- Robert
"Fashions?" shouted Frank when I asked him after the show. "Man, you've got to be kidding!"
"Yes, Mr. Zappa, I'd like your ideas on the way some artists dress," I insisted. "Come on, Frank, it's going to be a trip!" "Some trip," agreed Frank, "this is going to be the freakiest thing I've ever done!" And added, "You know, I think you've got the wrong guy." "I'm sure I do. That's why I want you," I said.
We met the next day at his hotel suite and this is what came out:
Dino: The reason I'm interviewing you is that I want to somewhat balance this column. Up to now, I've been talking to very dressy types of people - English artists mostly and new artists who are very conscious of how a performer should look. I'd like to know your opinion about how you think a performer should look. You don't seem to be the dressy type and you are by far not fashion conscious. But you've been through several changes and it seems to me the 1970's are going to produce many more changes in music as well as in appearance. Do you personally plan any change in look?
Frank: You mean in the way I dress?
Yes. You have gone through several changes and many times you've been first.
Well, I don't plan any changes. I wear whatever is comfortable for the work I do.
You are wearing a brace on your leg. That's not the reason why you wear ripped bluejeans, is it?
I wear bluejeans 50% of the time.
Sometimes the things you wear are very fancy, and sometimes they're just very comfortable.
I don't think that I've ever worn anything that was very fancy. It's hard to play in fancy stuff.
Well, you've worn velvet slacks and shiny shirts. Is it that you don't particularly like them or plan it?
I wear whatever's in the suitcase.
But you do shop for your clothes.
Yeah, but I don't always wear that stuff on stage. In fact, I've a lot of stuff that I've never worn more than once or twice.
In other words, you don't pick your clothes to project a visual image of yourself. It's whatever happens to come in handy, and right now you're not wearing the jeans because of the bad leg, but because you feel right and comfortable in them.
Yeah.
Your primary interest then is your music, and this is what you want to project.
My biggest worry about what to wear on stage is whether or not the arms are too tight on the shirt.
That's understandable. Incidentally, is that why you wear baggy shirts?
Yes. If the arms are too tight when you play your guitar, this arm muscle expands - and if the shirt sleeve is too tight, it makes your hand go slower. So I usually wear short or 3/4 sleeved shirts, or a shirt that has loose long sleeves.
You can't help the fact that your fans are going to copy you - even visually, meaning in the way you dress. Have you done anything for them from that point of view? Or would you do something?
Well, I would say that when I was living in New York in '67, the clothes I wore were a bit more stylized than what I'm wearing now. Some of the things I had were a little more humorous to look at.
Yes, I noticed some of your things: vests, scooped T-shirts...
I used to wear suspenders and khakis. Firemen's suspenders.
Well, it's strange that you should adapt this very plain simple look now that everything is super- glamorous.
I'm not super-glamorous. I always wore suspenders. There was nothing glamorous about those kind of clothes in 1967 and I doubt that they'd he glamorous now.
But they were right then.
Yeah, they were right for what I was doing and I just felt like wearing them. I would probably feel funny wearing those same clothes again.
I said that your fans are bound to copy the way you look and dress. They probably have over the years: beard, mustache... Can you think of any fads which you created and your fans copied?
Well, I noticed a few things I started wearing appeared in other places. I was wearing cropped T- shirts. . . with the stomach showing. They copied that. But I don't think of myself as one of the best dressed men in rock 'n roll.