He wears his heart on his sleeve and tells it like it is. Seven years ago Alfie Zappacosta moved his
family from Toronto to Edmonton to star in Jesus Christ Superstar and a few months ago Zappacosta wowed them again as Che Guevara at Edmonton's Mayfield Theatre production of Evita. His latest
move is into Smooth Jazz. and as it turns out he fits right in.

John Beaudin - Hi Alfie and welcome. You know in the eighties when I was syndicating radio shows, one of the most popular programs I ever did was one featuring an interview with you. The feedback was amazing and everyone loved your honesty.

Alfie Zappacosta - I never would of thought, that's great.

John - It was refreshing from my end after doing so many interviews it was nice to hear someone totally unguarded.

Alfie - Back then I probably kept myself open to many possibilities and my heart was on my sleeve.

John - You were in Toronto back then and now you're in Edmonton. When did you move?

Alfie - I moved about seven years ago. I came out here to do Jesus Christ Superstar. I really didn't want to do it and I had no intention of doing another play especially Jesus Christ Superstar. I just didn't like it.

John - Really? Let's point out that you had done Evita long before this so it wasn't from lack of experience either.

Alfie - I thought about going to Edmonton and thought maybe it was a one horse town. I listened to the movie soundtrack and I didn't like it. At the time they thought I was holding out for more cash but I really sincerely didn't want to do it but they just kept upping the anti. So, I looked at my wife and she said I guess your doing the play. (laughing).

John - They got you?

Alfie - Yeah, well it was definitely a carrot in front of my ass. Well I came out to Edmonton and rented a bicycle and I just went up and down the river valley.

John - That's a great way to get to love Edmonton. It's hard to resist, it's beautiful.

Alfie - And damn quiet, Toronto is so busy. I invited my wife and my kids to come out and we packed up everything and that was it. The prices of houses in Edmonton are so reasonable and it's a really nice place to raise kids. There are a lot of people in Toronto that I really needed to get away from and I couldn't ask them to leave so I did.

John - Brave move. Last time I was in Edmonton I really noticed the difference from Vancouver it has a very nice feel but Alberta's like that. You go for a week and you stay a lifetime.

Alfie - What seemed to make a lot of sense to me is it's no where near as expensive to live and the fact that I have to go away to work, sometimes far away, well lets just say I thought the family would be more safe here. I still go to Toronto a lot and California too. When you start thinking about the Smooth Jazz stuff it's huge down there. Are you familiar with Sin-Drom Records?

John - Yes, Carol Archer of R&R was talking about them a few days ago.

Alfie - Henry Marx, who signed me to the label had me doing a lot of work in California.

John - I hear you were getting a lot of air-play on U.S. Smooth Jazz stations.

Alfie - Yeah, I did really, really well. Then I got really sick.

John - I remember reading about that in the paper.

Alfie - I had a couple of huge grapefruit size cysts that developed on my pancreas and people thought it was cancer which it wasn't. I was very ill.

John - At the time you were on tour right?

Alfie - Well, I finished the gigs and got home and the kids were out to Klondike Days and I just started to collapse. I was in an enormous amount of pain but I drove myself to the hospital and about six weeks later I kind of woke up.

John - That's scary when your body breaks down and there's no one around.

Alfie - Yeah, it was pretty intense and it was touch and go for a while. They were ready to read me my last rites. The interesting thing though was things were going so well down there (U.S.) and it was almost a year that I couldn't perform or do anything so that was the end of that. I then released a new record 'Dark Sided Jewel' and you know how fickle this business is, the stations that had done so well for me by this time had all changed.

John - Momentum is a lot in this business.

Alfie - And 'Dark Sided Jewel' was still a bit Smooth Jazz but it had more of an edge to it and it didn't get picked up like 'Innocence Ballet' which had Orlanda and Show Me.

John - Were there labels involved with both of those CDs?

Alfie - Well you know with labels, if you're over forty you might as well be one hundred and forty.

