Zappa Interviews

This page is devoted to all fans of Frank Zappa and future music investigators who hopefully will say to contemporary musiclisteners that there was a clever guy during 2000 century who actually could write music. Yes, Frank Zappa is probably one of this century  most well-informed musician and composer. Some of his abilities were for example:

- almost all his broad and large catalogue was written, composed, arranged and produced by himself.

- he won respect among many guitarist in the way he played rock guitar and he also won respect in the classical scene with his classical compositions.

- he had a good political awareness and among other things he met the president of Checkoslovakia Vaclav Havel for discussion for further cultural cooperation between Checkoslovakia and US.

- he was called for hearing at the US senate at the time when political forces in the US tried to censor lyrics on the records.

Name another musician with the same broad knowledge. Prince, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Madonna?  Surprise me and mail me some suggestion if You have any.

Well, here is some interviews from Swedish and Danish radio. 

Zappa explain the secret meaning of the words to Bobby Brown

Zappa and his relation to folkmusic

Zappa and his 50:th birthday

Kent Nagano tells about his cooperation with Olivier Messiaen and Zappa

Zappa about his overpaid musicians

Zappa makes comments on news media and satellite technics

Zappa explain the secret meaning of the words to Bobby Brown

This is an extract from an interview in Swedish Radio, from a programme called Nightflite (circus 1980), and this interview was made after the release of Joe´s Garage. Here he explain the words to Bobby Brown, and when I heard it 1980 and got the text explained, I had to laugh.

(Sw-En) means a translation from Swedish to English.

Introduction to the programme

FZ: Hello, this is Frank Zappa and You´re listening to a very special programme where in I will explain the secret meaning of the words to Bobby Brown.

Reporter: (Sw-En): As You maybe know, Frank Zappa has been in town recently and our reporter Ola met him as a matter of fact.

Later in the programme

Reporter: (Sw-En): Frank Zappa tells that he during 1979 released 7 LP´s, and the three latest of them was titled Joe´s Garage part 1, 2 and 3. On my question what Joe´s Garage stands for, he answered this:

FZ: In the United States there are many garage bands. You know what garage is?

Reporter: Yeah

FZ: In England they call them church hall bands. But people who just…when they just learning how to play, they go out in the garage and turn up their amplifier. And they get their first set of drums and beats on them and You practise until You can play rock´n roll. Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages.

(A little Green Rosetta was played)

Reporter: (S-E) I also asked him about the wellknown song Bobby Brown and why it became a hit only here in Scandinavia.

FZ: As a matter of fact. It´s so unusual. I suggested to Stan from CBS, what they should do, is to hire an anthropologist from a major university and bring him to Scandinavia to examine the people here and find out why such a thing could happen. Because it´s very unusual.

Reporter (Sw-En): There are some funny words in the song and I asked him what Tower of Power is. Considering my old aunt I let Zappa himself explain the word.

FZ: The Tower of Power is a..... You know what S&M is?

Reporter: Yeah

FZ: It´s a S&M device that they sell at a store in Los Angeles. It´s a stool... small stool, You know to sit on. That has this spindle that comes up, that´s sticks up Your asshole and it has straps on the legs of the stool where You supposed to put a persons ankle into the straps on the edge of the stool. And they actually sell this thing there and it´s called the Tower of Power.

Reporter: Is Bobby Brown someone special guy?

FZ: No. It´s actually talking about that device, cause the words in the song says "I can take about an hour on the Tower of Power, as long as I get a little golden shower". You know what a golden shower is?

Reporter: No.

FZ: Golden shower is a sexual abberation or sexual activity, where one person pisses on another person. So You get the idea that Bobby Brown in this song as the result of following the advice of Womens Liberation, has wound up sitting on a stool with a thing up his ass while somebody pisses on him. And that´s why I think that´s unusual that the song is so popular here. I mean, when I go to a disco and see people dancing the Bobby Brown, I had to laugh.

Reporter: (Sw-En): Yes, You heard that Frank Zappa said it was strange that the song became a hit here in Sweden regarding the fact that Womens Liberations got this sneer from him in the song Bobby Brown. We returned to peoples reactions to the words in Bobby Brown and I wondered if some religious aspects was the reason for the negative reaction. Not for a moment, he would agree on that.

FZ: Let´s be honest about it. Words can´t hurt You and there´s nothing in that song that should offend anybody´s religious sensibilities. That song talks about things that are real, You know. And if You going to live in a world and deal with the world in a real way, You should face up to what actually goes on. The story of Bobby Brown may not be something that happens every day in Sweden, but I wouldn´t be surprised if there are few Bobby Browns out there. And somebody should write about them.

Reporter: (Sw-En): Regarding religious aspects and the political situation in the world, Frank Zappa say this:

FZ: It´s a terrible thing in the world today that religion generates most of the problems. Everytime You turn around and there´s a threat of war, it´s not based on money, it´s based on religion and that´s not what religion should be used for.

Reporter: (Sw-En): And finally he will only say one thing more:

FZ: I want to thank all the people in Sweden who has enjoyed Bobby Brown and Dancin´ Fool, for whatever reasons. I´m glad You liked it and I hope that maybe there are some songs on the other albums that You´ll likes as much. I´m always pleased if somebody likes the music.

Zappa and his relation to folkmusic

This short interview with Frank Zappa, was from Swedish Radio and from a recurrent programme about folkmusic. This programme was broadcasted in december 1990 but the question to Frank Zappa must have been done during the tour in 1988.

(Sw-En) means a translation from Swedish to English

Canard du Jour was played

Reporter: (Sw-En): Here is Frank Zappa on Bouzouki with the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Yesterday Frank Zappa played at Johanneshov. The day before yesterday, it was rumoured that there was a press conference during Saturday evening. I rush off there, met Zappas bodyguards who stopped me abrupt on the stairs. But after some dispute, I was allowed to ask one question, guess which?

