Dweezil Zappa To Make Westhampton Beach ‘Freak Out!’

On June 27, 1966, mothers and fathers feared for the safety of their children as they heard the loud, distorted sounds of “Freak Out!” coming from their little ones’ bedrooms.

More than half a century later, the debut album of the Mothers of Invention will be heard live by those children, who are all grown up now.

Fortunately, that mind-bending sound has been preserved by the son of the man who led the Mothers (and himself) onto one of the most influential music careers in history.

Dweezil Zappa, son of Mothers of Invention frontman and rock music legend Frank Zappa, comes to the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 29. This stop on the continuing “50 Years of Frank” tour will have its first 40 minutes dedicated to playing music from “Freak Out!” and other tracks from the early days of the Mothers of Invention, with the rest of the over two-hour show playing highlights from Frank Zappa’s lengthy discography.

Since 2006, Dweezil Zappa has been touring the world playing his father’s music to further the late Mr. Zappa’s legacy and influence after his death on December 4, 1993.

That influence has spanned for so long and so far across the globe that, when Dweezil Zappa answered the phone for an interview last Friday, he’d only just returned from Zappanale, a music festival in Germany honoring the music of Frank Zappa.

In anticipation of coming to Long Island for his Westhampton Beach show, Mr. Zappa said the unique, rebellious spirit of his father and his father’s music has always been warmly welcomed by New York audiences.

“General New Yorkers have a reputation of being individuals who think for themselves,” Mr. Zappa said. “My dad’s music had that as a main theme and said that you should be a free-thinking person.”

While Frank Zappa was not a frequent visitor to the top of the pop charts in his heyday, his nearly-30 year career has garnered a collection of well-known songs like “Montana,” “I’m the Slime,” and the “Freak Out!” track “Trouble Every Day.” While the younger Mr. Zappa said the usual set list consists of the well-known songs, he also said the show will have a focus on the early Mothers of Invention material, along with those that highlight his father’s skills as a multi-instrumentalist.

“We never put together a ‘greatest hits’ show, but we’ll pick five or six songs that people know,” Mr. Zappa said. “The stuff that we focus on are the works that Frank did as a composer and as a guitarist. The audience is well-familiar with what they’re coming for and they like to hear variations on certain songs. A lot of my dad’s music is built that way to keep a level of spontaneity. Every night, the audience gets to see something that no other audience gets to see.”

“Freak Out!” came out at a time when the rock music landscape was already in the midst of change with the likes of “Revolver” by The Beatles, “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys, and “Blonde on Blonde” by Bob Dylan. But Mr. Zappa understands that his father’s tracks on “Freak Out!” including “Who Are the Brain Police?” were truly unique and even shocking.

“There was not a proliferation of distortion used on albums,” he said, referring to the loud, hazy sounds of the guitars heard all throughout “Freak Out!” “If distortion was used on an album, it was a mistake, an overload. That became a sound that people were looking for, and “Freak Out!” has a lot of distortion elements to it. I heard stories about parents hearing it come from their kids’ rooms and then melting it in the oven.”

Mr. Zappa said he grew up witnessing the making of many of his father’s albums in the 1970s and 1980s, including “Apostrophe (’)” “Over-Nite Sensation” and “You Are What You Is.” While he originally had dreams of becoming a marine biologist when he was young, his exposure to his dad’s music and the guitar work of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads shifted his destiny quickly. Mr. Zappa said he’s seen kids at a similarly young age at his shows being exposed to his father’s music. He enjoys it so much that he’ll occasionally let the young music fans come onstage to play with the band, even if that means simply holding a guitar in their hands for the first time.

“For me, I’d see my dad when I was 12 and think it was like a magic trick to play music like he did,” Mr. Zappa said. “It had to be such a shocker for other people to see the depth and variety in the music Frank played. People come up to me and say that seeing the show was a life-changing experience for them. It’s a fun tradition to carry on.”

Dweezil Zappa will play at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 29, at 8 p.m. Tickets, for $91, $106 and $131, are available by calling 631-288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.