The late Frank Zappa was not only an incredibly unique musician, composer and arranger, but he also had an astute eye for talent. He was a perfectionist who demanded a lot from the individuals in his band and while it’s probably safe to assume that he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with, he certainly knew how to bring out the best in each and every musician that passed through the various lineups of The Mothers of Invention.

The Mothers was a band that was ahead of its time. Their combination of biting satire and inside joke humor, fused together with often extremely complex musical passages was a potent one, two punch the laid back, west coast, hippie rock scene probably wasn’t fully prepared for when the band appeared in the mid 60’s. Mothers aficionados will recognize the name of keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Don Preston who joined the band shortly after their debut album Freak Out was released in early 1966 and continued to perform and record with Zappa on and off until 1974. Preston’s contributions and inventive keyboard and synthesizer sounds can be heard on such Zappa staples as Absolutely Free (1967), We’re Only It In For The Money (1968), Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970), Waka / Jawaka (1972) and The Grand Wazoo (1972). Oh and who could forget Don’s infamous hamburger, shower scene in the bizarre film Uncle Meat (1969).

After leaving Zappa Don went on to work as a session musician and on film scores for big time heavyweight films such as Apocalypse Now. He also helped put together a band of Zappa alumni called The Grandmothers in the early 80’s, a band which he has continued to gig with even to this day.

It’s been almost forty years since he last set foot onstage with The Mothers but that even at the young age of seventy eight that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to play the music he had a large role in creating whenever he can. Together with his good friend, reed player Bunk Gardner, who did a short stint with The Mothers from 1967-69, The Don and Bunk Show is an evening of Zappa’s music done by two ex-members of the band that were pretty much there right from the beginning. I caught up with Don to discuss the upcoming east coast run of shows on the latest Don and Bunk trek, the music that influenced him growing up in the pre-rock ‘n roll era, and of course to find out a bit more of what Frank was really like.

Don: Well first of all let me say this, Bunk’s brother Buzz, he and I were in the army together in Trieste Italy. We were roommates. I was in the 98^th Army band and we lived in this colorful house behind a castle. There were two man rooms throughout the building, which I think used to be a whorehouse before the army got a hold of it. It was perfect for a band; they had a dancehall which was perfect for a rehearsal space so it was quite amazing. That’s how I met Bunk was through Buzz because when we came back and he moved to L.A. Buzz looked me up and the three of us started playing together. So that’s how we got acquainted. Then right after I got in The Mothers I told Frank about Bunk and that he was a really fantastic sight reader. So Bunk ended up getting an audition and he went there, played everything and was able to get in the band. While we were in the Mothers of Invention we were also roommates for most of the time and we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve played a lot of music together on a lot of different occasions.

To answer your question though, we started playing together as a duo about fifteen years ago. Last year we went on a tour up and down the east coast and the music we were doing, which was mostly Zappa’s, was just tremendous.

Don: In doing this kind of a tour I thought it would be a good idea to do Zappa’s music because that’s what people relate us to. So we put together a show that’s consists of mostly his music. We do a couple of my songs that are kind of orientated towards that sensibility. One of them is called “What Was Zappa Really Like?”

Don: She (Gail Zappa) could try legal action and she’s done that in the past, but she has no legal grounds to stand on at all. Anyone can perform Zappa’s music because it’s been recorded and released, so that’s open for anyone that wants to play his music. There is no way you can stop that. You can try though and she does.

Don: No she doesn’t like me because I instigated a class action lawsuit against her on behalf of all the guys who were in the early band because we never received any royalties. We were entitled to an equal share along with Zappa but he just never bothered to pay anybody.

Don: Oh yeah he was aware of it but we didn’t have a lot of opposition. We used to have a Raggedy Ann like doll only it looked just like Zappa and we used to do this thing like we were giving birth to the doll, which of course we did because we gave birth to the Mothers of Invention.

Don: We have to rehearse a lot. I’m using backgrounds and sequences that I recorded which are totally specific in that we have to play with it. One of the things that is a big departure for us compared to other bands if you will, is that we do a lot of comedy and some very strange things. I don’t want to be too specific [laughs] but a lot of the stuff we do is really visual and of course we always paying the music as well.

Don: Oh no I’m surprised that we get as much recognition as we do. Of all the bands that Zappa played with why is it that they’re mostly releasing stuff with the early band?

Don: That’s an interesting point because I don’t think they could grasp the music. I mean serious musicians have trouble grasping it [laughs]. For example in a song like “The Little House I Used To Live In” the bass and drums are playing in 11/8, the melody is in 12/8 and then it’s juxtaposed on top of each other. I seriously don’t think the hippies knew what was happening; they just knew it was weird. I think a lot of the lyrics appealed to that generation, more so than the music which as I said they just thought it was weird. I think some people tried to comprehend it but I think it was only the serious musicians who had an inkling of what was really happening [laughs].