Reporter: Mr Zappa, what is folk music to You?

FZ: It is been one of the most important influences in my career. It is one of the things I really enjoy listening to, especially Bulgarian folk music, and... Indian music. It´s my two favourites.

Reporter: Is it a living thing to You?

FZ: It´s hard to tell wheter or not. The records that I receive are documents of living things, but it is music that... You know makes me feel good when I listen to it. But it is hard to tell, especially in terms of the Bulgarian music whether or not it folk music or folk style music which has been rearranged for recording.

Reporter: When You talk about Bulgarian music. Are You talking about the record "Le Mysterie de voix Bulgarie"?

FZ: Well, I have other records. I don´t even owing that one. I know that record, but I have many other records that I´ve collected over the years of Bulgarian folk music, like "Village music of Bulgaria". It´s an electric release and another one called "Folk music of Bulgaria". I have maybe four different Bulgarian albums. And then recently, a painter in Bulgaria sent me a collection of five Bulgarian albums, made in that country. Bulgarian pressings which is not all that good. One was from the "Bulgarka folktrio", You know these ladies?

Reporter: Yeah

FZ: Yeah, and another one was a Bulgarian trumpet soloist, whose name I can´t remember and then two groups, two musical groups.

End of interview

Zappa and his 50:th birthday

This interview was made 20 december 1990 in Swedish Radio P2. The interviewers was Lars Bryngelsson and Anders Olsén.

INTERVIEWERS: Hello Frank Zappa and welcome to the National Swedish Radio from Stockholm

FZ: Thank You so much

INTERVIEWERS: Then, I would really like to say from the Swedish radio and all Your fans in Sweden and Scandinavia - Happy Birthday

FZ: Thank You very much. I´m glad I made it this far.

INTERVIEWERS: (Laugh) Yeah. Frank! First question is easy. How does it feel to be fifty years old?

FZ: Well.. I know.. I know more about that in a couple of hours, but to be almost 50 years old is not that bad.

INTERVIEWERS: Yeah. How do You manage to reach this so far?

FZ: Eh.. Well I think it´s... if You talking about advice for health and diet and so forth, You´re not gonna get it from me because I´ll eat just about anything and smoke about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day and drink a lot of strong coffe, but other than that I don´t use any drugs or alcohol so maybe that´s how You get to be 50 years old.

INTERVIEWERS: I thougt more about Your continues struggle against the big society in America.

FZ: Well, I don´t know whether struggling against American Society will guarantee that You get to be fifty, I mean there been other people who struggled against the US government in this country and wound up to be disappeared.

INTERVIEWERS: Concerning Your own statement about plastic people. Do we still need to "freak out" to become real human beings?

FZ: Well I don´t know whether the word "freak out" is the proper one to use but I´ll garantee that there is plastic people everywhere, and I wouldn´t say it was just George Bush or just Dan Quayle or just James Baker the third or Dick Chaney or any of those other characters. I mean... just about every government You can find, has certain plastic person representatives talked the way in it... I think that... what is being lost during this tail-end of the twentieth century, is the will on the part of the especially the average American to be an individual. There are people seems to be to willing to just conform and be moulded into some bland opedient nothingness and.. I think that´s always better for an individual´s mental health and for the society at large to have more individualism expressed. That doesn´t means that individualism has to lead to a lack of co-operation. Individuals can co-operate. But I advise for a happy and healthy life that You try and maintain Your individuality because each person has a worth as a human being, and when You submerge that in order to just get along or to be an opedient member of some political party or organisation, You´ll lose something and ultimately it´s going to have negative effects. It´s more difficult to be an individual today in the Unites States becuse the laws are changing ,the social pressures are changing, the types of retaliation that can be brought against a person who wishes to be an individual are more prevalent today. You know the.. the economic risks You take if You open Your mouth and speak out about certain things. Most people won´t take that risk because they are... they want the security that comes when keeping Your mouth shut.

INTERVIEWERS: Has it become worse now than in the sixties?

FZ: Yes it´s much worse in the US for freedom of speech. It´s almost getting to the point where it´s a charade for this country to brag other nations how free it is and how democratic it is. But internally if You understand what´s going on here, You´ll see that the extreme right wing element of US government is clamping down on all possible means of free speeches. Not just the speech itself, but they are controlling the means by which You can speek, by placing labels on records, by making even more restrictions on films, by having restrictions on radio and television broadcasting. Even if You want to have free speech so called, the places where You may be allowed to have it are being limited more and more, and I think it´s rather hypocritical of this government to be speaking to other nations, making foreign policy statements about how wonderful democracy is and so and so forth when it´s eroding day by day in this country, through legal actions taking by the Supreme Court and by legislators. For example, the movie industry has just woken up to discover, that today there are 350 different pieces of legislation in 46 states that have been proposed to set up regional censorship boards for films. And if this succeeds, it will no longer be possible to release a major Hollywood film, make 2500 prints and send it all over the country, because it will be possible for religious groups and other special interest groups to keep certain types of films out of that locality. And of course, once these censorship boards are set up for films, You know that they´re going to be looking at books and records. So, little by little America is been turned into a police state, not by having tanks in the streets, but by having ignorant legislators sitting in the government.

INTERVIEWERS: Can You understand the reason for that?

FZ: Well, one thing that will garantee that such a process can take place in anyones country, is when there is apathy among the voters. You know.. I´m sure it´s no secret to people outside the US, that although we have democracy here, the willingness to go out and vote has almost vanished. It´s very hard to get an American to go out and vote about something. The voter turn out in this country is embarrisingly low. In fact, one of the worst statistics I tell You is the... if You remember president Reagan when he come to power, he bragged that he this major mandat from the American people to move forward with his idiotic programmes. Now, here is what his mandat consisted of: 15% of the eligble voters in America went to the polls and 90% of the 15% voted for him.

