Mike Douglas: [...] For The Money, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and Lumpy Gravy. All love songs. Today he's here to talk about his brand new group and his new album, called Zoot Allures. Here is Frank Zappa!

Mike Douglas: You've got some real fans. That was a very unusual title. How do you come up with titles like that, Frank?
FZ: Oh, I'm abnormal.
Mike Douglas: Then it's easy for you.
FZ: Yeah, it's just an everyday thing.
Mike Douglas: You have a classical background, that intrigues me. Are you doing--?
FZ: Not really. I'm just . . .
Mike Douglas: Are you doing this just for the money, or you'd rather be doing something else, or is this what you're really into, the kind of music you're, you're pulling out?
FZ: No, I love what I'm doing.
Mike Douglas: Do you?
FZ: Yeah.
Mike Douglas: How long have you been into rock music?
FZ: Mmmh, since I was 15. I'm 35 now, so that's a while.
Mike Douglas: How did you first turn tuned into, who did you start listening to?
FZ: Just listening rhythm & blues records.
Mike Douglas: Yeah. Anybody in particular that really points you . . . ?
FZ: In those days I used to really like Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and the Howlin' Wolf. Guys like that, you know. All the old favorites.
Jimmie Walker: Ha ha ha ha!
Mike Douglas: In reading about you, you said that when you took musicians on the road it was like they're, you know, kinda going to college in that you have classes everyday with 'em. Explain that to me, will you?
FZ: Well, we rehearse a lot, see. The musicians, when I put my first group together, they came from unusual backgrounds. The singer used to be a bartender, the bass player was a truck driver for a lumber company in Orange County, California, and the drummer used to work for the electric company in Kansas, and also at a gas station, and . . .
Mike Douglas: That's not really unusual, because all of us had weird, strange jobs that we had to do to eat generally before we got into what we wanted to do.
FZ: Well, with them it almost seemed like they got into the music by accident, you know. So there it was quite a bit to study so we . . .
Mike Douglas: How did you find guys like that, who were on another jobs, and they just, where did you congregate, where did you all meet?
FZ: Pomona, of course.
Jimmie Walker: Ha ha ha! Ha ha!
Mike Douglas: You found each other in Pomona?
FZ: Yeah, at a place called The Broadside.
Mike Douglas: That's what I was getting into.
FZ: It's a bar.
Mike Douglas: You started jamming or what?
FZ: Well, actually, there was a group that was in existence before I got that mysterious phone call. I knew the singer in the group, his name was Ray, and he had a fight with the other guitar player in the group, [...] he was out of the band, and they needed somebody to come in and take over for a while, so I went down there, sat in with 'em, I thought they're real good, so . . .
Mike Douglas: Let me ask you a favor, would you-- we're on a time [...], and I want you to play and we'll talk some more later, okay?
FZ: Alright. Okay.
Mike Douglas: Can you?
FZ: Yah.
Mike Douglas: You play some for us? Frank Zappa.

FZ: I gotta take a moment, folks. I gotta plug it in, here. Turn on the giant amplifier. See . . . Nice one, uh? Okay! One, two, three, one . . .

Mike Douglas: Frank Zappa. We'll be right back.