John - (laughing) It's hard to compete with Britney Spears.

Alfie - Yeah, I have to tell you about the touring I've been doing out east is going into small galleries, small soft seaters, we're going in there with just a piano player and myself on guitar and if you go on my web site you'll see people are really loving it.

John - I was on your site this morning and you really have a loyal audience. That has to be gratifying.

Alfie - Well John in a lot of ways you start thinking about something that's been a part of your life and thinking that is what you want, then you finally get to a point where all that work you actually achieved really wasn't worth it all. You know my home base had to be solid first. My kids had to feel that they knew their dad, that's what's really gratifying. To get back though to what you said about the audiences, it's interesting the age groups start at nineteen and go up to the fifties and they all really appreciate the music. I know now that the only way to continue this type of reaction is to tour again and hopefully these people will call their local radio station to play my stuff. If I have to get back on the road for the next two or three years I will.

John - I saw you perform at Richards on Richards a few years ago and I remember two things from the show. You really can sing well in front of an audience and man you sweat a lot! (laughing).

Alfie - (Laughing) I do get involved there's no doubt about it and I do go into a zone and the concentration to keep doing the vocal acrobatics is amazing. Also, I'm using really fine musicians.

John - It looks like Alberta will have the first Smooth Jazz station in Western Canada. New-cap is starting a station in June or July and the timing is just right for this.

Alfie - Well I think your gut feeling for this is right, there are people who want to hear this music. When I first heard there might be a bunch of stations playing Smooth Jazz I was pretty happy, I'm all over it. I do well in Calgary, I did the Club Chaos Jazz and Blues Café and every time I'm there it's a sold out affair.

John - When I saw you live I noticed a lot of your older songs were given a Smooth Jazz feel. How did that start and were you just sick of playing them the old way?

Alfie - There was a point in time when someone would ask me to perform a song and if it was just me sitting there with a guitar I couldn't do it the old way because this part needed a part that could only be played with a full band because I'm always thinking production. I couldn't take any one of these songs like maybe 'When I fall in love again' that was done in the eighties and entertain for an hour with just me and the guitar. So I went to a small club in Toronto called Night-Caps and took all these song like 'We should be Lovers' and 'Start Again' and brought them down to pretty much the nucleus of the songs and luckily I found they all had enough strength with just a three piece band without all the bells and whistles. We just switched the groove around a little bit, it still had the melody and it worked wonderfully. It really changed my view on writing. Maybe less is best.

John - That's refreshing next to the breaking glass Celine Dion thing.

Alfie - Well Celine Dion is a tremendous singer and that two hundred million or whatever she's sold is out there to prove to the world that they all love her but that sound is not me. You know what I'd like is to perform these songs with the symphony. I would love to do that but I'm happy with a tight little unit behind me just bass, drums, keys and perhaps one other vocalist. I like it that small plus when you're dealing with guys who are just wonderful players the groove is completely hypnotic and it really works.

John - Let's remember that the adult Smooth Jazz audience love that stripped down sound.

Alfie - They do very much. There isn't an awful lot to blind their eyes and they don't find themselves being confused or overwhelmed with all the extra production. They love so much when I can sit there and do a whole verse before the band even starts with just a vocal and guitar. There's wonderful ways that I've learned about stripping things down and the dynamics you can use are absolutely phenomenal. It's really based on being very clear on what it is you're doing. It was a long hard study but it was really worth while.

John - Are you still learning things?

Alfie - Constantly. Every time I go out someplace and do a guitar in the round particularly when there are four or five different writers where everyone takes a turn singing a song, you're really learning something there.

John - I was talking with Bill Henderson of Chilliwack last year about the songwriting process and he said that it's interesting that he does these workshops with young writers now but as a sixteen year old he would never have considered going to one of these workshops, he wouldn't have thought he needed it. Now that he's older and wiser he knows better. The difference now is that he's conscious of the fact that he's always learning.

