by JOHN SWENSON
GW: How do you feel about the current state of your guitar-playing?
FZ: I'm playing my ass off. It has definitely improved.
GW: Is there a point where you can actually feel yourself jumping
beyond anything you were capable of in the past?
FZ: Well, the funny thing about the way I play is that I never
practise. And every time a tour ends and I put my guitar away, I don't
touch it until the next season's rehearsals. And every time I pick it
up it's like learning to play all over again. I don't have any
calluses, it hurts, I can't bend the string, the guitar feels too
heavy when I put it on.
I just had a nine-month layoff where I lost all my technique. Then,
suddenly, one night I didn't have a problem. I just went out there on
stage and started blasting away. I think I've actually exceeded my
goals on a couple of nights.
GW: Can you describe how that feels?
FZ: Well, it's great. You get to the point where you know you have
just said something that nobody has ever heard before. And it's
recorded - you can play it for someone later and say, "Would you
believe that on such and such a night, at such and such a time, under
these circumstances, this occurred?"
I am looking for things that are unlikely. Rhythmic events that are
unlikely. Melodic events that are unlikely. You've already heard all
the good licks that all the good guitar players play. You've already
heard every pentatonic scale there ever was. You have heard all the
chromatic scales that ever were. You've heard the Aeolian mode played
with a muted palm of the hand. You have heard all of the nice bent
notes. You have heard clean playing, accurate playing. You have heard
it all. I don't give a shit about that stuff. I want to play what's on
my mind, and I think I succeed when I can directly convert my
compositional idea into sound patterns right there on stage. And if
the rest of the band accompanies that properly so that it supports the
musical idea, then I did it.
But there's a lot of variables, because it means that everyone on
stage has to hear each other enough and everybody else's musical
imagination is tuned into what I'm doing. You don't have any go-for-
your-selfers out there, because that is what usually ruins a solo -
the drummer overplays, or the bass player or the keyboard player
overplays. If they don't have enough sensitivity to what I'm doing or
if they aren't smart enough to track the direction I'm going in, it's
like dragging an anchor.
GW: Does it bother you that you are not revered as a great guitar
player?
FZ: But I AM revered as a great guitar player by at least four or five
people. And that's better than none.
GW: What I meant is that, whereas somebody like Eddie Van Halen can
become a big star...
FZ: Eddie Van Halen is a good guitar player. He's entitled to all the
adulation he can acquire. There's a lot of good guitar players out
there. But I'll guarantee you that I am the only person doing what I
am doing. Because I don't approach it as a guitar star. I go out there
to play compositions. I want to take a chord change or a harmonic
climate and build a composition on the spur of the moment that makes
sense, that takes some chances. That goes some place where nobody else
wanted to go, that says things that nobody else wanted to say, that
represents my musical personality. That has some emotional content and
speaks to the people who want to hear it. And the ones who don't want
to hear it, who don't like guitar stuff, can forget it; it will be
over in a minute and I'll be back to another part of the song. That's
what it's all about.
Actually, a lot of people can't stand to hear me play the guitar
because of my unusual use of rhythm. You know, everybody wants to tap
their foot, and when I go crazy they lose continuity. They can't count
it, they can't think it, they can't feel it - so they just totally
reject it. They want that nice, safe, straight up and down stuff. And
there is tons of it to go around. Just don't come to me for it.
GW: A lot of people who were once completely mystified by your music
have caught up to it.
FZ: Some people have caught up to it to the point where they can tell
that it's music; they don't immediately reject it anymore. But whether
they have caught up to it to the point where they can comprehend it is
a matter for further discussion. Because I don't think they really
understand it - I don't think they know WHY it's done or how it works.
I don't think they want it to work, because if they understood what
was really going on, then they would have to reject everything else.
Because what I think I am doing is the best solution to the musical
problems that are set up at the time. I am going for optimum solutions
to musical problems. And I think I am doing it the right way.
I am providing good solutions. Okay, I think other people are
providing really safe, really boring, but entirely competent
solutions. To me, a lot of other people sound like the aural
equivalent of a clowns-on-velvet painting. You know what I mean? If
you have a piece of blank, black velvet and wanted to solve the
problem of it being blank, you'd paint a nice clown on velvet there.
SOMEBODY obviously likes that stuff. And there it is for them. That is
not my solution. I'm going for something else.
