Ahmet Zappa on Box Sets, Cold Gin, and Gold Squirrels

Ahmet Zappa joined Tower Records for a Livestream, hosted by our own Whitney Moore, and dove right into a “pad tour” with many artifacts from a life and family life in music.

Ahmet is the son of Frank and Gail Zappa, the CEO of Zappa Records, and the Executor of the Zappa Trust, as well as a New York Times Best-selling author, a film and TV writer, and more.

He’s “hanging by a thread” if that means “good” right now. There’s a lot of quarantine work to do. He’s also been accused of recreating an Ed Hardy t-shirt from making tie-dye shirts with his kids, which he wore on the show.

Ahmet showed us his totally hot cocktail set up, and set about putting together a cool gin and tonic for Whitney Moore, ready to talk all things “Zappa-world”.

He’s very excited that Tower is “back with a vengeance”. His experience growing up yields an “endless amount of stories” relating to Tower. One story he told, relevant to the releases they do, was about meeting Joe Travers, who has played with a bunch of bands, is someone Ahmet met in Boston at Tower Records. Travers was a big fan of Frank’s and a “weirdo in the best way” who moved to LA. Then Ahmet met him again in Tower in LA and that’s how they ended up in a band together. Travers “mines the vault” now for “all the goodness” they release.

There’s a new giant box set with The Mothers of Invention, with info released yesterday. Ahmet loves that “moment in time” and was “anxious” to do a Mother’s box from 1970, commemorating the 50th anniversary, with all the musicians in their prime, creating a “bananas” box set. Moore commented on how much we need “physical media” right now with everyone’s internet overloaded. Ahmet added that the internet has “COVID” in its overload. The set is “new unreleased music” with songs you know, but versions of things that are “unique” and tied to that moment in time.

What Frank would do was take a recording truck on the road and record “everything” and they have a vault of those tapes. They don’t know what “gems” are in there except for some clues written on the outside of the tape boxes. Talking to Steve Vai, Ahmet asked about the 80’s when they were recording a lot, and Vai told him there are “tons” of other songs, and new material Ahmet hasn’t heard before. Some of the things in the Mothers Box 1970 are like that, with “alt versions” of things. He doesn’t want to spoil what’s in the box, though!

The Zappa family are “completists” and record nerds (he showed us his record player that he uses to make sure the vinyl is set up properly, which has the sound waves from the song “Sofa” incised on the front). Ahmet also showed us something from a Tower Records member of the family, his “dear friend Jeff Krelitz”, a sparkly golden squirrel (which legend says comes from Paris, France) in a place of honor on its own little wooden chair.

So what does Ahmet do on an average workday behind the scenes? Ahmet discussed the family-run organization, something that his mother and father always ran previously. Gail Zappa really “changed the industry” along with Frank in many ways, Ahmet said.

Frank would go on tour and have the occasional “dalliance” and stay at nice hotels, spending a lot of money. Gail would see the bills and see the money he was spending on “groupies” instead of on putting money in for the business. At that time, it was expensive to buy a computer, but she did that, and started keeping records properly for money being spent. Then she’d reinvest in the family business. Gail started creating mailing lists gathered from fans at shows, in the days before e-mail. It was a “personal one-on-one relationship” with fans that Frank and Gail cultivated where you could call a “hotline” at the office and hear about “what’s going on”. It helped grow the business. Frank had a bunch of lawsuits with labels and such, but Gail continued independently building the business.

Having heard a lot of stories from his parents, his day-to-day is now having to develop an understanding of how to be an “archaeologist”, mining the vault with the team of people there, like Mike Mesker, Holland Greco, and Travers, a “family” of people who have been there a long time. They love the music, and “it’s all about the music first”.

They try to find all the photos, the “connective tissue” and “ephemera” to create things like the Mothers Box. It took planning and gathering of materials in advance for such big projects. When people go to Zappa.com and talk about the things they are interested in they “take that to heart” and look at the catalog. But it’s also how the family feel too about what they’d like to see out there. With Mothers’, it was a 50 year anniversary, and listening to the material, they were doubly impressed by how they “killed it” back then.

