Known for his enigmatic personality and relationship with the public, Van Vliet made few public appearances after his retirement from music ( and from his Beefheart persona ) in 1982.

Many of the lyrics on the Safe as Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar-gig in Lancaster in 1966.

Much of the Safe as Milk material was honed and arranged by the arrival of 20-year – old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the group after much pressure from Vliet.

Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and began a new career as a painter.

" He did however state his admiration of Georg Baselitz, the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian, and Vincent van Gogh ; after seeing van Gogh's paintings in person, Van Vliet quoted himself as saying that " the sun disappoints me so ".

" Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt ( 1994 ) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he " would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica.

The female-only rowing club De Vliet was founded in 1905, taking its name after one of the waters in Leiden.

Van Vliet ejected French from the group — both figuratively and literally, by throwing him down a flight of stairs — shortly after Trout Mask Replica was completed, and these roles passed to guitarist Bill Harkleroad.

( Van Vliet later claimed the label dropped them after hearing the song " Electricity " and declaring it " too negative.

" The track is named after the Abba-Zaba candy bar, which was supposedly a favorite of a young Van Vliet.

Van Vliet did meet McCartney in Cannes during the Magic Band's 1968 tour of Europe, though McCartney later claimed to have no recollection of this meeting.

This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet, effectively quitting both the event and the band on the spot.

According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written in a single 8½ hour session at the piano, an instrument which he had no skill in playing, an approach Mike Barnes compared to John Cage's " maverick irreverence toward classical tradition ", though band members have stated that the songs were written over the course of about a year, beginning around December 1967.

This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years — at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents.

Vliet was forced to quickly form a new Magic Band to complete support-tour dates, with musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it.

Having no musical training or instrumental experience, throughout his career Van Vliet had relied on a musical director within the band who could translate his often unorthodox ideas into a form that was musically playable.

This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years – at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents.

This first known recording, when he was simply ' Don Vliet ', is " Lost In A Whirlpool "-one of Zappa's early ' field recordings ' made in his college classroom with brother Bobby on guitar.

Van Vliet met Frank Zappa when they were both teenagers and shared an interest in rhythm and blues and Chicago blues .< ref name = Taylor > Steve Taylor They collaborated from this early stage, with Zappa's scripts for ' teenage operettas ' such as " Captain Beefheart & The Grunt People " helping to elevate the Van Vliet persona of Captain Beefheart.

The musicians also resented Van Vliet for taking complete credit for composition and arranging when the musicians themselves pieced together most of the songs from taped fragments or impressionistic directions such as " Play it like a bat being dragged out of oil and it's trying to survive, but it's dying from asphyxiation.

He left before the band toured though, when Van Vliet handed him a list of 40 songs to learn over a 3-month period.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was a member of De Vliet when she studied in Leiden ( 1956-1961 ).

At this point Zappa had begun to extend a helping hand, with Vliet already having performed incognito as Rollin ' Red on Zappa's One Size Fits All ( 1975 ) and then joining with him on the Bongo Fury album and its later support tour.

Van Vliet often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes, particularly the welfare of animals.

For some time during the 1950s Van Vliet worked as an apprentice with Rodrigues, who considered him a child prodigy.

During this period Vliet suffered severe anxiety attacks that made him convinced that he was having a heart attack, probably exacerbated by his heavy LSD use and the fact that his father died of heart failure a few years earlier.

At various times one or another of the group members was " put in the barrel ," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission .< ref > vanity project interviews: The Magic Band <!

Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he needed to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter, warning him that otherwise he would only be considered a " musician who paints ".

" Lane explained that in contrast to the busied, bohemian urban lives of the New York abstract expressionists, the rural desert environment Van Vliet was influenced by is a distinctly naturalistic one, making him a distinguished figure in contemporary art, whose work will survive in canon.

A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest, however, showed him to still be active artistically.

Van Vliet embarked on the 1975 Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and The Mothers, mainly because conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently.

Around this time Van Vliet's high school friend Frank Zappa started his own pair of record labels, Bizarre and Straight, and offered Van Vliet, by then better known as Captain Beefheart, a name Zappa had given him, the opportunity to record an album with complete artistic freedom.

At various times one or another of the group members was put " in the barrel ", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet.

French sealed the walkout the next day by returning the guitar Van Vliet had loaned him.

The album cover features a painting by Van Vliet himself, as well as a portrait photo of him by Anton Corbijn.

For some time, the involvement of a Herb Bermann as co-writer on eight of the tracks was a point of confusion, as Vliet did not employ him, or indeed any regular co-writer at any other time in his career, and never discussed or clarified his role in the album.

He resided near Trinidad, California, with his wife Janet " Jan " Van Vliet.

While attending Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Van Vliet became close friends with fellow teenager Frank Zappa, the pair bonding through their interest in Chicago blues and R & B.

Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Boston to play their instruments from scratch ; in fact the pair were already accomplished young musicians before joining the band.

The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between their groups.

Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and poet mystic Z ' EV, both pioneers of industrial music, cited Van Vliet along with Zappa among their influences.

French decided which part would be played on which instrument and taught each player their part, although Van Vliet had final say over the ultimate shape of the product.

One of the hosts of the show, Chris Van Vliet, announced on the programme in February 2010 that he would be leaving the show to join the CBS affiliate in Cleveland as their entertainment reporter.

Don Van Vliet said that the title is an encouragement to " get rid of the labels ", and to evaluate things according to their merits rather than according to superficial labels ( or " decals ").