“Heavy duty”: The classic rock band Frank Zappa always wanted to work with
Frank Zappa is probably one of the most individual minds we have ever seen in music.
When you think about originality in the sonic craft, it usually means that someone has taken an aspect of sound and twisted it. Zappa was different. His original ideas sounded genuinely original, as impossible to replicate as they were to conceive in the first place.
Whether it was working with The Mothers of Invention or as a solo artist, Zappa was able to produce complicated music that was equal parts exciting and terrifying. His live shows followed in the footsteps of his sound, too, as he was responsible for conjuring up various images during his shows that left audiences in complete awe.
Because of his complicated approach towards music, you would assume that he was a fan of equally complicated music, but it turns out that one of his favourite bands was the opposite of what he stood to represent. It turns out he was a fan of a band that was often criticised for being too consistent with their three-chord sound: AC/DC.
There aren’t many bands that operated in more different places on the rock spectrum than Zapa and AC/DC. As well as their alphabetical differences, the two acts delivered music which felt inexplicably separate despite sharing a lot of similar attributes. But the major difference was evolution. Zappa thought music died without it, and AC/DC believed the only way to keep rock alive was to keep pumping it out straight from the heart.
When AC/DC confirmed they were doing a reunion tour earlier in the year, fans of classic rock everywhere rushed to their laptops to start looking up how to order tickets and when they could buy them. Decades after their debut, the band has an utterly irresistible sound, but it doesn’t always come across as something Frank Zappa would like on first listen.
The band have a basic structure. Their songs are made up of a few simple chords and head-banging drums. They love a catchy chorus and a face-melting solo, but most elements that go into an AC/DC song remain the same. The band have been criticised for a lack of creativity because of the consistency in the past, but it turns out this was something that Zappa loved about them, so much so that he wanted to sign them to his label.
“He wanted them for his own label because he thought they were great. I think he saw what everybody saw. They could play, they had a ton of energy, and they were authentic,” said Dweezil Zappa when talking about his father’s affinity for the Australian rockers, “It was a blues-based band with an attitude.”
It feels a little strange that Zappa would give away so much of what made his own music intrinsically brilliant to sign such a comparatively simplistic band. But that is forgetting that Zapa’s real driving force for liking a band or artist was their commitment to their work. AC/DC were perhaps the most authentic rock band around, and that resonated with him.
Dweezil went on to talk about the band’s consistency and why he thinks that’s a good thing rather than a negative. “The thing about AC/DC is they’ve carved a massive career out of playing one style that’s changed very, very little. That’s what people love, that consistency,” he said. “They’re rock solid, and they have a great sound. He [Frank] loved rhythm and blues. AC/DC is essentially a heavy-duty, electrified rhythm and blues band… He just thought they were great because they were really just a high-volume version of the blues.”
It’s a surprise that Frank Zappa was such a big fan of a band that was quite far removed from the music he made himself, but when you think about what is enticing about AC/DC, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from.