INTERVIEWERS: You´ve been pretty sharp in Your critics of the American society through the years. But the Americans I´ve been spoken to, have told me that You are just considered a "weird" guy and nobody really pays any attention to You.

FZ: That´s true. Nobody cares about anything here. So that shouldn´t surprise You. I mean, if they cared, they would been out voting, wouldn´t they?

INTERVIEWERS: Probably

FZ: The person You talked to, he´s telling You the truth. They don´t care about me here. I´m virtually unknown in my own country. And the reasons for it, is if I´m in the music business and I make a single… like the biggest single in the CBS:s history in Scandinavia was Bobby Brown Goes Down. This was a surprise to everybody. That record has never been played on the air in America. Never.

INTERVIEWERS: How is it today with Your problems with that? Do they play Your albums at all on the American radio stations?

FZ: Well, tomorrow they will because it´s my 50:th birthday and some stations will play some songs. But basically, unless Your are willing to pay briberies to American broadcasters they will not play Your songs. It´s impossible to have a hit record in America unless You pay off.

INTERVIEWERS: But when we talking about Your ability to be heard in America. For example, an album like Broadway The Hardway, how many albums are sold in US?

FZ: Not many. I don´t know what the figures was, but certainly not many.

INTERVIEWERS: But could You gave us ... is it 100.000, half a million or just 10.000?

FZ: It probably under 100.000.

INTERVIEWERS: What happened to Your TV-show Night School?

FZ: Well, there´s no way that that show will ever go on television in US. It´s not gonna happen. At the time I proposed it, perhaps I was naive even suggest it to them. But if there´s one thing that´s clear, anybody who come to this country and try to watch the news, You´ll find it´s hard to know what´s is really going on in the world, because of the nature of what´s broadcast. What they call news here, it´s empty. And so... there is a reason for that. I think it´s US government policy to manage the news. It´s.. it´s one of those things You find out about later. So let´s say You´re me and You go to a broadcaster and You say You wanna do a show like Night School, that brings the true news to the public. Do You think You´ll get anywhere with that project? No way.

INTERVIEWERS: You´re dealing a lot with political stuff and You´re concerned about society, You´re making music, films, try to do TV-shows and so forth. How much do You work?

FZ: A lot.

INTERVIEWERS: And that means? (laugh)

FZ: (Laugh)

INTERVIEWERS: When do You sleep?

FZ: Well, every chance I get. I trying to get eight hour sleep per night, if .. eh.. But seasons I don´t have to travel to do my work. You know, that means if I sleep eight hours, that leaves 16 others hours of non-stop work which I can do. All I have to do is to get out of my bed and walk downstairs and I´m at work.

INTERVIEWERS: Frank! We would really like to know what You are working on for the moment?

FZ: Well, I have to do now is to put a finishing touches on an album called "Make a Jazz Noise Here" which is supposed to come out in February and I´m also working on another album called Phase III which will be coming out either end of February or March.

INTERVIEWERS: Are they albums with musicians or is it all on synclavier this time?

FZ: Make a Jazz Noise Here and this other album called The Best Band You´ve Never Heard In Your Life, both of those use life musicians. It´s a material that was recording during the 1988 tour.

INTERVIEWERS: I read something in a Swedish newspaper about a tour in Japan?

FZ: Well, how did it get there already? I haven´t made the deal yet. I´m waiting for a fax from this company to tell me what the progress is in our negotiations. But since it´s already been published in the newspaper there... What I have proposed is that they come up with sponsorship money which will allow me to put together a twenty piece band with musicians from all over the world, which will then give 5 concerts in Tokyo in the fall.

INTERVIEWERS: Just a few years ago, the album Does Humor Belongs In Music ended with the Wipping Post as the last song of the last tour, the last concert, but still You went out 88.

FZ: Yeah. Well I made a big mistake of doing that because 1988 tour cost me 400.000$.

INTERVIEWERS: What was the reason to touring again?

FZ: Well, one of the things we did in United States 1988 was voter registrations during the tour and all the material that were performing in the US during the two months of the US portional tour was very politically oriented. I thought it was an important elections and the only way to really get that message out, since they wouldn´t play my songs on the radio was to go out and play it live. So I did it.

INTERVIEWERS: On that album Broadway the Hard Way there is one song called Promiscuous. Can You tell the background to that song?

FZ: Well, at the time we had this guy named Everett Koop who was a surgeon general in the United States and.. You know he was one of these people who was telling the US public that the AIDS epidemic started because a native in east Africa was skinning a green monkey and maybe he cut his finger while he was taking the skin off this monkey to eat it and the green monkey had the AIDS virius and that´s how it was transmitted to the human population. And somehow this native who cut his finger skinning the green monkey manage to transmitt this to 700 hundred people who died all at the same time in New York in November. I mean, it just doesn´t make sense okey. There´s never been a situation other than Legioners Disease where large number of people die all at the same time in certain locations. It doesn´t rise the question of biological warfare. And the Unites States government has in the past conducted biological warfare experiments on civilian population.

INTERVIEWERS: In Your book You write about a very funny story when You played in Stockholm 1971 I think it was, and two Swedish fans came up to You when You´re on Your way out from the concert hall. Do You think You can tell that story in Your own words for the Swedish radio listeners?

