Option Magazine Within the last year the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) has requested that record companies rate records they produce similar to the current rating of films. You've been involved in this recent controversy. What did the record industry finally agree to?
Frank Zappa Well, to quote you from the Associated Press Wire Report, dated November 1, 1985, the basic points of the agreement between the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the PMRC are that "parents' groups will have no role in determining what is explicit." Next, "the record companies will determine what is explicit." When asked, "What is explicit?," Stanley Gortikov (president of the RIAA) replied, "What's explicit is explicit." Third, "those artists whose contracts give them control over their packaging are free to ignore the understanding." Does this sound like something you could enforce?
I think the record industry allowed the ladies to save a little face (by making a formal agreement at all), which just encourages them more. The PMRC has moved to new quarters in Virginia; they are no longer in Washington D.C. They have a new printed fund-raising package which heralds their victory while omitting those parts of the agreement that render it inoperable. The fund-raising package says that if you'll send them money, they will send you more examples of the horrors of these lyrics. They are making an industry out of this thing! Meanwhile, Reverend Jeff Ling, their consultant, has this new slide show that he is taking around.
Option Magazine Are there any legislative attempts to require record ratings?
Frank Zappa Last year the state of Maryland considered a bill which would make it illegal to sell a record declared "obscene" to a person under 18 years of age. The text of the bill stated that its purpose was to keep people from seeing or hearing references to illicit sex. And then it had a definition of what constitutes illicit sex in the state of Maryland. Sexual intercourse is the first thing on the list. What the legislators did was take the existing visual pornography law and just add the words "phonograph record, magnetic tape, compact disc" to it. Since the existing law in Maryland is already a bit vague, adding just those words isn't going to give you an enforceable regulation.
To give an example of how ridiculous this bill was, under this bill you were not allowed to advertise pornography. So let's say that somebody decided that a Motley Crue album was obscene. If you were wearing a tee shirt that says Motley Crue on it you would be advertising pornography. You could be fined $1000 and/or go to jail for a year. If you wore the tee shirt it is $5000 and three years in jail.
Option Magazine Did the bill pass in Maryland?
Frank Zappa It passed the House of Delegates with a 96 to 3 vote. When it was sent to the Maryland State Judiciary Committee, I went to testify. The bill was eventually killed in that committee. But because the issue was brought up, a number of other states have similar bills which they are considering. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Mississippi have all considered similar bills.
Option Magazine What interactions did you have with the Maryland legislators outside of the judiciary hearings?
Frank Zappa The night before I testified in the State Senate, I attended a cocktail party that a bunch of legislators were invited to. The bill had already passed in the House of Delegates. My objective in this exercise was to keep the bill from going anyplace in the Senate because if the Senate approves the bill it becomes law. But if you kill the bill in the Senate, it's dead. Delegates and Senators were coming to this cocktail party. Every time somebody would say, "Here's Delegate So-and-So," I would say, "Which way did you vote?" And of the ones who voted for the bill, I always asked them, "Why?" Most of them were embarrassed that they had. And I would say, "Would you care to apologize?," and hand them a piece of paper to get their apology in writing. I've got slips of paper from at least five delegates who voted for the thing with the most unbelievable quotes. I read the apologies in the Senate the following day. Here's some quotes: "I was swept away by the rhetoric." And "I had to vote that way because that's the way my district is." That guy came from a district where he might have had his legs badly mutilated if he hadn't done it.
Option Magazine It seems reasonable for delegates to vote the way their districts want them to vote. After all, shouldn't they attempt to represent the viewpoint of their district?
Frank Zappa Well, let's look at both sides of that. If you are representing the economic interest of your district, I suppose you should fight for that. But in terms of this piece of legislation, even if you agreed with the premise, the design of the bill was a disaster. I think elected officials have a certain amount of responsibility to the people in their districts. I think that it is a cop-out not to inform their districts of the dangers of any piece of stupid legislation.
