Frank Zappa took creative risks that few musicians
would even consider.
He also wrote experimental classical music
and gallivanted around the world.
But Frank Zappa's life wasn't always rosy.
His upbringing was rocky, and his family life
was also tough.
Here's the tragic story of Frank Zappa.
A biohazardous upbringing
Frank Zappa probably should have spent his
childhood in a hazmat suit.
As Zappa revealed in his autobiography, his
father Francis worked at a military facility
that manufactured poisonous gas during World
War II, and would regularly give Frank things
like mercury, gas masks, and used lab equipment
to play with.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Zappa grappled
with asthma, frequent earaches, and sinus
trouble as a child.
And the cures were almost worse than the ailments.
Following Sicilian tradition, his parents
poured hot olive oil in his ears to remedy
ear-aches, while a doctor tried to fix the
sinus issues by inserting radium pellets into
Frank's sinus cavity with a long wire.
Yikes.
Nomad, arsonist, drop-out
As a kid, Zappa's family moved frequently
due to his dad's job with the military.
According to the New York Times, Zappa attended
six different high schools by the time he
was 15.
Zappa became a bit of a loner, turning to
experimental music and even more experimental
chemistry as hobbies.
After he almost burned his high school down,
though, Zappa was threatened with expulsion
and gave up the hobby.
Not long after, he also gave up on higher
learning entirely.
After enrolling in two different junior colleges
and briefly studying classical music, Zappa
got married and embarked on a series of odd
jobs and musical gigs, including writing music
for low budget films, and making appearances
on variety shows.
After an affair derailed his marriage, however,
Zappa seemed to be going nowhere fast except
to jail, after he was arrested on indecency
charges in a sting operation that led to a
lifelong distrust of authority and a passion
for free speech and artists' rights.
"dirty words don't exist.
This is a fantasy manufactured by religious
fanatics and government organizations to keep
people stupid."
Mothers of Invention
In 1965, Zappa joined an up and coming band
called The Soul Giants.
They soon changed their name to The Mothers,
and then The Mothers of Invention.
They quickly gained a worldwide cult following
for Zappa's genre-defying songs, which lampooned
every segment of society as hypocritical and
shallow, including people who were self-described
"freaks" like Zappa.
This wasn't all a put on.
Zappa clearly didn't suffer fools gladly.
The Telegraph claimed that Zappa viewed humanity
with contempt and deemed social interactions,
quote, "a waste of time."
And his actions sometimes backed up that idea.
When touring with his bands, Zappa stayed
in separate, nicer hotels from the other members,
and he allegedly looked down on his fans because
he didn't think they understood his music.
He told Rolling Stone,
"People are stupid.
They never stop to question things."
Needless to say, this didn't always go over
well with fans.
In 1971, the Mothers of Invention went on
a legendarily disastrous tour of Europe.
During a show in Switzerland, someone in the
crowd fired a flare gun, sparking a fire that
burned the venue to the ground and inspired
the Deep Purple song "Smoke on the Water."
And just a week later, a concert-goer named
Trevor Howell jumped on stage and attacked
Zappa.
Apparently jealous because his girlfriend
was a big fan, Howell threw Zappa off the
stage into a concrete orchestra pit 15 feet
below.
Zappa suffered multiple broken bones and head
injuries, a temporarily paralyzed arm, and
a crushed larynx.
The incident permanently lowered his voice,
and for the rest of his life he would limp
and suffer back pain.
Daddy despot
If being a fan of Zappa was hard, being a
family member wasn't always a treat either.
His second wife, Gail, said that the key to
keeping their marriage together was talking
to each other "as little as possible."
Everything had to be done according to his
demands, even to the point of letting one
of his groupies move into the house with them.
Zappa also had his own views about parenting,
saying
"The more boring a child is, the more the
parents, when showing off the child, receive
adulation for being good parents."
And he didn't want boring kids, one reason
he famously gave all four of them such unusual
names: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva.
He allowed his kids almost complete freedom
to do whatever they wanted, except one thing:
spend time with their dad, who reportedly
always put his music first.
His daughter Moon Unit grew so desperate to
see him that she wrote him a note proposing
that they "get together professionally."
They ended up producing the only Top 40 hit
of Zappa's career, "Valley Girl," but Moon
told People,
"I had no idea it was going to be such a big
hit.
I wanted to spend some time with my father."
Making enemies
Despite his human flaws, Zappa had plenty
of admirers.
In 1985, Zappa earned accolades when he famously
testified before congress in favor of free
speech and artists' rights in an effort to
fight off music censorship.
"the PMRC demands are the equivalent of treating
dandruff by decapitation."
And he had legions of fans in Eastern Europe,
where his music was a focal point for political
and intellectual freedom for counter-culture
dissidents fighting against Communist dictators.
In fact, he was so beloved in the Czech Republic
that in 1990, after the country gained its
independence, Czech president Vaclav Havel
hosted Zappa in Prague and appointed him as
the "Special Ambassador to the West on Trade,
Culture and Tourism."
Unfortunately, Zappa had his share of enemies,
and the appointment led to an international
incident after U.S. Secretary of State James
Baker successfully demanded Zappa be stripped
of his title.
Baker warned the Czech Republic,
"You can do business with the United States
or you can do business with Frank Zappa."
Why the animosity?
Petty revenge: Baker's wife, Susan, had been
one of the co-founders of the music censorship
movement before Zappa ripped her and her movement
in front of Congress.
"if it looks like censorship and smells like
censorship it is censorship no matter who's
wife is talking about it.
And that's censorship."
Family drama
In 1990, Zappa was diagnosed with inoperable
prostate cancer.
Treatments initially shrunk the tumor, but
it rebounded, leading to his death in 1993
just weeks after he released his acclaimed
final album, a compilation of classical compositions
called The Yellow Shark.
He was only 52.
Before dying, he instructed his wife Gail
to sell everything and get out of the music
business, which he found corrupt.
Instead, she did the opposite, becoming what
Rolling Stone called
"the exacting, often litigious gatekeeper
of the Zappa family business."
She demanded royalties from anyone who played
Frank's music publicly and sent cease-and-desist
letters to cover bands, accusing them of "identity
theft."
Before her own death in 2015, Gail arranged
to have Frank's estate unequally divided among
their four children based on who she thought
was most capable of managing it.
Ahmet and Diva each inherited 30 percent of
the Zappa Family Trust while Dweezil and Moon
each received only 20 percent.
As a result, Dweezil and Moon need permission
from their two younger siblings to use or
profit from their father's music or likeness.
At one point, Dweezil, a professional musician
who frequently covers his father's songs,
actually received a cease-and-desist letter
from his own family for using the name Zappa
Plays Zappa.
To avoid a lawsuit, Dweezil ditched the merchandise
and renamed his show
"50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever
the F--- He Wants – The Cease and Desist
Tour."
We think his father would have approved.
