“NO DUDE…DON’T SAY THAT!”

At the Holiday Inn Swiss Cottage on 8 May 1991, exactly one week after his first UK gig at the Marquee, I spoke to the Dweez. Here’s what we said:

IB: First of all I want to ask you, who is Phfil Beasley?

DZ: Phfil Beasley is my alter ego - a lounge singer. Have you seen the video for ‘Gotta Get To You’? Robert Wagner plays him in the video.

IB: Oh, he was in the ‘My Guitar...’ video too, as Dick Knowse.

DZ: Detective Dick Knowse. He’s now moved on to Phfil Beasley, lounge singer - with a huge pompadour.

IB: Ahmet introduced himself as Phfil Beasley.

DZ: Yeah, he went out there and stole my line basically.

IB: And who are “The Vards” who produced your first single?

DZ: “The Vards” were Edward Van Halen and Donn Landee.

IB: Really? I’d heard that it might have been Edward Van Halen.

DZ: It was. And he actually played the intro to ‘Mama Was A Space Cadet’ - the slide guitar part.

IB: When did you record that - you were only about...

DZ: ...12 or 15, I’d only been playing 9 months.

IB: You actually played on stage with your father in 82.

DZ: Yeah, very close after 'Space Cadet’.

IB: Has your mum got over that now?

DZ: Oh, yeah - it was never intentionally written about her.

IB: Who are Power Tool, with whom you co-wrote a song for ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ - did you actually play on that?

DZ: Yeah. The funny thing about that is, I was just messing around with the Nelson twins - they put a drum machine on and I just played this guitar part. We recorded on an eight track; they took that to a studio, stole my guitar part, and tried to do the song without telling me anything about it. But I found out a couple of weeks before the movie came out - they ended up giving me a credit, but they stole the guitar solo that I had put on it originally. That was pretty funny.

IB: Can you tell me about ‘Dragonmaster’?

DZ: The infamous ‘Dragonmaster’. Yeah, Frank wrote the lyrics to it, I guess, in Stockholm. I heard it in various bits and pieces, but never in an arrangement that I thought was quite appropriate for it. Frank’s not up on his thrash metal, so he suggested to me one night “Why don’t we do ‘Dragonmaster’?” So I wrote basically the ugliest music that I could possibly write. It’s meant to be done as a bit of a joke, really. It’s a send up of speed metal and all that stuff. It’s pretty good though.

IB: Is it going to be released in the future?

DZ: Maybe on the next record, but it’s got such satanic lyrics I could get myself into trouble.

IB: You’d be up there with Deicide and the like.

DZ: Yeah.

IB: Do you plan to do anymore writing together - well, that wasn’t actually written together as such.

DZ: Well, in a round about sort of way it was. I don’t know, we often joke about doing a Zappa Christmas Album. But I’d like to do a guitar album with Frank - maybe that’ll happen.

IB: That’d be great.

DZ: Yeah, it’d be cool.

IB: Do you know if there are any plans to release the version of ‘Chunga’s Revenge’ that you played on probably your last UK visit, in 88 at Wembley.

DZ: I’d heard it was gonna be out on something.

IB: A lot of the 88 material’s coming out now, but I haven’t seen any reference to that.

DZ: Yeah, it’s gonna come out - it was kinda cool. I’ve heard it once or twice since then. I think it’ll be on the next release; it was scheduled for this one, but...

IB: Are you gonna put out your guitar version of ‘G-Spot Tornado'?

DZ: I might stick it in the middle of something.

IB: It was a weird idea, in that ‘While You Were Out/Art’ was done the reverse way: a guitar solo transcribed for Synclavier.

DZ: I wasn’t really aware of that. I’d always liked that piece of music, and of course humans can only play it at half speed, but it’s still more difficult than most people would.... no one in their right mind would attempt to play that song!

IB: I was surprised when I read about it in Society Pages - I was shocked.

DZ: I think we played it okay that night, I don’t recall fucking it up too badly.

IB: Now, ‘The Medley’ - Mike Keneally was supposed to be writing out the list of all the songs. Is it 118?

DZ: Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less; sometimes we remember songs being in there, and we still count them, but they’re not. I think ultimately it is 118, but at one point it was about 122.

