As a young boy, by way of his father who was involved in the music business, a young Billy Gibbons got the chance to sit in and watch B.B. King do his thing live and in the flesh while in the studio.

Surely, this would have impacted anyone, let alone an aspiring young six-stringer. But judging by Gibbons’ ZZ-Top catalogue, which includes big-time hits and even bigger and very old-school bluesy-meets-rock licks, one could say that said studio foray impacted Gibbons more than most.

As for what he learned as a child watching a legend like King, Gibbons tells Guitarist: “The importance of some serious professionalism at that moment took hold. B.B. and company were, well… they were gettin’ down to business with no foolin’ ‘round.”

Later in life, Gibbons got to know King on a personal level, as well as a professional one. It was only then that he learned the veteran blues icon wasn’t just a hell of a player but a quality person to boot.

“B.B. was all about respecting the opportunity to become a spokesperson of a style [that] was inherited,” Gibbons says. “And then, he developed that style to the level that enthralled friends, fans and followers at every turn.”

Nowadays, Gibbons is the old-guard professor with a guitar in hand who’s impacting millions. It’s the way of things – a proverbial passing of the blues-guitar torch. But even now, when he has a quiet moment, Gibbons still looks back on King’s body of work.

“The early releases found from the Kent label’s catalogue are all worth a deep review,” Gibbons says of his favourites. “The classic shapes of tone and feel continued to surround B.B.’s works right up to the climax of his output. Great stuff, all[-around].

You have a history with B.B. King. For those who don’t know, how did you end up sitting in on a session with him as a young boy?

Interesting encounter, to say the least! A visit to Bill Holford’s ACA Studios in Texas allowed me to jump aboard my dad’s ride to make the trip. Upon arrival, my dad said, ‘Take a seat over in that chair as a band is coming in to make a record!’

Next thing I knew, some guys came in and began arranging some gear, and then I spotted a guitar case entering through the side door… carried by none other than B.B. King. I remained quiet, yet at the same time something exciting was unfolding. When they kicked it in, I knew that was for me!

Gotta say, at seven years old, everything’s still quite new, and being in that room at that moment was simply beyond.

Did sitting in on that session with B.B. do anything to stoke your passion for guitar, or was that a runaway train, so to speak?

No question about it. The impact of that event zeroed in on the sound of electricity and hasn’t changed since. Coincidentally, [at a much later point in time] the sound of an unexpected B.B. shoutout stretched across an avenue in Las Vegas and, as it turned out, we were both residing just a stone’s throw down the same lane!

Upon invitation, we immediately gathered round and reignited a serious friendship, taking on the troubles of the world [laughs.] And then began delving into the depths, going way, way back, touching on Texas, Memphis and Mississippi.

Then there was the impact of some solid spiritual meaning, which appeared to have taken us both to that thing we called ‘the burden’, aka the electric six-string. Great tales ensued and the exchanges became ingrained with a sense of a righteous appreciation of this great American art form, the blues.

As you got older and more experienced as a listener and player, what did you notice about B.B. that perhaps an average listener wouldn’t?

Well, it’s fair to say just about anyone feeling the genuine delivery from B.B. and his entire outfit could take note that something of value was unfolding. B.B. exuded some honest enjoyment while working through years of delivering his inimitable style and savviness.

Have you ever tried to play any of B.B.’s music?

For the recent 10 years, an annual holiday gathering in Texas, known as ‘The Jungle Show’, takes the stage alongside Jimmie Vaughan, Mike ‘The Drifter’ Flanigin and Chris ‘Whipper’ Layton, where we open the performances with our version of one of BB’s great numbers [from the ’60s] named The Jungle.

We’re doing our best to remain interpreters within the scope of the originator. It’s nothing short of a blast.

There’s a story that, as adult, you met B.B. properly when you were 22. Did he remember you from the session you sat in on as a child?

Oh, yeah! In Las Cruces, New Mexico. We met somewhat informally while sharing a dressing room prior to the show, which sparked some lively discussions surrounding guitars. The recollection of that day back in the ’50s from the ACA session in Texas came much later when we gathered to join the tribute recording as B.B. was celebrating turning 80!

That same story says that B.B. asked to play your guitar and commented on how heavy your strings were. Is that true?

Yes. At the time, using heavy-gauge guitar strings was thought necessary for getting a big tone. When B.B. asked to try a few licks on my guitar, he quickly smiled and asked, ‘Why you working so hard?’ He then laid it down to show off a new set of his super-light-gauge strings. It was at that very moment that everything turned around. As B.B. then said, ‘Light is all right!’ [laughs]

How important was that switch to lighter strings when it came to harnessing your tone?

Ironically, the switch to lighten the load, so to speak, was automatic. First came the set of nines, then eights. And now, thanks to Jim Dunlop, we’ve slithered down to sevens. They stretch, stay in tune and they don’t break. B.B., we thank you!

If B.B. were here now, what tone secret or recommendation do you think he’d make?

Prior to his departure, B.B. kindly took time to offer encouragement with enthusiasm toward keeping an eye on authenticity. In as much as one would suspect, B.B. left his mark through so many superb recordings and shared that specialness with many.

From your standpoint, how do you recreate BB’s tone?

Getting close to creating something of a B.B. tone is more about taking time to allow some soul searching and inspiration. T’ain’t easy, yet B.B. would be first to offer a word of appreciation to go ahead with it.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

In the mid-’80s, ZZ Top went from being a group of Texas-bred blues bangers to a chart-topping powerhouse on the strength of albums like 1983’s Eliminator and 1985’s Afterburner. But neither of those now-classic albums could’ve happened without the “bridge album” that preceded them, 1981’s El Loco.

“The band, in the midst of the ongoing roadshows, returned to take advantage of some rare, non-performing days with re-entry into the studio in the early ’80s,” says ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons (via email) when looking back on this tweener period. He adds that the band’s aim was simple: “To make loud noise in Las Vegas, Memphis, Houston and back home in Los Angeles.”

Songs like Pearl Necklace, Tube Snake Bookie and Groovy Little Hippie Pad did a fine job of reflecting ZZ Top’s past. More importantly, they showed signs of what they’d eventually do so well on later hits like Sharp Dressed Man, Legs and Gimme All Your Lovin’.

“We were writing new material and recording the sounds the band is known for,” Gibbons says. “Following a wrap with sessions, it was us trippin’ into the desert surrounds back out in West Texas to capture the band in the shifting sands near their haunts at the Tex-Mex border. Tortillas and hot sauce meet rock ’n’ roll, as always.”

If that sounds roundabout – yet oddly encapsulating – that’s because it is. Gibbons has a particular way of viewing the world, which he filters through a quasi-poetic sense of humor that runs on through his guitar and out from his amps. So, if you really want to understand the vibe and feel of El Loco – or of any ZZ Top album – it’s best to just sit back, listen and take it in.

“All it requires is having a glance at the desert setting, which takes one directly into ZZ Top’s Texas heritage,” Gibbons says. “It’s that Lone Star State of mind making its ‘separate country’ status so mysterious. The poetry from song to song says it all quite succinctly.”

How did the reception for the album that preceded El Loco, 1979’s Degüello, impact your outlook on ZZ Top as the band rolled into the Eighties?

The great American art form of the blues, which we continued attempting to interpret, flavored the album’s content.

One of the favored tracks, the fine composition with Sam & Dave’s Stax recording of I Thank You, allowed the initial leanings toward taking a move with sounds of R&B.

Those new angles tempered new waves of experimentation for the band to move ahead and toward the future.

El Loco is interesting as it precedes Eliminator and Afterburner, ZZ Top’s ’80s explosion albums, but it came after the ’70s blues period, which you mentioned. It’s kind of an in-between record.

This is true! Then again, there was a landslide of inspiration and creative energies surrounding some insane scenes erupting everywhere. As the ZZ Top cornerstone of standing within our 12-bar circle expanded, the inventive impact from far and wide was instrumental in igniting a vibrancy from then to now.

What were the first songs the band wrote for El Loco, and did you have the new sounds of the ’80s in mind?

The many tracks included from the period, like So Cold, Instantly and Mark My Word, were just a few good ones as extra tracks that still exist following the more familiar numbers that landed in 12-inch vinyl upon the release.

The interesting challenge loomed large, having to hand-pick a scant few titles from the assembly that stacked up during the sessions.

You started El Loco at Sunset Sound in L.A. but moved to Ardent Studios in Memphis. How did that impact you in terms of tracking guitars?

Sunset Sound opened the doors to twist knobs on a lot of unusual features with their unreal stacks of compressors limiters and mic preamps surrounding the console… all favoring great response going to tape.

As the tour moved along, we returned to our home away from home, back in midtown Memphis, where Ardent Studios held Studio B on reserve for lighting the fuse for new ZZ Top songs to complete the wrap.

Why did you choose Bill Ham as producer?