FZ: Yeah. We were supposed to play two shows at the Konserthuset and we were taking a break between the shows and some fans came up to me as I was walking outside and said that their younger brother Hannes had been to the first show and he had to go home and they were gonna stay for the second show. And what they wanna me to do was to come with them after the second show to their house in Tullinge and walk into Hannes´ bedroom. He would been sleeping and they wanna me to walk in and say Hannes, Hannes! wake up! It´s me Frank Zappa. I thought it was so absurd, but I said I would do it. So after the show, I took the drive out to Tullinge and walked in, walked in to his little room, there he was, sleeping in his bed and I said exactly that. Hannes, Hannes! wake up! It´s me Frank Zappa. And the mother and the father woked up and we sat around till about 4 or 5 o´clock in the morning, we had coffee and cookies and talked about politics and then I went back to the hotel and did my travel the next day.

INTERVIEWERS: In the book You don´t mention how Hannes reacted.

FZ: Well, he was surprised. (laugh). Yes I think enormously surprised. So if he out there listening, Hannes, Hannes! wake up! It´s me Frank Zappa.

INTERVIEWERS: Frank, let´s talk about Your music for a while. In Your book You write that the concept of the rock guitar solo in the eighties has pretty much been reduced to veely-veely-vee, make a face. Is that the reason why You´ve released all together 5 LPs with Your guitar solos?

FZ: The reasons for the guitar LPs is because there is a certain segment of the listening public that likes that.. likes the way I play the guitar and those people wouldn´t necessary be interested in my orchestral music or even some of the funny lyrics but they do like the guitar playing so that´s an acommodation for one spectrum of my listening public. Where as some of the people who like the orchestra album or even the synclavier stuff wouldn´t be interested in the guitar or the vocals.

INTERVIEWERS: When You write music I must ask, do You use an instrument, guitar, computer or You just write it down on a paper from Your head?

FZ: I do all those different ways, I mean some of the tunes that have gone on albums was things that I wrote while sitting in an airport, just waiting to catch a plane. Alien Orifice for example is one of those tunes.

INTERVIEWERS: In Your book You mean that anything can be music. It´s just a question of putting a frame around it and You think most people can´t deal with that. They just want a good beat. Something they can dance to it, has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-bap and so on. I would like to ask You, if it´s not more a question of difference between body-music and mind-music. I mean body-music is this You know, boom-bap, boom-boom-bap, but I mean mind-music speaks to You in another way.

FZ: Well You can make that distinction but I would say that in a general context while I say it´s true about You can say anything is music and consume it with Your mind or Your body depending on Your orientation. For example, there are certain types of dance music that You may encounter in eastern Europe that people definitely move their body to but it´s certainly not located to a boom-bap beat. It might be in seven or nine or some other time signatur.

INTERVIEWERS: But I understand it in Your book you mean that Americans are not so used to other music than this ordinary dance music.

FZ: Well they haven´t heard it. They have no experience. If You haven´t heard it, how do You know what Your mind will do with it, You see. The problem is that broadcasting is incredibly limited here. There´s not gonna be a widespread access for the listening public to anything other than hit records and all hit records go boom-boom-bap.

INTERVIEWERS: But there must be some sort of free broadcasting stations dealing with other material than boom-boom-bap?

FZ: Yes there are. They are very few and very far between and the government has limited them to transmitters with low power. And furthermore since they not playing hit records it´s hard for them to survive economically because sponsors don´t buy broadcasting times on those outlets. So those are supported by donations and the donations are not very large so those independent stations are always poor, they always been threatened by legal actions by religious organisations who want to take cases to the Supreme Court and try to put these operations out of business.

INTERVIEWERS: When You say all this about the American society, I sometimes wonder why You still live there?

FZ: Well, because I´m an American and I think that this country has a lot of potential if it only can straighten itself out.

INTERVIEWERS: Frank, if You look back on Your carrier. What album and which group during the years do You consider as a personal favourite?

FZ: No, I couldn´t even answer a guess of that. I wouldn´t want say that.

INTERVIEWERS: Your favourite drummer?

FZ: Well I can say I think my favourite drummer was Vinnie Colaiuta.

INTERVIEWERS: Thank You. What do You think of the old original Mothers if You compare it with the more modern sound You have today?

FZ: Well, I rather listen to the modern sound, that´s for sure but... I think that´s a matter of taste. There´s some people who prefer that early group and that´s their choice.

INTERVIEWERS: I have to ask You, when Your book came I know that thousands of fans run to the bookshoops, bought it, just to get an answer of the eternal question about Frank Zappa and that´s .. one question You never answered in the book and that´s ..

FZ: What´s that?

INTERVIEWERS: How Do You really do Your music? How is the process? What do You do?

FZ: Well, the process is different for each different type of things that I do. What I´ll have to go through in order to teach a song like Jesus thinks You´re a Jerk to a twelve-piece band is vastly different than what I would have to do to create a song on synclavier like "Jazz from Hell". It´s two completely different things.

INTERVIEWERS: But do You hear the music inside You or do You work mathematically. Can You describe it?

FZ: I can do it both ways. It depends on what You´re writing. You know, I can hear things as a completing finished piece of music and then just go through the drudgery of trying to reconstruct this finished image in my head and turn it into something that other people can listen to, or I can start off with a small idea and then develop it in conjunction with live musician which is.. what happen with "Jesus Thinks You´re a Jerk". It was written piece by piece. I started off with the completely written lyrics and then... in fact there´s a complete video coverage of this process taken place at rehearsal where it´s starts on the very first day where You come up with just a few notes for the tune and then each section of the lyrics You develop a setting to support the lyrics, and to just to create a finish piece on "Jesus Thinks You´re a Jerk" took about a week and after the structure is in place then which You have to do is rehearse it over and over again till it´s comfortable played. There´s different kind of processes You would go through to put things together. Where as with material on the synclavier it´s all about numbers.

