If you’re a fan of Frank Zappa, you may be following the ongoing squabble that has seemingly split the late artist’s siblings into two camps: the older Dweezil and Moon in one and the younger Ahmet and Diva in the other. The issue has to do with the usage of the Zappa name, but rather than reiterate the story this far, we’ll just direct you to this previous post, which sums up the complaints:
We here at Best Classic Bands have no stake in the Zappa offspring’s legal or financial woes, but we do consider it our duty as a classic rock hub to keep you up to date. So. First we present the most recent “open letter” from Ahmet, followed by Dweezil’s response. What you make of it all is entirely up to you.
AHMET ZAPPA STATEMENT
Hey Dweezil and everyone else reading this, I’ve been pretty quiet since you began this negative narrative about me and our family business, but when I heard that you once again went back to our father’s fans for more money or “200%,” I felt the need to speak up.
Let me start by saying, I would rather be sitting face to face with Dweezil and figuring things out privately and respectfully–like I think families should do. Frank would have wanted that. That fact has never changed on my end. I have repeatedly said my door is open. The truth is, before Dweezil ever decided to take our UNFINISHED family business public, I asked for a family meeting in February 2016 with our estate attorneys to discuss everything and Dweezil wanted his outside lawyer in attendance. We were fine with that, even though we were confused as to why he felt it necessary to bring an outside attorney. What was important to me was sitting down with my siblings, finding clarity, resolving outstanding issues and having a mutual understanding of our new roles since our mother passed. We went back and forth trying to schedule the meeting between the four siblings and before the meeting was set, Dweezil went to the New York Times with a skewed version of our family business and started this distorted campaign against the ZFT (which is bizarre, since he is one of the four beneficiaries of the ZFT and had no problem recently cashing a check from the trust).
For those searching for some better understanding, when Gail passed away, each of us received a significant, identical amount of money, in the millions of dollars. At the same time, the ZFT’s terms (created by Frank and Gail) gave to Dweezil, along with my sisters and myself, money from the ZFT on any Frank Zappa related project. I repeat…ANY FRANK ZAPPA PROJECT. And the percentages were not decided by me, but are legally set forth in the trust. This means that I can’t give money to whomever I choose, but that Diva and I, as co-trustees of the ZFT, MUST follow the rules set forth in the document or we can be held accountable.
While I do not want to argue with Dweezil, I am compelled to let you all know again and again that the ZFT has no issue with Dweezil performing under his full name DWEEZIL ZAPPA. The ZFT has never had an issue with it. The ZFT and its lawyers have repeated this to Dweezil and his different lawyers multiple times. For him to say that we have tried to stop him from using Dweezil Zappa is untrue and misleading. Additionally, Dweezil is representing that the ZFT owns rights in the DWEEZIL mark but this is absolutely false. Dweezil owns four U.S. registration marks for DWEEZIL. The first since 1998, originally filed in 1995. You can look up the registrations (2214878, 2214879, 2272497, 2270908). The ZFT owns no DWEEZIL marks and doesn’t want to own any of them. Our family business is about Frank Zappa. Beyond that, this gets into the minutiae of Frank’s trademarks since the 1970s. For me on a personal level, I think it’s disgraceful that Dweezil, a guy who has received millions of dollars, would mislead and manipulate Zappa fans into thinking he cannot afford to handle his own, again in my opinion, completely absurd lawsuit against the ZFT (of which he is a beneficiary), collecting money from many people who may have far less than he does…to fight a battle that if he TRULY wanted to resolve, he could have tried communicating directly with his little brother.
Regarding his latest posts about the ZFT lawyers not responding…Dweezil is correct, because I reached out personally instead. What is even more confusing is that Dweezil should be aware that we have a mutually confirmed mediation date to try and settle all of this in early November (a date he chose and which we accommodated, due to Dweezil’s schedule). We wanted to have the mediation in October. So again, I don’t understand all of this drama.
