1979 April
Vol 6 No 9

Interview: Frank Zappa
By Charlene Keen, 3 pp

GENESIS: How long have you been in the music business?

Zappa: The first time I got paid was when I was fifteen.

GENESIS: How did that happen?

Zappa: A friend of mine has rhythm-and-blues band called the Ramblers, and he needed a drummer. I'd been playing drums in the high-school orchestra, so I talked my parents into buying me a set of used drums for fifty dollars. But I couldn't get delivery on the drums until the day of the show. The band rehearsed at the piano player's house. We borrowed all the pots and pans from the kitchen, and I put them between my legs like bongos and played a shuffle beat on them.

GENESIS: You were with some other groups before the Mothers of Invention. Who was Nelda, of Ned and Nelda?

Zappa: Ned and Nelda was the name of a record. It wasn't a group. It was me and Ray Collins. (read more)

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