The Latest On The Zappa Sibling Drama
The announcement of a new Franz Zappa hologram tour for 2018 has spurred Dweezil Zappa to update the world on the status of his legal battle with his siblings.
Zappa has been feuding publicly with younger siblings Ahmet and Diva, who were appointed trustees of the Zappa Family Trust by their late mother Gail Zappa. The fracas forced Dweezil to change the name of his long-running Zappa Plays Zappa shows amidst other disagreements about the use of the Zappa trademark.
Dweezil has posted a lengthy new Trademark Battle Update message on his website, DweezilZappa.com, opening “Happy hologram day” and going into great detail about the “ongoing legal dispute.”
The message includes details about how Dweezil had to pay the ZFT to license the Zappa name and how the ZFT issued a cease and desist letter for the Zappa Plays Zappa name in 2016. He accuses his siblings of “exploiting their new roles as trustees of the ZFT” in a number of ways, which Dweezil details throughout the message.
He also says he’s “never been contacted by the (ZFT)” about the proposed hologram tour even though his name has been linked with it and says that, “I am not interested in participating in anything with an artificial version of my Father on stage. Let’s be realistic, it’s not exactly Frank Zappa that will be on stage.”
Dweezil also reveals that a crowdfunding campaign for him to record new music has surpassed its goal and is heading towards doubling the amount of money he hoped to raise.
Dweezil will be touring Europe during October and has dates in New Zealand and Australia scheduled for February.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
