Zappa Band Alum Ike Willis Plays Downtown Binghamton

Anyone who's followed Frank Zappa's records or concert tours since the late ‘70s has heard a deep, resonant lead or backup vocal on many songs (such as “Outside Now” on the album, Joe's Garage) and also narrating Zappa's musical play, Thing-Fish. That voice belongs to Ike Willis, whom Frank hired literally right out of college in 1978.

Willis is currently touring with a Zappa tribute band called We Used to Cut the Grass, which will be playing in Binghamton early this month. I spoke to him recently about his tour and his career before, with, and post-Zappa:

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUEL: First, I'd like to thank you in advance for coming to Binghamton! We don't get very many bands like yours around here!

IKE WILLIS: I like Binghamton! Binghamton's pretty cool. I've always had a great time coming there with Frank over the years. It's always been pretty cool. The people have always been pretty gracious.

TCC: Yeah, I remember you playing with Frank at the Broome County Arena on St. Patrick's Day in 1988. That was one hell of a show!

IW: Yeah, that was fun. It was a great band, too!

TCC: It was! We Used to Cut the Grass is only one of several Zappa tribute bands that you've been in. Would you tell us more about it?

IW: Well actually, I have close to twelve Zappa tribute bands all over the world. And We Used to Cut the Grass, I've had these guys for, I think, the last five years or so - five or six years. And they're very, very good. These are my New Jersey guys, and they're quite adept musicians. They're very good players, and they're actually my favorite of my Zappa tribute bands because they're young, but they're really eager. They're incredibly good musicians. I have a lot of fun with these guys! They kind of tracked me down about five years ago and they've been nothing but a joy to work with.

TCC: You played two concert dates with Dweezil Zappa's band, at the Beacon Theater in New York, during his tour last year. What was it like playing on stage with Frank's oldest son?

IW: Oh, it was great! I've known Dweezil since he was seven years old. When I got hired by Frank, Dweezil was seven years old, Moon was nine, Ahmet was five and Diva hadn't even been born yet. Dweezil actually used to come and sit in with us. He'd come on stage with us back when he was a kid, back in the old days when Frank was still alive. So, Dweezil and I, we've always gotten along just fine.

So it was great to be with Dweezil as an adult, you know what I mean? And doing his own concept, his own approach as to playing his dad's music. It's not exactly the same, but definitely close enough. And he and I just played another show in L.A. a few weeks ago, at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood. Which was great! I took my wife. She hasn't seen him since he was a kid. He's great to play with, and we actually have a lot of fun. It's great to see him smiling again, you know what I mean? It's great to watch the look on his face and actually see him having fun, because he hasn't been having too much fun of late. And it's even better now, you know, because he's on his own, he's doing his thing; he's playing his dad's music. And, he's doing what he wants. And he's an adult. And it's great to see him as an adult, because that's the thing. My wife and I, we're just giggling our heads off just to be there doing stuff like that with him at this stage in our lives. I'm 61 years old now. When Frank hired me I was twenty years old. And Dweezil, like I said, was seven. It's kind of like going through a time-bubble, you know what I mean?

TCC: Yes.

IW: It's pretty cool though. I'm enjoying it, actually!

TCC: You have two solo records out, Shoulda Gone Before I Left and Dirty Pictures. Would you like to tell us more about those?

IW: Oh well, I mean, gosh, Shoulda Gone Before I Left, my first album, that's stuff I wrote while my wife and I were in college back in the Midwest, back in St. Louis, which is our home town. We went to Washington University in St. Louis and my wife Denise and I, we've been together since our first day of college in 1974. Actually, I started writing the stuff that was on Shoulda Gone... back when I was in boarding school, even a few years before that! And by the time that I got hired by Frank, and we moved to California, I actually put together my first L.A. band, and started fleshing out the tunes, and actually getting them ready to record and recorded those. And by the time we moved away from L.A. in 1988, a year or two before that, I'd finally gotten the album with all the material recorded.

Dirty Pictures on the other hand, which was released in 1998, is the continuation of Shoulda Gone Before I Left because I basically wrote just about all that material - with the exception of about five tunes - I'd written that material at the same time. It's just a matter of, back in those days, getting a record deal, and getting signed to a record company, etcetera, etcetera, which of course has no bearing on anything now because basically, over the last twenty years, you don't need a record company. People have developed the ability and the technology to do things on their own, on an iPhone for god's sake! That's the thing because way back in my time, I grew up in the days when we had no technology. We had to do it on tape, with equipment, and in a studio! You know, with rooms and things like that. I wouldn't trade any of that for anything on Earth, because I love the concept of hands-on recording, you know. I'm an old analog dinosaur! So I really enjoyed that.

TCC: Now, the inevitable question. How did you come to join Frank Zappa's band in the mid-seventies? You were in college then.

IW: Yes, he took me out of college. I met him at the beginning of my senior year, in 1977. And then in '78 I met him when he came to Washington University once again to do a show. And I got myself on the local crew so that I could take notes with the man just to see how he operated. And essentially, that's what I did. And we happened to meet after sound check was over and we made eye contact. He started talking to me and we just hit it off. He ended up inviting me to audition for his band. And eight months later - this was at the beginning of the Sheik Yerbouti tour. And at the end of the tour, he called me back in my dorm room. I was still in school, catching up on my credits so that I could get ready to go to law school. And he called me back eight months later and said “Okay, I'm flying you out to audition for the band.” The following week, he sent me a ticket and I flew to Los Angeles, and basically that's where I've been. I've been on the West Coast ever since and playing his music. So, I consider myself very lucky, luckier than most.

TCC: You traded a law career for a music career.

IW: Pretty much, yeah. That's me! (Laughs) That's me! He told me, “No, you're not going to law school, you're coming with me, we're going on the road!” As with most other things, Frank was absolutely one hundred percent correct! I'd learned to trust his take on things, if you know what I mean.

TCC: You were one of the main voices of Frank's band for 15 years. What did you like best about touring and recording with Frank?

IW: Oh, basically, kind of like what I just said: it was boatloads of fun, boatloads of education, boatloads of experience, let's say! He taught me how to produce, he taught me how to engineer, he taught me how to basically transform my whole performance thing. I mean, I'd been playing professionally for twelve years before he hired me, because I'd started in the business when I was eight years old, back in the ‘60s. Which was cool. I'd already been playing gigs and stuff like that since I was a kid. But when I got hired by Frank it just transformed that into a whole more advanced experience. So I relearned my whole existence really from him. And starting with him when I was twenty years old, that was even better. Basically, it hasn't stopped. I'm still playing his music, and I'm still touring, and like I said, I've got eleven, twelve Zappa tribute bands all over the world. I'm helping to keep his music alive, something that he asked me to do. I get to play my stuff and his stuff too. I'm a 61-year-old man, and I'm still having the time of my life!

Ike Willis and We Used to Cut the Grass with special guests the Ithaca Bottom Boys will be playing at Atomic Tom's, 196 State Street in Binghamton on Monday, June 5th at 8pm. Tickets are $15.