INTERVIEWERS: But what do You really think You can achieve by Your work?

FZ: Oh I don´t know. I don´t know what anybody can achieve by any kind of work that they do. I can do what I do because I know how to do it and I like to do it and I just keep doing it. Whether or not I achieve anything that´s not why I do it. I don´t do it to achieve.

INTERVIEWERS: You don´t do it to change the way You thinking in the American society?

FZ: I´ve pretty realistic outlook on how affective anyone could be in changing the minds of the American people. Based on the fact that You can speak to the American people. It´s like that guy told You. I´m regarding in this country as a weird guy that nobody cares about. So. You know, what can I achieve? Nothing.

INTERVIEWERS: What about Your connections with Vaclav Havel? Why do You choose to visit him?

FZ: Well, the things about .. what he´s trying do to in Checkoslovakia that I approve of is… in fact his quote on this videotape that I made while I was there. He says we are all people from art and from culture and we must make the policy better than the politicians. And if.. if he can succeded that and since if You look on what normal politicans have done in every other country I don´t think it´s been particulary good. If there is anyway to improve on the way that policy is created and administered whether it´s been done by a painter or playwright, a ballet dancer or mechanic. Whatever it is we can stand some improvement in the invention of policy in just about every country. So I support that aspect they´re trying to do in Checkoslovakia. And he´s a very nice man and he´s a honest man and he he´s suffered a lot to get where he is. In fact I´m not even sure he likes beeing where he is. But I would call him one of the good guys.

INTERVIEWERS: When we talking about presidents, what would a country with Frank Zappa as a president look like?

FZ: I don´t know what it would look like, but I can tell You if that country happens to be United States it would run a hell lot better than it´s been run by George Bush and Dan Quayle. I mean that´s... You know… There´s no challenge there.

INTERVIEWERS: But do You need a challenge?

FZ: I think people needs challenges. Sure.

INTERVIEWERS: So that´s the reason why You don´t run for president?

FZ: (Laugh) No. The reason I don´t run it´s because I don´t have enough money to run and to run for anything in United States it cost a millions of millions of dollars.

INTERVIEWERS: Have You never thought about doing a Boom-Bap-Boom-Boom-Bap album just to raise money for such trust?

FZ: Well, that´s another thing represents no challenge.

INTERVIEWERS: The music itself You mean?

FZ: That´s right. I mean of course I could go Boom-Boom-Bap. Anybody could do that. If You can say it, You can play it.

INTERVIEWERS: Well, You work up to sixteen hours a day but You still have a great big family and I suppose a marvelous wife. Do You really get the time to see them?

FZ: Sure, because remember all the works been done in the house.

INTERVIEWERS: You´re sort of a working family or what?

FZ: Well, the only person in the family who doesn´t have a job is Diva and that´s only because she is eleven.

INTERVIEWERS: And You have time to spend with Your children also.. through the years?

FZ: Well, I´ll have as much time to spend with them as they would like to spend with me. I mean, let´s suppose You were them and You have Your own projects to work on You know and You have the choose between doing things that were fun for You or hanging out with a guy like me. Where would You be? They would be out doing their stuff so… We go out to dinner together, we sit around and discuss politics every once in a while but usually everybody is working.

INTERVIEWERS: Now I must ask one question that.. are You coming and when are You coming to play in Sweden next time?

FZ: I have no plans to do any life performance any time, any place in the future. This is all dependent on whether or not a sponsor is found for this musical project for Japan. If there´s another sponsor that wants to pay to keep this band together after those five concerts in Tokyo, then there might be some other concerts in 1992. But in no way will I ever - and I´m gonna garantee You this - will I ever spend one penny of my own money ever in the future to hire a musician. Because the amount of money that I lost since 1984, I lost 250,000 dollars on the 84 tour and I lost 400.000 dollars on the 88 tour and so that´s it. No more cash of my bank account to pay for musician salaries or travel expenses or any of the stuff that´s require to do a band and to do a tour. I can´t do it.

INTERVIEWERS: Do You think it´s more hard now to.. just thinking of doing it now when You´re older?

FZ: There´s no question about that because my health is not terrific and the idea of travelling a lot and just the physical stress for a person who is 50 years old is lot harder than it is for a person who is 20 years old. There´s no question. Especially, if the person who is 20 years old has never been on the road before and everything is a new adventure. Every day is an adventure. It´s a different mind-set. If I go on the road, I´ve already been to all the halls that I will play and I already know the dressing rooms is gonna smell like, I know what the backstage food is gonna taste like, I know what the hotellrooms looks like. There´s no surprise there. The only joy You get from that is the two hours You spend on stage, but the rest of the day is not pleasant.

INTERVIEWERS: But You really like the time on stage, don´t You?

FZ: Yes, but the question is when You get 50 years old You know, Do You like what happens on stage so much that You´re willing to put Your body through the rest of that stuff.

INTERVIEWERS: When You mention Your health You made us a little worry.

FZ: Eee .. I do have some health problems (pause).

INTERVIEWERS: Of serious type of?

FZ: What?

INTERVIEWERS: You said... some serious problem?

FZ: Eee... (pause) no (pause)

INTERVIEWERS: You seem pretty weak about that answer.

FZ: Well, I feel pretty good today, I´m doing ok. (pause)

INTERVIEWERS: Okey. Are You in fact sitting in Your house now in Your home studio?

FZ: I´m actually sitting in my bedroom right now because the telephone in the basement where I would normally be doing this is broken.

INTERVIEWERS: What colour are the curtains? (laugh)

FZ: I don´t have any curtains. I have.. I have a nice.. I have a bay window which is looking out onto garden. The sky is blue, some puppy white clouds. There´s bunch of flowers out there and.. it´s pretty bright room. The only bright room that I hang out in. All the rest of the places where I work are pretty dark.

