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 practice. 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.
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