Alfie - That's very true.

John - Are your siblings still in Toronto?
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Alfie - Well, my sisters and father are in Toronto. I have a sister in Regina and another in Barrie and for the most part I'm quite a distance from them all but we speak a lot.

John - Let's go back to Evita. When you first did that how scared were you?

Alfie - Very!

John - Had you done any musical theatre before that?

Alfie - None at all.

John - So how did it happen?

Alfie - Well, it was 1987 and yet again I was dropped by the record company. I had recorded 'A to Z' with the song that I co-wrote with David Foster. There was a guy who was playing in the actual theatrical venues, like the Princess Margaret etc and he'd been a bass player. His name was Louis Malley and he just mentioned that I'd be great for the play. They called me and had me audition.

John - What was your first reaction when they first called you?

Alfie - I was very curious and hoping there would be a way to survive the next few months in a monetary sense. So, I went and they gave me a couple of songs to run over. Rick Fox was the director, he's huge now doing every show possible in New York and he got me to Halifax. Well as soon as I got in the round and did these songs I was so blown away by the fact that these people danced, they sang, they moved eloquently, they just seemed that they had studied in a whole different world than I did and I was such an odd man out. There was so much talent that I was petrified.

John - So how did you do it?

Alfie - Well I would rehearse until eleven at night because I had to learn what to do onstage and learn what to do with my hands and learn how to act.

John - Sure you were out of your element but I'm sure they knew your work also.

Alfie - Well they knew who I was and they were really impressed in me being involved in all this but I could see past all that. I realized that I was in way over my head because I thought that they were much more talented than I was. In my career up to that point, I'd write a song and get up on stage with a whole bunch of guys behind me, these people in theatre were so much of everything. They have so much dancing, acting and singing capabilities.

John - You played Che Guevara, right? That is challenging since you were the narrator.

Alfie - That's right. Apart from all my fear I still wowed them in that, we got great reviews and it was the beginning of a great understanding of the theory that we never learn enough. It's a reminder to keep at it and keep an open mind.

John - Sure. Obviously you did it well especially since so many people said that you did.

Alfie - You know after the Requiem for Evita I stood out there for six or seven minutes on stage and it seemed like a freakin' lifetime.(laughing) Your singing "oh what a circus oh what a show," and start telling the story and making everyone ask what the hell did this woman do to make you think that she's a goddamn saint? Here she is raping you in the country.(laughing)

John - (laughing)Did that experience effect the way you sang with your band?

Alfie - Absolutely. For years, especially in the beginning I was so afraid, I never really wanted to be a singer, background singing was enough. I was going to play guitar in the band and I was just going to write the songs, I had no intention of being the front guy. I was really stuck where I was, I never felt comfortable in my own skin and I never liked the idea of doing rock'n roll either. There was something interesting about the energy though. I was writing all the songs on Classical guitar, everything from Surrender albums and all the way up were never written on electric guitar.

John - Why did you leave Surrender?

Alfie - There were a lot of things going on. Again, it had nothing to do with me. The band wanted to fire the manager, he's a wonderful man I still know him but as it turned out he wasn't going to manage us anymore. Also they kept pushing me to be the front man, to be 'the guy' and Zappacosta was a strong name and blah, blah…So, all of a sudden I have my own band called Zappacosta. It was never something that I sat down and started being real devious about or think of how I could monopolize these guys to make it a Zappacosta thing.

John - When did this all go down?

Alfie - Well, we went down to Los Angeles to do a Surrender album. We had spent so much time touring but mostly doing bars in Canada and it was all really based on kickin' ass songs to get people all excited and have them drink a beer. When we got down to L.A. to record, I realized that these songs had absolutely no depth to them and that wasn't because we were doing them so long that I was so jaded by them. These were all songs that sounded great live but in the studio sounded like a crock of shit. It was no way near representative of anything that I really felt good about. So, I guess the record company might have picked up on it or something and they dropped the band again.

