Zappa’s Universe - Part III

Steve Vai Exactly. Right before Frank passed away, he was putting together this project which tentatively was going to consist of myself, [drummer] Terry Bozzio and [bassist] Scott Thunes, along with the Ensemble Moderne [a European classical Chamber group featured on The Yellow Shark (Rykodisc, 1993) and Civilization Phaze III (Barking Pumpkin, 1995)]. We were going to put together a program of all of his most complex music. I was really excited about it, and I said to Frank, "You know, I can play this stuff much better than I ever could before." I got all of the scores together, and I brought them with me on my Sex and Religion tour. Unfortunately, his health went downhill very quickly.
Mike Keneally I saw Zappa's Universe [a touring big band that performs Zappa compositions] as an opportunity to return to that material from a better perspective than I had when I first played with Frank.
G W What was it like to be out on the road with Frank?
Steve Vai In the first band I was in, in 1980, Frank was different from the way he was in later years. Back in 1980, we were like a roving youth gang, Frank included. He went everywhere with us. We'd go out to all these clubs -- if you didn't go out, you were a pussy -- and it was a ball. Frank was really a teenager at heart.
Mike Keneally By the time I got there, it was his last rock tour, and he was very weary of having to deal with the kind of interpersonal squabbling going on. He was spending so much money to make the whole thing happen, and I think it drained him profoundly. By that time, Frank always stayed in different hotels from the rest of the band, and I don't think I experienced the same kind of camaraderie with Frank described by Steve.
G W How did Frank go about teaching his music to the band?
Steve Vai He used every method imaginable: he'd use charts, he'd use tapes, and sometimes he would just stand there and create, which was always the most fun. Frank was a composer who had a total and complete knowledge of the written note, so the charts could be very detailed and very specific. Sometimes he would use the guitar as a tool to compose, but usually, when he did that, he had the band around him and used the guitar to show people what notes or chords to play on their instruments.
G W He'd use the guitar as an arranging tool?
Steve Vai Yes. But when he composed his orchestral music, he'd usually sit at the piano and plunk through stuff. In one of the first conversations I ever had with him, I asked him how he learned what he knew about music. He told me to buy a book called Music Notation, by Garnder Read, and study it. He also said that I'd have to learn to play the piano if I wanted to be a composer.
G W How did Frank play the piano?
Steve Vai He was more of a composer than a performer, as virtually all composers are. He didn't really play the piano, per se; you'd never hear him sit down and play the Beatles' "Hey Jude.". He'd use the piano as a compositional tool. I've seen him compose orchestral pieces while sitting in an airport, or while flying in a plane. He'd sit with blank music paper and write music all the time. In 1981, on the American tour, every minute offstage that you saw Frank, he was writing music down on paper.
He was really very private about his compositions. Not that he was trying to hide anything, but for someone to ask to look at something was like asking, "Can I read your diary?" One time I came over and asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Nothing." And I thought, uh oh, I guess I pushed a button. So I sat down and shut up, and the next thing you know he said to me, "Come 'ere."
I sat down next to him. "These are 'densities,'" he said, and showed me these huge, odd chord structures, eight- and 10-note chords with no repeated notes. I'd never heard him discuss how he created music, or the techniques that he used, but now he started to explain what he was doing. With regard to dissonance and the tempered scale, if you start stacking large groups of unrelated notes, you can get some horrible-sounding chords, or some lushly dissonant, exotic chordal perversions. He showed me some of the different scales he was utilizing, and the melodies, and he said that when he got home, he'd type these chords into the computer [the Synclavier, which Zappa, starting in the early-Eighties, used to construct a variety of compositions]. This was when he started to put stuff togethr for Jazz From Hell [Rykodisc, 1986]. He allowed me to peek into his world for a second.
G W How would you rate Frank as a music reader?
Steve Vai He was not a sight reader. Being a composer and being a music reader, or a sight reader, are entirely different skills. Frank knew exactly what his music was going to sound like as he was writing it. His compositional abilities were extremely evolved.
Mike Keneally It's highly unusual for composers to sight-read at all; like Steve says, it's a completely different discipline. The ability to put notes on paper is a laborious process. Composing takes forever, and it's not about speed but endurance.
