{"id":463,"date":"2011-03-08T05:19:32","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T10:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=463"},"modified":"2011-03-08T05:19:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T10:19:32","slug":"a-conversation-with-projectobject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/08\/a-conversation-with-projectobject\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with Project\/Object, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composer\/bandleader Frank Zappa died in 1993, but fortunately many musicians remain committed to keeping his music alive. Shortly before his death, Zappa instructed his friend and bandmate Ike Willis to \u201cPlay my music.\u201d Guitarist Andr\u00e9 Cholmondeley (sorta pronounced \u201cchumley\u201d) put together the band Project\/Object as a vehicle to perform the music of Frank Zappa. For nearly a decade and a half, Andr\u00e9 and Ike have been performing Frank\u2019s music together. During soundcheck prior to a recent show, I spent a few minutes with them. — bk<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> I first saw Project\/Object<\/strong> right here in <\/span>Asheville<\/span> at Stella Blue nearly ten years ago. And I was absolutely floored. Andr\u00e9, when did you first develop the idea for the band? And why exactly?<\/span><\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Cholmondeley: <\/strong>Frank was the inspiration, of course. I was a big Zappa fan, starting about 1981. From 1987 to about 1991 I had a band called Zen Pajamas<\/strong>. Mostly originals, a few covers. We did a few Zappa tunes; we actually did a Steve Vai<\/strong> tune, too. Just for kicks, then a Zappa tune became two, or three. And then I had those Zappa parties in my house, right around 1989-90. At the third one, around \u201991, I said, \u201cWait a minute: let\u2019s have my band play.\u201d We knew four Zappa songs, so we learned four more. And we played for about forty minutes. It was the highlight of the party; we had fun. So I said, \u201cNext year!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So the next year, I got a keyboard player involved, and other people. It became much more fleshed out. And we did an hour and a half or two hours of music. And right around that time I had the idea, \u201cWow. This is a working band. I can actually go out and do music with this.\u201d And that\u2019s right about when we started playing out live. Our first time in a club was 1991, maybe 1992.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Ike, I know you play with a few different acts that perform Frank’s music. How did you first get involved with Project\/Object?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ike Willis:<\/strong> Andr\u00e9 and I, we go way back. Actually Andr\u00e9 and I are just celebrating our\u2026twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh year together. I met Andr\u00e9 when he was a student at Rutgers. This was during the \u201984 Zappa<\/strong> tour. We were at Jones Beach in New York, and Andr\u00e9 came over to see the show. He was walking around outside. So he and I started talking, and I took him backstage with me; I introduced him to Frank and everybody else in the band. We stayed in touch after that.<\/p>\n

And it turned out that one of his buddies that he went to high school with was living out in Portland Oregon. That\u2019s where I was living at the time. And this guy became my bass player in my band. One day, he asked me, \u201cDo you remember Andr\u00e9?\u201d I said yeah, and he told me they went to high school together. And I said, \u201cOh, that\u2019s cool!\u201d<\/p>\n

All the time that Andr\u00e9 was at Rutgers, every year on Frank\u2019s birthday, they\u2019d have that party in his apartment\u2019s basement, and they\u2019d play Frank\u2019s music. And everybody started telling Andr\u00e9, \u201cYou guys should be a band!\u201d People really dug it, and the musicians were really great.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to \u201997. I had just gotten back from Israel, doing a thing [Banned From Utopia<\/strong>] with Joel Thome<\/strong>, the composer, who was doing Frank\u2019s orchestra stuff. I had done a few gigs with him in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And the day I got back \u2013 I had literally just gotten off the plane \u2013 I walked into my house, and my wife said, \u201cAndr\u00e9\u2019s on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 said, \u201cLook: I\u2019m out of school. I put a band together; I finally got a band together. We\u2019re playing Frank\u2019s music and stuff like that. We\u2019re wondering if you\u2019d be interested in checking us out, and actually taking us out, touring with us.\u201d I said, \u201cSend me some cassettes so I can hear what you guys sound like live.\u201d I got them and listened, and went, \u201cAha! Well! Well now! This<\/em> will work.\u201d So that\u2019s how Andr\u00e9 and I got reunited in 1997. And I\u2019ve been in Project\/Object ever since.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9\u2019s my manager now; he\u2019s like the little brother I never had. He\u2019s a genius; he\u2019s the best guy on Earth. He\u2019s consistent as the day is long; Andr\u00e9 is the guy, man.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> One of the things that impressed me about you when I first heard you on Frank’s albums was how you brought a sort of organic and playful sensibility — I certainly wouldn’t call it loose<\/em>, but maybe relaxed\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>IW:<\/strong> Well, define \u201cloose.\u201d For Frank, that was about as loose as you could get.<\/p>\n