John - How did you save the project?

Alfie - Well then I asked Dean Cameron from Capital records in Canada to give me twenty grand to go in and save this thing. So Dean was wonderful he gave me the money and I went in and re-wrote all the first Zappacosta record. On it were songs like Passion and We should be Lovers and we did it all in three weeks. I used some guys from Surrender and some new guys. It was still of a kick-ass thing but it did have more depth and it garnished quite a bit of acclaim. So at that point it kind of became Zappacosta because they didn't want anything to do with Surrender.

John - I remember Gerald O'Brien and Steve Sexton of Surrender went on and formed the New Age band Exchange.

Alfie - They were on Mesa records weren't they?

John - Yes, but first they were on Audion records, Larry Fast's label.

Alfie - Gerald and I still stay in touch.

John - Well I played them a lot both in Edmonton and Vancouver.

Alfie - Gerald and Steve were both in my band. It was a two keyboard thing and I just loved it, that was really where I wanted to go.

John - Tell me, would you trade it all for a big hit that you couldn't stand, could you sing tunes that you hate?

Alfie - Well I wouldn't be happy in my skin, if the whole thing was really based on a monetary thing. When I talk about the money it's just enough to get by, it's great if it all comes down to a windfall. I had a song on 'Dirty Dancing' called Overload. There was a certain amount of freedom that came with the money that generated from the twenty million that it sold. The small piece that I got was still enough to sit back and say it's time to cash in the chips here and figure out what the hell we're doing. I was drinking too much, I was crazy but that's pretty much all gone. There was a lot of soul searching.

John - I remember seeing your name on the back of the album and thinking success for another Canuck. There really aren't big bucks for most Canadian musicians.

Alfie - It's so very true, there is no money to be made here. If I had to look at the twenty five years that I've been in this business and point out where the Dirty Dancing album came out it's scary because before that I was making twenty grand a year.

John - I've heard that a lot. You're doing some gigs with Alan Frew, right?

Alfie - He was out here actually not too long ago. It was a Glass Tiger gig and they got back together again. Alan also has a TV show and he does shows called Alan and Friends with the proceeds going to kids who are not long for this world. Instead of taking them to Disneyland they take them to this beautiful Camp Trillium. For the last three or four years they flew me out there and I did a few songs.

John - I met Alan and the band right in the middle of the Glass Tiger hype in Toronto. They were doing a photo shoot and there were all these people around, it was chaotic but I noticed both Alan and their original drummer Michael Hanson were very focused in spit of the craziness.

Alfie - When he's talking to you he always knows what he's saying.

John - Do you ever look at young cocky performers and think wait and see?

Alfie - You can't help but do that.

John - When you were starting out how did you handle having women throw themselves at you?

Alfie - It was a real crazy thing and I found that some of those women were very aggressive. I was never comfortable in that skin, it was fun don't get me wrong but I always felt I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. It took well into my late thirties to come to grips with all of this. To start thinking maybe I really can sing well.

John - What do you think of consultants in radio?

Alfie - Well a lot of musicians don't like them but they do the tough work of trying to find out what works. You know most people of the world don't give a damn about music, they like it but they don't sit there and analyze the snot out of it like we do. They just want to sit back and know that it's there. One day I realized that not everyone is as interested in music as I am. When you surround yourself with people who love music and dissect it, you start thinking everyone is like that.

John - I once worked for a radio station that on Christmas Eve had accidentally put in a Happy New Year jingle instead of a Christmas greeting and not one person called the station to complain. People have their lives, they are not listening to every word we say. So that's just like the example you give about music we're so busy checking out every minuet detail we forget we're the only ones doing that.

Alfie - That doesn't surprise me at all.

John - Alfie thanks so much, its great having you on Smooth Jazz Now.com.

Alfie - Thank you John, I appreciate it

Interview from February 13, 2002.