What was Frank Zappa’s first band?
As a child, Frank Zappa played with mercury—an anecdote as bizarre as it is true. His father, a chemist in the defence industry, would bring home used lab equipment, passing it to his pre-adolescent son as makeshift toys. At the time, even scientists working for the US Army were unaware of mercury’s toxic effects, so no one questioned the presence of test tubes smeared with liquid metal in young Frank’s collection. Given this unusual upbringing, is it any surprise that he grew up with a singular, unconventional perspective on the world?
This esoteric nature extended to his early love of music too. Where many of his generation got as far as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, the young Zappa was taking in whatever he could get. From R&B records by the likes of Guitar Slim, to the early days of doo-wop like The Channels and even modern classical music of the time like Igor Stravinsky. In fact, it was that love of modern classical that influenced him the most.
A key influence on his early years was Edgard Varèse, and Zappa’s admiration for the Franco-American avant-garde composer rivalled any teenager’s enthusiasm for, say, Buddy Holly. So much so that for Zappa’s 15th birthday, his mother arranged a long-distance call to the composer.
The first, quite surprisingly for small-town California in the 1950s, was that the band was racially diverse. Secondly, Zappa formed a lifelong collaboration with Jim Sherwood, a young saxophonist who would later join Zappa’s Mothers of Invention under the nickname “Motörhead”. A solid nickname—one that would later find another iconic home. However, while Zappa was in The Blackouts, it quickly became clear that his artistic vision extended far beyond the confines of a single rock band.
It was in The Blackouts, though, that Zappa switched from drums to guitar and began fully embracing his vision as a composer. By the end of his high school career, Zappa had moved from playing gigs with The Blackouts to composing, arranging and conducting full-on, avant-garde performance pieces for his high-school orchestra.
An experience that led him to credit two of his high school music teachers in the liner notes of his debut album, Freak Out!. However, of all the remarkable aspects of Frank Zappa’s first band, one missed opportunity stands out the most. Around the same time he joined The Blackouts, he also befriended a classmate—sculpting prodigy Don Glen Vliet.
Both of them were music obsessives, especially over Blues and R&B artists. At the time, though, Vliet was so focused on his art that Zappa couldn’t get him to sit in with his band. One can only imagine how Zappa must have felt about this later in life when Vliet would eventually start turning to music himself. Taking on the stage name you might know him better under, Captain Beefheart.