INTERVIEWERS: Okey. Thank You very much.

FZ: Okey, You´re welcome. Thank You very much. Bye, bye.

Kent Nagano tells about his cooperation with Olivier Messiaen and Zappa

This interview with Kent Nagano was made 1992 or 1993 by Martin Hansson at Swedish Radio P2. (Publication of this interview is approved by Martin Hansson himself) It´s actually not a regular interview. Martin Hansson (MH) tells in Swedish - translated here into English - about Kent Nagano (KN) so KN´s own words are extracts from a conversation. I missed to put on the tape-recorder in the beginning of the programme, so I missed the first 4-5 words, but I´m pretty sure he said what´s in the brackets.

(Sw-En) means translation from Swedish to English.

KN: (A friend of me, Peter Sellars, stage) director, once told me, that doing rehearsing for performances is little bit like throwing a bag full of marbles up in the air and You try to catch as many as you possible can and don´t let any of them hit the ground. And if You can do that, then You have a perfect performance. And what he meant, was if You could correct all the little details that You wanted to by the time the performance comes, then You will have a great performance. That, also what he meant to say is of course it is impossible because ..eh we are human beings, we are not perfect, we are never going to have the perfect performance. So what´s really more important, is that soul and the spirit and the real insides of the music. If You can have least have these as a common idea and working towards it, then You just go as far as You possible can and it´s the processes, the real joy of working together to go as far You can towards realizing that ideal. I´m not one You can hold back very well and the music is great music, You can carry it away. And I ask for things, sometimes they are impossible because, they are only the sort of things that You can get. Intellectually You know You only can get it if You have five months of rehearsal.These kinds of nuances and subtleties. On the other hand, I can tell You how many times the impossible has happen during a performance. Just a moment, where everyone is really thinking the same way and feeling the music the same way, and then something extra beyond our human control comes in a play and You can many many times realize things that You never thought You could. But unless You try, then of course there´s no chance they will happen at all. So my feelings is, today, orchestras need a motivation, a point of a direction, someone who can point the way towards investing Your enthusism. As well, as someone who is carefully familiar with this score. So these are the things that You try to share with any orchestra, if it is my own band as You say, or if it is visiting a guest orchestra or if it is with one of the orchestras where I often go as a regular guest and I mean it is always the same. Music is always the same.

MH (Sw-En): He not only strive for the impossible. A couple of times during the concert in Gothenburg, the time actually ceases. You goes into the eternity with goose flesh that would make God to confuse You as a winged insect. I have never heard the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra play like this. The concentration and the devotion are total among the musicians. And in the front, a small thin American with Japanese stock, that is full of enthusiasm. Kent Nagano seems to be driven of an unmistakable passion, guided of the knowledge that music always is about "one for all and all for one". No airs and graces, no ego, not a trace of interest for something else than just this performance of Mahlers third symphony will be the best the world ever have heard.

Exaggeration? Well, the fact is that the most this 42 years old from California, USA set to work at come into gold. His first operarecording – Prokofiev´s "Love for 3 Oranges" on the original language French – was voted as the "Record of the Year" by Gramophone, the latest record with Poulence´s Carmelite has already became "Grand Prix du Disque (und Pasandour)". His productions, whether they are live or on record, is now events in the musicworld. Today he is artistic director of the opera in Lyon which he succeeded John Erik Gardner 1989, he has the same position at the renowned Halley-orchestra in Manchester and he is also first guestconductor at London Symphony Orchestra. He became a good name in the musicworld when he assisted Seiji Ozawa in the preparations for the premiere of Messiaen´s opera "Saint Francois d´Assise" 1983. The composer himself demanded from Paris Opera that Nagano would be present during more than the six month´s rehearsel of this enormous opera. Messiaen knew that Nagano was the right man. They had met earlier, but at circumstances that was much less glamorous.

KN: The very first orchestra that I became music director of was an orchestra that was experiencing serious financially difficulties. So when I came to the orchestra, it was a very interesting situation. Having an orchestra that wasn´t able to play very well, that didn´t have any money to hire better musicians and further more, had no audience that wanted to listen to it. I mean that is a pretty negative situation. (Laugh). So, in a way, it was a very good place to be, because when You´re in a situation like that, all You can do is to be really honest. You simply got to turn out a very good product, otherwise You´ll cease to exist. So, I worked the orchestra very very hard. So I thought the orchestra needed to do something that was astoundly identity, and to actually have the orchestra serve a real function, at have a real reason to exist. So, during this period I introduced works that I thought the orchestra could play very well, that somehow the vast musical community there which is rather sophisticated, could come to hear music they couldn´t hear any place else. And one of the first projects that I did was to put together a cycle of the great Messiaen orchestra pieces, whiched I loved, and I felt the orchestra with enough rehearsel time could play them very well. I never done modern music before that point ever, I came.., my background is in opera, Mozart, Verdi, Bellini, Puccini (laugh) the concept of doing them, a contemporary score was a new thing to me as well, so I wanna to study, so I studied as best I could the scores for the cycles of Messiaen works. And then I went to look for a teacher who could show me how to interpret the music better. But to my alarm, the teachers whome I went to, didn´t know the scores as well as I did. I already knew the scores better than they, and they could´t teach me anything. So out of... out of frustration, I wrote a letter in french to Olivier Messiaen, c/o the Paris Conservatory, Paris, France, and mail it (laugh). Saying, Dear maître - I´m in the process, I´m about ready to embark on a cycle of Your great orchestra pieces. I can´t find anyone to study with who knows the scores so I´ve come to ask for Your guidence on this. And I included with the letter, a taperecording of the performance of the first piece of the cycle which included seven works. And to my great surprise, four weeks later I got a letter back from Olivier Messiaen, saying, I´m very happy to hear that You´re doing a cycle of my works, I listened to the tape, and here is some critisicm. In bar number five You might try to do this and figure number 27 try to do this little differently, try doing this, try doing that. Two type-written pages of notes and it was fantastic. I learned a lot of this. I sent him a taperecording of the second work of the cycle to be criticise, and again he sent back notes. This time there was only one type-written page of critisicm. I sent a tape recording of the third work, which is Turangalila Symphony and he came back and he said: I can´t criticise this performance, it´s such a wonderful performance, there´s nothing that I can say, it´s wonderful. But what I`ll like to offer is that I come out and listen to Your rehearse the next piece in the cycle and perhaps my wife could be the soloist. Next piece was the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ which call for pianosolo and of course Yvonne Loroid was the greatest interpreter of his music. And we reinvited him back for both the sixth and for the seventh works in the cycle and after the cycle was finished he invited me to come to Paris to (conferences??) so that, as I said it was a sort of complicated story, but that was how we got to know each other. I was looking for someone to teach me the music of Olivier Messiaen so I went to Olivier Messiaen himself (laugh) and that´s how we met.

