Z
Music For Pets (Zappa)
An interview with Dweezil Zappa
by Nik Rainey
Never underestimate the power of genetics. The two minds behind the project known simply as Z, Dweezil Zappa (lead guitar/vocals) and his kid brother Ahmet (vocals), come from the same gene pool that produced some of the most iconoclastic rock music ever recorded, a body of work that pasted together influences and motifs like a crazed Dada collage. Now that Dada is no longer with us, it is up to Z to carry on that musical legacy, jamming together elements both fashionable and unpopular in an absurdist quilt stitched together with the same obsessive attention to detail that ran through papa Frank’s work. Their second album, Music For Pets (Zappa), marks the first time that a rock band has geared their music specifically for the domestic animal market, with smashing success. Perhaps Cindy Crawford, co-host (with a puppy) of the Music For Pets infomercial, put it best: “Finally, an album both of us can enjoy.” But don’t just take a mole-dotted supermodel’s word for it; let’s hear what Dweezil has to say.
What is the overriding concept behind Music For Pets? Are dogs, cats, and gerbils are buying records these days?
They are the consumers of the future. We wanna be on the cutting-edge of that new industry.
Have you gotten much response behind it?
It is so popular in the animal kingdom, it’s insane. I think it’s ’cause they’re so grateful that finally somebody’s making records for them, you know.
True. I hear it’s one of the top ten albums amongst lemurs.
Lemurs just go nuts for it. They’re always standing on their back feet, smelling the air when it’s playing.
Which is pretty much the same response I had. Those are your dogs on the cover, I take it.
Yeah, Arkansas and Bing Jang. They actually play bass and guitar on the album, and I gotta say, they’re not too shabby. And of course, they’re damn fine looking animals, which helps for that ever-important bitch appeal. Gotta have that.
Is the Duckman thing still going pretty strong? (Dweezil provides the voice of Duckman’s cretinous son, Ajax, on the USA Network animated series.)
It is. I guess it is. You know, I’ve actually never seen the show. They tell me it’s on at 10:30 on Saturdays or something, but I’m usually busy then. It sounds funny when I record it, at least. You know, I work about an hour a week on that and each show doesn’t air for about nine months. That’s the trend with all my stuff – this new album is really about three years old, which is why I have to be working on something constantly. Otherwise I’d probably be getting into guns, sniping part-time or something. Which might not be so bad – I hear it pays well.
Sure, if you can hit it just right so the pocketbooks fly up. Anyway, you two were involved in one of the greatest moments ever aired on TV, and I gotta ask you about it…
You must mean the time we played Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard” with John Tesh on the Conan O’Brien show. Yeah, it’s every boy’s dream. I approached him backstage about it before the show and he thought it was a cool idea, so I taught it to him, we had a real quick rehearsal with him and Max Weinberg’s band, and it almost didn’t work because, surprisingly, he didn’t seem to know the song that well. But it came out okay. It was so wrong, it was right.
You two seem to be practically regulars on that show.
We’ve done six or seven appearances, but we haven’t been on it for several months now. We’ll be back on it some time when we have something new to talk about. The last six or seven times we talked about Music For Pets! I think we’d better have another project before we go back.
I don’t know, I think it’d just be nice to see Ahmet put on the Rudolph nose and leap over the couch again…
That was the turning point in our relationship with that show. They used to give us two long segments to play around in, and then Ahmet told the story about waking up on Christmas morning with his butt bleeding after Santa, ah, came. Suddenly, after that appearance, our segments were shorter. I’m not sure why. Maybe people don’t like it when you talk about Santa that way. Look what happened to Larry Flynt after he printed that cartoon showing Santa with a huge erection. He got shot!
Geez, you’d think Santa’d be flattered.
I don’t know, maybe Santa’s got some issues, man. I suspect the word came down from the top and he just had his minions carry it out, those troglodyte elves of his. What’s up with the beard, anyway? What’s he do all year? Maybe he’s a drug lord or something.
Santafly. Before we get whacked, maybe we’d better change the subject. What does the immediate future hold for you guys?
I don’t know what our release schedule’s going to be. We’re restructuring the way we run the record company, and we’re hoping to put out maybe two records a year. There’s such an abundance of material, I don’t know where it comes from sometimes. Like with Music For Pets, there’re essentially two versions of that, one American, one European, both completely different. Then there’s the bonus disc here in America with the stuff from the European release, as well as stuff that isn’t on either! So we have to find a way to get it all out there.
Like the project I keep hearing about, what is it, an album of continuous guitar solos?
It’s called What the Hell Was I Thinking? It’s one long piece, seventy-five minutes long, that I’ve been working on for the last five years. Just all of my favorite guitarists dropping in their tracks. I’m waiting now for a couple more, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and a couple other guys, then I can do all the bits that I have to do and mix it down.
How many guitarists do you have on it so far?
About thirty-five, forty so far. Edward Van Halen, Brian May, Malcolm Young, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Warren DiMartini, Albert Lee, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian Setzer… it’s hard to even remember who all is on there. But there’re a few of my friends on there, people you haven’t heard of. Like this Eddie Van Halen guy, I don’t know much about him but I’ve heard he’s good. That’s what they tell me.
And they should know.
They always do.
