Warren Cuccurullo: From Joe’s
Garage To Missing Persons
Cover Headline: “Zappa’s Ex Coo Coo”; Contents Blurb: “You feared Frank
Zappa’s lead guitar player had disappeared? Then who’s this? Same face, name
and style – only the band is quite different.
Missing
Persons is no longer an unknown entity in the rock sweepstakes. Its initial
independently released seven-inch EP had "Destination Unknown" top
the airplay lists in Boston and New York, while "Mental Hopscotch"
went to the top of the charts in Los Angeles. Then Capitol Records signed the
quintet, changed one track, and released an eponymous twelve-inch EP that sold
more than 200,000 copies, the most ever for a debut EP from a new group. And
now with its first full album, Spring Session M, Missing Persons becomes one of
the few break-out groups of 1982.
Four of the five members (guitarist Warren Cuccurullo; vocalist Dale Bozzio,
drummer and keyboardist Terry Bozzio and synthesist/bassist Patrick O’Hearn)
previously played with Frank Zappa -- although not at the same time. Cuccurullo
was on Joe’s Garage (all three volumes), Tinsel Town Rebellion, Shut U’ ‘N Play
Your Guitar Some More, and Return of the Son Of Shut Up ‘N Play Your Guitar.
"I was really a great fan of Zappa’s," says Cuccurullo, twenty-six,
who was born in Brooklyn and later moved to California when he auditioned for
Zappa. "I first heard him around 1969-’70, at the time of Hot Rats. I was
pretty young then, but I was interested in the sound of the guitar player. He
reminded me of Eastern music -- Ravi Shankar. I always liked that music. I bought
all of his records, and when Overnight Sensation came out, I couldn’t believe
the stuff he was doing on record. That’s when I started to go see him play all
the time -- fourteen or fifteen shows a tour. I got to meet him in ‘76 when
Terry Bozzio was his drummer. I played some tapes for him that I made with my
brother, a drummer, in our basement. I wrote a vamp and played solos over it --
a lot of spontaneous jamming -- and he liked them."
Two years later, Cuccurullo played Zappa another tape, and Zappa said,
"You’re ready for this band."
"I thought I would have a few months to practice," remembers
Cuccurullo, "since he was going to Europe on tour. I was hoping to
practice my reading and playing when a few nights later Frank called and asked
me to come to Los Angeles the next morning to audition. So I had no time to
practice. I passed the audition and went to Europe two weeks later.
Warren was a green kid when Zappa found him. "Zappa picked me up from
Canarsie, from Brooklyn, and threw me into the world of rock," Cuccurullo
states. "I was never in the studio before. I was instantly part of an
eleven piece band with four guitarists. I was immediately exposed to his
empire, seeing all of his equipment and how he ran things on the business side.
We practiced. I made myself ready for the road. I made sure I was in perfect
health. I didn’t drink or eat any bad foods. I had my vitamins. One of the
things Zappa noticed about me is how I fit into his band -- the amount of
enthusiasm toward his music that I had. That’s something he always looks for in
a musician, besides technical capabilities. I was into everything he’d ever
done! I knew all the parts and even the different arrangements, live and
studio. I was well versed in his music and fit right in. I really enjoyed
playing with frank because he’s a very friendly, down-to-earth guy once you get
to know him. This breaks the barrier of what some people might see in him. I
never had any strange conceptions about him, but a lot of people do."
On the one European tour Warren made, Frank Zappa was basically churning out
his hits, but with some improvisation. "Frank called it the human
jukebox," Cuccurullo laughs. "We played the four most popular songs
from each album, segueing one into another. The kids loved it. I had a few
solos, and we did some jamming." (Hear it on Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar,
etc).
"I could actually feel what Frank was playing when I listened to
him," he continues. "I could just hear it and play it. A lot of times
he would sing me lines, and then I would play them. I was really in tune with
what he was playing. But, then again, I could do different things that were
more me, and I could play those lines without even thinking of Frank because I
was thinking the same way as him. What I learned was that I shouldn’t sound too
much like him, because I was prone to playing like him. He lays everything on
the line: ‘here are the parts and you have to play everything right.’ He likes
people who learn fast. He draws things form you, you try to pick ‘em up as fast
as possible, Usually it’s instant."
Zappa’s old policy was to hire musicians for one whole year. After the European
tour, Zappa and Cuccurullo recorded Joe’s Garage and Tinsel Town Rebellion, but
then, uncharacteristically, Frank decided not to go back on the road. While
still drawing his last few months of pay, Cuccurullo hung out with the Bozzios
in Los Angeles (Zappa had discovered Dale Bozzio’s voice and featured her on
Joe’s Garage."
People always used to see us around town, Warren says about their threesome.
