{"id":464,"date":"2011-03-09T05:27:55","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T10:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=464"},"modified":"2011-03-09T05:27:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T10:27:55","slug":"a-conversaton-with-projectobject-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/09\/a-conversaton-with-projectobject-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with Project\/Object, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> Ike, do you get any grief from\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Ike Willis:<\/strong> [anticipatory laughter]<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> \u2026from the Zappa<\/strong> estate for playing with Andr\u00e9 and the other groups? Does your doing so get you black-listed from ever appearing with Zappa Plays Zappa<\/strong>, for instance?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> Yes. And yes. Of course. The thing is, I\u2019ve been getting grief from Gail Zappa<\/strong> from the day I walked in Frank\u2019s door when I was twenty years old. So that really doesn\u2019t bother me. And of course I\u2019m blacklisted from playing\u2026look, Dweezil<\/strong> [Zappa] and I, we talked about two, two and a half years ago. We talked about [me] trying to do some gigs with ZPZ. That\u2019s when Ray<\/strong> [White<\/strong>] had first gotten into the band, and Ray said to Dweezil, \u201cCome on<\/em>; we have to do this together<\/em>.\u201d So I talked to Dweezil about it; we set it up. He wanted to do it, I wanted to do it. Basically, it\u2019s for the fans.<\/p>\n

But anything we wanted to do would have to be approved by Gail. Which, of course, I knew would never happen. And of course, once I got on the phone with Gail, she cursed me out for five minutes and slammed the phone in my ear. So, basically, nothing has changed in the last thirty-odd years.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t worry about it. I am following Frank\u2019s instructions, which is why — as you\u2019ll notice — there are no lawsuits or anything having to do with any of my Zappa bands. Because Frank instructed me as to how<\/em> to go about it, so that there would<\/em> be no lawsuits from the Zappa Family Trust. Et cetera, et cetera. Those were part of my final instructions from him.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Andr\u00e9, I’ve read varying reports that Gail Zappa has, shall we say, made life difficult for Project\/Object. Can you comment on that? I honestly don’t understand why she would want to stop anyone from bringing Frank’s music to the world, so long as it doesn’t negatively affect her wallet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Cholmondeley:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Hmm\u2026how do you encapsulate her whole thing? Look: I don\u2019t feel too bad about it, because she goes after people all around the world. She spent a lot of money in Germany, and all over the United States. She\u2019s gone after a lot<\/em> of people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m at the top of her list, because I\u2019ve got Ike Willis, who she really<\/em> doesn\u2019t like. And I\u2019ve worked with more Zappa alumni than anyone. I\u2019m not bragging; that\u2019s just what I\u2019ve done. Because I started very early on. I\u2019ve had at least fifteen alumni onstage, sometimes only for one night. You know the list. Guys from the early Mothers<\/strong> all the way up to the \u201988 band. So I really just barrel forward, and I don\u2019t pay much attention to her requests for permission and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

She has made threats; she\u2019s threatened clubs. I\u2019ve got a stack full of legal threats in my basement, none of which have ever gone anywhere. Because the bottom line is \u2013 just like a band doing AC\/DC<\/strong> or Led Zeppelin<\/strong> or Rush<\/strong> covers \u2013 the United States law\u2026she loves to bring up the Constitution, which is funny, because the Constitution has nothing<\/em> to do with music publishing\u2026but U.S. law does say that you can play the music of other composers as long as a few conditions are met. You\u2019re playing in a club that has ASCAP [or BMI] dues paid; you\u2019re playing in a club that\u2019s not recording or broadcasting it or putting it on the web\u2026there\u2019s a few rules. Also, we can\u2019t record or videotape something and then sell it.\u2026Well, actually, you could<\/em>, but you\u2019d have to pay mechanical royalties.<\/p>\n

