“ONE MORE TIME FOR THE WORLD”
Shortly
before a drum Master Class on
IB: First of
all, how’s your pickle?
TB: How’s my pickle? Its just
fine.
IB: Could you tell me a little
bit about how you came to audition for Frank?
TB: Well, basically: I heard
from Eddie Henderson – who I was playing with at the time – that George Duke
had said that Zappa was looking for someone. Never heard his music. Three days
before the audition, I decided to buy a couple of albums – ‘Live At The Roxy’ and ‘Apostrophe(‘)’. Didn’t sleep for the next three
days. Flew myself down to LA. Went to Zappa’s warehouse – you know, he had a
big huge stage, sound and light equipment I’d never seen before. Most difficult
music I’d ever seen spread all over the stage. There was about 50 drummers
around. There were two Ludwig Octaplus sets set up.
And one drummer would set one kit up while the other one would audition. And
they were going back and forth, dropping like flies. So I thought I’d never get
this gig, so I asked some friends if they’d heard about a Weather Report
audition, because I heard that they were looking for a drummer and I knew I
wasn’t gonna get this gig. And they said, well
Frank’s drummer left…
IB:
TB: …yeah, to join them. So that made me
even more discouraged. But I thought, well I paid the money to come down here,
I owe it to myself to try. The one thing I’d noticed was a lot of the drummers
were sort of flaunting their chops. I thought the least I could do was go up
there and listen and try and play with the guy. So I did the best I could;
sight-reading a very difficult piece, memorising a very difficult piece,
jamming with a very odd time signature – like 19 – and then playing a blues
shuffle. At the end of that, Frank said “You sound great, I’d like to hear you
– after I hear the rest of these guys – again.” And I turned to his road
manager, his road manager turns to the twenty or so guys that were hanging
around, and they’re all shaking their heads, and the road manager turns around
and says, “That’s it, nobody else wants to play after Terry.” So Frank turns to
me and says “Looks like you’ve got the gig if you want it.” So I was completely
blown away.
IB: What had you been doing up until that
point?
TB: I’d gone to school; studied jazz and
classical music for 2½-3 years. Played a rock show called Godspell.
And then started to play with all the jazz/Latin guys around
IB: Later on you actually worked with Herbie Hancock and Dweezil – on
the soundtrack to Back To The Beach.
TB: Yeah, just on that session.
IB: Is that what led to you playing on Dweezil’s second album?
TB: I don’t know if that led to it. Dweezil has been around in my life since he was like so
high.
IB: It says on the sleeve that you played
‘at short notice’.
TB: Yeah, Gail called me and said Dweezil would love me to play on some tracks on his album,
and I said “Sure”.
IB: Your time with Frank was during the
Warner Bros lawsuit. I guess there was lots of rehearsing and experimentation
going on – what songs do you particularly remember from that period?
TB: From that period? I remember when
Frank went through the lawsuit thing, he said he might not be able to pay us.
We all said we we’re willing to hang for a few months as long as the savings
held out in the hopes that things would get better. And Frank was really
depressed in that time. It was just me and Patrick O’Hearn
and Eddie Jobson. And I was gonna be the sort of lead
singer, and do the stuff that Napoleon did. It was a very strange time, you
know. And then he got Ray White – we auditioned lots of singers. I remember
doing ‘Pound For A Brown’, er….oh God, ‘The Torture
Never Stops’…
IB: The ‘Zoot
Allures’ album was basically just you two with a few ‘guest’ musicians,
including Captain Beefheart…
TB: Yeah, he was in the first line-up I
toured with.
IB: One of the songs I liked from that
period was ‘The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution’, with you and Patrick O’Hearn.
TB: Yeah, actually what happened was me
and Dave Parlato and Frank jammed at the Record Plant
for about 35 minutes – filled up two reels of tape. And Zappa, out of all that
material, edited it down to about 13 minutes. And he played it on a real interesting
Fender 12-string that had a Barcus Berry in the neck.
