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Project/Object
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Nearly eight years after his passing, Frank Zappa's name still conjures up an almost infinite number of associations and feelings among music fans.
Some think of Zappa's incendiary guitar playing and astounding compositional genius, others his scatological sense of humor, others still his social, political and cultural activism.
For many, the Zappa name reminds fans that the Mothers of Invention or any band that worked under Frank was like a finishing school for musicians. And Frank Vincent Zappa was the toughest headmaster in all of music. He inspired experimentation, whether it was to move on and explore original music or to try something completely different.
But one man defied the model of the Mothers and Frank's later bands as a turnstile through which they passed on their way to a solo career. Ike Willis joined Zappa's band of crazies in 1978 after meeting Zappa the previous year at a show at Washington University in St. Louis where Willis was a student. An impromptu audition prior to the show led Zappa to promise a real shot at a job later.
"Frank came to do a show and a couple of my friends were on the concert committee," says Willis with a laugh from his home in Portland, Ore. "I got them to get me on the local crew as a humper, so I could schlep equipment and take notes. I'd been playing professionally since I was 9, and I wanted to learn. We met at the sound check. We wound up talking for an hour about everything but music, and found that we had a lot in common. He took me back to his dressing room while he warmed up, and then he handed me his guitar and said, 'Do you play?' So he made me play. So we start singing, and after awhile he stopped me and said, 'Well, well.' "
Zappa told Willis that he held yearly auditions and that he was going to be looking for a new frontman, being tired of filling the role himself. Zappa told Willis that he liked his voice and his playing, and was impressed by his ability to pick up music quickly.
"I gave him my vital statistics, and he said 'I'll call you after the tour is over,' " says Willis. "That was the start of the Sheik Yerbouti tour. I was in summer school catching up on my credits to graduate out of summer school, and he called me in my dorm. He said, 'I'm back, get your ass out here. Your ticket will be ready on Friday. I can't wait to see you again. I couldn't stop thinking about your vocals, and I think you've got a legitimate shot.' So I figured, what the hell? I'm dreaming all of this anyway. I flew out and went to the old Desilu studios, where they shot the Lucy shows and The Untouchables, and he had the whole thing set up. There was this whole line of people against the wall, waiting to audition. He handed me a stack of words and said, 'Sing the ones you know, help me audition these people, and we'll get to you later.' I had to call my mom and dad and tell them, 'Uh, I seem to be a member of Frank Zappa's band.' I was about to go to law school, and carry on the proud Willis name. My brother was already one of the top black architects in the country. But my mom had been a Jazz singer, so she very much understood."
After joining Zappa's crew, Willis became an integral part of the proceedings, providing the vocals, guitar and personality for Joe's Garage and Thing-Fish (and every other album after 1978), and joining Zappa on six world tours. Rather than use his position as a potent bullet point on his résumé, Willis remained with Zappa for nearly 17 years, until Zappa's death from prostate cancer in 1993.
"I told Frank, 'As long as you need me, I'm here,' " says Willis. "I'd seen other people come and go and use him as a stepping stone for their careers. He took me out of college and gave me my shot. He was my biggest supporter; he was my biggest fan. He taught me about composing and arranging and writing. I was already doing all that, but he showed me how to sharpen it and to make it work. I told him, 'You call me, and I'm there.' Sometimes he'd call at 3 or 4 in the morning, and say, 'Look, can you come up to the house? I'm working on something I want you to hear.' He'd be mixing in the studio and want some feedback and someone to bounce something off of."
After Zappa's death, Willis aligned himself with a couple of Zappa tributes, one of which, Men from Utopia, was (and continues to be) stocked with former Zappa sidemen, and continued with his solo career, which had begun in 1986 with the release of Should've Gone Before I Left. In 1995, Willis received a tape of a live show from a New Jersey Zappa band called Project/Object along with an invitation to join them for some upcoming shows. Willis was impressed with the Zappa interpretations he heard on the tape and contacted Andre Cholmendeley, the band's guitarist and leader.
"I was more than pleasantly surprised," says Willis. "They were actually pulling off the real music, even some of the difficult stuff. And that was over four years ago. Now they're just stupendous. We're working on damn near anything."