Messiaens music is of exceptional quality. It´s really great music, that´s someone the greatest of this century. I wouldn´t be so presumptuoses to say that I know what a good piece is and I know what a bad piece. However, I think it´s fair to say that, if one has studied composition, and if one has taken the time to look at the score carefully, You can generally tell whether a score is coherent and well written. It doesn´t mean that is an inspiring score or that is a great score or that it would be make such an impact that I would enter it in to the repertoar. But I think that people are often times afraid to get up and say, I really believe in this piece. I have studied it, I have done my homework on the piece, I have taken the piece apart, I´ve put it back together, and it´s a good piece and I wan´t to share it with You. I don´t see that happen enough actually, what I see happening is: Well here is a new piece for You tonight. Not even, I hope You like it. I mean (laugh) this is a new piece (laugh) so, and then the audience is left to have the experience without sort of any support. You know (laugh) Let´s take for example the Death of Klinghoffer (by John Adams - own commentary) that was a work that I recently premiered and recorded. This is a great piece and I can honestly 100% stand up there and say I really believe in this music, it´s fantastic. Inside this music are things that, there´s questions we are asking ourself as..as a members of the world today. It deals with human tragedy and human emotion on a very profound way, the way that touches us and everydays alives. It´s meaningful to us and it´s relevant to us. And I spent so many hours, just sitting at the piano playing through this score to find out a way how to best phrase, and how to best use the harmonies and melodies to try to communicate these human elements. There´s so much great repertoare to be heard. We can´t possibly get through it all in one lifetime really. So why should You play bad repertoare (laugh).

The people (whome admires my), the really great conductors, spend almost every single living moment studying. I myself do my studying very very early in the morning, and then usually some administrate of work during the late part of the morning, usually rehearsing on the afternoon, study during dinner, no dinner, do rehearsel or perfomance that night and then after the performance go home and study again and then get up very early and study again. So studying is ... it´s a .. it´s every day, seven day a week through 365 day year. You never, it never stops. And if You talk to most conductors, I think most of them will say that they, they haven´t had a vacation in years in years. My last vacation was 1976 and I can remember it very very well (laugh) and it sounds like terrible lot of work to keep studying and studying. I mean, most of us think, I thought after I´ve graduated from school, I didn´t have to study anymore (laugh) and in fact I study now three times harder than I did when I was in school. And get a lot less sleep that I did when I was at school.

MH (Sw-En): No, Nagano does not at all have time to get stucked into any of the international musiclife´s countless coctailpartys. And if You would talk about any breakthrough, it was probably 1984 when he replaced Seiji Ozawa and without no rehearsel conducted – according to the reviews absolute brilliant - the performance of Mahlers 9:th with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. "Hardwork" as I said before, and then a scholarship that has given him the chance to study with some of his examples. Just recently, he was visiting Brüggen and acquainted oneself with the practise to perform the older music. But the most important are maybe just Ozawa, the stay with Pierre Boulez at IRCAM in Paris and maybe the greatest teacher to him, Leonard Bernstein.

KN: I remember we were working together on the Pathetique symphony Tchaikovky 6. And we´re working at the piano, and he said: now okey, so how do You play this phrase so I played the phrase and he said no, no, no. Go go further, what do You want to say? So I played it again, he said no,no, no, go further. And at a certain moment he got really frustrated and just stood up and yelled: I want You to be a human being (laugh). It was the funniest thing, so I mean of course I laughed and then... so I tried to be more of a human being. And then he stood up again and said: I want You to be a crazy human being (laugh). Go further, go further. And over.... You can imagine he was just trying to pull.. he was trying to encourage me to be.. to be more generous, to be more giving. And he was a remarkable teacher. After You´ve been under that kind of inspiration for four-five years, I can´t remember, even longer I think. I was working with him for seven or eight years. You learn to bring out different aspects of the music. You learn really how the notes on the score, read on the very beginning when You learn music. The notes on the score have very very little to do what the actual communication is, and the music´s score is not the actual printed, inprinted C natural D sharp. It´s what the meaning is between those notes that really counts and these sort of things that Mr Bernstein was really really try very hard to pull out of me. You asked what´s exactly is important of teaching in music? I think it´s very important. The music field, is an old fashioned field anyway, You learn by having those who know better pass on.

