Dweezil Zappa joined Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast for a brutally honest and revealing interview regarding his latest family drama that pits him against his brother Ahmet and the Zappa Family Trust. The ramifications of the issues have forced Dweezil to rename his Zappa Plays Zappa project and engage in all kinds of unnecessary public spats with his brother. 

A majority of the conversation centers around Dweezil’s relationship with his mother Gail, who passed away in October 2015. When Maron flat out asks if Dweezil got along with his mother, he responds, “You could see it was difficult to get along with her,” after detailing many of the restrictions put on him as an artist including her 60% cut of the merchandise profits. “She just didn’t seem to care about what anyone else thought about things.” 

The stories turn hurtful when Dweezil recounts how the children were told there was no will following his father’s passing, only to find out that wasn’t true. He also says that Gail repossessed many of his guitars simply because “she decided they were hers” and many other stories along those lines. Dweezil says however that he found solace in connecting with Bob Zappa, Frank’s brother, who wrote the Growing Up Zappa memoir, which Dweezil called “cathartic” to read. 

One of the items Zappa says he never received was a note written to him by his father on his deathbed that his mother ultimately kept. “She kept mine and I don’t know where it is,” Dweezil says. “I saw it once but she just kept it. It just basically said ‘I love you’ and I didn’t get it back,” Zappa says as he and Maron both fight back tears. “It’s messed up. None of it has to happen the way that it’s happening. At the end of the day, it’s about music.” 

Dweezil admits that he’s moved on from what he calls a “nuisance” and that “it’s just dumb and expensive to deal with.” 

Listen to the full interview here.