When you think iconic albums by Frank Zappa You Are What You Is and Joe’s Garage are among the top of list. If you think of the Zappa band then immediately you think of the African-American guitarist and singer Ike Willis. While Frank was the brains behind this era of Zappa, Ike was the brawn, the comic relief and a lot of the lives shows personality.

After first meeting Frank while attending college in St. Louis Ike went on to become the main character Joe from Joe’s Garage. Ike, a fan favorite amongst Zappa’s biggest supporters, was Frank’s right hand man in the studio, leading the band in Frank’s absence. Zappa relied on Ike to have the band ready and to get things right; something Willis prides himself on.

Frank like to say that Ike had the ‘biggest ears’ he had ever seen. He was not talking about size but rather Ike’s ability to listen to the music and to hear things that were not yet in the musical score. Ike could improve a song by suggesting current parts be altered or by hearing where a part should be. Zappa loved Willis’ ability and often challenged him to grow even bigger ears.

In the interview that follows Ike and I discuss his upcoming tour with Project/Object as well as what it was like to play and rehearse as a member of Frank Zappa’s band and Frank’s last request of Ike that he is still fulfilling to this day.

Ike: Project/Object is my number one Zappa type band. Ray White, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Denny Walley and I are doing some more shows. Don and Bunk are original Mothers of Invention band members and they are like my big brothers. Denny was in the band when I joined in 1978 and he took me under his wing. Ray was there in 1976 for a tour and then he came back in 1980. We all have a family connection with the whole thing. We are combining three different eras of alumni to do this tour.

Ike: We cover all the bases. We go from the very beginning and all the way to the end.

Ike: You are right in two aspects: We have to be ready for anything and we change the set list around, depending on who the personnel is, as we have others drop in. It makes it a little easier to change the set list at will. There is so much material to work with when you have this many eras of music. One thing I like to do is to make sure everybody is prepared for just about anything. We have more fun that way. Over the course of the evening I can just start calling out tunes.

Ike: I basically do what he taught me. Over the course of the years that I was with him, Frank taught me to approach the music, and the arrangements, both live and in rehearsal, a certain way. My job was to watch him and do exactly what he did. When he wasn’t there it was my job to make the guys follow his directions. Over the course of the last thirty years I really haven’t changed anything, which was one of the rules.

I miss Frank a lot. I still have dreams about him. I will be in the middle of a dream and we will be in the middle of a concert that we did years and years ago. It is really pretty scary how real they are sometimes. When I wake up I have to realize all over again that he is not here. I really do miss him a lot.

Ike: No, not at all. I am not surprised at all that Frank’s music is still so popular. The two biggest musical cults are Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead. I travel to Europe a lot and it is even bigger over there. Thirty years ago I was surprised that it ran that big worldwide. Frank’s music is amazing music and amazing composition; I really think it is totally incredible. What has happened over the years is that each succeeding generation has passed the music onto their kids or their brothers and sisters.

Ike: You hit the nail on the head. Essentially it boils down to --- we used to do a song called “Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously” and that sizes up the whole attitude. People in the States get carried away with the lyrics while the Europeans concentrate more on the music. We used to just try to have fun and not take things so seriously. Frank used to always tell me, “Remember to have fun. If we are not having fun then we are in the wrong business.” For the most part, we are laughing at ourselves while we are onstage being silly, while we are singing silly lyrics and tossing jokes back and forth. All the while we are playing the music. Trust me; we are having a lot of fun out there.

Ike: Oh no, I never think that at all. Frank did that sort of thing, for the most part, because we were playing such hard music. Frank always got the musical kudos he deserved. I think we did just fine.

Ike: It was kind of a combination of both. From the first time we met he felt that he could just throw things at me and I could pull it off for him. He always liked the fact that I could pick up on things. He would tell people all the time that I had the biggest ears he had ever seen. We hit it off to the extent that he could throw anything at me and, one way or another, I could pull it off and bring home the bacon.

