Guitar World Interviews Frank Zappa - 1982

                                BY JOHN SWENSON


     GW: How do you feel about the current state of your guitar-playing?

     FZ: I'm playing my ass off. It has definitely improved.

     GW:  Is  there  a  point  where you can actually feel yourself jumping
     beyond anything you were capable of in the past?

     FZ:  Well,  the funny thing about the way  I  play  is  that  I  never
     practise. And every time a tour ends and I put my guitar away, I don't
     touch it until the next season's rehearsals.  And every time I pick it
     up  it's  like  learning  to  play  all  over again.  I don't have any
     calluses,  it hurts,  I can't bend the string,  the guitar  feels  too
     heavy when I put it on.

     I  just  had a nine-month layoff where I lost all my technique.  Then,
     suddenly, one night I didn't have a problem.  I just went out there on
     stage  and  started  blasting away.  I think I've actually exceeded my
     goals on a couple of nights.

     GW: Can you describe how that feels?

     FZ:  Well,  it's great.  You get to the point where you know you  have
     just  said  something  that  nobody  has  ever heard before.  And it's
     recorded - you can play it for  someone  later  and  say,  "Would  you
     believe that on such and such a night,  at such and such a time, under
     these circumstances, this occurred?"

     I am looking for things that are unlikely.  Rhythmic events  that  are
     unlikely.  Melodic events that are unlikely.  You've already heard all
     the good licks that all the good guitar players play.  You've  already
     heard  every  pentatonic scale there ever was.  You have heard all the
     chromatic scales that ever were.  You've heard the Aeolian mode played
     with  a  muted  palm of the hand.  You have heard all of the nice bent
     notes. You have heard clean playing, accurate playing.  You have heard
     it all. I don't give a shit about that stuff. I want to play what's on
     my mind,  and I think  I  succeed  when  I  can  directly  convert  my
     compositional  idea  into sound patterns right there on stage.  And if
     the rest of the band accompanies that properly so that it supports the
     musical idea, then I did it.

     But  there's  a  lot  of variables,  because it means that everyone on
     stage has to hear each  other  enough  and  everybody  else's  musical
     imagination  is tuned into what I'm doing.  You don't have any go-for-
     your-selfers out there,  because that is what usually ruins a  solo  -
     the  drummer  overplays,  or  the  bass  player or the keyboard player
     overplays.  If they don't have enough sensitivity to what I'm doing or
     if they aren't smart enough to track the direction I'm going in,  it's
     like dragging an anchor.

     GW:  Does it bother you that you are not revered  as  a  great  guitar
     player?

     FZ: But I AM revered as a great guitar player by at least four or five
     people. And that's better than none.

     GW:  What I meant is that,  whereas somebody like Eddie Van Halen  can
     become a big star...

     FZ: Eddie Van Halen is a good guitar player.  He's entitled to all the
     adulation  he  can  acquire.  There's a lot of good guitar players out
     there.  But I'll guarantee you that I am the only person doing what  I
     am doing. Because I don't approach it as a guitar star. I go out there
     to play compositions.  I want to take a chord  change  or  a  harmonic
     climate  and  build a composition on the spur of the moment that makes
     sense, that takes some chances. That goes some place where nobody else
     wanted  to go,  that says things that nobody else wanted to say,  that
     represents my musical personality. That has some emotional content and
     speaks to the people who want to hear it.  And the ones who don't want
     to hear it,  who don't like guitar stuff,  can forget it;  it will  be
     over in a minute and I'll be back to another part of the song.  That's
     what it's all about.

     Actually,  a lot of people can't stand to  hear  me  play  the  guitar
     because of my unusual use of rhythm.  You know, everybody wants to tap
     their foot, and when I go crazy they lose continuity. They can't count
     it,  they  can't  think it,  they can't feel it - so they just totally
     reject it. They want that nice, safe, straight up and down stuff.  And
     there is tons of it to go around. Just don't come to me for it.

     GW:  A  lot of people who were once completely mystified by your music
     have caught up to it.

     FZ:  Some people have caught up to it to the point where they can tell
     that it's music; they don't immediately reject it anymore. But whether
     they have caught up to it to the point where they can comprehend it is
     a  matter  for  further discussion.  Because I don't think they really
     understand it - I don't think they know WHY it's done or how it works.
     I  don't  think they want it to work,  because if they understood what
     was really going on,  then they would have to reject everything  else.
     Because  what  I  think I am doing is the best solution to the musical
     problems that are set up at the time. I am going for optimum solutions
     to musical problems. And I think I am doing it the right way.

     I  am  providing  good  solutions.  Okay,  I  think  other  people are
     providing  really  safe,   really  boring,   but  entirely   competent
     solutions.  To  me,  a  lot  of  other  people  sound  like  the aural
     equivalent of a clowns-on-velvet painting.  You know what I  mean?  If
     you  have  a  piece  of  blank,  black  velvet and wanted to solve the
     problem of it being blank,  you'd paint a nice clown on velvet  there.
     SOMEBODY obviously likes that stuff. And there it is for them. That is
     not my solution. I'm going for something else.

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