Interviews
Meeting John Lennon and Frank Zappa
I had the good fortune to meet two of the seminal figures in rock and roll history—
John Lennon and Frank Zappa—under very different circumstances.
I first met Frank Zappa in 1986 when I interviewed him for my book Once A Catholic. The following year, when I coauthored his autobiography, The Real Frank ZappaBook, I spent 3 weeks visiting Zappa at his home in the San Fernando Valley, meeting his wife Gail and his entire family—Moon Unit was 20 and Dweezil 18.
I met John Lennon in December 1980, just three days before he was murdered. I had spent much of the previous month interviewing his wife Yoko for a cover story that appeared in the Soho News, and was still on newsstands the night he died. Although I was with Lennon for only four hours, I spent considerable time at the Dakota with Yoko before and after his death.
Here are some curious facts relating these two great musical icons:
Frank Zappa and John Lennon were born 73 days apart in 1940.
Dec. 8, 2020, marked the 40th anniversary of Lennon’s death.
Dec. 4, 2020 was the 27th anniversary of Zappa’s death from prostate cancer; and
Dec. 21 marked the 80th anniversary of Zappa’s birth.
To download a Kindle edition of my interview with Zappa from my 1987 book Once A Catholic, in which he speaks at length about his Catholic upbringing and religious faith in general, please go here.
On Nov. 29, 2015, I was interviewed by Michael Gerlach on his show INSIGHT ON disABILITY. To listen to the entire 40-minute interview, without all the ads (just a brief intro and sponsor IDs), click below,
Frank Zappa Interview IS HERE!
In 1987, at the peak of Frank Zappa’s long career as an innovative musician and outspoken social critic, I interviewed him for my book Once A Catholic. Frank spoke with candor, high intelligence, and just a touch of anger, about his Catholic upbringing, the difference between religion and spirituality, Gregorian chant, catechism class, and music as sculpted air. As far as I'm aware, this is the only time he ever discussed his religious upbringing and his feelings about spirituality at length in print. My book (which also included interviews with George Carlin, Martin Scorsese, Mary Gordon, and Jimmy Breslin, among others) has been out of print for some time, but I’ve decided to make this long-lost interview with Frank Zappa available once again for his countless fans around the world.
Interview with Yoko Ono
My interview feature with Yoko, which led to my meeting with John Lennon, broke a lot of ground in the media world, circa 1980. As I was preparing for the interviews, I read as many articles about her in the arts press that I could find, although, as John noted, there was very little of an uncritical nature in the mainstream press. And the few articles I found about her art didn't tie it in with the larger world of pop culture—as if the two markets shouldn't be spoken of in the same breath. Although the revelations in my piece were largely ignored by the national art press at the time, the piece itself was syndicated nationally and internationally by the New York Times News Service, appearing in dozens of newspapers around the world (with much of the more colorful language excised). And that all happened before the events of December 8. Yoko has since, finally, received a long-overdue retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, along with respectful reappraisals in the mainstream press. Just for historical context, I've scanned the original article as it appeared in the pages of Soho News some 40 years ago, including a number of unique photos by my longtime friend Allan Tannenbaum—including the astonishing full-wall file cabinets I mentioned.