The title of “producer” was actually more in line as keeper of the flame. Here were three wayward and unruly guys [Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard] that most likely would have stayed in the badlands. We were unaware of the job of maintaining the value of the group and rallying the gang to focus on defining what we were doing and refining the content.

We simply kept it raucous and raw and pressed on with loudness. An unabashed element was the constant ferociousness of the guitar tone coming from our trusted Pearly Gates [Gibbons’ 1959 Gibson Les Paul]. The sound out of that instrument actually made the signal stand up and bark.

Linden Hudson was also involved as a pre-producer.

Yes – a great guy with great insight with what makes for great sounds. That appreciative alliance emerged stridently with solid input on a creative level.

Linden was the engineer for Groovy Little Hippy Pad but wasn’t credited. How did he impact that track?

There was a constant openness to taking on fresh ideas with smiling support. Good times made it into the groove – an undeniable reality, front and center, with positive suggestions and exacting expertise.

Besides Pearly Gates, what guitars did you bring into the studio, and how did you shape your tone?

The style for making the kind of sound we were chasing fell right off the stage when the Jeff Beck Group delivered those smoking nights of great grind and grit. Standing behind a ’50s sunburst Les Paul, supported by a Fender Telecaster bass, said it all. Pushing it through those early Marshall 100s did the trick.

From that point forward, Jeff [Beck] arranged delivery with Marshall’s first factory arrival into the States, loading ZZ Top’s stage with stacks standing high. It solidified the initial offerings from the band’s newly formed “ZZ” sound without question.

What are the stories behind Pearl Necklace and Tube Snake Boogie?

During a hang with a long-standing pal, one of our friends appeared exiting his ride, making a fast clip to his front door, whereupon the question of “How was last night?” provided a quick and to-the-point response of a single word: Necklace.

One only needs a slight imagination to put it into proper perspective. Tube Snake Boogie emerged as a song having overheard a reference at a notorious surf spot from a shaper calling some new boards making the scene as “tube snakes.” A perfect title.

Terry Manning mixed El Loco. How important was he to ZZ Top’s sound?

Terry Manning – yes! We met Terry when he was working in a studio at Ardent in Memphis with Led Zeppelin. He accepted the invitation to take a stab at mixing the tracks later to reach success with the release entitled Tres Hombres.

On that record, the best move was the accidental slip of the splicing knife mashing together two numbers – Waiting’ On the Bus and Jesus Just Left Chicago – suddenly becoming the classic coupling, forever playing as a streamlined duo with a recognizable and most desirable effect.

What were your thoughts on El Loco the first time you heard it?

I thought Groovy Little Hippie Pad and Party on the Patio fit the times in a remarkable and cohesive manner. They’re still performed in concert with a speedy tempo, keeping the pulse beating with smoothness. Even now it maintains that stepped-up, accelerated sound.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

The record-breaking sales of Jim Irsay’s most notorious electric guitars have understandably grabbed the headlines after last week’s auction, but there were some notable developments with regard to his bass guitars, too.

The billionaire businessman passed away aged 65 last year, leaving behind the world’s most ridiculous collection of guitars and music memorabilia, and while David Gilmour’s Strat sold for a mind-boggling $14.5 million, a number of Irsay’s most historically significant four-strings also racked up impressive sales figures during the New York auction.

Take John McVie’s custom Alembic bass, for instance. It was used to record Fleetwood Mac's timeless classic – and Formula 1 anthem – The Chain for 1977's mega-selling album, Rumours.

That prestige saw it shatter its estimated price of up to $100,000, selling for $177,800. McVie's part is widely considered one of the most iconic basslines of all time, and it's easy to see why, with the bass also taken on the preceding tour.

It features a solidbody and through-neck construction that unites laminated birds-eye maple, koa, walnut, cocobolo, and ash, a fretless fingerboard, and active electronics. It can also be heard on another Rumours cut, Gold Dust Woman, and the B-side, Silver Springs.

While the 2021 auction of one of Paul McCartney's Yamaha BB-1200 basses still holds the record for most expensive low-end weapon, the former Beatle's appeal was clear to see during last week's auction. Another of his BB-1200s, which McCartney used in the studio and on the stage between 1979 and 1984, has sold for $228,600.

It was soft-launched by Wings' disco and flamenco-flecked standalone single, Goodnight Tonight. Later, it became his principal instrument on the Back to the Egg tour. The pair of Yamahas is a rare example of instruments from McCartney's personal collection leaving his possession.

For lovers of slightly more ridiculous instruments, Dusty Hill's sheepskin-covered bass, which features a striking ZZ Top inlay and starred in the music video for Legs, fell just short of six figures.

The Explorer-style Dean sold for $95,250, having been a prominent part of ZZ Top's chart-bothering Eliminator era, which was famous for some truly bonkers instruments. Beneath the shag of its fluffy headstock, gold-plated Schaller tuners can be found. It also sports a single double-coil pickup and a black-and-gold-plated Badass tailpiece and bridge.

“One night, I received a 3 am phone call, it's Gibbons,” Dean Zelinsky recalls of the build. “He was on tour in the UK and had the guys from Def Leppard with him. He wanted to hook them up with some Dean Guitars.

“At the very end of the conversation, Billy drops the line, ‘I'm sending you some sheepskins I purchased while in Scotland, I want you to put them on some guitars.’

“I cleared a path down the center with electric horse shears to accept the pickups, tailpiece, and strings. And I remember we were still gluing the fur on the tuning keys when the FedEx driver showed up to pick up the guitars.”

Legs went on to win the inaugural MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video.

Meanwhile, Jerry Garcia’s Tiger, which sold for $12 million at the Jim Irsay auction, has already been played on stage, thanks to its generous new owner.

Before the giant beard, before the MTV stardom and spinning fur guitars, before he was seen onstage with bandmates playing 17-string basses, and even before the band that made him famous existed, Billy Gibbons was plying his six-string trade with the Moving Sidewalks, a true Nuggets-era psychedelic/garage-rock band. What can you say? The man's lived many lives.

Though they never quite made it big nationwide, the Moving Sidewalks' biggest single, 99th Floor, was enough of a hit in the band's native Houston, Texas to give the group some momentum as rock fully entered its tie-dye era.

That wind at the Moving Sidewalks' backs was enough to convince promoters to stick the band on the bill with some budding rock juggernauts when they rolled through town, particularly one James Marshall Hendrix, for whom the band opened in 1968.

Gibbons and co's usual set, mind you, featured multiple Hendrix songs. Incredibly, the band kept that set – Purple Haze and Foxy Lady included – when opening for the man himself, something they cheekily chalked up to a lack of material.

Far from being angry, Hendrix was actually impressed by the sheer gall of his openers, and struck up a friendship with Gibbons.

Try to contain your shock, but during their time touring together, prime-era Hendrix made quite an impression on the young Gibbons. The rulebook-shredding that millions of guitarists only got to hear on record, Gibbons got to see up close and in-person.

“It was just wild. He knew all the tricks – five-way position on the toggle switch before it was five-way, bending the wang-bar up so that it'd go down farther, immobilizing the strings... it was just great to be near him to see all this stuff he was doing instinctively,” Gibbons recalled with some wonder in a 1984 Guitar World interview.

“I remember one night he came ripping into the hotel room and said, ‘Um, do you know this?’ and he'd slap down a lick that would last for 10 minutes. I'd shake my head and say, ‘Uh, no. Could you run through it maybe once more?’”

In a more recent interview on the YouTube show Rock & Roll High School, the ZZ Top man recalled another hotel room hang with Hendrix, during which the two guitarists sat in wonder listening to Truth, the debut album from the Jeff Beck Group.

Hendrix, Gibbons said, was himself left in awe by the album, asking Gibbons how Beck could've gotten such otherworldly sounds out of his Les Paul.

“I said, ‘Jimi, it would probably surprise you to know that Jeff Beck is probably listening to your record trying to figure out what you’re doing at the same time!’”

There’s a legend that has long circulated in guitar circles – one of those reciprocal, lighting of the flame moments – in which Billy Gibbons, vocalist and guitarist of Texas legends ZZ Top, attended a B.B. King session when he was just a child.

However, there’s truth to this particular legend. Indeed, the event left Gibbons indebted to the genre to the point that he went on to make a career of saluting the blues, seasoned-up with a heaped spoonful of boogie-woogie rock ‘n’ roll.

Gibbons has variously recalled being aged 5-7 at the time, but he’s never been quite clear on the exact timing – perhaps unsurprising given the 70-odd years that have passed since. However, writing to Guitar World, Gibbons recalls many details of the day with surprising clarity.

The trip, he explains, came about thanks to his father’s connections. Frederick Royal Gibbons was a noted orchestra conductor, concert pianist, and organ player who had a long and successful career – and, by the time Billy was born, a bulging contacts book.

“My dad extended the directive to climb aboard and accompany an excursion to the recording studio, where some executive biz was to take place,” Gibbons writes, in his own inimitable prose.

“I was ushered into the tracking room and took a chair against the side wall and was instructed to remain and stay quiet.”

