I liked a lot of the things other people liked - Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Van Halen, AC/DC - but if I compared it to my dad's music, there just seemed to be elements missing.
Dweezil ZappaThe music that is played on the radio all the time or written about in magazines has nothing to do with musicianship.
Dweezil ZappaBut the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.
Dweezil ZappaI really want younger audience members to see kids in their early 20's playing Frank's music and to be inspired to take things to a higher level themselves.
Dweezil ZappaWell, Steve Vai joined my dad's band right around the time when I actually started playing guitar. So he gave me a couple of lessons on fundamentals, and gave me some scales and practice things to work on. But I pretty much learned everything by ear.
Dweezil ZappaI didn't really hear any other music other than what my dad was working on until I was 12. My recollection of hearing other music was that I liked some things that I heard but I always thought, 'Where's the rest of it?' It didn't have the same amount of detail or instrumentation or imagination in the arrangements.
Dweezil Zappa