Don: Well it’s definitely very interesting and very challenging to play, so one has to make sure their chops are up to par so to speak. I work very hard on that end of things myself. We do play some of the harder stuff. I’m working on doing a solo piano version of “The Black Page” right now. I don’t know if anyone’s ever attempted to do that, on piano that is.

Don: It is a challenge when another group is opening for us, because then we come on all of a sudden there’s a lack of sound because they’ll sound a lot bigger than we do. We do have bass and drums present in our show – and visually as well it’s not quite as exciting as seeing a full band playing.

Don: It’s just music that I love. I’ve always thought of myself as being very narrow minded when it comes to music.

Don: Yeah, I have trouble with country and western. I have trouble with mariachi. That kind of simplistic music just doesn’t interest me at all. Even when I joined The Mothers I rebelled at the thought of having to play R&B. I thought it was so simple, that’s the only way I could put it.

Don: He liked some R&B because it was weird. The lyrics and the way it was presented it was just kind of bizarre to him. Of course anything that was bizarre Zappa was all for it. So I gradually got to see what Zappa saw in that music. The first time I went over to his house which was around 1961 I was struck by the similarities of our record collections. Most of the composers that he was listening to I was listening to as well. I didn’t even know at that time that he was listening to R&B stuff because all I saw in his record collection was Stravinsky, Stockhausen, John Cage and all of those composers. I didn’t know that many people that had that kind of music in their record collection, even in the jazz world. Bunk was one of the only other people that I knew that liked that kind of music.

Don: No it didn’t exist. There was some interesting pop music like Slim Gaillard who wrote songs like “Open The Door Richard”, but what I was listening to at the time was Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and George Shearing. You could hear those guys on the radio on regular stations. Those were big influences on me. The other huge influence for me was the movie Fantasia which had Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”. That was a real eye opener to me. M y Dad had “The Rite of Spring on 78’s.

Don: You know I’m not really sure. I can’t really remember what the first thing that I heard was.

Don: That was a slightly different thing but I know what you’re saying. Even before that I was listening to Luigi Nono and Stockhausen had a kind of electronic music. Steve Reich and Phillip Glass had a group where they were playing something that was like electronic music. Luciano Berio is another one. I listened to a lot of his stuff.

Don: Yeah pretty much. I was playing some gigs with Don Ellis. We had a duo and he was playing drums. He played drums and I did the electronic stuff. He was also totally into doing that kind of music. The recorded music of his isn’t nearly as far out as what he was doing live.

Don: I put a lot of work into that. Nowadays when people say electronic music it’s kind of funny to me, because it’s a whole different kind of pop thing with the thump, thump bass drum and all that. I’m not putting it down so much as just saying that I think it’s so different. I find some of it’s interesting, but it’s just different.

Don: Yeah.

Don: No I’ll tell you what it was. I was playing in San Francisco with Carla Bley and somehow, for some reason they had gotten in touch with her because they liked her music. They came to the concert and I met the individual people. There were only two Residents who were musicians and they weren’t even musicians they were art school graduates. That’s why if you notice their artwork is really special.

Don: Yeah but their first album Third Reich and Roll I think it was…

Don: Yeah you’re right that’s the one I was thinking of. They could not play an instrument and they didn’t know anything about music, but they wanted to make an album. They had a sixteen track tape recorder, so they took Beatles music and put that on two tracks and they would try to imitate it, but not knowing anything about music [laughs]. So they laid down a bass track and a drum track, they did it all themselves. Then they removed the Beatles music so what you hear on the record is what was left [laughs].

I had been asked to come up to San Francisco because I had a modular and a mini-moog at the time and I was going up there to work on Apocalypse Now. When I got there I called Hardy and told him I was in town and he said “Why don’t you come to our studio and lay down some tracks?” So I took my modular moog and I laid down the tracks.

A number of times I had gone to San Francisco and I was always able to stay at Hardy’s house. Homer was the other guy in the band. Hardy was living with this girl at the time. She was just amazing, just an incredible woman. All of us would go for walks. We would walk all the way from their house to Golden Gate Park. We would walk around the park and then walk all the way back home. We would get into all these conversations and that would happen quite regularly when I was up there.

Don: Well I’m going to Europe a couple of times with The Grandmothers. I’ve been talking to some people about maybe doing an electronic music festival but I don’t know if I would fit in at one of those places.

Don: [Laughs] The one thing I remember is that no one would feed us in the entire city because we had long hair. We would walk into restaurants and the staff would just shake their heads as if to say “No, no, get out”. It was strange because a lot of times people would look at us funny and all the cooks and dishwashers would come out and stare at us, but in Montreal it was like “Get out!” The only place we could eat was at the hotel we were staying at. I do remember the club that we played at was real ultra-modern and hi-tech looking. It was an incredible place to play.