Did You Know? Frank Zappa Attacked on Stage and Was Nearly Killed
January 27, 2014Frank Zappa was an American musician and artist which had a lot of impact on musical freedom. His musical message was very important but the media was covering it as strange and bizarre.
On December 4, 1971, Frank Zappa performed with The Mothers of Invention at the Montreux casino when someone in the crowd fired a flare gun into the rattan covered ceiling and caused a great fire inside the casino, burning it to the ground along with Zappa's entire equipment, but fortunately Frank survived this frightening event. The fire was also the inspiration for the famous song "Smoke on the Water" by the rock band Deep Purple.
Just a week later, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were performing at the Rainbow theatre in London with rented equipment and gear and during the encore of the show, a person from the audience rushed to the stage and pushed Zappa into the concrete-floored orchestra pit.
Frank was nearly killed from the long fall and suffered serious fractures, injuries to his back, legs, neck and head trauma. If that wasn't enough, Zappa also crushed his larynx and which caused his voice to drop a third after healing. He was very fortunate to survive the attack but during his healing process had to use a wheelchair for a long period of time.
If you were wondering who was the person that attacked Zappa, his name was Trevor Howell who later on told reports he thought Zappa was eying his girlfriend.
Zappa was very emotional from these two incidents and started thinking that someone was trying to murder him, but after his recovery from the injuries he suffered and the trauma, he went on to have a very successful career.
In 1990, Frank Zappa was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and in 1993 he died from it. Zappa was buried in an unmarked grave in Los Angeles.
Frank Zappa in a brilliant interview (1974)