IB: I’d love to see that released, and people I’ve been talking to about it who are not actually Zappa fans but know the songs, they’d love to hear that as well.

DZ: Well, I don’t know if it’ll be released, because it’s a record company’s nightmare. Also, it wouldn’t be as impressive on record, unless it was a live recording - because if you just went into the studio and did the proper version of the whole thing it would lose its impact.

IB: I know you’re re-writing the lyrics to ‘Broken. Hearts...’; it started off as ‘Starting Wars Is For Assholes’, then ‘George Bush Is An Asshole’ last week - you were also gonna refer to the LAPD street beating scandal.

DZ: We did that at one point, too. It was ‘Daryl Gates Is An Asshole’.

IB: So it changes from...

DZ: ...whatever is appropriate at the time. It was going to be MC Hammer that night, but ‘MC Hammer Is An Asshole’ is a little too much of a mouthful.

IB: Vanilla Ice also came in for some stick.

DZ: Oh yeah - he deserves it, man.’

IB: On the subject of George Bush, it’s a bit worrying that the man who was a bowel movement away from active service, was just a heartbeat away from becoming President over the weekend. So could it be ‘Dan Quayle Is An Asshole’ next?

DZ: I guess. It’s really seriously whatever can fit in - we like to leave that space open. The open slot of the night.

IB: Okay. What happened with Clitoris Records - or should I say ‘Syphilis’?

DZ: Oh yeah, Syphilis Records; I think I was just signed on to them so they could take a tax loss at the end of the year, because they seriously did nothing. It was like living Spinal Tap, being on that label for that period.

IB: Whom you supported, of course, earlier this year.

DZ: Yeah. That was our very first live slot, opening up for Spinal Tap.

IB: I don’t know if they’re ever gonna come to England.

DZ: I heard they’re coming soon.

IB: That’ll be good. I’d also like to ask what happened to the Normal Life sitcom. I don’t know if it’s ever going to be shown over here, but I understand it’s been dropped now.

DZ: It was dropped a long time ago, and we were glad to see it dropped because we hated working on it. We hated the people; they were just the most pathetic bunch of fucking losers ever.

IB: I've never ever seen any of it, so I’ve no idea.

DZ: Basically what happened was, we came up with the concept, sold the concept....

IB: It was your idea originally?

DZ: Yeah. But then the network flipped it on us when we got into production, and at that point we were still bound by contract to the project. So we had to do it. Originally it was gonna be like The Adams Family to a certain extent; you could do anything within the house, because it would be considered normal by the family. But ‘normal’ people would come over, you know like neighbours, and they would be considered weird based on what was set up as the precedent for normal inside the house. But they said “Okay, that’s great - but let’s do this: let’s make you really normal and have the neighbours be wacky”. It was like, “Fuuuucck!”. So....

IB: You also appeared in a couple of films: ‘Pretty In Pink’ and ‘The Running Man’ are the two that I know of, I don’t know if there were anymore. How did that all come about? I know you did a stint as a DJ on MTV….

DZ: I just did a little stuff here and there - just a way to earn a little bit of money when it’s necessary. I can’t really care less though about it.

IB: You’re not going to take it seriously.

DZ: Nah, it’s just a job - I fucking hate actors, anyway. As people.

IB: Have you done any sessions lately? I know you’ve worked with Don Johnson, The Fat Boys, Winger…

DZ: The last session I did was on Extreme’s album. I did a solo....

IB: Extreme. Did you see them at the Marquee last Thursday?

DZ: Yeah, the night after we played. I played a solo on ‘He-Man Woman Hater’. Nuno, of course, worked with me on my record.

IB: I was wondering - as he was gonna be in town the next day - if he was gonna turn up at your show.

DZ: He came down. But no one recognised him to let him backstage - ‘cause he was gonna come up and play with us.

IB: Someone else in the audience I saw was Jeff Beck. And Warren Cuccurullo was down on the Guest List.

DZ: He was there.

IB: And Terry Bozzio? Did I spot him?

DZ: I don’t think he was there. I think he was in town, but....

IB: Is he still with Beck, do you know?

DZ: I’m not sure, to be honest.