The tracking room in question was the domain of record producer Bill Holford, located on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer in Houston, Texas – “and known nationally as the notorious ACA Studio.”

The site was famed for good reason. It was one of the first multi-track studios in the country and, as such, drew the great and good of early- to mid-20th-century talent. Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded there. Little Richard, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Memphis Slim also laid down tracks in the room.

At the time of the session, Gibbons was so young he could only dream of one day making music in such a spot, but he was not oblivious to what he was witnessing – or the unspoken exchanges.

“There was enough awareness as to what was going to take place that a wave of anticipation immediately fell swoop,” he remembers. “The space was fairly empty, and yet, the absence created a stir of curiosity. The lack of noise was intriguing.”

Gibbons found himself firmly fixed to the chair his father had left him in and watching as the previously dormant space transformed into a bustling scene – all ready for one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century to take up residence and do his thing.

“Here came a line of guys with their gear going about setting up and properly arranging the group’s designated spots at B.B.’s insistence,” Gibbons recalls. “My dad stepped in with Bill Holford to greet the ensemble, and then in came ‘The King.’”

Gibbons memory of first laying eyes on King is remarkably vivid. What’s more, King’s way of handling himself also made an impression.

“B.B. shook hands with a smile,” notes Gibbons. “He exchanged a few remarks about having worked previously in Houston, making records. [Then] after some discussion of B.B.’s selected songs, the getting-down-to-business was underway.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gibbons says King soon noticed his movements being documented by this young apprentice.

“B.B. stepped over and asked if I liked electric guitar,” the ZZ Top man recalls. “I grinned – and that was it!”

As mentioned, Gibbons is uncertain on the dates. Guitar World has reviewed the ACA log books, now digitized and hosted by the University of Houston – and there were at least two B.B. King sessions at ACA in the ’50s, both of which appear to have taken place in 1953.

Gibbons has previously supposed the session happened later, around ’57, but Guitar World could not find a date that tallies with this in the log book, nor mention of the labels associated with King in the late-’50s documentation.

The tracks on the slate for the first session in ’53 are listed as Remember Me, What A Difference, I Don't Believe It and I Can't Put You Down. The second session lists takes of I Did Everything I Could, I've Learned My Lesson, Come On Baby Take a Swing With Me and (I Want You To) Love Me.

Many of these don't appear to have seen release – possibly because King was predominantly working with another label at the time – but the latter seems likely to be a working title for (Please) Love Me, released that same year.

Regardless of the specific tracks, Gibbons reports that the group did not waste time laying it down.

“A quick runthrough by the band got the ball rolling,” remembers Gibbons. “Take one came over and then the count. It was three minutes of masterful execution and then on to another number – a superb experience witnessing a series of one-take deliveries.”

For the young Billy, watching B.B. King play was electrifying in itself, but in another sign of things to come, he confesses he found himself enthralled by the tools the blues maestro wielded.

“I vividly recall – which I learned later – B.B. was using a blond, [Gibson] ES-5, triple-pickup, single-cutaway,” Gibbons tells Guitar World.

“There were a couple of [Fender] Tweed amplifiers across the room,” he continues. “They were out of the way to let the amps blare it out, away from the rest of the group. It was effortlessly lively and at the same time, agreeably stone serious.”

The ES-5 provides another clue to the date – there’s an amazing image of King [dressed in shorts – above] playing the guitar onstage with the Bill Harvey band in Memphis around 1950. It’s not conclusive, but does suggest that the session likely took place earlier in the decade than first thought.

Gibbons then remembers that the band decided to take an extended break, and he says he even took note of this.

“[It’s] a time-tested, studio must-do, which is practiced to this day,” observes Gibbons. “The art of taking one's time to settle into the pocket makes all the difference in laying it down and enriching the groove.”

Up until that point, Gibbons appears to have maintained a respectful silence – albeit it with a grin on his face.

“As the session wrapped, B.B. came over to tell me he knew my dad and asked if I had taken it all in with a good time,” recalls Gibbons. “Needless to say, I believe B.B. enjoyed my loud response of, ‘Yes, sir!’”

Gibbons would not receive his own electric guitar until his 13th birthday, but the King session seems like the starting point of his personal odyssey – before all of those more famous stories of his time with Jimi Hendrix, catching Elvis, or ZZ Top’s colossal success. Witnessing King proved truly formative.

Gibbons still describes the memory as “a treasured moment, which lingers on”. Indeed, some 50 years on from the session, Gibbons got to return the favor – performing Tired of Your Jive with B.B. King as part of the latter’s star-studded, 80th birthday celebration record, B.B. King & Friends: 80.

We can only imagine how the young Gibbons might have felt knowing that years later ‘The King’ would call him ‘friend.’

Billy Gibbons has opened up on the time he proved he had cajones of steel when, while supporting Jimi Hendrix on tour, he played two of the electric guitar legend’s biggest hits in front of the man himself.

The bold play took place while Gibbons was submerged in psych rock sounds with his pre-ZZ Top band, Moving Sidewalks. Speaking on the Rock & Roll High School YouTube channel, Gibbons says he was “mystified” to have been offered the opportunity to support Hendrix across the States in the late 1960s.

The band had already weaved two Hendrix classics, Purple Haze and Foxy Lady, into their live set, and as the terms and conditions of playing on the tour revealed themselves, Gibbons was forced to do the unthinkable.

“We thought about it and I said [to the band], ‘The promoter’s really fussing at us, he said he’s holding us to this 40 minutes of material.’ I said, ‘The only way we can play 40 minutes is if we include Purple Haze and Foxy Lady.’”

That left the band pondering, “Dare we play this in front of Hendrix?” But they were left with little choice: “Well, we want to get paid,” Gibbons had concluded. Little did he know, Hendrix himself would be watching on from the shadows.

“As we were rounding out our portion of the show, I kept noticing that there was a lone figure standing off to the side in the shadows of the stage,” he continues. “And as we wrapped it up, I remembered passing by, being spun around and this guy grabbed me by the shoulders, and smiling he said, ‘Man, I wanna meet you. You got a lot of nerve, I like that.’”

That moment sparked an endearing friendship between the two guitarists. After their shows, they’d hang out, listening to music together on a “piece of furniture” hi-fi system in Hendrix’s hotel room every night.

“I gotta tell you, we became fast friends,” Gibbons says. “His door was always open. Hendrix would signal me over and say, ‘Hey man, come check this out.’ We sat cross-legged aimed at the speakers and he was playing the first Jeff Beck Group album, Truth, and Jeff Beck is peeling the sides off his Les Paul.”

Hendrix listened in awe and questioned how Beck managed to play the things he put on record. Gibbons had a sharp response for his new and virtuosic friend.

“I said, ‘Jimi, it would probably surprise you to know that Jeff Beck is probably listening to your record trying to figure out what you’re doing at the same time!’”

Gibbons would go on to form ZZ Top in 1969, citing the magic of Hendrix and Cream’s power trios as a reason for wanting one of his own. Elsewhere in the interview, he confirms new ZZ Top music is in the works, which will be the first since the passing of bass player Dusty Hill.

The band’s long-standing guitar tech, Elwood Francis, has since been sworn into the vacant spot. He’s made headlines for ripping part of the band’s set on a monstrous 17-string bass but has since pivoted to a more humble two-string after his joke backfired.

ZZ Top bassist Elwood Francis has posted an update, introducing the world to his new two-string bass.

Francis was formerly the band’s guitar tech: the man tasked with maintaining their fuzzy guitars (“I hated dealing with keeping the fur clean – we got little brushes for it!” he recently told GW) and keeping one of rock’s most amusing guitar collections in operable shape.

He moved on to bass duties in the group following the sad passing of Dusty Hill and, in keeping with the proud ’Top tradition, often catches the eye with his gear choices, most notoriously, a gargantuan 17-string bass that he first wheeled-out onstage in 2022.

As he explained last year, that instrument was initially ordered as a joke from a Chinese retailer following some late-night browsing.

“I found this guitar, took a screenshot, and sent it to Billy, saying, ‘We should order one of these, and I'll play it. It'll be hilarious,’” Francis told GW in 2024.

“And three months later… Billy pulls out this big-ass yellow 17-string bass and is like, ‘Okay, we'll play it for a song, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I can do this…’ [After the show] I thought it was over, but the son of a bitch went viral.”

Francis has since been stuck playing it every night and recently debuted a slimmed-down variant, the 15-string High Selecta bass – complete with a stuck-on Teisco logo [the bass is, to be clear, not made by Teisco - Ed].

All of which is to say that his latest acquisition, must be a real relief – a two-string Sam Hill offset bass built by Waterstone Guitars.

“Life’s a blur once you start using a @waterstoneguitars Sam Hill 2 string bass,” posted Francis on Instagram. “That’s 15 less than I’m used to….”

Waterstone’s site suggests it’s so-called due to the reaction it gets: “What in the Sam Hill?” Spec information is light, but the two-string bass reportedly features an (extremely slim) maple neck, two (two-pole) single coil pickups and a padded case – and is not unattractively priced at $549.

