Dweezil Zappa, Communications Major

Looking to find the most eligible teen-age bachelor in Los Angeles?

Nineteen-year-old Dweezil Zappa is the pick of People magazine, which recently published a detailed history of his love life. Among the gorgeous actresses who’ve been No. 1 in his black book, according to People: Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Virginia Madsen and Katie Wagner.

Why the Dweez would be a coveted catch is not just anyone’s guess.

Looks-wise, he has the dark, curly hair and heavy, sloping eyebrows of his dad, avant-garde guitarist/composer Frank, but with a warmer smile and a less threatening look in the eyes. Career-wise, he’s established successful leads in both TV (as a recurring and agreeably sarcastic “veejay from hell” on MTV) and movies (small parts in “The Running Man” and other pictures).

Talent-wise, he’s following estimably in his father’s footsteps, doing guitar session work (for the likes of Don Johnson) as well as his own records and videos--the newest of which are both called “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama.”

Connection-wise, he has some famous male friends that a girl might want to meet, like fellow rockers Jon Bon Jovi and Eddie Van Halen.

But, would-be girlfriends, be warned: When not indulging in any of the above work pastimes, Dweezil Zappa leads what may well be the absolutely dullest social life of any 19-year-old in L.A. County.

“I never had to try to abuse a curfew or anything like that,” says Dweezil, stroking his guitar in the comfortably cluttered family room of his clan’s Laurel Canyon home, where he still resides with his parents and sister. “I rarely ever go anywhere. The latest I usually go out is to a 10 o’clock movie, back by midnight. I always let my parents know where I am.” He pauses, sensing disbelief. “People never believe me when I tell them this stuff.”

Come now. Could the son of one of the most controversial figures in rock history--and the young man whom People magazine just painted as a rampant teen Lothario--have ever been a shy, stay-at-home type?

“He’s still a shy, stay-at-home type,” says dad Frank. “He hardly ever goes out unless it’s to dinner. He’s not a party guy at all. He spends most of his time at home, either in his room or in the studio practicing.”

“When people say, ‘Hey dude, let’s party,’ I don’t understand what that means,” says Dweezil. “Does that mean take drugs? ‘Cause if it does, then of course not. Does it mean let’s go drink? I don’t drink, so I’m not gonna do that. Does that mean let’s go sit in a smoke-filled room and watch beautiful people talk to each other? I’m not good at that, and I like to breathe clean air, so I’m not gonna do that.

“I’d much rather be home, playing my guitar, or spending time with people that I’m close to, watching TV or having something to eat, than sitting in a smoke-filled club cruising for babes or something. That’s something I could never do, ever in my life. I’m pretty much of a shy person.”

Just how radical were the Zappas as parents?

Not wildly so, apart from encouraging rampant freedom of expression and being friends with their kids.

“I think they were always looking out for our well-being and safety,” explains Dweezil, “but they wouldn’t restrict our language or anything like most households. We were taught growing up that there’s no word that you can possibly say that will make you go to Hell--so there’s no reason to restrict any words from your vocabulary. I mean, if a certain four-letter word can make the point come across a lot faster, why not use it? We grew up in this family learning to communicate. We’re all communications majors.”

“He was only interested in baseball up until the time he was 12,” remembers Frank. It was at that age that Dweezil was finally inspired to take note of music--but not by “Peaches and Regalia” or “Dynamo Hum.” Sorry, Pop.

Enter the mentor: Eddie Van Halen.

“I always listened to my dad’s music because that’s what was in the house, but I didn’t have a radio or stereo until about five or six years ago,” says Dweezil. “That’s kind of late, as far as the ‘80s are concerned. But when I was 12, I heard Van Halen, and I thought, ‘I’ve gotta do that.’ I thought ‘You Really Got Me’ was the coolest sounding thing I’d ever heard. That’s when I first picked up the guitar, and that became my life story.

“School became very unimportant,” continued Zappa, who has passed an equivalency diploma test since dropping out of high school four years ago. “I had my guitar--and all I really wanted to do was play it. And then of course, girls came along.”

A little chuckle--the People story, “rancid” as it may have been, certainly wasn’t all fabrication. “And then I just wanted my guitar and I wanted to have a girlfriend, and that was it. That’s pretty much where I’ve stayed the last six years.”

Beyond arranging his son’s exit from the public education system and providing a home digital studio for Dweezil to tinker in, Frank has had little to do with the younger Zappa’s musical career, say both.

“I can count on one hand the amount of times we’ve ever played together at the house,” says Dweezil. “My dad likes to stay really far out of my career, because there’s too many people who get the impression that, ‘Oh, he’s the son of Frank Zappa, he never had to work a day in his life, he got everything for free, blah blah blah.’ They think that my dad did all the work, when he really purposefully stays out of everything unless it has to do with a contract. It never has anything to do with him opening doors for me, like calling some guy. . . . That never happened.”

If little else, though, Frank’s guiding hand was at least responsible for steering Dweezil toward an outspoken “Just Say No” attitude--ironic, given that the Zappas’ politics in other areas would probably be enough to drive Nancy Reagan to serious drink.

“Everybody always assumed that my dad took drugs, but he never did. I just knew from going to my dad’s concerts when I was little--when you get that hideous smell of pot in the audience, and people acting really stupid and out of control and generally just unpleasant--that I didn’t ever want to be like that or near people like that. If people are on drugs in a room, I’m generally the first person to leave. I find it extremely distasteful.”

That stance may be nothing extraordinary within the mainstream of today’s trendily anti-drug rock climate--but it’s still a bit unorthodox in the teen-oriented subgenre in which the younger Zappa has surprisingly decided to make his niche: heavy metal.

“I’m not being real preachy to people about it, but I do have a strong opinion,” Zappa said of the drugs and heavy-metal stereotype. “There’s a wide audience that listens to this kind of music that maybe does have a wrong impression--’Drugs are cool, alcohol is cool, violence is cool.’ But I think it’s beneficial for me to show you don’t have to take drugs to listen to this music.”

Or that you don’t have to be a dunderhead, perhaps, to enjoy the grinding heavy-metal style?

“Yeah, the image of (metal fans) is that they’re either really stupid, or violent and beat up their girlfriends and all that kind of stuff. I’ve had fun with the idea of changing the image of it. I mean, I don’t wear Spandex, I don’t make funny faces when I play, I don’t have explosives that go off in my house.

“Not to say that that’s not a perfectly viable, effective form of entertainment. I go see those shows all the time, just for fun. A lot of those guys are my friends and I think they pull it off for the way that they like to portray the music.”

But the idea of playing his own live shows intimidates Zappa. The only tour on the schedule right now is what he calls “the Tiffany tour without the shopping malls”--a slate of free guitar clinics for budding fretmen at larger music stores across the country.

“I’m pretty much of a shy person, so to get out on stage, I’d probably freak out,” he confesses. “But the other night at a musicians’ convention I played with all these (heroes) on stage. . . . ‘Hey, man, I’m on stage with Van Halen, Billy Idol, Bon Jovi, and I’m playing my guitar. . . .’

“I’m a big fan of all of ‘em. I was looking around, having a ball, laughing the whole time. To be on stage with all these guys at one time. . . . I was every kid in America.”