Cholmendeley and a group of his friends had been huge Zappa fans for years, and had started a tradition of jamming and partying in Cholmendeley's basement every year on Zappa's birthday. The band Project/Object grew out of that annual tradition, and began playing locally and then regionally. A mutual friend of Willis and Cholmendeley first alerted Willis to the band, which led to contact between the pair. After listening to the band's live tape, Willis agreed to join the band for a few East Coast dates and has been affiliated with Project/Object ever since.
One of the most impressive feats in the brief history of Project/Object is the band's live performance of the entire three disc Joe's Garage mock opera epic, something that was not even accomplished by Zappa in his lifetime.
"That is a chore," says Willis with a weary laugh. "The album was never done in that order. We recorded it in pieces. We never performed it from start to finish. It was something that Frank and I always wanted to do and talked about doing, but never got the chance to do it. The boys rehearsed for a couple of months, and they had questions on technique or various things, and how to jump from this to that. So I kibitzed and put in my two cents. Originally we didn't do it this way, so in order to segue from one thing to another we had to bridge the gaps by inserting A over B to make it seamless. I flew out a few days before the tour started and really cracked the whip, and sat down to some severe rehearsing, and then to run it start to finish a couple of times, to time it out and get the segues and make it seamless. It was definitely an experience, but lots of fun."
Willis sees his position with Project/Object as an opportunity to represent Zappa to a generation of old fans who miss him and to a new generation of fans who have come to know Zappa's influence through Phish, moe and other similarly structured jam bands. And although he has sometimes filled the role of stern musical taskmaster with Project/Object, Willis does not look at his role as taking Zappa's place in this outfit.
"I never looked at it as filling Frank's shoes ... I've always been of the opinion that nobody can fill those size 12-and-a-halfs," says Willis. "I'm basically his representative. The thing is that he taught me to the point that when I was ready, and he told me I was ready, I knew what to do. I basically rely on my experience and the fact that I was with him for so long and the things that I learned. The last time I saw him before he died, he told me, 'Look, you can do this in your sleep now. Just close your eyes, think back, and remember all the shit I put you through. Think about it, and you can do it.' And that's all I do. I'll close my eyes for a second, and go to the memory banks, and then I can relate to the boys, 'There's going to be a problem here or there's a potential train wreck there.' I just relate the real life happenings at the time we were putting this stuff together, and then we can avoid the pitfalls."
Willis insists that the members of Project/Object learn Zappa's material to the note initially, leaving some room for improvisation and interpretation only after the technical requirements of any particular piece are satisfied.
"I find it simpler and easier to lay it down as written," says Willis. "You can't start interpreting things until you know how it goes. My first two years in the band, I wasn't allowed to do any solos, and no ad libbing. Frank wanted me to learn how it went, and learning his methods and technique. Then when it was time to stretch out and interpret, it was within context, and you wouldn't get the eyebrows. Above all else, avoid the eyebrows."
In addition to his involvement with Project/Object, Willis stays busy with a variety of other musical projects. He recently completed his second solo album, Dirty Pictures, available through his Web site (www.ikewillis.com). He is working on a new album tentatively titled Things Are More Like They Are Than They've Ever Been, and has also re-released his first album on CD (it's been out of print since Enigma folded in the late '80s). He has recorded a live album with Project/Object, Absolutely Live, and has a couple of limited edition discs of performances with P/O, including the Joe's Garage epic.
For more than 20 years, Ike Willis has been an essential component of Frank Zappa's legend. With Zappa gone, Willis is continuing the work that he learned at the size 12-and-a-halfs of the master. Working toward a law degree when he met Zappa in 1977, he has never regretted his decision to leave college just short of graduation and take on the challenge of playing Zappa's music.
"I look at this way ... I couldn't afford to pay for that kind of musical education," says Willis. "Where else could you get that musical education? There it was, laid out in front of me. Recording industry, management, the business, writing, schmoozing, meetings, the whole shot. You cannot pay money for that. And I told him that I was going to stay as long as humanly possible. I'm getting that education for free, and I'm getting paid for it, too? It was a no-brainer for me."
IKE WILLIS AND PROJECT/OBJECT perform at the BarrelHouse on Thursday.