G W "The Black Page" was written first as a drum solo, and then Frank used those rhythms to write a melody. Would you say that the rhythmically complex nature of many of his melodies was a function of his experience as a drummer?
Mike Keneally It came from the fact that drums were his first instrument, and it came from his love of Edgar Varése's music. There are certain melodic intervals and orchestration techniques that Frank absorbed from listening to Varése, and this is definitely apparent in terms of his use of percussion. Frank's orchestral work is heavily percussive.
G W Frank was clearly an incredibly unique guitar player. How would you assess his soloing style?
Steve Vai Frank often spoke of his guitar solos as "instant compositions", and he never followed any standard conventions of guitar soloing. He was not an "eighth note" guy, to say the least. One time we were doing a soundcheck for one of the Halloween shows in New York, and he was soloing on "Zoot Allures." He was so on, it was amazing -- I was stunned. He was playing his "Hendrix" Strat [Zappa owned a Stratocaster that was previously owned--and burned in Miami--by Jimi Hendrix]. I was totally blown away, and, after he was done, I went up to him and said, "Frank, I've never seen anything like that before in my entire life. I can't even imagine being able to do that." What I meant was, I couldn't imagine ever sounding that inspired on the instrument. And he said, "Well, don't worry-- I'll never play 'Montana,' either." [laughs]
G W What were your personal relationships with Frank like?
Steve Vai I think he appreciated any musician with a genuine respect for music in general, as well as respect for his music. He cherished the roles of composer and bandleader, and he was impressed with people who understood that, and understood their roles. In the studio, I was like a precious piece of clay that he could mold into what he needed.
It was the same being on stage with him. Now, when Mike and I go on stage, we play to the audience, we play with each other and we listen to each other. When you played with Frank, you were focussed only on him: every foot move, every baton movement, every little raise of the eyebrow. All you wanted to do was impress him with the way that you playd his music. Nothing else mattered.
Mike Keneally By the time I was around, socializing with the band was not a big priority for him. He'd always say that he didn't have any friends, which was one of his stock lines. I can imagine that he went through life without being involved with many people on a social level. But he was kind, sensitive and understanding enough to realize that it meant a lot to people whe he'd put himself out for them.
During my initial rehearsal stages with Frank, before we went out on the road, I spent a lot more time with him because we'd often go out and get dinner together. We'd go to Hampton's Burger Place on Highland...
Steve Vai Yeah, I used to get burritos with him! He'd say that he didn't have friends, but he was forever the entertainer. If he captured you in his studio, he'd have you there for hours, playing music and just talking. He was a great talker. Completely, thoroughly interesting--interested--and understanding. He knew where to take the conversation because he could evaluate who he was talking to.
Mike Keneally As the other member of that equation, it was impossible to feel completely free to speak your mind, because everything Frank said was this finely honed gem. You'd search the deepest levels of your intellect, your heart and your knowledge to think of something to say that would be worth his time.
Steve Vai Yeah, exactly. Up until the very last day I saw him, which was very shortly before he died, he'd walk across the room and I'd feel a presence that was beyond measure, right there in front of me. Even though we'd sit and talk about anything and everything, he remained a larger-than-life figure.
Mike Keneally In those contexts, if you could think of anything to say that was even mildly stimulating, or funny, that was a huge accomplishment. Frank had this amazing way of saying just the right thing at the right time to lift you up.
Steve Vai Always. He really would. Frank had the uncanny ability to say things that had the perfect balance of directness, truth, cynicism and comedy, all in one concise sentence.
Back when Passion and Warfare came out, the record company interviewed a bunch of different people for this big advertisement. When it came to Frank's quote, there were only three words, but no one else could have said these three words and made me feel like I'd really accomplished something. He said, "He did good." There was no better press than that.
G W Though it is a terrible tragedy that he passed away so young, you must feel grat joy in the fact that you had the opportunity to play with him.
Steve Vai It's something that I will always cherish. Frank's music will live on for decades to come. It will forever be studied by scholars and enjoyed by the masses. It's timeless; any one of his records could be released today and still be relevant, still be groundbreaking. He was a real musician--a composer--and that is virtually non-existent in music these days.