Can it compete with a 17-string? Well, we’ll probably have to wait for ZZ Top’s March tour dates to find out.

If you see ZZ Top in action in 2025, you’ll witness bassist and former guitar tech Elwood Francis playing an absurd 17-string bass. The late Dusty Hill’s replacement brings out the yellow instrument for classic track Got Me Under Pressure – and surprisingly, he says, it gets the job done.

“It’s really not horrible,” Francis tells Bass Player. “But the guitar tech has had to deal with frets coming loose. It’s just your typical shitty, Chinese-made guitar!”

He continues: “My sound is big, thick and dirty, so you can hide a lot of impurities. We don’t do anything with them except use four strings: two on top and two on the bottom. Man, it gets through the fucking song!”

Ever a glutton for punishment, Francis has added another instrument to feature during Got Me Under Pressure: a black 15-string bass, which he calls his “B rig,” with a Teisco-badged headstock and a “High Selecta” inlay.

“It works,” he allows. “These things aren’t the best made – the nuts are made of wood! But cosmetically, they look right on. They play well enough to use as a stunt bass.”

The stunt started as a joke between Francis and Billy Gibbons, and quickly became a nightly ritual. Asked where he stumbled upon such basses in the first place, Francis says: “I found it through late-night internet surfing on the road.”

“I ran into the first one – the yellow one – and we bought it off a Chinese bootleg website. I don’t know which one; it was just randomly bought from whoever had it.”

“The first night we did, we said, ‘Let’s do it, get it over with, and forget it.’ The joke was just to amuse ourselves. We thought it would be the only time it got used, we’d laugh, and that would be the end of it.”

That wasn’t the case. “It wasn’t planned – I think that’s what makes it good and honest. But a lot of people don’t get it; it’s a polarizing thing.”

The Teisco logo on the 15-string’s headstock is “just an amp badge” which he applied because he’d “put a Fender logo on the yellow one, and we might as well go all the way with Teisco on this one.”

As for the “High Selecta” inlay, he explains: “That’s Lord High Selecta – a nickname Billy has for me. We need nicknames because Elwood isn’t enough! One of my friends said it, and the next thing you know, he’s having that put on the guitar! It’s a good slogan.”

Would Francies consider playing one of these massive basses for an entire show? “Oh, fuck no – absolutely not!” he replies. “I’m so happy to get that thing off. It’s so heavy, you know? It’s brutal. No, I couldn’t do that at all.”

It still beats playing the fuzzy guitars used elsewhere during the show. “The fuzzy sort of sucks – but in a totally cool way! When I was a guitar tech, I hated dealing with keeping the fur clean – we got little brushes for it!”

Francis has no clue if any more weird instruments will join the ZZ Top party. And anyway, he has his hands full dealing with the ones that already feature. “I barely messed with the 17-string bass before I played it for the first time,” he says. “I’m going, ‘Okay, I can make this work.’

“I could barely play it! I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ because it was really confusing from the top – it wasn’t as easy as I expected. We didn’t do a soundcheck either. Soundcheck woulda been cool.

“But whenever I look down at that bass, I think, “Goddamn… of all the things to happen!”

• Catch ZZ Top on tour from March 5.

While ZZ Top achieved mainstream success and worldwide aclaim with the stream of hits that came from their Eliminator album in 1983, they had long been Texas blues-rock trailblazers. And it’s a testament to Billy Gibbons’ stong musical identity that he’s still seen as an influence in his genre, over 40 years on.

Talking to Brian May about his impressions of Gibbons, the Queen guitarist told me: “I first heard Billy Gibbons because of Noddy Holder, the singer of Slade, in the 1970s. He had a couple of ZZ Top albums and was mad keen on the group.

“We were at his house and he played me La Grange and Tush, and some others. I thought Billy Gibbons was the coolest guitarist I’d ever heard, and that opinion hasn’t changed in 50 years! Always rooted in the moment. Never trying too hard. Solid as a giant rock.”

Billy has a few signature techniques, including pinched harmonics for that dramatic, squealing sound. He was using picking-hand tapping long before Eddie Van Halen came to prominence, and while he doesn’t use extended lines based on this approach, it’s a real feature of his sound. An influence on Larry Carlton’s classic solo on Kid Charlemagne by Steely Dan, perhaps?

Gibbons’ phrasing is impeccable. As Dr May suggested above, his style is relaxed and totally uncontrived. This makes his approach perfect for classic solos, as Gibbons always plays for the song. He’s also a master groove player and his rhythm style often contains rootsy, almost country-tinged, doubled-stops and classic, soul-influenced guitar moves.

As a sharp riff writer, many of the band’s most successful songs hinge around simple but memorable hooks, often pentatonic in nature. Rather than Led Zeppelin-style monoliths, these are usually more like simple lick ideas that plant themselves as earworms in your brain. Think of tracks like Sharp Dressed Man, Gimme All Your Lovin’, and Tush, for example.

In the licks below, I’ve crafted lines that reference some of his popular melodic shapes. While researching this article, it became apparent that many of Gibbons' tunes set up a solid groove within a key, but when it comes time for the solo he modulates elsewhere for a vamp or repeated chordal pattern.

For instance, in the ZZ Top classic, La Grange, Gibbons sets up a groove based firmly around A Minor, but the solo is based around C Major. Musically, this is the relative Major but a noticeable jump that lends instant excitement and lift to the tune. It’s a simple but extremely effective way to give a song a sort of ‘gear change.’

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 7, Bass 7, Middle 5, Treble 7, Reverb 3

Gibbons has an amazing collection of guitars, so anything will work here. Set up a sound that’s good for rhythm but also powerful enough for blues-rock solos. A little reverb is essential, while delay can add breadth to soaring leads. Add overdrive too, but don’t go overboard with the distortion; note detail is important here, and too much drive can get in the way.

Example 1

This uses double-stops, which are a staple in Gibbons’ solos, as are the pinched harmonics in the third bar – catch the string with the flesh of the picking-hand thumb.

Example 2

Triplets and more double-stops here. Notice that the bottom note moves down in bars 1-2 to add melodic detail against the repeating F note.

Example 3

Note the use of the #11 note (F#) here for an infectious bluesy sound. Jimi Hendrix also used this sound to great effect on Band Of Gypsys.

Example 4

We’re on a chord of F7 here, but note the bluesy Minor 3rd (Ab). Gibbons also often uses the blues scale built on the root of the chord he’s playing over.

Example 5

Here’s a line based around the 6th interval, which adds a definite hint of soul to the phrase.

Study Piece. The Solo

The solo puts the example ideas together to create a guitar break that feels composed and melodic. Notice how it takes its time to develop, melodically. Since phrasing is key to Gibbons' style it’s important to leave room to let the licks breathe. Laying back on the timing is vital, too – you’ll never hear Gibbons rushing ahead.

Seymour Duncan has partnered with Billy Gibbons to launch not one, but two signature electric guitar pickups, which elevate two classic ZZ Top tones through an assortment of single-coils and humbuckers.

The Red Devil – a new iteration of the ZZ Top icon’s Stratocaster-compatible humbucker – has been geared towards Telecasters, while the Hades Gates humbucker set is engineered for Les Pauls.

Naturally, both will produce their own distinct tones, but each new set has been fine-tuned to deliver Gibbons’ fiery hot Texas tone with some added oomph that previous sets don’t offer.

The Hades Gates humbuckers, for example, promise to be an evolution of Gibbons’ Pearly Gates P.A.F pickups – the same ‘pups that can be found in his coveted 1959 Les Paul Standard – bringing to the table added output and a hotter wind.

Hand-built in Santa Barbara, California, the Hades Gates humbuckers feature Alnico II magnets and are said to offer a more “fiery take” on the mid-forward, punchy sound that Gibbons and his Les Paul is responsible for.

These are available in a range of finishes and covers, from black and zebra to the more retro raw nickel with gold mesh covers.

“It took Pearly Gates and gave it an extra ‘bop,’” says Gibbons of the Hades Gates. “They offer a little extra output. When on stage, I think the essence of cutting through relies upon what emanates from the source.

“That’s the heart of what makes it sound so good. It’s interesting how something so subtle can be so dramatic on the player’s end.”

Continuing the theme of offering “extra heat”, the Red Devil Tele is a standalone mini-humbucker, which has been made available as a drop-in replacement bridge pickup for Fender’s single-cut (and, by extension, any T-style electric).

Again, a hotter wind that drives amps and pedals harder for a punchier output is utilized for the single-coil-sized humbucker, which is only available in black.

Prices for both new pickups start from $129.

In other Seymour Duncan news, the renowned pickup firm recently branched into the electric guitar string market, releasing the Antiquity string range.

Head over to Seymour Duncan to find out more.

When it came time for Slash to send out invites to the sonic party that would become Orgy of the Damned, his new blues-covers album, there was at least one obvious choice: Billy Gibbons. The well-traveled Texan has been shaking, baking and barbecuing the blues – with or without ZZ Top – since the late Sixties.