To explain further, before his September 29 post, I sent Dweezil an email asking to sit down, walk through everything together and figure it all out one-on-one rather than waiting for the mediation in November. He has still not responded to that note. Through our back and forth (via one of Dweezil’s representatives), whom I also reached out to, I was optimistic that we were making good progress (which I am grateful for). His rep suggested I reach out to Dweezil personally and I did. When I spoke to this same rep the next day, he informed me then that Dweezil would not speak directly to me. So his post from September 29 is once again completely misleading and untrue. On Tuesday, in a new statement on his website, Dweezil asks, “Why haven’t you even replied to the offer?” My question to him, why hasn’t he responded to my personal outreaches so we could talk about the offer? Why won’t he sit down with me instead of continuing the narrative that I am wasting money on lawyers? This is crazy. Dweezil–I have been speaking to your representative and we have been making progress. I have reached out to you directly to sit down with me and discuss not only family business, but whatever is underneath all of this for you AND we have scheduled a mediation hopefully to settle all of this in November. So the need to incite the fans and create this public outrage makes no sense to me since I believe the comments are untrue and consistently misleading, but as the co-trustee and fiduciary my lawyers have advised me I cannot speak to this in depth publically. Let me assure you, it has been beyond frustrating.
What everyone needs to understand is that this is not a black and white situation. But it is certainly solvable. I have an emotional responsibility because he is my brother and I care about him–despite what he continues to say publicly about me. But I also have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to do the right thing as a co-trustee of the Zappa Family Trust (along with our sister Diva), a position we never asked for but were given by our mother. And to set the record straight once and for all about Dweezil’s narrative of me or Diva making money, while stopping him from making his–I have not taken one dime for my day to day work as the co-trustee. Neither has Diva. I have the difficult role of honoring what is legally spelled out in the trust, as well as trying to make everyone in our family happy which is really…really hard…apparently.
I ask anyone reading this that enjoys speaking up on this family situation to encourage Dweezil to sit down with me once and for all…and by all means wish us well as we navigate and protect the legacy of FZ. Because what I think is obvious common ground is that we both have a passion and love of our father. What I think should be happening is Dweezil should be out kicking ass playing Frank’s music on the road, while we are kicking ass here creating different outlets of our father’s work, both new and unseen for generations current and those to come. Dweezil, this is all a sad waste of time and money…if you really wanted to resolve everything and be part of this family, you’d sit down with me like I have asked. I don’t want to keep doing this in public. Let’s get back to having respect for our family, our father’s legacy and what we have been given…you were raised better than this. And we have a lot of amazing things ahead of us. There are so many things we could be doing together as a family as, I think, our parents would have wanted. We were raised in an epic way and truly wanted for nothing. Considering everything going on in the world today, I feel shame that we are discussing this publically. Again, with communication, these are super easy problems to solve. Your call bro. I am here. You want to resolve everything sooner, I am here. Or you can keep writing blog posts, wasting time and money on lawyers. And then I’ll see you in November.
Ahmet (left) and Dweezil Zappa when they were still on speaking terms
DWEEZIL ZAPPA’S “RESPONSE TO MY BROTHER’S 2ND OPEN LETTER” Hello, Everyone,
I am aware that this Zappa family conflict stuff has become extremely boring at this point.
There are far more serious things happening in the world that deserve all of our attention and positivity. I for one would rather concentrate on better things.
Since my brother’s 2nd open letter is so inconsistent and filled with so many egregious inaccuracies I won’t bother to address them point by point.
As an overview, my brother’s strategy appears to be all about deflection and deception.
The letter reads as if he is spraying people with a hose filled with word noise. He is relying on people to ignore the facts.
Other than that, it appears that my brother is attempting to reach out to me and urging that we speak. I’m amenable to speaking, that is not an issue. Let’s pick a time.
The question at hand is, what is the difference between the Ahmet that speaks to me on the phone and the Ahmet that speaks to his lawyers?
There is a clear history of Ahmet saying one thing and doing the opposite. For a phone call to be of any value, there must be some legal closure as a result.
For clarification, I have not received any recent emails or calls from my brother.
Ahmet, if you did send a recent email, which address was it sent to?
Was it sent it to my dweezilz@zappa.com email address, the one you recently blocked me from and illegally seized and archived all of the contents, claiming it was for the “protection” of the ZFT? The role of the trustees of the ZFT (you) is to work within the best interests of the beneficiaries of the ZFT (me), so how does stealling all of my emails protect me, I wonder?
I’m not sure how my 15-year-old, private email address (with over 80,000 emails), containing attorney-client privileged information, divorce records, medical records and personal communications between me and my former wife, as well as my wife and kids, is suddenly your property.
Conversely, I haven’t had any trouble receiving emails sent from your attorneys.
The inappropriate vitriolic email your wife sent me the other day landed in my inbox. How come I got that and not your email?
In closing, I’m sure you’re aware that you could easily make things better right away by signing a Trademark co-existence agreement. Why not show good faith in advance of a phone call?
I’m happy to get on the phone. You know my number.
DZ
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