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Frank Zappa once said that writing about music was like dancing about architecture. Luckily, the late rock icon’s son Dweezil is a lot less reticent when it comes to talking to the Press about his new tour, as Nathan Bevan discovers

ONE of the most prolific, iconoclastic and virtuoso rock musicians of the 20th century, Frank Zappa was also one of the most divisive.

His dense, complex music, which spanned every genre from psychedelic rock and do-wop to jazz and neo-classical (as well as inventing a few new ones of its own) courted controversy with its political satire and often scatological humour, all of which delighted and polarised its listeners in equal measure.

However, since his death from prostate cancer in 1993 Zappa’s legacy has remained as strong as ever, thanks largely to his son Dweezil who has dedicated the last several years to painstakingly recreating his late father’s work onstage.

“I came up with the idea when I realised my new baby daughter would never get the chance to hear Frank’s music live,” says the 43-year-old Californian, clearly a far more affable interviewee than his notoriously prickly dad.

“Also, I couldn’t shake the feeling that fewer and fewer people under 40 knew about his contributions to music and beyond.”

Indeed, in addition to the day job, Zappa – who would have been 72 next month – had always been a staunch defender of freedom of speech, battling obscenity trials at the Old Bailey and lyrical censorship in Reagan-era America.

He was even appointed special cultural ambassador by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who cited his music an inspiration for the country’s anti-communist revolution in 1989.

“Nevertheless, too many people just saw him as ‘that guy with moustache and the crazy rock songs with weird time signatures’ and I figured I’d be doing a disservice to let that myth perpetuate any further,” he adds, explaining the reason behind setting up Zappa Plays Zappa, a crack touring troupe of Frankophiles committed to performing his extensive back catalogue live.

But even for a seasoned musician like Dweezil, who started playing guitar at the tender age of 12, trying to match Zappa Snr’s technical prowess proved quite a stretch.

“Dad’s style probably leaked through into me over the years, so I guess I’m genetically disposed to play some of it,” he laughs.

“But the majority I had to learn how to play from scratch and it took two years to sufficiently transform my own abilities to the extent I could pull it off – especially the songs off those early Mothers Of Invention albums like Freak Out and We’re Only In It For The Money.

“They might be more than 40 years old these days but they still sound like they’ve been beamed from the future. All you have to do is miss one little part and you can derail the whole band.”

On the plus side though, the music’s timeless quality means it won’t need updating for modern audiences.

“Exactly, after all it’s not like an orchestra which goes out and plays the work of Beethoven feels the need to reinterpret it by putting hip-hop beats over the top,” he says.

“That music doesn’t need any of that stuff, and neither does Frank’s.”

But Dweezil is quick to point out that, despite systematically studying every one of his father’s 89 records back to back, the experience proved far from gruelling, reminding him instead of growing up in the family’s Laurel Canyon hideaway.

“I devoured them for 12 straight hours every day for just over a week,” he smiles.

“Tracks like St Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast took me right back – I mean, who doesn’t want to hear a song about pancakes when you’re five?

“And Inca Roads, that’s a great song to dance to when you’re that age. There was a great, quirky energy to those numbers and they became the fabric of my whole universe back then.”

And let’s not forget the other infamous way in which Zappa proved himself a trailblazer – by spearheading the now accepted rock star tradition of giving your children really odd names.

Decades before Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow christened their baby daughter Apple or Bob Geldof decided on Fifi Trixiebelle for his progeny’s monicker, Zappa came up with the even more outlandish Moon Unit and Diva Thin Muffin for his girls and Ahmet Emuukha Rodan for his youngest son.

Not to mention Dweezil, who’s rumoured to have a far more run-of-the-mill real name.

“Yeah, some have asked if it’s Ian, and they’re kind of right,” he laughs.

“There was an incident at the hospital when I was born where the nurse took offence to me being called Dweezil and demanded an alternative ‘proper’ name be put on the birth certificate.

“As a result my dad wrote down Ian Donald Calvin Euclid, but when I found out about those other names later in life I had them legally stricken from the record.

“Everyone had always called me Dweezil, I didn’t want to be anything else,” he adds.

Zappa Plays Zappa is at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, on Tuesday. Tickets are available from the box office on 029 2087 8444