FZ: [...] string quartet. So [...] string quartet.
Mike Douglas: That's [...]. What do you do to loosen up, what do you do to relax, what kind of--? You love music, and you were really tuned into Frank a moment ago.
Kenny Rogers: Well, the thing is I really enjoy all kinds of playing--of course I guess any musician does. You really have to have at least some--not necessarily understanding, but some relationship with all types of music, and-- But I, like Frank, I listen to classical music, really. Bach just does it for me. I mean, I could anything-- The Swingle Singers just has knocked me out.
Jimmie Walker: Oh, I love them.
Mike Douglas: Excellent.
Jimmie Walker: Excellent.
Mike Douglas: Yeah.
Kenny Rogers: I listen to the whole album. And that's a different type of classical music, 'cause you're talking classical in a stricter sense, I would imagine.
FZ: Yeah.
Kenny Rogers: And the string quartets, and so, but I do appreciate that too, but I like the soft mellow classical stuff. Like Tchaikovsky is a little too . . . you know.
FZ: [...]
Kenny Rogers: [...] ha ha ha . . .
Mike Douglas: How about you, Jimmie, for relaxation?
Jimmie Walker: If I'm working, there's two things I listen to [...] it's Segovia, I listen to him, and then, there's the rock thing, the main rock people I listen to in terms of relaxation are probably James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. In terms of relaxation, which may be commercial and [crass], I know, and sweet and loving, but I like that, that's my thing.
Mike Douglas: I gotta talk to you, because you did something-- It was that public service spot that you did, sounding off against drugs, abusing drugs.
FZ: Yeah.
Mike Douglas: You've never been into that scene yourself, as I understand.
FZ: No, I'm not a drug fanatic myself, no.
Jimmie Walker: Ha ha ha ha!
Mike Douglas: No, I wasn't implying that, I mean . . .
FZ: I mean, I'm just not a [...]
Mike Douglas: I know you turn off, that's right, you turn off about drugs. [...] specifically.
FZ: No, I really don't like 'em. And specially don't like what they do to the people.
Mike Douglas: Have you had any friends of yours that have got into it, and you've seen things happen to 'em?
FZ: I've seen that some people have wound up where they couldn't tie their shoes.
Mike Douglas: Yeah. I couldn't do that until I was 27.
FZ: Ha ha ha. Well, I thought it was specially deplorable in this one case, because he [...] 28 to learn, by the time he was 30, he was in trouble.
Mike Douglas: Yeah. No, I was only being [...], but I'm really interested in that, and I'm interested in what reaction your fans had to you doing the spot.
FZ: Well, a lot of people believe that I'm, you know, phew, out there, you know. They . . .
Mike Douglas: People passed up, just looking at a person trying to decide what they--. You cannot decide upon meeting a person, regards of what the hair is like or the clothes, you can't find out, well, you don't know what that person is about till you sit down and spend some time with him.
FZ: Well, unfortunately a lot of other people who did those public service announcements were actually heavily into the chemical alteration process, so maybe the people who listened to the spots took it with a grain of salt.
Mike Douglas: I think of that type of spot, the most impressive thing, the most memorable thing I have ever seen on television was the fellow who had terminal cancer, who was once a part of the [...] show, [...] I can't think what his name is . . .
FZ: Thomas.
Mike Douglas: Thomas. Got on, and did a thing on smoking becase [...] he wanted to help people. Can you imagine having that kind of guts? You know, that's gotta be something, with the pain and everything for a long time. You brought-- Excuse me?
FZ: Do you smoke?
Mike Douglas: No, I don't smoke.
FZ: Did it turn you off, when you saw that?
Mike Douglas: Uh, no, because my father was a heavy smoker. And he's having problems with it for [...] because of that, and so . . . I can't [...] smokers around so much as a kid. And I stole a cigar once and smoke it, when I was, I was 12 and I turned green, and it wasn't St Patrick's Day.
FZ: [...]
Mike Douglas: Ooh, well uh . . . That's not for me. Anyway, you brought us a documentary that you did called A Token Of His Extreme. I love that title. Tell me what we're about to see, Frank.
FZ: We're about to see two minutes of a piece of videotape that was made almost two years ago emboding a performance of The Mothers Of Invention, and it was put together with my own money and my own time, and it's been offered to television networks and to syndication and . . .
Mike Douglas: And?
FZ: And it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry.
Jimmie Walker: Ha ha ha!
FZ: It has been shown in prime time in France and Switzerland, with marvelous results. It's probably one of the finest pieces of video work that any human being has ever done.
Jimmie Walker: I like a man that's smartest.
FZ: Yeah!
Mike Douglas: You did it yourself.
FZ: I did it myself. And the animation that you're gonna see in this was done by a guy named Bruce Bickford, and I hope he is watching the show, because it's probably the first time that a lot of people in America got a chance to see it. So . . .
Mike Douglas: Well, it's our pleasure. Let's see it.