IB: You did a slightly different version of ‘Purple Haze’ with Winger to the one that you performed last week...

DZ: ...just a little bit different!

IB: (laughs) ...and different indeed to Frank’s one, as well, which has just come out; that’s quite a fun one. How did the Peace Choir thing come about? You worked with Lenny Kravitz.

DZ: They just called us up and asked if we wanted to be involved, and we said “Sure”. It was like two days before the war started.

IB: It’s just a singing role, is it? I haven’t actually heard it.

DZ: Yeah.

IB: I don’t think it received any airplay in this country. I don’t know if it had much success around the world. But in this country, the BBC banned it because it was too controversial for them. Some of the records they were banning were just unbelievable - stuff like Elton John’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting….it was just weird, the list they came out with.

DZ: Because of the war?

IB: Yeah. Ridiculous. On the album, you’ve got a cover of The Beatles’ song ‘Anytime At All’. What was the idea behind that one - that’s not a usual choice.

DZ: That’s the main reason we did it. It’s a good song, but rarely, if ever, covered. We decided it would be good for the texture of the album. I wanted to use a 12-string for a second. It’s buried in there somewhere.

IB: I was really pissed off that you played at Tower Records today, and I missed it!

DZ: It was okay. The PA started to smoke in the middle of what we were doing.

IB: So was it just you, or...

DZ: It was me and Ahmet and Mike and Scott, and Josh was playing bongos.

IB: Have you got any more gigs lined up when you go back to the States?

DZ: We do New York, Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Phoenix.

IB: What has the reaction been so far? It was certainly favourable at the Marquee. There was a good rapport.

DZ: Basically it’s been good. With this record, people are finally starting to take me seriously. The best audience that we’ve played for so far was the Paris audience; they really liked it quite a bit. I’ve been surprised at the turn out; over here I figured no one would really be keen.

IB: Yeah, I wondered who would be there last week. I thought it’d probably be a few of your father’s fans, but it seemed to be not so many older people in there, but quite a lot of young people.

DZ: It was a mixed group. Paris was mostly young people. They’re really hip to the record there. They really like it. They like ‘Shoogagoogagunga’.

IB: I can’t say that, so I wasn’t going to ask you about it!

DZ: They came up, even with their French accent, and then say: “Hey, dude. Don’t say that, dude”.

IB: That’s almost like the Bill & Ted style speak.

DZ: To a certain extent. It’s sort of like a play on Los Angeles guitar....actually, what it is, is: ‘Relocated Bostonians In Los Angeles Who Learned To Say “Dude” Far Too Much’ and impersonate other guitar players. Both me and Nuno were doing that. Nuno’s got a pretty heavy Massachusetts accent, so I did a bit of one as well.

IB: Have you got any new guitar body designs? I see you’ve got a ‘Sheik Yerbouti’ one now. There’s the Madonna one....but I didn’t actually see them on stage last week.

DZ: I left most of the ones with the good paint jobs at home, because I was afraid of things happening to them. We’re taking out a bunch of equipment, but it didn’t feel like we had enough of the proper cases to take those out and not have them get screwed up. About the most exotic one I had was the silver sparkle one. That’s a cool one, though.

IB: Is green still your favourite colour?

DZ: Yeah. I like green.

IB: And have you met Madonna lately.

DZ: I haven’t seen her for a while. The last time was at a screening, and she was talking to a bunch of people. She was about as far away from me as you are, and I just walked past her ‘cause she was talking to people, and she stopped talking to the people, and she yelled at me, she said “Oh, great. Just walk right past without saying hello”. It was like (sheepishly) “Well, I thought you were busy.” Every time I run into her, I always think that she’s not gonna remember me. So, it’s a bit of a shocker to be yelled at by Madonna.

IB: Yeah, I wish I could say the same! Some of the songs you played last week, there were a couple I didn’t recognise. I don’t know if there were any new ones. Like ‘The Rain Keeps Coming’?

DZ: Yeah. ‘The Rain Keeps Up’, that’s sort of a new old one; we recorded that for the ‘Havin’ A Bad Day’ album, but we never released it.

IB: That’s funny, because you didn’t actually go back to the first album.

DZ: We sometimes play one or two things from there.

IB: The set does vary quite a bit, does it?