He had the bottom strings turned to Major 7ths …I think he had every
string tuned to a different interval, so it was like a Major 7th
then a Minor 7th. The next ones were, you know, a tri-tone Major 3rd
and a Minor 3rd. And he had the low strings panned left, and the
high strings panned right, and the Barcus Berry
panned centre; he had this glass-shattering 12-string sound, it was really
unique. So we just jammed. And then he…Patrick was playing with Joe Henderson
at the Lighthouse and I went to see him play one night. He was staying at my
house. I brought him home. And he had this big bass in the car. He didn’t want
to leave it in the car, so he brought it inside. And that was how Patrick auditioned
for Frank. You know, Frank said, “You play that thing?” Patrick said “Yeah!” He
goes “Whip it out” And he put him in the studio. Patrick had already played a
gig at 2 or 3 in the morning and he had to play ‘The Ocean Is The Ultimate
Solution’ as sort of an audition. So he got the gig, and played great bass
through it. And Frank put an electric guitar solo on there. It was fun.
IB: Apparently a drum out-take from that
was used for ‘Friendly Little Finger’, using his Xenochrony
technique like on ‘Rubber Shirt’.
TB: It wouldn’t surprise me.
IB: I’ve got to talk about the ‘Black
Page’ – he said that he wrote that because you were such a talented drummer and
he knew you would be able to play it. Could you tell me a little about how you
learnt it?
TB: Well, basically he walked in and he
said, “What do you think about this, Bozzio?” And I
said “Wow, Frank. I’m impressed.” He wrote it because we had done this 40-piece
orchestra gig together.
IB: The Abnuceals
Orchestra?
TB: Yeah. And he was always hearing the
studio musicians in LA that he was using on that talking about the fear of
going into sessions some morning and being faced with ‘the black page’. So he
decided to write his ‘Black Page’. Then he gave it to me, and I could play
parts of it right away. But it wasn’t a pressure thing, it just sat on my music
stand and for about 15 minutes every day for 2 weeks before we would rehearse I
would work on it. And after 2 weeks I had it together and I played it for him.
And he said, “Great!” took it home, wrote the melody and the chord changes,
brought it back in. And we all started playing it.
IB: There’s a similar piece called ‘Mo’s Vacation’, which you’ve described as ‘Ten Black
Pages’. Did you actually play that live?
TB: That was sort of what made ‘The Back
Page’ obsolete. You know, it was like ‘The Black Page’, but more of it! I
always say with Zappa that the level of difficulty just doesn’t get any worse,
it’s just like more of it to memorise and stuff. But ‘Mo’s Vacation’ had some really hard stuff in it as well.
IB: I’ve heard a version with Vinnie Colaiuta.
TB: Yeah, it was past me. When I left the
band it was written maybe a year later or so.
IB: He hasn’t actually released that
officially.
TB: I thought it was on that album he did
with the London Symphony
IB: Oh, that’s the deluxe orchestral
version, ‘Mo ‘N Herb’s Vacation’. I’m thinking of the rock band rendition.
TB: There’s another piece – a page long –
called ‘For C Instruments’. That’s very difficult.
IB: I think that’s part of the 1st
Movement of ‘Sinister Footwear’. In 1977, you played on the premiere
performance of a song called ‘Envelopes’.
TB: Right
IB: That’s mainly Tommy Mars, with you
coming in at the end – was that just an improvised solo?
TB: Yeah, he used it a sort of a set-up
piece for me to play a drum solo afterwards.
IB: During your stint with Zappa you
played with a whole host of interesting people – I think Flo
& Eddie guested at one point?
TB: Yeah.
IB: Beefheart,
Duke – there were also a couple of ladies: Norma Bell and Bianca Odin. He’s
just released one track with Bianca on, but we haven’t actually had anything
from Norma Bell so far.
TB: Norma Bell was a woman who came from
IB: No. He’s not very tolerant of people
who use those naughty substances. You played some interesting places, though –
you played
TB: Yeah, definitely. I remember
IB: In The Real Frank Zappa book
there’s a few funny stories – I just wondered if you know who the ‘fabulous
musician’ was who gratified a girl with a champagne bottle?
