Not a lot of people know this about Frank, but he was not coordinated – in his opinion – to play guitar and sing at the same time it was either one or the other.

He needed someone for the music he was writing that could do a lot of vocal styles. I was doing car horns in solos, but he never really said much to me about my guitar playing and later on he was quoted as saying that I reinvented the electric guitar. My guitar playing had started to be my own. You came to Frank Zappa’s attention when you played with covers band Sweetheart. At one point he was joking around and he made his cello sound like seagulls with the bow and I thought: Oh my God! That’s fantastic! I wonder if I can do that with the guitar? I saw a cellist on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and he was a comedian. Sound always fascinated me, like I could hear the rhythm of life when I was young.

I always seemed to have a good ear for figuring out sounds. Where did your fascination for sound manipulation come from?Īs a child, I used to watch these cartoons – Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all of those – and I’d try to mimic the sound of the different characters.

Please tell me why we couldn't lyrics