<\/span>BK<\/span><\/strong>: \u2026to music that was (in those years) growing increasingly technical. Do you see your style of singing and playing as bridging those two approaches?<\/span><\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> Sure, of course. But that\u2019s just the way I came up. My mom was a jazz singer. She was kids with Lou Rawls<\/strong> and Miles Davis<\/strong>. That\u2019s who she grew up with: literally<\/em> grew up with. She was born in Chicago, and she and Lou Rawls were in the church choir together. And in her teens, she went to St. Louis. Miles is from Alton, Illinois, which is right across the Mississippi from St. Louis. They all grew up together, ran around together. So that\u2019s the home I grew up in. I used to go to rehearsals with my mom since I was \u201cthat big.\u201d I\u2019d watch her rehearse at gigs. And I started playing guitar when I was eight, after seeing the Beatles<\/strong> on the Ed Sullivan Show:<\/em> \u201cMom, Dad, I want one of those!\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve got to bridge that gap. The thing you\u2019ve got to remember is, back in the sixties, it was The Music Business. So I was in there before it turned into The Music Industry<\/em>. Back in the sixties, you could be like, \u201cHey! Let\u2019s start a band!\u201d \u201cI own a bass.\u201d \u201cOkay, you\u2019re our bass player.\u201d \u201cI own some drums.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re our drummer, then!\u201d<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> The Joe\u2019s Garage<\/em> story, pretty much\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> That\u2019s exactly<\/em> what it is. It\u2019s not like that any more. Now there\u2019s Berklee, and people go to school, and can read music\u2026things like that.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I’ve read a number of accounts that describe Frank as an incredibly demanding bandleader. Yet onstage — I saw him twice — the bands always seemed to be having a lot of fun. And of course it’s pretty much a clich\u00e9 by this point, the saying that having played with Frank is the best thing one could have on their r\u00e9sum\u00e9. Other than the obvious lack of Frank himself, how would you characterize the difference between playing with Zappa and playing with Project\/Object?<\/span><\/p>\n

IW: <\/strong>The lack of Frank; that\u2019s it. Let me put it this way: before he died, Frank asked me, \u201cTry to continue to play my stuff. Try to keep it alive as much as you can. Put a band together, and get guys that can play this stuff. As long as you do it the way I taught you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about Project\/Object. We have a lot of fun, and that\u2019s the key to the whole Frank thing. I mean, if you\u2019re not having a good time doing this, then\u2026you\u2019re doing it wrong.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Otherwise, it\u2019s just math\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> Yeah, then it boils down to just math. And for all of my Zappa bands, that\u2019s one of the requirements that I demand, and it\u2019s the same thing he demanded of me. Because [with Frank] things got progressively more technical, but at the same time, we were laughing our asses off the whole time. And that\u2019s very<\/em> important. Because you can\u2019t take yourself so seriously: \u201cOh no! We\u2019re hot shit!\u201d Can\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why \u2013 Andr\u00e9 and these guys — this is my number one Zappa tribute band. Besides my personal bias for Andr\u00e9, he gets<\/em> it. They<\/em> get it. It\u2019s really important to me that whoever I play with, perform Frank\u2019s music with, that they get<\/em> it. Because if they don\u2019t get it, then I don\u2019t take \u2018em out.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> The lineup of players in Project\/Object has changed a lot. For some bands this could be a problem, but I almost get the sense that this fluidity might have even been part of your original concept. Was it, or was the original idea based on a consistent lineup?<\/span><\/p>\n

AC:<\/strong> Absolutely. When I looked at the actual Zappa bands, I was inspired, because that\u2019s exactly what he did. Every year or two, sometimes three times in a year. Sometimes because of them<\/em>: someone got a better deal, or they just thought they\u2019d get famous (as Frank said). That happened with [Terry<\/strong>] Bozzio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> And Jeff Simmons<\/strong>!<\/span><\/p>\n

AC:<\/strong> Yeah, there are a lot of jokes around that. But Frank would say, \u201cYou need to move on. I don\u2019t want a violin player.\u201d Or a trumpet player, or whatever. \u201cGo start your own band.\u201d<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> He told that to Lowell George<\/strong> [Little Feat<\/strong>]\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

AC: <\/strong>In my case, it\u2019s a low-budget gig. It\u2019s definitely a labor of love. No one\u2019s making a lot of money doing hit<\/em> music these days; Christina Aguilera<\/strong> has to cancel tours, y\u2019know. It\u2019s tough out there.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s tough to get people who can take two, three, six weeks off from work, and come out and do what we\u2019re doing. And being able to play this stuff; that\u2019s step one. But step two is being able to take a chunk of time off. So that\u2019s a couple reasons why we\u2019ve changed lineups through the years.<\/p>\n

Click to continue to part 2<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on Twitter<\/a>
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Composer\/bandleader Frank Zappa died in 1993, but fortunately many musicians remain committed to keeping his music alive. Shortly before his death, Zappa instructed his friend and bandmate Ike Willis to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}