TB: Oh no, I don’t. It was probably way
before my time. It sounds like a pretty common thing to do!
IB: Why did you leave Zappa?
TB: I kind of…(laughs) it isn’t
really common, is it? In the rock ‘n’ roll sense it seems pretty tame compared
to some of the stories I’ve heard. Why did I leave Frank? I auditioned with
Group 87 to get a deal with CBS the day that we started to resume rehearsals
again after a break in Spring of 78. And I went in, I’d cut my hair, I was
wearing different clothes, I’d just played this audition and been offered a
deal with a record company. We started to rehearse, me and Pat, and Frank could
tell I wasn’t really into it. So he called me into his ‘office’, as he would
say, we stepped behind the stage and he said, “I think its time you go off and
do your own thing.” Like a good father would: “Son, its time for you to strike
out on your own.”
IB: But you went off then to join
TB: Yeah, I spent about a year not doing
much. I auditioned for Thin Lizzy, that didn’t work
out.
IB: You also turned down Jethro Tull?
TB: No, he (sic) didn’t hear me
play until I was with
IB: Of course, you did appear on ‘Joe’s
Garage’ in 1979 as Bald Headed John. Have you got any stories about John
Smothers?
TB: He’s a great guy, a wonderful guy.
Just a real character.
IB: You also played on John Wetton’s solo album, ‘King’s Road’?
TB: No. Unless he took this one cut off of
what we did with
IB: Could you tell me something about
Group 87, the band that featured Peter Wolf and Patrick O’Hearn.
Was that actually a proper band or just a one-off album?
TB: It didn’t feature Peter Wolf; he was
sort of an additional musician. I opted to be an additional musician too
because I wanted to make it more of a rock ‘n’ roll band, and they wanted to
make it more of an instrumental thing. And so I said “Fine. I won’t join the
band but I’ll make the album.” The album didn’t get made until a break in 1979
when I was with
IB: Patrick O’Hearn
seems to have pretty much given up playing bass to make ‘new age’ albums.
TB: Yeah, he does those albums – he plays
bass on those, but he’s not a professional bass player anymore in terms of
working for other people to make his living. He’s a composer, and he writes
really beautiful music, and plays for himself. I mean, he does odd other things
that people might call him for.
IB: Could you tell me a little about
Missing Persons?
TB: We had our 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol
would say. I think it was a really interesting and fun concept that was just
something that would last about that long. I think it was excellent musicians
in it; I have nothing but respect for the musicians. My relationship with Dale
was a tragedy. She had all her problems with drugs and alcohol. And I had a lot
of problems with being co-dependant with her. It was just a chemical firestorm.
Anyway, we never really had a very good relationship and in the end that’s what
broke it all up.
IB: Like Harry and Rhonda?
TB: No. I mean Harry and Rhonda was
completely scripted out by Frank. I just read that stuff.
IB: Chuck Wild was also featured, on
“Broadway piano”.
TB: Yeah. Because we went up to Zappa’s
one night just to visit and he said, “Here, read this, read this, read this.
Chuck, you play the piano.” And that was that. We had a lot of fun.
IB: How did you meet up with Jeff Beck for
the ‘Guitar Shop’ album?
TB: Well Jeff had been trying to contact
me while I was still with Missing Persons, and I was always busy. Then I was
about to embark on a clinic tour, and I got called that day to go down and jam
with him and Mick Jagger at a throwaway video set.
Evidently Jagger had auditioned a bunch of drummers
and none of them was right and it was the night before it and I walked in and
they liked me so that was that. And I played drums on the video and was asked
to play with Jagger, but I didn’t really want to do
it so I asked for a lot of money. It was a long time commitment, for very few
gigs and a lot of rehearsals, and it just didn’t seem right. So I passed on
that. And Jeff said, “I’d like to use you on my thing. What do you think?” And
his manager flew down a few times, and we talked about forming some sort of
band. Essentially, it was like Jeff’s name but it was really a three-way
writing thing. Tony Hymas wrote most of the music, I
guess. I wrote a little. Jeff wrote a little.
