Frank Zappa lived a life as outlandish as his music. From being set up in a bogus police pornography sting in 1965 to being venerated by intellectuals in Vilnius, where a famous bronze bust was erected in his honour, the man defied easy categorisation at every turn. It is something of a surprise that his life has not yet been committed to film or television – it would make for riveting watching.
One of the darkest chapters of that life unfolded on 10 December 1971, when Zappa and his band were performing at London’s Rainbow Theatre. Midway through the set, they broke into an upbeat dub take on The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. When the song ended to rapturous applause, a 24-year-old audience member named Trevor Howell launched himself at the stage. Before the shocked crowd could react, Zappa was hurled into the orchestra pit fifteen feet below, clattering onto the concrete floor.
A cluster of devoted fans caught Howell as he attempted to flee and held him backstage until the police arrived. Rumours of Zappa’s death spread through the crowd immediately. For over an hour, according to reports, nobody knew whether he had survived.
In his 1989 autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book, he recalled the injuries with grim precision: “The band thought I was dead. My head was over on my shoulder, and my neck was bent like it was broken. I had a gash in my chin, a hole in the back of my head, a broken rib, and a fractured leg. One arm was paralysed.” The effects were long-lasting. A crushed larynx permanently altered his vocal range, producing the gravelly baritone that would come to define his later solo work.
Howell’s explanation, offered in court at his sentencing on 8 March 1972, was as baffling as the attack itself: “I did it because my girlfriend said she loved Frank.”
Zappa, characteristically dry, noted in his memoir that two competing stories circulated in the press. “One of them was that I had been making eyes at his girlfriend. That wasn’t true since the orchestra pit was not only fifteen feet deep but was also twice as wide and the spotlight was in my face. I can’t even see the audience in those situations – it’s like looking into a black hole. I never even saw the guy coming at me.”
“Then he told another newspaper that he was pissed off because he felt we hadn’t given him value for the money. Choose your favourite story. After he punched me, he tried to escape into the audience, but a couple of guys in the road crew caught him and took him backstage to hold for the police. While I was recuperating at the Harley Street Clinic, Howell was released on bail, so I had a twenty-four-hour bodyguard outside my room because we didn’t know how insane he was.”
Howell received a twelve-month prison sentence after admitting to the attack. Zappa’s body never fully recovered – but the incident would, unknowingly to him at the time, open the door to the next chapter of his career.
The Rainbow attack also rounded out a genuinely hellish week. Just six days earlier, at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland, a fan fired a flare gun during a Zappa concert, setting the building ablaze. Zappa calmly led the evacuation of 2,000 people. Deep Purple, watching the inferno from their hotel across Lake Geneva, were moved to write ‘Smoke on the Water’.
