André Cholmondeley, founder/guitarist/vocalist of Project/Object, would have to plead guilty on that count.

“I founded the band back in about 1990 or so, kind of out of the ashes of another band,” he said recently by telephone. “We started doing stuff at an annual Frank Zappa birthday party at my house.”

By 1992 Project/Object was doing lives shows in central New Jersey, and two years later started touring nationally. The Project/Object Winter Tour starts Dec. 27 and hits the Miramar Theater in Milwaukee on Jan. 3.

The Winter Tour features two longtime Zappa alumni, Ike Willis and Ray White, who Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley) described as “the guys who were clearly two of Frank’s favorite vocalists.”

“It’s very special because they have not been on tour together in 25 years,” he said.

Last year’s winter tour included three Zappa alumni – Ike Willis, Ed Mann and Mothers’ synth player Don Preston.

“I’ve just chosen to make that one of the things my band focuses on,” Cholmondeley said. “I’ve always figured, I want to hear the guys who did the original records. It turned out a lot of fans do also. Once I saw there was a real demand for that, especially with someone like Ike Willis who’s done, 20, 25 records with Frank, I went down that road.”

And a fruitful road it’s been, so fruitful that Cholmondeley has lost track of the number of alumni who have played with Project/Object.

“We keep finding new water in the well. There are so many people that played with Zappa that it’s a pretty rich area,” he said. “We’ve been lucky. We’ve played with most of the guys you’d want to play with. We’ve played with his main singers, whether it’s Jimmy Carl Black or Ike Willis or Ray White or Napoleon Murphy Brock. Mike Keneally. We’ve been able to play with all the heroes. We’ve played with all the Mothers, Roy Estrada, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, pretty much most of the guys except Motorhead and Ray Collins. Knock on wood. Really been blessed with what we’ve done so far.”

Cholmondeley  does maintain a mental list of Zappa alumni he’d like to play with, which includes George Duke (keyboards, early ’70s), Scott Thunes (bass, 1981-88) and Andre Lewis (keyboards, beginning 1976).

“It would be great to play with Steve Vai, but he’s pretty unattainable,” Cholmondeley said.

With Zappa’s son Dweezil doing his own tribute band called Zappa Does Zappa (which several alumni, including Ray White, abandoned ship on in 2009), what do Zappa’s heirs think of Project/Object?

“We’re almost notoriously known as being persona non grata with the family,” Cholmondeley said. “It’s been quiet for a year or so, but I’ve got a stack of lawsuit threats and cease and desist orders from Gail Zappa (Frank’s widow).”

In November of 2008, the band was forced to cancel a show in Boston when legal threats caused the venue to back out.

“The problem is, we’re not doing anything illegal,” he said. “While it’s been unfortunate that we don’t get their endorsement, it’s cool. We do our own thing. I’m glad Dweezil’s got a band out there now. He’s presenting the music his way. I think it’s great. I encourage people all the time, go see him. Go see a little history.”

So, if P/O is persona non grata, what about FZ alumni who perform with P/O?

“Bingo,” Cholmondeley  said. “There’s a lot of weird feuds and stuff with the alumni and Gail Zappa and whatnot. It’s a shame. We just try to play through it. You could fill a book with the different feuds and threats that have traveled out of Gail’s lawyer’s office.”

On the other hand, Cholmondeley and Frank alumni believe Frank would have approved of Project/Object and other Zappa tribute bands such as Bogus Pomp, The Muffin Men and The Voice of Cheez, as well as the three-day German festival Zappanale (zappanale.de).

“I think it’s clearly in the record that he wanted people to go ahead and play the music,” Cholmondeley said. “One of the problems the family faces, they had a message on their answering machine when Frank died (Dec. 4, 1993), and it said something along the lines of, play my music. If you’re not a musician, play my music. If you are a musician, play my music. That’s all I want. He specifically specified musicians and non-musicians. I think that’s pretty cool. We really refer to that a lot as inspiration.”

See the January Scene for interviews with two longtime Zappa bandmates Ike Willis and Ray White.