DZ: Oh yeah. Changes every night. Sometimes we’ll play ‘I Want A Yacht’, or something like that.

IB: Who does the role of Bobcat!?

DZ: No one, really.

IB: And some of the encores last week, the last one: ‘I Think I Love You’?

DZ: That was The Partridge Family.

IB: Oh, right. I heard it in ‘The Medley'.

DZ: It was very twisted.

IB: Yeah, you were asking the audience for different styles, which was quite impressive.

DZ: But the joke is, if we get somebody to tell us what style, we go “Okay, yeah. That’s the way it’s going to be,” - but no matter what, we end it speed metal. Even if they said reggae. We’d pretend for a second, then it goes straight to speed metal. And we also did a sort of take off on ‘Bang A Gong’. A joke in the band was to do a song that absolutely nobody would clap for. Something that was so horrifying that people would just look at you. And that was the song. We laughed so hard, because it’s the most inside of all jokes; it’s just a reworked version of ‘Bang A Gong’, but Ahmet sings “Smoke A Bong”.

IB: And something about stuffing rocks down his pants.

DZ: Yeah (sings). “You know we danced, all night long. Come to my house, we’ll smoke a bong; you know I love you, coz you found my missing thong. Let’s, smoke a bong.” But the funny thing is, we’re so anti-drug, we do songs like that because it’s just a total joke to us. But people obviously think that we’re on drugs when we play something like that.

IB: Or devil worshippers, if you do ‘Dragonmaster’.

DZ: Yeah.

IB: I noticed in ‘The Medley’, there are a lot of riffs flying about. I think I spotted a Sabbath one, a couple of Deep Purple’s, and there’s also some Led Zeppelin in there: ‘Kashmir’….

DZ: Yeah, quite a bit of Led Zeppelin. And there's Aerosmith.

IB: But you’re too young to remember those, surely!

DZ: Oh no. I like most of the music from that period. There’s something about it. Some of it’s just so stoopid, that it's great. Like 'Cherokee People’, the Paul Revere & The Raiders song. It's just so bad, we had to put things like that in there. ‘Macho Man’, things like that….

IB: It’s a weird mix.

DZ: It’s supposed to be the good and the bad. A musical time machine. I think it basically succeeds at that. If you took a cuisinart and made a pâté out of the seventies, that’s what it would be.

IB: You’ve also recorded, with The Fat Boys, another Beatles’ song.

DZ: ‘Baby, You’re A Rich Man’.

IB: Which I don’t think has seen the light of day.

DZ: I think it was on a soundtrack, but I haven’t heard that since I played on it. I remember that was the shortest session I ever did. I went in, they played me the song. It was tuned down a half step and my guitar I tune to A4-40, and so it was like a really weird key for me to play in at that point. It was like B-flat I had to play in, because my guitar was not in tune with the track. And I remember just playing one thing, and once I got to a certain point on the neck, I got confused as to what key I was in because it wasn’t standard tuning. I started doing really weird stuff. And they kept it. That was it. Just one take of the solo. And they said. “That was it! Great. No problem. Thanks very much.” OK.

IB: I know that, like Edward Van Halen played with Michael Jackson - and now so has Slash - you wanted to do a disco crossover track. Have you achieved that yet?

DZ: Well, I wanted to play on Madonna’s record. But I like to play on anybody’s record, really. I don’t care, whoever asks me, I’ll play on their record. Actually, the last session I did - I forgot about this - I played on a punk band’s record, The Vandals. On a song called ‘Hey, Homes - Don’t Front My Set’. A good gang song. I played the most bizarre solo that I think I’ve ever played. It’s just so ugly. The best thing. I want to play on people’s record that no one would ever expect me to play on.

IB: Like Vanilla Ice or MC Hammer?

DZ: Yeah. Or Wilson Phillips, or something. I just had dinner with them last night. That’d be funny: I wanna play on their record!

IB: Right. I think that’s about all my questions used up. So, thanks for your time.

DZ: That’s no problem.

IB: Thanks a lot.

***

A fredited version of this interview originally appeared in Issue 22 of T’Mershi Duween. Photo of Dweezil in his Holiday Inn hotel room taken by the Idiot Bastard.

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