Virtuoso guitarist, orchestra leader, off-beat composer and leading spokesman for freedom of lyrical expression (ie being very rude), Frank Zappa is arguably the most diverse and complete musician to sport a beard. After a lengthy chase we caught up with the maverick madman and asked what exactly is it like...

For a man who called his home 24-track studio The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen and his two kids Moon Unit and Dweezil, Frank Zappa's a very serious man.

His projects recently have ventured outside Rock 'n' Roll to include a book, Them or Us, two potential Broadway musicals, The Works and Thing-Fish, orchestral music that has been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, chamber music that has been performed by Pierre Boulez' Ensemble Intercontemporain, ballet music that was performed in London to surprised acclaim from even the most entrenched establishment fogeys... the list continues, and no doubt will continue to do so.

At 44, Zappa's grown increasingly self-sufficient, making most of his work available via mail order only (like the triple-album set of guitar instrumental music Shut Up And Play Your Guitar released to surprisingly high sales a few years ago) and his position on the outer fringe of rock has become steadily more divorced from the mainstream.

However, that doesn't mean his single-minded determination to get his own way has softened. He has always seen his bands of virtuosi as merely the best way to get his music played exactly as he envisaged it, and his role has always been more that of the conductor leading the band through a self-written and tightly arranged piece than the archetypal Rock frontman, letting the others 'do their own thing'. Thus, the personnel in his bands has changed without materially affecting his output many, many times.

He's employed over 100 musicians in the past twenty years, providing a springboard and a start to such players as King Crimson, David Bowie and Talking Heads guitarist Adrian Belew, Journey drummer Aynsley Dunbar, Jazz-rock players George Duke and Jean-Luc Ponty, Alcatrazz Rock guitar star Steve Vai, and drummer Terry Bozzio, who replaced Bill Bruford to play alongside Asia's John Wetton and Eddie Jobson and then formed his own American Pop band, Missing Persons along with two other ex-Zappa people, Patrick O'Hearn and Warren Cucurullo.

While some have left the band disgruntled over Zappa's rigid artistic control, most regard their tenure spent in his employ as invaluable. "Working with Frank is great," says Cucurullo, a bandmember from 1978 to 1981. "He's very businesslike, but at the same time he's a very personable guy, so he's both your friend and your boss."

The way in which Cucurullo wound up in Zappa's band is typical of Zappa's penchant for giving auditions to unknowns. On Halloween 1976, he hopped on a Brooklyn subway to see his hero headline Madison Square Garden. "I was introduced to Frank by one of his old soundmen," he recalls. "I was a printer at the time and was wearing this bathrobe with all these pictures of Frank that I'd printed up and was selling them at the show, just so that I could make enough money to afford the tickets. I gave him this tape of me jamming, just playing solos in odd time signatures. He seemed pretty impressed.

"Then I played together with Frank back-stage at a show the following year, and a friendship developed. About two months after that, he said to me, 'Get ready to audition.' He had a European tour coming up, so I assumed he meant in six months or so, but he called me the next week and told me to fly out to Los Angeles the next day. I went up to his house, and he was playing guitar, all these odd-time and atonal types of things. He'd just throw lines at me and say, 'Play that,' to see how fast I could pick things up. I passed the audition and was in the band."

When asked 'What have you learned as a Zappa band-member?' drummer Chad Wackerman chuckles softly. "There's so much," he replies after several seconds of thought. "In fact, a couple of the guys in the band refer to it as Zappa University because you pick up so much with Frank."

Two prerequisites for drumming in Zappa's outfit are sight-reading for recording and the ability to adapt to Zappa's abrupt and unorthodox onstage cues. "They change every tour," sighs Wackerman, with Zappa since 1981. "For example, if Frank wants a Weather Report-like beat, he'll wiggle his fingers above his head. If he pulls a clump of hair, that signifies a Reggae rhythm, but if he pulls on both sides, it means Ska. And then there's one for Heavy Metal...

"Anything can happen at any time, for no reason," he laughs. "That's the approach."

