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If you've never heard Scott Thunes play the bass guitar, you can’t appreciate how far the instrument can be taken. Thunes will dispute that notion, of course – he takes issue with the idea he’s a great bassist.
The former Frank Zappa sideman is a contrarian of the highest order. He disagrees with almost any statement of a declarative nature, at least when it concerns his role in music and his approach to the bass.
Thunes is of the opinion that much of the brilliant live work he recorded with Zappa is riddled with mistakes, each of which he’s apt to point out in detail.
Regardless of whether he concedes that he’s a great bassist, Thunes played an integral role in music that recognised few limitations.
In an interview with Thomas Wictor for his book In Cold Sweat: Interviews With Really Scary Musicians, which also appeared in the March ’97 issue of Bass Player, Thunes revealed the highs and lows of his seven-year tenure with Zappa.
“I’m a good bass player, fine. I’m a great bass player, great,” said Thunes. “Think whatever you want, but it’s unfair I should be given even slight credit for something I don’t feel pushed the boundaries of the instrument.”
![Frank Zappa - Whippin' Post Live at The Pier, NYC '84 ➤ Remastered [HQ Audio] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7yse5oFHXyQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Thunes first contacted Frank Zappa in 1981 at the behest of his brother, who had himself tried unsuccessfully to audition for Zappa’s group. Having recorded some tracks in L.A., he was summoned back for the formal audition a week later.
This session included improvising to arrhythmic tracks played on a drum machine, as well as performing the same song with two other auditioning bassists, the three of them competing face-to-face.
Once hired, Thunes played with Zappa up until the group’s notorious 1988 tour, the demise of which he is reputed to have caused.
“Once in Barcelona, someone in the band came up to me and screamed, ‘Don’t you know what a privilege it is to play with Frank? How can you ruin his music?’
“So at that particular moment I put my headphones on, and I started listening to classical music while this guy’s mouth was flapping. It was delicious.”
So what, in particular, caused tension between Thunes and the rest of the band?
“Onstage, stuff was turned into a negative only by those who didn’t want people to step out of their pre-determined roles. I play a lot of lines; I pick chunks out of the air, and instead of playing bass, I play my part in the orchestration. And of course the whole idea of being a bass player is not to overplay.
“But I dig tension in my music. For the people who perform it, music very rarely releases tension; it almost always increases tension, but I know from modern classical music that tension can coexist with normality. Frank was a fan of that.”
Thunes was put in the untenable position that the band wouldn’t tour unless he left. And yet Zappa loved how he played, allowed him the freedom to put his improvisational mark on the music, and even made him a ‘Clonemeister’, which essentially meant he was in charge of band rehearsals in Zappa’s absence.
Thunes offered to leave but Zappa didn’t want to begin the audition process all over again, and this coincided with his decision to quit touring altogether.
“At the end of the ’88 tour, Frank decided he wasn’t going to play anymore, because the rest of the band had told him they wouldn’t go out with me again.
“When he told me that, I said, ‘I’ll gladly quit.’ He said, ‘That’s not the answer. I like you, and I like what you do, except for all the mistakes you’ve been making.’
“Every night onstage, I was surrounded by daggers and would completely lose my concentration. I was a wreck, and the music suffered because of my mistakes. Frank’s only enjoyment was playing guitar solos, and those fell apart.”
“We also ended up not doing any more three-hour soundchecks. We’d play just two songs, and then he’d get out of there. He could not stand being in the same room with us. It was the worst possible combination of events for him.”
For Thunes, the musical experience of a lifetime became forever associated with extreme personal doubt and loneliness. It might have all been different had Thunes played for some less iconic figure, or some minor music star, but this was Frank Zappa, a true 20th-century icon.
Five years later, in December 1993, Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer, closing the door on a unique chapter of musical history.