The three loved to dress outrageously. "They thought we were a band. So we
thought we should become a band. After a week of playing together, Frank called
me and said he wanted to tour again. I was completely torn up and didn’t know
which way to go. Because I was really involved with Terry and Dale and felt
good about it. Since I hadn’t toured with Frank that much, I was thinking of
doing this tour and coming back to Terry and Dale. I went to one last rehearsal
with them, and then I realized that there was no way I could stop playing with
them. I went to see Frank, and I was in really in a bad state at the time. I
knew that playing with Terry and Dale is what I wanted to do, however long it
took. We thought it would only take a couple of months. It took Missing Persons
over two years to break out. I explained it to Frank, who said it was going to
be real hard, and he wished me all the luck in the world."
Cuccurullo had no problems adjusting to studio recording with Missing Persons
because of what he learned from Zappa, who basically tells his sidemen what to
do and then sets up the sounds. "I like to be subtle, not too overpowering
with a lot of things going on," he stresses about his style. "I’m a
modern rock guitar player who thinks compositionally.
"I design the sounds myself," explains Warren, "and all the
parts are worked out in a rehearsal hall. Then we perform them live before
recording them. I don’t know how much longer we can do this, due to our
schedule." The band does not record live in the studio; they lay down
drums first, then bass, followed by keyboards, guitars, and vocals. Cuccurullo
considers Ken Scott (of David Bowie, Supertramp, Jeff Beck, the Tubes) the
ultimate producer.
About his ax, as well as his career, Warren Cuccurullo has ideas of his own.
"It’s a solid piece of maple to get the amount of high end sound, a rich
sound, that I wanted. The neck was copied from the 335, and it has an ebony
fingerboard and all gold hardware. It was made by Performance Guitar in Hollywood."
Cuccurullo’s custom made guitar is compact but fully loaded, with three
pickups. "I wanted humbuckers," he mentions, "but I wanted to
cut out the coils to get a metallic single coil sound like the Vox. They’re all
Seymour Duncan pickups- the middle one is a stacked Strat, the bridge is a
custom, and the treble is a humbucker. I have a master Volume and three
separate tone controls for each pickup.
"I have a five position switch to get out-of-phase sounds like on a
Stratocaster. I have a coil cancellation switch so that I can cut the coil out
on the rhythm pickup, to get a single coil sound and to use that in combination
with the middle pickup. The pan pot, which goes from clean to dirty, like on
the Vox, has two knobs in front of the guitar. I put the dirty full up and the
clean I leave down. They can both overdrive, but they’re different pots -- the
clean channel has a less powerful pot than the dirty one. I have a switch that
clips the fuzz sound on the dirty channel so you get a sine wave sound or a real
heavy, thick jazz sound. I also have a parametric equalizer -- one band of the
parametric is in the guitar, which I can switch in and out. I also have a boost
in there, which is like a wah-wah pedal in the guitar. I can pinpoint
frequencies. On my 335, I used to bend the strings --I never used the whammy
bar -- between the bridge and tail piece. So, on my new guitar, I have about
three inches of string that I can bend up and simulate whammy bar techniques
and do other things because it bends up. This guitar has every possible sound!
I can get the ultimate power chord with the parametric -- it brings it up 20
db’s. It takes two four-volt batteries, which have to be changed every three
sets."
His other instruments include a ‘56 Les Paul Special, a ‘62 Stratocaster with
electronics in it, a yellow SG that is also active with electronics and fuzz,
and a sitar given him by Zappa. He considers the Gibson 335 as the first really
good guitar he played, but too big for his five foot, seven and a half inch
frame. He put a pre-amp in his Vox and started working with active electronics.
"I had a pan control," he reminisces, "and I could go from clean
to dirty. It took me about a year to learn how to play it, because the body was
so small. I had to change my picking to pick on it, plus the neck was too heavy
because the guitar was so tiny."
Cuccurullo uses Maxima Gold Strings from Germany -- they are not very popular
in the States, possibly because of their expense. "They last a long
time," he notes, "and hold the sound really well. You can bend them
up a fifth. They stay in tune well, and the sustain is great. I also like them
because they look nice. I rarely ever change guitars on stage unless I break a
string."
He has Marshall Cabinets with Mesa Boogie Mark IV 100 watt tops. "Patrick
O’Hearn is using Carvin equipment," he offers, "and I’m interested in
trying it. I’m happy with my present amplification, but my main problem is that
my Marshall cabinets are very distorted and peak bout 40 feet out in the
audience. If the sound man is on the guitar side, he has a lot of trouble. I’m
trying to bring down my stage sound and maybe have a monitor facing me without
drowning out Dale’s vocals."
For special effects, Cuccurullo has a dinosaur pedal board which contains two
A/DA flangers, super fuzz and a fuzz face with the super fuzz having a switch
to change the fuzz, a Phase MXR 100, Morley Echo Volume Pedal, a Morley Wah Wah
Volume Control, and a strobe tuner with boot scanner. He also has a mute switch
so that he can tune up between songs without sound.
"I really want to be different and to design sound," Warren beams.
"I want to go in another direction than I’m in now. I want to be able to
combine sound digitally and then call on them. It would be much easier because
with the pedal board that I have now, I can’t really combine the sounds. Maybe
I can use two sounds now, but I really want to be able to make a sound by
combining different sounds. I like to use a lot of different techniques."