Zappa's latest obsession is one that would enable him to record by himself: the New England Digital Corporation Synclavier digital synthesiser. So far he has used it exclusively only once; on last year's Francesco Zappa, on album of computer-generated music allegedly by an obscure 18th century composer bearing the same name. But Zappa insist he won't be discarding his expensive file of musicians' names just yet and calls his latest aggregation one of the best he's ever assembled; singer/guitarist Ike Willis, guitarist Ray White, keyboardists Bobby Martin and Alan Zavod, bassist Scott Thunes and drummer Chad Wackerman.

In 1970 Zappa disbanded the original Mothers of Invention so that his audience could appreciate what he'd done up to that point. That's been a constant throughout his career: Having his work misinterpreted or accepted on a superficial level.

"Well, there are certain people who have ears and enough background so that they can hear something and understand what's happening, and there are other people who are baffled by it.

"I like to experiment, and most Americans don't like to listen to experimental things. Plus, the climate today is very dance oriented; everybody's been told to jog a lot and be healthy and live forever, and things that fit into that lifestyle are the things that are accepted. That's not what I do. So I just do what I do for the people who like it."

He has been composing more and more on the Synclavier digital synthesizer. Why that and not, say, a Fairlight CMI?

"I'd tried the Fairlight a few years ago and didn't like the sound of it, so I bought the Synclavier instead. I don't want to denigrate the Fairlight, because I understand they've made a lot of improvements to it since the time I heard it. And that's also not to say that the Synclavier is the ultimate computer instrument, because I've heard others capable of doing things it can't. But the main feature is its music-printing program, SCRIPT. After all those years of scoring with pen and pencil, it's a blessing to be able to write your own composition, push a button and have all the parts printed out."

Do you do all your own programming?

"The compositions themselves are loaded in by me playing things on the keyboard, and I do all the editing myself.

Ocker to do all the cleanup work, such as putting in clefs and performance marks. He was like a musical secretary, typing in specific rhythms and stuff in SCRIPT language. I just hired another guy to do that job."

Most of your compositions call for a virtuoso on each instrument. Is that why you continue to record with a band, except for the Francesco Zappa album?

"Actually, a Synclavier, or any kind of computer, is easily more virtuosic than any musician. I can type-in rhythms, and you'll have a hard time finding anybody on the planet capable of playing them. Push a button and it comes out right every time."

Tell us a bit about your home studio. When was it built?

"In 1980 as a 24-track, though we didn't get the Sony digital machine until later. It's got a Harrison 48-channel console, a 24-track Sony digital, a 16-track PCM-1610 Sony, a four-track, a ½ inch two-track and a ¼ inch two-track Studer.

"The analogue multitrack also has eight- and 16-track headblocks, and the two-track machine plays at any speed, from 3¾ to 30ips and all points in between. I can put on tapes that I made back in 1955 and re-Eq them and stuff. Right now we're re-mastering my albums from Sheik Yerbouti to Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, which are going to be re-released on EMI America.

What with your interest in computer instruments and recording technology, are you still interested in the guitar? To a lot of people, you're a bona fide guitar hero.

"Well, people in the United States view guitar playing as a form of exercise; it's like whoever does the most pushups wins. I'm not really interested in being a competitor in some contest to see who can do the most pushups."

Let's go over your guitar history a bit. For years you were associated with the Gibson SG. When did you switch to Fender Stratocasters?

"About three years ago. I got my first SG in 1970, after hearing one for the first time at a party on the Riviera. Before that, I was playing a Gibson LS-5. When I got back to LA, I went down to the guitar shop and picked out a secondhand SG, which I used until about 1975. A guy showed up at a concert in Phoenix with a homemade version of an SG, with a 23-fret neck, special inlays and stuff. I bought that from him and started using it shortly thereafter."

What's your current stage setup?

"On the last tour I used two 100-watt Marshalls for main amps and two small Acoustics to run my three MXR digital delays through. The only other effect I use is a stereo chorus."

Ever since you disbanded the Mothers of Invention, your lineups have been in a constant state of flux. Is that instability intentional?

"I don't call that instability. The bands I've had were usually designed to perform certain types of music, and all musicians have to audition to get the job. As far as I know, it's the only major performing group that gives someone from East of nowhere the opportunity to join a band that's going to give him a chance to play in front of hundreds of thousands of people on a major tour and stake a reputation for himself."