So she\u2019s tried and tried and tried, and mainly it\u2019s a nuisance. And y\u2019know, out of the hundreds of gigs we\u2019ve done, she maybe got two cancelled. And that was because we were in a club that didn\u2019t have their ASCAP license\u2026<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> They were asking <\/em>for trouble\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

AC:<\/strong> Yeah, they were asking for it. In another case, it was just at the beginning of LiveNation. They were going from Clear Channel to LiveNation, and we were at a club that had just become [connected with] LiveNation. And they were just about to start doing business with [Gail] and ZPZ. And they literally said, \u201cLook, our lawyers say we shouldn\u2019t do this.\u201d So we got the phone call that they were getting ready to do a million dollars\u2019 business with this woman, and they didn\u2019t need this little gig in one of their small clubs up in Portland.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my thing on her. I say, \u201cYou do your thing, and I\u2019ll do mine.\u201d Frank Zappa is really<\/em> not any more special than The Kinks<\/strong> or The Who<\/strong> or Led Zeppelin on some level; he\u2019s not any more important. As far as \u201ccan you play his music,\u201d he doesn\u2019t get any special rights.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Frank’s music went through so many sorts of phases. Andr\u00e9, is there one era or style of his music that you personally favor? <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>AC:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I like all the eras, yeah. But my favorites would be three eras. Roxy and Elsewhere<\/em>. And the period \u201980 through \u201982 is amazing, with so many sight readers in the band, doing stuff like \u201cSinister Footwear.\u201d Some really difficult tunes came out of that era. And three great drummers.<\/p>\n

And the \u201988 band. I saw that band several times. Year after year, that ages very well. But I love 20th<\/sup> century orchestral music, so I loved when he did that. I love The Yellow Shark<\/em>; that\u2019s fantastic. Jazz From Hell<\/em>. So I love the stuff that has nothing to do with a band, too.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Ike, what’s your favorite Zappa song to perform?<\/span><\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> [shakes head slowly] There\u2019s too many songs. Too many to have a favorite one. And there\u2019s too many versions, arrangements of each song. So, no. It\u2019s impossible for me.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> How do you rehearse this music? <\/span><\/p>\n

AC:<\/strong> It\u2019s difficult these days. Because I live here, our drummer lives in Philly. Our keyboard player lives in Wilmington, the bassist is in Brooklyn. The Zappa guys fly out from L.A. or Detroit. What we do, though, is through the beauty of technology. We make sure we come up with specific set lists; I come up with those, and there\u2019s feedback: people say, \u201cI\u2019d like to do this song.\u201d So I put together the list, and we put together which particular version of the songs, and we make sure people have copies of everything.<\/p>\n

We do a lot <\/em>of homework. More than you might do in some other bands. And then we get together right before the tour. Two, three, four rehearsals; that\u2019s it! Very long<\/em> rehearsals; it might be like ten- or twelve-hour days. We\u2019ve been upping that a bit lately; we\u2019ll do that and see what things need working on, and then a couple days before the tour, we\u2019ll do it again.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Ike, in your opinion, what is the biggest difference between Frank the man<\/em> and Frank the image<\/em> that has been perpetuated in popular culture? <\/span><\/p>\n

IW:<\/strong> Oh, god. The image of Frank is that he\u2019s got horns in his head; he\u2019s this evil <\/em>guy. Yes, he\u2019s demanding; he\u2019s very, very demanding. He cracks the whip mercilessly, which is fine. But really, what a sweetheart of a guy. He was a really nice guy, as well as \u2013 of course — the most intelligent human being I\u2019ve ever known. But all of that aside, he was really, really, really<\/em> generous. And a sentimental slob teddy bear of a guy. I can\u2019t stress that enough. Really generous and a really nice guy. I know<\/em>; I was with him for almost seventeen years.<\/p>\n

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Continued from Part One… Bill Kopp: Ike, do you get any grief from\u2026 Ike Willis: [anticipatory laughter] BK: \u2026from the Zappa estate for playing with Andr\u00e9 and the other groups? […]<\/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-464","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\/464","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=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}