On top of all that, the Slash/Gibbons friendship dates back to the days when ZZ Top’s Afterburner and GN’R’s Appetite for Destruction duked it out on the shelves at Tower Records on the corner of Sunset and Horn in North Hollywood. As is always the case, the famous Texan showed up at Slash’s behest – expertly geared-up and raring to go – to help his host lay down a fine new version of Willie Dixon’s Hoochie Coochie Man.

Below, Gibbons chats about the Orgy sessions and gear, his relationship with Slash, the finer points of B.B. King and Kingfish and the health of the blues in 2024. Spoiler alert: blues fans have nothing to worry about.

How, when and where did you meet Slash?

“Backstage following a ZZ Top show in Los Angeles. I maintained residence up the Sunset Strip nearby a notorious liquor store and happened by there one day to “resupply.” Our guy was there choosing the appropriate libation, and a friendship ensued.

“He’s kind of unmistakable, and I guess he figured we were connected and latched onto all things ‘six-string’ in very short order. We’ve knocked around pretty much ever since; I’d place that encounter somewhere in the late ’80s when Appetite was making some noise. Truly a sympatico cat if ever there was one.”

How do you approach bringing something new to Hoochie Coochie Man, a song that’s been around the block a few times?

“It’s fair to say Slash and our collective adventures cover wide ranges of bluesy influence. Most everyone appears to enjoy maintaining an actual ongoing relationship with all things sonically “blue.” Muddy Waters’ Hoochie Coochie Man is something [that’s], quite simply, fundamental.

“Slash and I approached the number with a sincere, personalized vision, forwarding the arrangement to expand the track with some extra breathing room and sound luster. It’s a Willie Dixon standby ‘oldie’ – and [it’s] still kickin’ in a big way.”

What guitar and amps did you use on Hoochie Coochie Man? Any other notable gear?

“Oh yeah, man! ‘Pearly Gates’ [Gibbons’ 1959 Gibson Les Paul, which he acquired in 1968 and has used on every ZZ Top album since 1971’s ZZ Top’s First Album], our long-standing fave-rave six-string, entered the studio to do that righteous thing. And it ain’t no secret that the new Magnatone line of amplifiers were on hand, which are now taking the front and center spot on stage and in the studio. We brought the two together, making for a ferocious combo.”

Slash tells us you’ve occasionally bent his ear about Magnatone tube amps. Why are you such a fan?

“Magnatone is the way to go for many reasons – its heritage, the look and, most importantly, the pre-amps can feed the power stages with as much grist and grizzle as one might lean into. Magnatone’s inimitable true vibrato is unbeatable and very real, just as when Buddy Holly and Lonnie Mack played it to brilliant advantage.”

It turns out you and Slash are also bigtime B.B. King fans. Can you detect any B.B. in Slash’s playing?

“Sure ’nuff! Anyone qualifying to enter bluesman territory certainly includes inspiration from the King; B.B. set a far-reaching standard for tone and taste and still abides to the present day.”

Speaking of which, what would you nominate as the one B.B. King album you can’t live without?

“Live at the Regal. It’s really all there.”

B.B. played a modified Gibson ES-335 on Live at the Regal, and now Slash has his new signature ES-335. Do you have your own 335 story?

“Well, something we feel [that’s] close enough. We carried on, early on, with a rare, mid-’50s Gibson ‘Switchmaster’ ES-5. Big box, big sounds.”

When can we expect the follow-up to 2021’s Hardware?

“Glad you asked, as we’ve just recently squeezed into the studio between roadshow dates, getting back to extending some added recorded loudness.”

Who’s on your list of favorites among the new breed of blues guitarists?

“Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram is on it, in that there’s a resonance with a strident Mississippi presence, bringing on that wisdom of the Delta. Also, Quinn Sullivan has entered the scene, a Buddy Guy discovery going on to play at the Mahindra Blues Festival in India. Both join the wave of up-and-comers with a genuine kind of approach and intensity.”

Is the blues in good hands in 2024?

“Ain’t nothing much to worry over on this. It steadfastly endures underlying most everything and keeps bouncing back. This is the artful creation that underpins and expresses the human condition – the low stuff and the high stuff. Gotta say it – ‘You can’t lose with the blues!’”

• The inaugural S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival is under way – see here for dates and ticket details.

Before taking over low-end duties from the late Dusty Hill in ZZ Top, Elwood Francis was a DIY punk who traveled the world as a tech for some of rock’s biggest stars. With an affinity for Frank Zappa and a knack for tearing into guitars with reckless abandon, Francis worked with Joe Perry, Steve Vai, Izzy Stradlin and Gilby Clarke before a case of burnout led him to step away from the industry.

But when Billy Gibbons came calling, it led to a wild adventure that’s seen Francis go from restringing “pain in the ass” fuzzy guitars to brandishing a 17-string bass for ZZ Top. “I don’t know if I can put it into words,” he says. “It’s just a weird feeling stepping into that role.

“I stepped away from social media because, man, I’m not the most confident person, and Dusty was immensely talented. All I gotta say is the fans have been really cool about it.

“If there had been too much backlash, I would not be doing it. I wouldn’t be able to handle it – I’m just trying to help out. It was never my intention to play bass in fucking ZZ Top.”

You’re playing bass now but you’ve always been a guitarist. What drew you to the instrument?

“My mother’s record collection, I guess. She had good records, like Bill Haley and all that. But Frank Zappa was the one that made me really want to play guitar. The way Frank played guitar solos is how they should sound – especially his ’70s output.

“It was such a barrage of notes, and sometimes it was pretty sloppy. Such a barrage and so different. It was a different choice of notes; it just grabbed me. I never would have thought people could reach that. I’m never going to be that good.”

Can you remember your first guitar?

“It was a Harmony; the one with the little Hershey bar pickups. I don’t have the guitar, but I’ve still got that pickup. I’ve always taken my guitars apart, painted them, and kinda devalued them in every possible way.”

There’s something about making a guitar your own rather than keeping it pristine that appeals.

“You’ve got to make it your own. The value and the resale thing never came to me until much later. When you’re young, all you know is, ‘My fucking Harmony is brown, and I really don’t like the way it looks. I don’t want to play a brown guitar!’”

You started in the punk scene before moving into the guitar tech world. How did that happen?

“My first band was when I was 15, and it was called the Armpits! I was already a sound tech, but I didn’t know there was such a thing as guitar techs. I did road work, setting up gear and I had access to reel-to-reel to record. I’ve still got that – it’s fucking horrible.”

You were Joe Perry’s guitar tech in the ‘80s. What got you into that field?

“It was Joe Perry! I would get little kits, start messing with fuzz boxes and try and modify stuff. I didn’t mind fucking my own shit up, but just from meeting and talking to Joe Perry, that’s how I ended up doing guitars. He asked me to take care of his guitars, and I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, I can do this.’”

How did you and Joe first meet?

“I was in Boston doing the local scene thing. Joe was doing The Joe Perry Project, and I was with a sound company doing sound. My brother a front-of-house mixer, took a job with The Joe Perry Project, and I would go visit them. I met Joe through my brother and we started talking.”

Joe is very adventurous with gear now, but maybe not as much back then. What were the keys to his rig in those days?

“He was still using his Aerosmith rig with a custom pedalboard that was shaped like a big ‘A.’ For the Rocks tour they had all these racks built, and he would carry two stacks, if I remember correctly.

“The cabinets were on swivels, so they would aim the bottom cabinet at his ears with the top cabinet aimed down. So there was a point on stage where you were in the direct line of fire, and it could be incredibly fucking loud.

“It had a distinct sound. I remember using a lot of Bill Lawrence products, and they even had their guitars wired for three-pin connectors. But when you got in that line of fire where it crossed, it was fucking brutal, man.

“He used that pretty much up until Aerosmith got back together. Then he went to just a couple of pedals – a delay, octave, not much at all. But we had these splitters built to where it was just a pile, you know, a wall of different amps, which sounded fucking awesome.”

Did Joe offer you any words of wisdom about guitars that stuck?

“We talked a lot. Obviously, I picked things up, whether it was intentional or not. But what I got from Joe mostly is how all his alternate tunings worked. I had no idea so much Aerosmith stuff was in open tunings.

“And just the tone he’s got – I don’t know how to put it into words. There’s just a cool factor, you know? It’s not like he’s teaching, but if you open your eyes and pay attention, you will learn.”

You eventually got to work with Steve Vai. Being a big Zappa guy, picking Steve’s brain must have been fun.

“Steve was fucking awesome. I was one step away, you know, one degree away from Zappa. I went out there all bright-eyed and full of enthusiasm. I bounced between Steve and Aerosmith until there was a conflict; and Joe gave me my start, as much as I loved the Steve Vai job.”

Steve must have been pretty different from Joe.

