UniMuta: Hi John,
I remember seeing Cheap Thrills performing at the Mosae Zappa festival in Landgraaf, NL, last year. An enjoyable concert by a rock band that included a horn section (yes !!).
Can you elaborate a bit on how it all started? How did the band come together.
Do you have many opportunities to perform the music of Frank Zappa? Have you already toured, or do you just do one-off projects?
John: The Cheap Thrills project started some 7 or 8 years ago when in some kind of meeting with local music and art people, Hans Malagride came to me and said: "You’re a Zappa fan aren't you?". I told him that I was on which he replied that Zappa's passing would be 25 years ago. “Shouldn't we arrange some kind of memorial concert?”.
Also present at that meeting was the director of the local music school and I knew that he had played in a Zappa band years ago. The 3 of us sat together and we made a plan. I had (and still have) a complete band. Steffen (director) still had his lead-sheets from the early days, and based upon these things we all went our separate ways to prepare for a rehearsal. We did that memorial concert in our own small town, but the regional newspaper wrote a large article about it, which made the venue way too small for all the people that wanted to see the show.
I remember seeing Cheap Thrills performing at the Mosae Zappa festival in Landgraaf, NL, last year. An enjoyable concert by a rock band that included a horn section (yes !!).
Can you elaborate a bit on how it all started? How did the band come together.
Do you have many opportunities to perform the music of Frank Zappa? Have you already toured, or do you just do one-off projects?
John: The Cheap Thrills project started some 7 or 8 years ago when in some kind of meeting with local music and art people, Hans Malagride came to me and said: "You’re a Zappa fan aren't you?". I told him that I was on which he replied that Zappa's passing would be 25 years ago. “Shouldn't we arrange some kind of memorial concert?”.
Also present at that meeting was the director of the local music school and I knew that he had played in a Zappa band years ago. The 3 of us sat together and we made a plan. I had (and still have) a complete band. Steffen (director) still had his lead-sheets from the early days, and based upon these things we all went our separate ways to prepare for a rehearsal. We did that memorial concert in our own small town, but the regional newspaper wrote a large article about it, which made the venue way too small for all the people that wanted to see the show.
At that same night several people came to us and said things like “You guys have to play at our venue too”....
The rest is history. We haven't had a lot of opportunities to play. Most probably because Zappa's music is not as popular in Holland than it is in other countries. We all would like to play more. A lot more.
UniMuta: 11 people on stage. That’s quite a lot. Will everybody be able to make it to Bad Doberan? Have any of the musicians visited Zappanale in the past?
John: We all will be at the Zappanale festival (if the trip works out).
No one has ever been at the Zappanale before. Really looking forward to that!
UniMuta: If my memory serves me right, Cheap Thrills brought a selection of Frank Zappa’s best-known songs. Still, not the easiest selection. Did you need to re-arrange some of the songs? How do you decide on the setlist?
John: About the songs... We try to stay as close to the original as we can be, but at the same time we kinda 'mix up' several versions of a song to the version that suits us best. This also means that we mix jokes from one show into another version of the same song. But,… all based upon original Zappa performances.
Your question about 'how to decide on what song' is a good question. As I wrote, we started with what Steffen still had in his archive, and from that moment on it is kinda based upon our personal preferences. Jan (keyboards), Steffen (horn section) and I (mallets/vocals) were familiar with Zappa’s music. The three of us just said what we liked best and that's what we play.
UniMuta: That sounds great.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, John.
Have a safe trip to Zappa Town & See you soon.
Friday will kick off with Scott Thunes’ Rock School, after which there will be Don Preston solo piano, the Hopscotch / The White Page ensemble, and the Ciardelli-Drago-Strano trio.
In other words, it will all go crescendo sound- and volume-wise. Cheap Thrills will the first rock band that will take the stage on Friday (around 22h00). That could make for a very special atmosphere.
This will be fun. Be there !
The rest is history. We haven't had a lot of opportunities to play. Most probably because Zappa's music is not as popular in Holland than it is in other countries. We all would like to play more. A lot more.
UniMuta: 11 people on stage. That’s quite a lot. Will everybody be able to make it to Bad Doberan? Have any of the musicians visited Zappanale in the past?
John: We all will be at the Zappanale festival (if the trip works out).
No one has ever been at the Zappanale before. Really looking forward to that!
UniMuta: If my memory serves me right, Cheap Thrills brought a selection of Frank Zappa’s best-known songs. Still, not the easiest selection. Did you need to re-arrange some of the songs? How do you decide on the setlist?
John: About the songs... We try to stay as close to the original as we can be, but at the same time we kinda 'mix up' several versions of a song to the version that suits us best. This also means that we mix jokes from one show into another version of the same song. But,… all based upon original Zappa performances.
Your question about 'how to decide on what song' is a good question. As I wrote, we started with what Steffen still had in his archive, and from that moment on it is kinda based upon our personal preferences. Jan (keyboards), Steffen (horn section) and I (mallets/vocals) were familiar with Zappa’s music. The three of us just said what we liked best and that's what we play.
UniMuta: That sounds great.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, John.
Have a safe trip to Zappa Town & See you soon.
Friday will kick off with Scott Thunes’ Rock School, after which there will be Don Preston solo piano, the Hopscotch / The White Page ensemble, and the Ciardelli-Drago-Strano trio.
In other words, it will all go crescendo sound- and volume-wise. Cheap Thrills will the first rock band that will take the stage on Friday (around 22h00). That could make for a very special atmosphere.
This will be fun. Be there !
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