What would Frank make of this current situation with COVID? Ahmet said that Frank would “for sure” be taking inspiration for it. Frank was a “futurist”, Ahmet said, and “He’s already written the music that predicted these situations”. Even though he passed away many years ago, it’s “strange” to look at his “lyrical content” and “press” and see what he was concerned about. A lot of it was “prophetic” and he’d love how more artists are empowered with technology these days.

Frank predicted that music would be distributed “telephonically” and had an “awesome business mind”, Ahmet explained. He’d collaborate with all kinds of people, and if he was here now, he’d certainly still be collaborating. In a parallel universe where Frank Zappa survived and became president of the United States,it would have been he and Ice Cube talking politics and making music, Ahmet said.

It’s not a one-to-one comparison with his predictions, but writing music is about evil ingredients in mashed potatoes is essentially about secret conspiracies, and you can “believe that”, then the situation where eating something like a bat could cause COVID makes sense. Or if you think the virus was made in a lab, you can read a book Frank loved called A Higher Form of Killing, which was about manufacturing illnesses. Depending how deep you go into conspiracy theories.

Ahmet is growing batwings and an alligator tail due to 5G, he declared!

What’s the deal with all the bootleg records of Zappa, Moore wondered, since there seem to be more out there than for any other artists? Ahmet said there might be more than any other artists, though he’s not sure. That culture of people recording concerts and sharing them is part of the time. Frank didn’t like the bootleg scenario because he recorded everything and knew it was a potential release. At one point he teamed up with Rhino Records for Beat the Boots, putting out the bootleg records as-is to beat the bootleggers.

Frank played so many shows and there’s so much “awesome” out there, but so many bootlegs have bad sound, unfortunately. Ahmet wishes the bootleggers with talent would work with the family on great designs and products, since some of them have potential.

Moore had on a bootleg t-shirt of Frank’s face on, and they spoke about the rights thereof, and it’s a “bummer” to also take a photographer’s photos and use those, not just ripping off Frank’s legacy but someone else’s work, too.

Ahmet used to be someone who only liked studio records, and at age 10 or 11, he listened to KISS and still loves them, so he showed us his KISS lamp and KISS statues.

He also showed us Frank’s typewriter on which he wrote early music. He carried it in a little suitcase with an espresso machine and had a diagram of a toilet hanging in the studio bathroom, too, which Ahmet showed us.

The “toiler paper scare of 2020” meant that Ahmet wondered if maybe awesome toilet seats that are a “sprinkler system for your anus” were the way of the future but they were “sold out” online when he checked. Moore invested early in a bidet. It’s awesome. It’s heated, has an air dryer. Best upgrade of 2020.

What about also having a microwave? Does it need a “snack attachment”? It would be “cave man awesome” to have those those “disgusting” options on one’s bidet.

Moore asked about the Frank Zappa Hologram Tour last year, where the “process” was something Frank had talked about doing in the future. Ahmet said that Frank wanted to start a company where he could stay home more and send a hologram out on the road. He thought it could benefit other artists, too. He was working with a guy called John Law on it.

Ahmet’s grandfather was a Rear Admiral in the Navy, someone who worked at Area 51. He was someone who did “kind of crazy spy work”, putting microphones at the bottom of the ocean to track enemy subs. Frank’s “science mind” came from this world and he “attracted a different kind of audience” with it, an audience of “deep thinkers” like him.

Frank and Law envisioned projecting media across “great distances”, where people could tune in and see it “large scale” across oceans and such, as well as being able to take that media on tour. They were “contemplating” a bunch of inventions like this. Ahmet was fascinated as a kid by this side of his father’s brain. He would watch the father mix music with frequencies to affect the human psyche. Some frequencies make people more “amorous”, a “love note” etc. Ahmet even has a few patents on things his father spoke about back then.

With the hologram show, if you closed your eyes at one of the shows, you’d be hearing Frank singing and playing the guitar with guys he loved to play with. What the family tried to do was make an “immersive multi-media” experience for fans. For “Dirty Love” they tried to use elements of The Brainiac, a cheesy Mexican horror movie that Ahmet remembered from childhood. It was mixed into a live stage experience. Frank loved Monty Python and Terry Gilliam artwork, so they did something reminiscent of that style of animation, building a story, “Stink-foot”, with his mom and dad. It’s actually about a pandemic!