MH (Sw-En): When he tell himself, so bear his hereditary of eastern humility, the occasional shimmer over his career. But more You know this little bit reflecting timid conductor, the more You realize which will-power and energy there is. For example, the studies at the University ended with two complete examination, music and law. But luckily for us, the career as a lawyer has to give way to the musical passion. Of course, it is not anybody that write letters to Messiaen. But his first work in Europe was with a conductor that does not enjoy same respect as Messiaen in the corridors of the classical music. And it is certainly not a chance that Kent Nagano began with something of the most hardest that exist, with Frank Zappas orchestral works.

KN: When I was working with this orchestra that didn´t have any money (laugh) and didn´t have any audience, I mention that it was really important to work very hard and fast and quickly, be efficient and my reputation was spreadin by word of mouth of someone who had ears, could hear and good sense of precession for complex scores. So when Zappa was looking for a conductor for his music, which is extremely difficult, it´s one of the most difficult music to count that´s been written. The only thing comparable that will beat it, perhaps a very complex Elliot Carter score or Takahashi´s music or perhaps some of Pierre Boulez´ music, I mean it´s mathematically how to count out the rythms, it´s extremely difficult and technically.. it´s exercises the parts of instruments ranges that´s not very easy to play, quite virtual (some writing). And large orchestras, complicated passages where You really have to have a good control of basic rythm technic to help guide a orchestra through it. Unknown to me if Frank was doing some research to find out who could actually conduct his music. He had at that moment, just had a huge tremendous commercial succes with one of his records and he wanted to realize a dream of his that he always had, which is to hear his symphonics scores played by one of the worlds great ensemble so that he actually could hear what it sounds alike instead of being massacred by.. by an orchestra that wasn´t properly rehearsed. So he wanted the best orchestra that he could find and he wanted a conducter that could actually deal with it. And .. I´ve had heard of his music beacause I was visiting Mr Boulez in the Institute of Research eh .. IRCAM at Georges Pompidou Center and I saw on the bullentin board "feature commissions" and on the list of composers who have been invited to write for Boulez and IRCAM was Frank Zappas name and I couldn´t believe it. You know I mean, this was for me a relic of the 1960:s. So I asked my friend of who worked there: what´s the story with this Frank Zappa commission. He explained to me that there was a project that Pierre Boulez was going to conduct a concert of all Frank Zappa pieces and record them. And I thought God this is crazy, so I got in touch with Frank Zappas manager and I said I like to see some of his scores but I never.. I never really heard anything for a long time until one day I just got a telephone call, it was from Frank Zappa, inviting me to come to one of his concerts. And he will give me some scores.

So I never in my life been to a rock concert before (laugh), having lived a very sheltered life as a classical musician, though I went out and bought some earplugs and went to this rock concert. And it was everything that I have feared. It was smokey and sort of light shows all over the place, crowded with thousands of people, dressed in very unusal clothing (laugh). During the intermission, this enormous bodyguard found me where I was sitting in the seatos. He was so big, he looked lie a sumo wrestler and said "follow me" and of course I didn´t argue and I followed him and he tooked me downstairs to the dressingroom. And there I met Frank Zappa. He was taking his intermission break and he showed me the score´s he brought with him. He said, take a look at that, what do You think? And I open up the score´s and they were really, as I said, so complicated that.. I was a bit taken aback and I didn´t know what to make of them so I explained to him that I really didn´t know what to make out of the score´s. I had to take them home and study them a little bit before I could answer him. He said okey, he said take the score´s, go home and let me know what You think. So I studied the scores and I had a great time because they were so complicated. They were challenging to figure out. And I found in my great surprise that in this stack of scores was some pieces that were really great, really exciting wonderful pieces. That, not only were it´s complex but they were.. they were well written compositions.

And few weeks went by and I got a telephone call from Frank Zappa, again announced out of the blue, said: well, what do You think, Would You be interested in the scores. And I said: well yes, I´m really interested in a couple of scores and I would like to perform them. He said: how would You like to come with me. I´ve hired the London Symphony Orchestra, how would You like to come with me to London and record these pieces, do public concerts in London and record them? And at this point I was really unknown, I was just basically out of school and I was working with this orchestra that´s having a tough time. This is one of the very few times in my life when I tried to be coy (laugh), cause I want to be cool. So, of course I wanted to go, and I liked the music a lot, but I said: well gee, I don´t know. I have to think about it, and of course that was being dishonest. But I said it anyway and Frank said: "hmm, well I tell You what. I´ll give You fifthteen seconds to think about it, and after fifthteen seconds You either say yes or no and if You don´t say anything at all, I´ll just go to another conductor". So I said: "well actually Mr Zappa I am.. I am interested" (laugh) and that was the last time that I actually ever tried to be coy. Because when You´re dealing with people who are really serious, there´s really no room to play games. I mean people who are really concerned about making music, just want to make good music, so in a way he taught me a lesson very early on in my career.

And it was a wonderful experience. Frank Zappa is a great musician. He has ears that can hear things that are just phenomenal. Extremly complex textures and we founded partnership because they were... I could call a lot of wrong notes but actually so could he. He could hear this incredibly complex orchestrations and identify what wasn´t working right. And because of that, he earned my great respect. Oftentimes a composer doesn´t even know what he´s written and then... I can´t be serious about his music if the composer is not serious. He earned my respect and the London Symphony´s respect. They stood up and gave him a standing ovation after the public concert. And we produced three albums during that period and that was my introduction to the London Symphony, a group whom I still serve today as principal guest conductor. It´s a funny way to make the acquintance of an orchestra but I suppose You have to started somewhere (laugh) and so now, twelve years later we were a lot together and record a lot together.

MH (Sw-En): Is there any musical dreamproject, any music that You just must have to do?

KN: I guess I have a list of about 5.000 things (laugh), all equally important, all equally urgent and I would like to do them all tomorrow. That´s about the best answer I can get

End of interview

Zappa about his overpaid musicians

Zappa makes comments on news media and satellite technics

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