks a lot Frank, take care, bye-bye.