“They both sound like their personalities. I hear his sound and I hear Joe’s personality, and it’s the same with Steve. They’re so in tune with playing from the heart. But I lean towards Zappa, and Steve had that.

“This was when Floyd Roses were getting big. I had never seen a Floyd Rose – though I lied and told him I had! He’s like, ‘Man, can we make this whammy bar go backward? I want to pull up. Can you dig it out back there?’

“So it was stuff like that; creating something new and being involved with pushing designs. And now, if you fucking look at it, everyone has a floating whammy bar.”

Not long after, you worked with Guns N’ Roses as a tech for Izzy Stradlin and Gilby Clarke.

“I met the guys in Guns when they opened for Aerosmith. I liked to smoke pot, so once Aerosmith started doing their no-drugs thing, I had to move on. And Izzy happened to call me and ask me to do his guitars, which was perfect fucking timing.

“I started doing that, then about a year and a half later, Izzy quit. There was a whole lot of sitting around, but they paid me. I sat at home, not knowing what the fuck was going on, but the checks were coming. And finally, they called me and said, ‘Izzy quit,’ and my checks stopped.

“But about a week later they’re like, ‘We got this guy Gilby,’ and the checks started again. I’m like, ’Okay, cool,’ and I went up there, and Gilby was fucking awesome.

“At that point, it was the eye of the hurricane; then it got a little bit crazier, a little bit weird, and I left. I had enough of touring, I was approaching 30, and I needed to take a break. I took a break until I got a call from Billy; I went down there, and that was it.”

How did you help dial things in for Billy?

“He has a very different way of doing things. You have to learn that way, and you have to learn his touch. He’s playing with .7s, really distorted, and not loud at all. And he plays the guitar so low that if I wear his strap, I can’t even play the guitar in tune.

“I’ll try and make a D chord in the cowboy position, and I’m naturally pulling the strings off the fucking neck! His way is all about homogenization of the guitar tone.”

And he’s more into pedals than some people realize.

“Yeah, and he knows exactly what he wants. Steve Vai was on an adventure. Billy does not do that, especially when touring. It’s set a certain way, and we’re going to do it like that, and there’s no stepping off. It’s by the book, whereas Steve was a lot more experimental.”

Is it true Billy loves cheap pedals from Amazon?

“He doesn’t use pedals a lot. They’re just for an extra flavor, so he can change them all the time. And he does buy these cheap Chinese pedals – the smaller, the better. I’ve seen him go through boxes of those fucking pedals!”

What was the key to working with Dusty?

“I don’t think I did anything with Dusty’s sound. Billy knows what he wants and he has no problem describing it. Dusty wouldn’t tell us what to do; he was just like, ’Give me my bass and let me perform,’ while Billy was thinking about other things.”

After Dusty passed, was there any trepidation about stepping in on bass?

“When I first started doing it, Dusty was just sick and going home for a few weeks. It was entirely different; I was just helping out. I didn’t have to worry about the weight of the crown because I was just helping.

“They pulled me aside and said, ‘Can you honestly say you can’t play his parts?’ I said, ‘I can do it, but I don’t think people would enjoy me doing it.’ They said, ‘You can cover him for a few weeks.’

“Originally, it was going to be three weeks, but it didn’t turn out that way. We’d done some gigs when Dusty passed; and by that time, I wouldn’t say I was comfortable – because I’m still not fucking comfortable.

“I had a piece of paper on the rise the first two shows for if I got in trouble; and by the third show I got rid of that and just did the show.”

What’s it been like stepping into that role?

“It’s just weird. Dusty is their bass player. I’m not the bass player. I’m not in the band. I’ll never be in the band. I shouldn’t be in the band. It’s Dusty’s thing. Sure, I’ll still play with them, but it’s a weird thing, man. I get shit for playing with a pick, but it’s not a big deal.

“Billy requested I play with a pick. So right off the bat, things are different, because not only did Dusty play with his fingers, but he was a master at it. His fingers were misshapen through a lifetime of playing bass. He could play like a machine gun with three fingers, and I’ll tell you what – I’ve had problems with some of those things.”

You’ve been playing with a pretty wild 17-string bass here and there. What’s the story there?

“I did it to myself… I hate playing that fucking bass! I found it late at night while internet surfing on one of those Chinese websites. I couldn’t believe they were making something like that.

“I took a screenshot and sent it to Billy, saying, ‘We should order one of these and I’ll play it. It’ll be hilarious.’ Three fucking months later, we fucking got it. It came in all the way from China, and Billy pulls out this big-ass yellow 17-string bass and he’s like, ‘Okay, we’ll play it for a song, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I can do this.’

“We decided to keep all the strings on it because it’s even more absurd. Man, the guitar tech barely got the thing ready for the show.

“We don’t do soundchecks; I didn’t even play the guitar until the first time, so it was a baptism by fire while we were out on stage. I was like, ‘God damn, this thing is hard to play!’

“I was seriously struggling – you don’t always know where you are, and if you look at it from the bottom, it’s a big blank neck; I was having trouble finding the frets to play.

“Once it was over, I was like, ‘Okay, cool. Hope everyone laughed.’ I thought it was over – but the son of a bitch went viral, and I woke up to all these messages and links to all this fucking bullshit.

“I’m like, ‘Great… now I got this reaction, Billy’s never going to not let me play it.’ And now, at this point, more people ask me about the 17-string bass than they do the fuzzy guitars!”

The fuzzy guitars must be a hell of a challenge too.

“The biggest challenge with those is changing the strings. You would not believe what a pain in the ass that is. Playing them is okay, and it’s just for one song. With the 17-string bass, I was thinking, ‘I’ll never have to play it again’ – but now I’ve got to play it.”

ZZ Top is set to get back on the road, but are there plans for any new music?

“We’re touring at least up until November. As for new music, I can only repeat what Billy has said: there are songs with Dusty on them in the can. I don’t know anything more than that.

“Billy says he wants to do another record, but officially, I’m not part of that. I just know what Billy has said; I can’t talk about what will or won’t happen other than that.”

• ZZ Top head back out on tour starting August 9.

In 2022, ZZ Top guitar tech-turned-bassist Francis Elwood made headlines throughout the guitar press and beyond when he whipped out an almighty 17-string bass guitar with the Texas blues-rock legends.

And although Elwood has since admitted he feels uncomfortable in the role he has occupied since Hill’s passing in 2021, his new addition to the ZZ Top arsenal continues the band’s great tradition of wacky instruments (the spinning fur guitars that starred in the Legs video being their most famous examples).

Now, in a new interview with Guitar World, Francis has detailed the origin story behind the unlikely extended-range behemoth, which started life as a cheap knockoff of YouTuber Jared Dines’ 18-string Ormsby creation (and is most definitely not a Fender, no matter what that gargantuan headstock logo says).

“I did it to myself,” Elwood laughs. “I hate playing that fucking bass. I found it late at night while internet surfing on one of those Chinese websites. I couldn't believe they were making something like that.

“I found this guitar, took a screenshot, and sent it to Billy, saying, ‘We should order one of these, and I'll play it. It'll be hilarious.’ And three months later, we fucking got it. It came in all the way from China, and Billy pulls out this big-ass yellow 17-string bass and is like, ‘Okay, we'll play it for a song, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I can do this…’”

Unsurprisingly, the instrument proved somewhat challenging to play, not least because the very first time Francis used it was on stage – to tackle, appropriately enough, ZZ Top classic Got Me Under Pressure.

“Man, the guitar tech barely got the thing ready for the show,” he says. “And we don’t do soundchecks; I didn’t even play the guitar until the first time, so it was a baptism by fire while we were out on stage. I was like, ‘God damn, this thing is hard to play.’

“I was seriously struggling because you don’t always know where you are, and if you look at it from the bottom, it’s a big blank neck; I was having trouble finding the frets to play.”

Once it was all over, Francis breathed a sigh of relief – “Okay, cool. Hope everyone laughed” – thinking he’d never have to play the monstrosity again. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the case.

“I thought it was over, but the son of a bitch went viral, and I woke up to all these messages and links to all this fucking bullshit,” he says.

“I was cringing because I knew I was struggling to play that piece of shit. I’m like, ‘Great. Of all the things to happen… Now that I got this reaction, Billy’s never going to let me not play it.’ I was thinking, ‘If I can just get through this… it’s just one song, and I’ll never have to play it again.’ But now I’ve got to play it [every night].”

And it looks like it could stay that way for some time – the 17-string bass has attained such notoriety, it has even surpassed some of ZZ Top’s most iconic guitars in fans’ estimations.

“At this point, more people ask me about the 17-string bass than they do the fuzzy guitar,” Francis laughs. “Now, the 17-string bass is the thing they want to hold!”

Read Guitar World’s full interview with Elwood Francis, where he discusses stepping into Dusty Hill’s shoes, and his teching years with Joe Perry and Steve Vai.

In July 2021, Dusty Hill – ZZ Top’s longtime bass guitar player – passed away at the age of 72. As per the late bassist's wishes, his place was taken by the band’s guitar tech, Elwood Francis.