IB: That’s your voice on ‘A Day In The
House’ and ‘Guitar Shop’, isn’t it?
TB: Yeah, just doing some vocal stuff. The
tracks were just kind of lacking. Jeff’s sort of odd to work with because he’s
not really a writer. And, you know, it’s hard to sort of….er...
IB: Is Punky
really more fluid?
TB: No (laughs). Jeff Beck
is definitely the best guitar player I’ve ever played with. I mean, Frank is
another great guitar player; he’s got his own style. Jeff is just wonderful,
though.
IB: Yeah, I’ve been a fan of his for some
time.
TB: I think Zappa is, even (laughs).
IB: You played on the soundtrack to the
film Twins…
[Interruption: Jerome Markus of REMO brings a bemused
Terry 4 oranges. The Idiot Bastard asks if he’s gonna
juggle them during his solo.]
IB: …did you actually appear in that
film?
TB: I don’t know if I appear. I know I did
a close-up one morning. All I know was that was like 3 days in hell being
wallpaper on a movie. But I made $5,000 and bought my tape machine.
IB: And you left Beck shortly after that?
TB: No, no, no. We did the album; we did a
tour of
IB: That’s right.
TB: Then we re-scheduled the Hammersmith
gigs, did those. Went into the studio for 3 days, and that’s when Tony quit.
And then Jeff and I tried to get something together with Roger Daltrey, which never happened. Auditioned to sort of jam
with Paul Young and Pino Palladino;
that wasn’t a good match. Then we started writing some stuff ourselves. I went
home to LA, worked with Richard Marx, and I haven’t heard from Jeff since. I
gave him a call yesterday; I hope to see him while I’m here but Jeff’s sort of
reclusive!
IB: I understand you’re now working with
Steve Vai?
TB: Yeah, I just finished making his album.
IB: Is it actually a proper band?
TB: I really don’t know. He would like it
to be. My definition of a band is an unconditional acceptance of all members.
So far, what I’m doing is playing drums on Steve Vai’s
music. And that I consider more of a session gig than being in a band with the
guy.
IB: Is that playing more structured songs
than the ‘Passion And Warfare’ album?
TB: Yeah, its much more structured songs.
There’s a little bit of out stuff, but for the most part its sort of AOR heavy
metal.
IB: It was rumoured that you might turn up
for the Zappa’s Universe tribute concerts that happened last year.
TB: I was in
IB: Have you heard Dweezil’s
versions of ‘Broken Hearts Are For Assholes’ and ‘I’m So Cute’?
TB: No!
IB: On his new album, I understand there’s
a version of Cream’s ‘White Room’ – did you play on that?
TB: No!!
IB: What sort of stuff have you been
playing?
TB: I played on something called ‘Dan Halen’ (laughs). I played on a lot of bits and
pieces of stuff that were really difficult, and I had not time to get them
together and I was really challenged by Dweezil. He
had been, you know…when you work with anybody with the last name Zappa you
don’t have a life, you know, you just play that music. It’s great when you’re
young, but at this point in my life I’d rather do my own music. I went in for
one week and cut I guess 8 or 9 tracks with Dweezil
of some of the most difficult stuff I’ve had to do since I left Frank. It was
just ridiculous. And it wasn’t written out, I had like bits and pieces of the
hard bits scribbled out by Mike or….er?
IB: By Mike Keneally?
TB: Mike Keneally
or what’s his name?
IB: Scott Thunes?
TB: Yeah.
IB: Coz Dweezil
doesn’t actually write music, does he?
TB: No. Dweezil
doesn’t know what he’s doing; he just memorises it and tells everybody else to
play it! Quite like Frank in a lot of ways, but Frank would write as well. But
yeah, I think it was some really good stuff – some really interesting beats and
grooves.
IB: Yeah, I think Dweezil’s
really progressed over 3 albums – the last one was definitely the best to date
– and when I saw him on tour last year I was really impressed. And he played
some of his dad’s tunes as well. Which was nice.
***
A fredited version of this interview originally appeared in
Issue 28 of T’Mershi Duween.
Drawing of “You tell me!” by Terry Bozzio.