Want to join Dweezil Zappa's band? Here's your change. He is looking for a singer and a multi-instrumentalist:
I hope all is well with you. Things are busy over here. We have some touring coming up and it looks like we might have some room for you on the stage! I'm writing to let you know that for the first time in a very long time we are opening up auditions for a male singer/multi-instrumentalist. What am I looking for? Thanks for asking, here's the criteria.
The male singer responsibilities will include covering Frank Zappa lead vocals as well as other lead vocalist parts from throughout my father's entire catalog. As an example, a vocal audition would include: Cosmik Debris, Montana, Dumb All Over, City Of Tiny Lites, Florentine Pogen and Village Of The Sun among other things.
Dweezil Zappa has announced date changes and more shows for the European leg of the 50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the Fuck He Wants tour.
WatchDweezil Zappa ecploring his father's improv techniques in an interview with Reverb.com:
Dweezil talked with us about his father’s incredible improvisation skills and about how he was able play for impressively long periods of time without ever having to repeat himself. That was always the goal for Dweezil in playing his father’s music – to build the extensive vocabulary necessary for that level of improvisation – and he shares with us a few of his father’s techniques that help him do it successfully.
Dweezil Zappa discusses the legacy of his father Frank Zappa in an interview with
The Daily Times:
As I’m learning this stuff, I find more and more details about what made Frank use certain types of sounds and compositional tools, but the thing about it is, there is no really predictable formula in any of it, and that’s what’s so amazing,” Dweezil Zappa told The Daily Times during a recent interview. “Over 80-plus albums, he was never repeating ideas, he was constantly evolving and growing, and if he was putting things in that were similar, it was some purposeful, thematic coherence type of thing. He looked at all of his work as being connected, and I’m constantly amazed at the depth and variety of his music. That’s something to be inspired by and to aspire to.
On performing with Zappa Plays Zappa:
Most people became familiar or got some casual exposure to my dad’s music through what did make it to the radio, and the stuff that made it to the radio wasn’t the majority of the stuff his music was made out of,” he said. “It’s easy to get the wrong impression if all they ever heard is stuff on the radio. Our goal is not to emphasize that material or what they think they know, but to present them stuff they should know more about. I wanted to focus more on the compositional elements that I think made my dad’s music unique.
In building the show, I’m trying to fortify a setlist with instrumentals and things that display what made him different as a composer. What people don’t know is that he really was a classical composer. As a teen, he went to the library to learn how to be a classical composer, and he taught himself everything he knew about music by going to the library. He treated his rock band projects as an orchestra with a repertory ensemble, and that’s a tradition we uphold.
Zappa Plays Zappa will be on tour in North America and Europe throughout this year:
North American tour:
04/09 State Theatre, Portland, ME
04/10 Ridgefield Playhouse, Ridgefield, CT
04/11 Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
04/12 Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA
04/14 Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
04/15 Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, TN
04/16 Iron City, Birmingham, AL
04/17 Wanee Music Fest, Live Oak, FL
04/18 Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
04/20 The Ready Room, St Louis, MO
04/21 Concord Music Hall, Chicago, IL
04/23 Colorado Symphony, Denver, CO
04/24 The Depot, Salt Lake City, UT
04/25 Brooklyn Bowl Vegas, Las Vegas, NV
04/26 Rialto Theatre, Tucson, AZ
04/28 ACM @ UCO Performance Lab, Oklahoma City, OK
It's been ten years since the last Dweezil Zappa album. He uses to PledgeMusic to raise funds fro a new record:
Hello Everyone!
Welcome to my PledgeMusic Page. For the first time in 10 years I’m about to start recording a new album of original music. I’m very excited to share the recording process with all of you. For the first time ever, I can invite you into the studio with me and my band to see how we get sounds and make creative decisions.
For this new album, I want to create a hybrid sound for my music, utilizing the best of new technology accented with the rich harmonic sounds of old analog tape and eclectic analog circuits. In order to fully explore this idea I’m teaming up with recording engineer/producer Joe Barresi (Queens Of The Stone Age, Tool.)
My music has extensively evolved over the years and my guitar style has become more diverse. The gauntlet has been thrown down and alongside my band which includes Scheila Gonzalez, Kurt Morgan, Ryan Brown, Ben Thomas and Chris Norton, we are prepared to creatively and sonically navigate our way through this new territory.
Thanks to my friends at PledgeMusic we are able to offer a pre-order for the new album. By pre-ordering the album, you will get it before it’s available anywhere else. Additionally, each pre-order gives you a “virtual” backstage pass to exclusive behind-the-scenes content. I’ll be posting videos from the studio featuring new songs, guitar parts, recording techniques, demos, and other insider action!
This is much more than just a pre-order. For a limited time, I’m offering the chance to own gear used on the album, a full Fractal Axe Effects preset library of my signature sounds, signed CDs, personalized lyrics, have your name included in the liner notes and even the opportunity for you and your own band to have full day in a Los Angeles studio to cut a demo with me.
Thank you for all of your support. I’m looking forward to sharing this recording process with you!
