Frank Zappa

“The mustache-and-imperial combo that became a registered trademark.”

94STACH SCORE

✂ Zappa Musician Era: 1970s Born 1940 🏆 HOF Inductee

Is this a Legendary Stach?

Stach Stats

Stash Power95

Ruggedness72

Curl Factor30

Legend Status95

Stats are for entertainment purposes. The mustache committee's decisions are final and occasionally arbitrary.

Style: Zappa
Peak Era: 1970s
Born: 1940
Hall of Fame: Inducted 2024
Fan Votes: 0 legendary · 0 meh

The Story

About Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (1940–1993) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in California, where a childhood interest in chemistry gave way to an obsession with the composer Edgard Varèse and rhythm and blues. He formed the Mothers of Invention in the mid-1960s, and their debut, Freak Out! (1966), was one of rock's first double albums and first concept records.

Over the next 27 years he released more than 60 albums, blending rock, jazz, doo-wop, orchestral music, and satire with virtuoso guitar playing and a famously demanding bandleader's ear. Hot Rats (1969), Over-Nite Sensation (1973), Apostrophe (') (1974), Sheik Yerbouti (1979), and Joe's Garage (1979) are among the landmarks; "Valley Girl" (1982), featuring his daughter Moon, was an unlikely hit. He won a Grammy for Jazz from Hell (1986).

Zappa testified before the U.S. Senate in 1985 against music-labeling proposals, served briefly as a cultural liaison for Czechoslovakia at the request of President Václav Havel in 1990, and died of prostate cancer in 1993. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. An asteroid and several species of organisms are named after him.

The Verdict

Why the Stach Became Iconic

The Zappa is a style unto itself: a thick, dark mustache that drops slightly past the corners of the mouth, paired with a square patch of hair under the lower lip. Nobody else wore it quite that way, and the combination became so identifiable that the Zappa Family Trust has treated it as a trademark.

It is the mustache of a man who took music extremely seriously and everything else as material. Look at it for five seconds and you can hear the guitar solo starting.

On the Record

Appearances

Freak Out!, with the Mothers of Invention (1966)
We're Only in It for the Money (1968)
Hot Rats (1969)
200 Motels, film (1971)
Apostrophe (') (1974)
Sheik Yerbouti (1979)
Joe's Garage (1979)
Jazz from Hell (1986)

Fun Facts

He testified before a U.S. Senate committee in 1985 opposing the Parents Music Resource Center's proposed warning labels.
President Václav Havel of Czechoslovakia, a longtime fan, named him a special ambassador for trade, culture, and tourism in 1990.
His children are named Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva.
Asteroid 3834 Zappafrank is named in his honor, as are a jellyfish, a spider, and a bacterium.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.