For the guitar tech-turned-ZZ Top member, that meant not just playing the correct parts, but also continuing the band’s legacy of using rather, erm, colorful instruments – a role that was enthusiastically adopted by Francis, who took to the stage with a crazy 17-string bass guitar.

However, behind the onstage antics and the headlines surrounding this show-stealing instrument, the burden of taking Hill’s place weighed heavily on Francis’ shoulders.

And, as the veteran touring tech explains in a new interview with Guitar World, he still finds the whole experience “weird”, and feels uncomfortable about taking Hill’s place.

“When I first started doing it, Dusty was just sick and going home for a few weeks. It was entirely different; I was just helping out,” he says when asked about stepping in on bass for ZZ Top.

“I didn't have to worry about the weight of the crown because I was just helping. They pulled me aside and said, 'Can you honestly say you can't play his parts?' I said, 'I can do it, but I don't think people would enjoy me doing it.' They said, 'You can cover him for a few weeks.'”

The original plan was for Francis to step in for three weeks. When Hill passed away, that plan was re-evaluated, and his place in the band was made permanent.

The temp gigs had helped bed him in, but nothing had prepared Francis for the role of fulltime bassist in ZZ Top. In fact, he still doesn’t consider himself part of the band.

“We'd done some gigs when Dusty passed, and by that time, I wouldn't say I was comfortable because I'm still not fucking comfortable. But I had a piece of paper on the riser for the first two shows if I got in trouble, and by the third show, I got rid of that, and just did the show.

“It's just weird. Dusty is their bass player. I'm not the bass player. I'm not in the band. I'll never be in the band. I shouldn't be in the band. It's Dusty's thing. Sure, I'll still play with them, but it's a weird thing, man.”

Read our full interview with Elwood Francis for more on an extraordinary career that’s seen him tech for everyone from Joe Perry to Steve Vai – and get fired and rehired by Guns N’ Roses, in a matter of days.

Over the weekend, Julien’s hosted its The Collection of Dusty Hill auction – an event that saw the sale of instruments and memorabilia that once belonged to the late ZZ Top bass guitar legend.

A particular highlight from the mammoth auction was the fur-covered Dean Zelinsky bass that Hill used in ZZ Top’s Legs music video – an eye-popping piece of ZZ Top lore that was set at a rather humble auction estimate of $80,000.

However, when the auction rolled around at the weekend, the Legs Dean Zelinsky bass ended up smashing its estimate to pieces after a relatively competitive bidding battle that eventually resulted in the bass selling for a whopping $317,500.

That the guitar ended up selling for more than $300k comes as no surprise, given its provenance and use in the popular ZZ Top video. Featuring alongside an identical electric guitar built for Billy Gibbons, the bass was attached to a rig won by Hill that allowed the guitar to spin. 

Spinning rigs aside, the guitar is perhaps most notable for its extravagant fur covering, which was the result of a 3 a.m. phone call between Gibbons and Zelinsky.

As the guitar maker once recalled in a blog post, “One night, I received a 3 a.m. phone call...it's Gibbons. He was on tour in the UK and had the guys from Def Leppard with him. He wanted to hook them up with some Dean guitars.”

But Gibbons also had a very specific cosmetic request for some instruments of his own: “At the very end of the conversation Billy drops the line, ‘I'm sending you some sheepskins I purchased while in Scotland, I want you to put them on some guitars.’

“Weeks later, the sheepskins showed up and I got to work,” Zelinsky went on. “I made a matching pair of Dean Z guitar and bass, painted them white including the fingerboards, painted the Eliminator [ZZ Top's hugely successful 1983 album] logo down the necks and applied the sheepskins. 

“I cleared a path down the center with electric horse sheers to accept the pickups, tailpiece and strings. I remember we were still gluing the fur on the tuning keys when the FedEx driver showed up to pick up the guitars. He waited while we boxed them up – they had to make it to the video shoot the very next day.”

The fruits of Zelinsky’s labor helped create one of the most iconic music videos of the 1980s.

The Legs bass was joined on the auction block by Hill’s custom-made Hot Rod car bass from the Eliminator tour cycle, distinctive (obviously) for its custom body shape, which was inspired by the Ford coupe on the album cover. That, and it shot smoke out the tailpipe.

That one sold for slightly less than its minimum estimate of $40,000, and ultimately went for $39,000 after a number of bids.

But the extravagant aesthetics of the above models weren’t enough for either of them to come out on top of the auction lot. Instead, it was Hill’s relatively humble Fender Precision Bass that had the biggest price tag, once again obliterating Julien’s estimate and selling for $393,700.

Naturally, the P-Bass had vintage prestige attached to it (the first-ever model arrived only two years before Hill’s example), but its connection to Hill no doubt tipped it towards the $400k mark. Indeed, it featured on the cover of ZZ Top’s Fandango! album, and was played heavily both on stage and in the studio until its retirement in 2012.

To find out more about The Collection of Dusty Hill, head over to Julien’s. 

By now, it seems like the “tone is in the hands” school of thought is a widely accepted theory of guitar playing. In a nutshell: no matter what gear an individual plays through, they will always sound like themselves, owing to the unique nuances in feel and touch between every guitarist.

We’ve seen countless artists supply anecdotes about playing their peers’ gear only to sound exactly like themselves – and as if we needed any more evidence to support the tone hands argument, Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen has now provided another.

Speaking to MusicRadar, Van Leeuwen was quizzed about Funny Little Boxes’ Skeleton Key – a new overdrive pedal that supposedly nails the QOTSA tone – and asked whether that one pedal would be enough to capture the band’s heralded sound.

Naturally, Van Leeuwen was skeptical (“There’s not one pedal that does it, so good luck!”) and went on to offer his own perspective on sound by observing, “My philosophy is that a lot of the way you sound as a guitar player is in your fingers.”

To prove his point, Van Leeuwen recalled the time QOTSA were visited by Billy Gibbons – who appeared on the band’s 2006 single Burn the Witch – and reflected that the ZZ Top icon still sounded exactly like himself while playing through an unassuming, off-brand digital amp simulator.

“When we worked with Billy Gibbons, he brought some gear to the studio,” Van Leeuwen explained. “This was our first meeting. I don’t even think it was a Line 6 POD; it was some off-brand amp simulator, and we were just like, ‘Yo, plug into one of our amps!’ 

“But the funny thing is, we heard him playing through this thing and it was like, ‘Wow! It sounds like fuckin’ Billy Gibbons!’”

Of course, Gibbons doesn't play through this unnamed amp simulator all the time, so the fact he was able to harness the individualistic feel he gets from his various Marshall tube amps from what seems to be a budget digital product is pretty strong evidence in favor of the fact that, yes, tone is in the hands.

But Gibbons is hardly fussy – after all, he gets his pedals on Amazon – and his favorite brand starts at $15.

Van Leeuweun went on, “Billy Gibbons wouldn't sound like Queens ever because he just sounds like he does and it doesn’t matter what he uses. 

“Yeah, we could go through all this gear, all this stuff, and there are a lot of secrets we’ve been keeping over the years, but I think that’s the fun part, the magic of being an individual. It’s about teaching people to get their own sound. That’s where I’m coming from.”

As mentioned above, this is by no means the first time a high-profile player has argued that tone truly is in the hands – and you can be assured it won’t be the last, either.

Another guitarist whose own opinions on the matter would align with Van Leeuwen’s is Steve Lukather, who recently affirmed “there’s no magic guitar, just magic people”. “I’ve played Eddie Van Halen’s guitars, Jeff Beck’s guitars,” he told Guitarist, “and I sound like me.”

Bettencourt would also agree. Speaking to Rick Beato earlier this year, the Extreme virtuoso said he played Eddie Van Halen’s guitar rig in a bid to sound like his hero to no avail: “[Playing Van Halen’s rig] was the big[gest] bitch slap of all time when you realize, ‘Holy shit, it’s all about you. It’s all about your fingers.’”

The list goes on: John Mayer once made an Epiphone Les Paul and Roland practice amp sound like a PRS Silver Sky/Dumble combo, while Joe Bonamassa told Guitar Player that a player’s individual touch was more important than gear.

Dusty Hill, ZZ Top’s iconic bearded bassist, passed away in 2021 and now his estate is selling off a host of his most eye-catching custom builds, including the Hot Rod car bass from the Eliminator tour cycle.

Like the fur-clad Legs bass that we recently covered, the Hot Rod car bass dates back to 1983’s Eliminator album and is listed as part of a sale taking place via Julien’s Auctions. It is expected to fetch an estimated $40,000 to $60,000. 

The bass guitar is distinctive for obvious reasons: namely, the custom hot rod body shape, inspired by the Ford coupe on the cover of Eliminator – and the fact it shot smoke out of the tailpipe...

Perhaps less obviously, though, it also marks a piece of guitar history, as one of the early personal builds from Wayne Charvel (founder of the Charvel guitars brand). 