How much creative freedom do your musicians have?

"I don't tell people what to play in a solo, although if we're playing a certain type of song and a guy suddenly has an urge to play a polka in the middle of it, he may not like the consequences of that. And I generally don't assign choreography."

How important is theatricality to being a band-member?

"It's not inflicted on anybody. But, for example, the guys I had on the last tour were just plain hams, so when it was time to ham it up, they had a certain amount of latitude to do whatever they wanted. But when the hand comes down to start the song, you'd better be playing your instrument."

Of all the musicians you've employed over the years, who would constitute an all-star band?

"George Duke, who's probably one of the best all-round musicians I've ever worked with, just in terms of a real love of music as an art form, but without the ego involvement that usually comes with guys that can really play. Also on keyboards, Tommy Mars definitely had his own harmonic concept.

"On drums, I'd say Aynsley Dunbar, Chad Wackerman and Vinnie Colaiuta; on bass, Arthur Barrow, for studio chops and technical precision, but for all-round playing, Scott Thunes gets the nod. He's really a spectacular talent.

"Steve Vai was probably the most virtuosic on guitar, and on percussion, Ruth Underwood."

Having worked with both Rock 'n' Roll musicians and classical musicians, what's the main difference?

"My band's better."

Have you had to overcome any prejudices in working with orchestras like the London Symphony? Are you sometimes still perceived as just some long-haired Rock and Roll musician?

"Of course, there's always that type of prejudice, but frankly, digital technology is making it possible to do away with these people. I'm hoping that in the future I can just go into my studio, push a button and get it played right, and not have to put up with some bullshit from someone in a tuxedo."

Is there the same struggle between artistry and economics in the classical world as in the rock world?

"Americans have this funny idea about symphony orchestras, that just because these people are dressed like penguins, they're somehow closer to God, playing this pure, beautiful music. Well, they have the same problems with counting rhythm and staying in tune that Rock musicians do. The only difference is, Rock 'n' Roll is louder.

"And if you think Rock 'n' Rollers are poseurs when they dress-up to go to a Boy George show, just imagine what type of poseur you're dealing with in the classical world. These people go to see what is, in most cases, a slipshod performance, because classical music in America is underfunded. They pretend they're there to hear the works of the great masters when in fact they're just there to see the guy with the sticks swoon around. It's the same type of star syndrome except that it's got this hypocritical patina to it."

Your recent tour celebrated your 20th anniversary since the formation of the Mothers of Invention. Any observations on how Rock 'n' Roll has progressed over the past two decades?

"I don't think it's progressed in any kind of aesthetic sense, it's just gotten more cut and dried. When I first started making albums, there was more of a marketplace for experimental, oddball stuff. What passes for oddball stuff today is more fashion stuff — girls with waffle hair. It has nothing to do with music."

In the 60s you satirised hippies on Flower Punk; in the 80s punks provoked your ire on Tinseltown Rebellion. Which generation has provided more fodder for songs?

"Well, basically, what we're talking about is the same syndrome: the willingness of people to adopt behavioural patterns that are specified for them by some outside source. Somebody tells you, 'Be a hippie,' 'Be a punk,' and you're dumb enough to do it. One era isn't riper than the other, and there'll be another era coming along right after this: Be a fake Christian."

In general, you speak disparagingly of the present creative environment. Is there some other period in time that might have been more conducive to you as an artist?

"To me? I doubt it."

Since 1982, Frank Zappa has been playing a Fender Stratocaster customised by Performance Guitar of Los Angeles. Neither Zappa nor Performance's Bob McDonald can pinpoint the year of the alder body, though McDonald estimates it's from the 1960s. "The neck is one of ours," he says, "very thin with a flat back and a very flat maple fingerboard. We've made about four or five Strat and Tele necks for Frank and Dweezil; he swaps parts like crazy."

The guitar has been fitted with a Floyd Rose tremolo, a built-in parametric Eq and three Seymour Duncan humbucking bar-magnet pickups. Strings are Ernie Ball stainless-steel; picks are either stainless-steel or copper.