The entire hologram show “bombarded” fans with different styles of footage and animation, with stuff from the vault. It was a “love letter” to Frank, and of course there was a holographic photo-realistic version of Frank that “took a long time to get right”. Those who didn’t get to see it will definitely have a chance to see it in future, Ahmet assured, since they’ve been working on it. The word “hologram” kind of “undersells” it, according to Moore, since it’s “immersive” and Ahmet agreed.

Ahmet loves what Fortnite has been doing with stages for “current” artists and having that kind of platform for music means that legacy artists could also do something similar if there is call for it. If Bad Company were in there, Ahmet would be all over that as a fan, for instance.

Ahmet thinks there will be more of those kinds of experiences, and they will have to be “different enough” to really capture the attention of fans. With tours, you’re going from city to city and it’s time-intensive and hard to build these worlds. So, his fantasy would be a “virtual club” as a destination. Constantly building these immersive worlds would be hard, but having an environment that’s re-usable would make sense. That interests him.

A “digital roadie” must be something like a programmer, right? Sounds correct!

Asked what he hopes Frank’s fans get out of his new releases, Ahmet said that every “journey” putting out a product is a new discovery, and each time he works on one, he feels like he gets to know his father more. He feels “blessed” that if he wants to hear his dad’s “laughter” or talking, he can do that. That’s something not everyone can do. But with a product, on a personal level, he’s seeing pictures and hearing things that he’s never seen or heard before. And the way it makes Ahmet feel is how he hopes it makes fans feel as well when they encounter it.

Ahmet thinks a lot of fans are more knowledgeable than him in some ways because “they were there” at these shows, and though he knows more of the business and behind the scenes, “it takes a village to make these things” like the Mothers’ Box. He works closely with their partners at Universal and it’s the “Zappa team” where they have very funny staff meetings going through materials. It can be a “mind-blowing experience” with this material and he wants other people to have that too.

Ahmet knows that it’s a commercial enterprise, but he feels like they are archaeologists trying to claim these moments in time and give access to the fans. There were moments where he has found things “after the fact” and that “devastates” him because he wishes it was included in something they already put out.

Ahmet said, “Music is the best. It takes you to another place.”, and described Frank as a  “Mugician. A magical musician. There are very few who have walked this earth and he was one of them.”

What about creating an odds and ends boxed set? Ahmet said that hypothetically that would be possible, since Frank did weird covers. What about including recordings of Frank and Captain Beefheart? “That stuff is hilarious and needs to come out.”, Ahmet declared, but there are “so many things and so little time.” They need to be methodical and not overwhelm people who are spending their money on musical experiences. The music has to be right and the art has to be right on these projects. 

Ahmet wanted all the Tower Records fans to know that Tower was a ‘sanctuary’ for musicians and he hopes it becomes so for fans and artists again. What about a digital sanctuary for artists? Why not?

He showed us a piece of paper Frank had written before he passed, telling Ahmet that he loved him, hanging framed on the wall. It’s a “personal experience” and so is buying something musical for fans. So many people have to care about a wine to make it tasty, Ahmet explained, and putting these products out is the same. Music is a huge part of his life, so he feels it’s a blessing to be involved.

What about our Tower motto, Know Music, Know Life/No Music, No Life? For Ahmet, that really means the sound of his wife’s laughter, the greatest melody of all time to him. There have been challenges, like any relationship, but her laughter and his kids’ laughter are his happy memories. Frank was the first “tickle monster” Ahmet experienced, and no one managed to tickle him again until his daughter did. But to him that laughter is music. He couldn’t do anything without his family, and his wife. In these times, if you got it good, and he does, that’s “game over”.

The Mothers of Invention 1970 Box Set is out very soon, in June!

 [Ahmet Zappa, Dweezil Zappa, Scott Thunes, Joe Travers perform at Tower Records on March 3, 1994]