I loved doing what I was doing. When I was younger there were a lot of times where I didn’t pick up on it at first because there was just so much material to comprehend. Plus I had idolized the musicians in the band like Ed Mann, Tommy Mars and the Fowler brothers. I used to listen to these guys with my best friend when I was in college in St. Louis. The fact that I was onstage or in rehearsal playing with these guys was amazing. Plus this was now my job.

Everything was going so fast that I didn’t realize everything that was going on. I didn’t always realize what the end result was going to be. I didn’t even hear a lot of stuff until after it was recorded and we did the concerts. I would often hear an album after a tour at Frank’s house when he was listening to it on playback. For Frank and I this was a normal occurrence. I was too busy doing my job to even notice the fact of what we were accomplishing. I didn’t get a chance to hear the finished Joe’s Garage until almost a year after I recorded it. I am telling you there is so much musical information going on with Frank that it is hard to keep up. My wife would go, “How did it go at work today?” and I would have to say, “I have no idea.” I couldn’t process any of this right away; how are you supposed to process that much information?

Ike: Frank is one of the most underrated guitar players on the planet. He was a great guitarist.

Ike: I replaced Adrian when I came into the band. I was in the band when Steve came onboard. I helped break in Steve and bring him into the fold when he was eighteen years old. I was there when Warren Cuccurullo and Mike Keneally came in as well. They are all incredible guitar players. We still got a chance to sit back and watch Frank do his thing. He was an incredible guy.

Ike: Onstage does not even compare to the things that we had to do in rehearsal. Rehearsals were very intense. They were eight hours a day, five days, and sometimes six days, a week. This was a real job.

Ike: Uh, no. Although sometimes we would break into “Louie Louie” because Frank loved that tune and he was the only person on earth that knew all the real lyrics to that song. Frank knew the real words and he knew the words that were mistaken and got the song banned. He really loved that song.

Rehearsals were the most intense musical experiences ever. Onstage it was an incredible experience but rehearsing and learning this shit, oh my God, that was the proof in the pudding. Just learning his methods, techniques, his likes and dislikes and how he wanted to go about things was the key. Terry and Steve were absolute correct with their take on rehearsals.

Ike: I had been playing professionally for twelve years but nowhere near that level. Frank was not worried about me. It was super hard but it was also super fun. We were laughing all the time. We would do something and Frank would say, “Okay, that’s a keeper.” I would hear it on playback later and think, “Oh my God, is that me?” I could not believe I was playing like that.

I joined the band in 1978 and we did a couple of US tours and then we went into the studio to record. Frank said, “Just do what I tell you and follow directions and you will thank me later.” Frank would go, “Okay Ike, just do this, this many times until I tell you to stop.” I would say, “Okay, no problem.” We would laugh and then we would get to work. We would churn through this stuff for hours on end and we were having a ball the entire time.

Ike: That just popped up out of the clear blue sky while we were working; it was all spontaneous. Joe was just a concept. He was just a generic person who grew up in the basement of our parent’s houses. As a story developed all these different characters started to acquire flesh on their bones and they developed lives of their own as we went on as a band. Joe’s Garage ended up becoming his most mainstream album that crossed all of the boundaries; critics, writers and fans tell me that.

Ike: We thought it was pretty funny. It is hard to explain because you have to understand that I am fifty-five years old now. My children, who I didn’t even have at the time, are all grown now. My wife and I have been together since my first day of college. We are looking around going, “When did all that happen?” It is a total blur. When I do things like this I have to stop for a minute and think, “Jesus Christ, when did this happen?” When you ask me questions like this then it forces me to slow down and remember all of this stuff. It really brings back very fond memories and that is when I miss Frank the most.

Ike: I was living up in Portland and he called me down to have our last little meeting. He told me that he was giving me his final instructions and that was to keep his music alive. It was very heavy for me. I was very honored. That is why I am still doing it, because he asked me to.