The listing for the bass doesn’t state the material used for the body, but does note it features a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and a single EMG pickup. 

Flip the guitar over and you can see that the rear of the body carries a neck plate engraved by Wayne Charvel with the serial number 143 – as well as Charvel’s P.O. Box details at the time!  

Writing around the time of Hill’s death in 2021, Charvel’s son, Michael, recalled his father’s work on the instrument.  

“The most memorable bass that my dad built for Dusty was in 1983 for the Eliminator Tour,” wrote Michael Charvel. 

“He made a Car Guitar and a matching Car Bass for Billy and Dusty. The instruments were made to match Billy's 33 Ford 3 window coupe, known as ‘The Eliminator Coupe’ The knock-offs on the wheels were the volume and tone control, and the tailpipes blew smoke.

“Those were some great memories; I remember Billy calling my dad at three am in the morning. ZZ-Top was on tour in Germany. Billy said the guitars were well received, and when they shot smoke, the crowd went wild!”

The bass saw use at the band’s 1983 set at Monsters of Rock in Donnington, UK and featured in numerous publicity opportunities around the time. It also spent some time under glass, on display at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The auction runs December 8-12, 2023. For more information and to take part in the bidding, head to Julien’s Auctions. 

If you have the spare change, you might want to pick up the Hill’s Legs bass, too.

In December, Julien’s will hold a massive auction of instruments and memorabilia from the collection of late ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill.

Though it contains a number of notable mementos from Hill's 50+-year tenure with the Little Ol' Band From Texas, the collection's most significant highlight is the fur-covered Dean Zelinsky bass guitar that Hill used in ZZ Top's Legs music video.

Appearing alongside an identical fur-covered electric guitar Zelinsky made for ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, the bass and its six-string counterpart were both attached to rigs worn by Hill and Gibbons that allowed the instruments to spin. The end result helped make the Legs video one of the most iconic of the '80s. 

Hill's Explorer-style bass and Gibbons' guitar sprung from a 3 a.m. phone call made by the latter to Zelinsky while ZZ Top were on tour. At the end of the call, Zelinsky recalled in a blog post, Gibbons told the luthier, “I’m sending you some sheepskins I purchased while in Scotland, I want you to put them on some guitars.

“Weeks later, the sheepskins showed up and I got to work,” Zelinsky recounted. “I made a matching pair – a Dean Z guitar and bass – painted them white including the fingerboards, painted the Eliminator logo down the necks, and applied the sheepskins... I remember we were still gluing the fur on the tuning keys when the FedEx driver showed up to pick up the guitars. He waited while we boxed them up – they had to make it to the video shoot the very next day.”

Hill's Legs Dean Zelinsky bass is valued at $80,000 - $120,000.

The auction of Hill's collection will run from December 7 to December 9, with a portion of the proceeds going to MusiCares.

The sale also includes Hill's beloved, road-worn 1953 Fender Precision bass. Used by the bassist extensively on the road, the instrument appears on the cover of ZZ Top's 1975 Fandango! LP, and is also valued at $80,000 - $120,000.

For more info, visit Julien's Auctions. 

Billy Gibbons is known for his wild custom guitars and wall of Magnatone amps, but as it turns out, his pedalboard is populated by some serious cheap stompboxes – all available from Amazon.

The revelation comes from Larkin Poe, who recently revealed what they learned on tour with Gibbons – and his unlikely gear choices. The band, led by sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, recorded with Gibbons for his 2021 solo album Hardware, and toured with him in 2022 for the Outlaw Music Festival dates.

We confirmed their story with Gibbons’ old tech, and found that his pedal choices were far less exotic than we expected.

“Billy is one of the more gear-obsessed people that we’ve ever crossed paths with,” laughs guitarist Rebecca Lovell.

“Every time we see him, he’s always got some new pedal or some new system that he’s preaching the gospel of. Most recently it was these mini pedals connected by these adorable mini jumper cables. He’s like [does gruff Gibbons impression] ‘Girls, I’m gonna send you a link. Check your emails! I’m gonna have my tech send you one. I tell you what: shorter signal path, purer tone! Cleaner tone!’”

We at Guitar World were intrigued, so we contacted Gibbons’ former tech for comment. We assumed the guitarist would be rocking some boutique exotica for this “purer tone”, but it turns out his gear choices are much more down to Earth.

The tech told us Billy’s favorite pedals were made by Rowin, Mosky and Mimidi, all ultra-cheap budget brands. Mimidi pedals are mainly available from Amazon, and their initial offering was a mini fuzz for just $15. Mimidi’s current lineup starts around $35, while Mosky are best known for a DOD 250 clone that sells for $18.93 on AliExpress. Rowin offer a range of analog and digital mini pedals, starting at $31.99.

Megan Lovell, Larkin Poe’s lap steel wizard, was amused seeing Gibbons do battle with the micro-pedals in his cowboy boots.

“The one I loved was this mini pedal, like this big [makes a rectangle with her thumbs and index fingers], and then he was like ‘but they’ve got an even tinier one!’ He pulls out another box and it’s the size of a postage stamp! He said, ‘This is my fuzz and this is my slap echo.’ It’s like, ‘How do you find this stuff?’ I don’t know, he must have some really pointy-ass shoes.”

Despite her amusement at Gibbons’ gear, Rebecca says she’s learned some lessons from his approach.

“I appreciate Billy because even at this point in his career where it would be very easy and tempting to just skate and tune out, he really gets into the mechanics and the nuts and the bolts of his performance,” she smiles.

“Typically, our conversations hang in the gear domain. He’s still just as ever zoomed-in on his guitar playing and his rig. It’s really sweet. I think what we can take from it is that you’ve got to constantly reinvent yourself. Reinventing your playing, reinventing the tones you’re getting. It’s really inspirational staying out of the rut.”

Eric Clapton’s 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival takes place on 23-24 September 2023 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA – and it’s no exaggeration to say it could be the guitar event of the decade. 

Among the biggest names scheduled to appear across the two nights are ZZ Top, John Mayer, Santana, Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa, but even that set of heavy-hitters barely scratches the surface…

Elsewhere, 2023’s Crossroads seventh instalment will also feature sets by rock greats including John McLaughlin, Robbie Robertson, Albert Lee, Roger McGuinn and Stephen Stills.

Then there’s a who’s who of blues and blues rock including Gary Clark Jr, Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Samantha Fish, Jimmy Vaughan and Eric Gales. 

Country blues fans, meanwhile, will spot Sonny Landreth, Marcus King and Clapton-collaborator Doyle Bramhall II, then moving towards the folk/roots end of the spectrum there’s Ariel Posen, Bros. Landreth, bluegrass legend Del McCoury, dobro maestro Jerry Douglas, plus next generation torch bearers like Sierra Hull and Molly Tuttle.

Last but by no means least, there’s the likes of H.E.R., The War On Drugs, Sheryl Crow, Los Lobos, ‘sacred steel’ player Robert Randolph, jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and… well, that’s still not everyone, but we imagine you get the point by now.

Elsewhere on the weekend, the Guitar Center Festival Village will feature booths from leading guitar companies, offering the chance to try new gear, as well as an exhibit featuring the retailer’s Legends collection of historic six-strings, including Clapton’s famous Blackie Strat. 

As a whole, it’s a crazy lineup and it’s hard to recall an event in recent memory that has brought together more accomplished guitarists than this one, at least not for full sets. Then there’s the prospect of the one-off jams and guest spots that such a gathering creates – and we haven’t even mentioned that it will, of course, all be topped-off by two sets from Clapton himself.

As usual, a slice of the proceeds from the event will go towards supporting the Clapton-backed Crossroads Centre in Antigua, which supports chemically- and alcohol-dependent persons and their families through treatment and education.

Tickets will go on sale this Friday (April 21) at 10am PT and will be sold as individual day passes, rather than weekend tickets.

For more information, head to Crossroads Guitar Festival.

What makes a great rock concert? Sure, an awe-inspiring light show and razor-sharp band performance is a given, but a handful of tours and events have delivered that little something… extra.

That could be anything from the integration of live animals, onstage decapitations or the complete destruction of the stage mid-song. We're talking about major concert events that go far beyond your common-or-garden arena shows here.

So with that, we bring you the greatest rock shows on Earth – gigs that raised the standard of what could be expected of the live music experience, and seismic events that will never be repeated…

Roger Waters: The Wall Live (2010–2013)

Pink Floyd’s attempt to tour their epic album The Wall from 1980 through 1981 was nicknamed “The Nightmare Tour”. It was an unwieldy proposition at best, fraught with technical difficulties and seemingly ill-omened when a curtain caught fire at the debut performance in L.A. The show was too big to be toured effectively, with the result that only 31 performances were given in a total of just four cities.

But the business and technology of rock staging has come a long way since 1980, and Roger Waters’ The Wall Live has been one of the largest, longest-running and most successful musical tours of recent years or perhaps in all of rock history.

Launched on September 15, 2010, in Toronto, The Wall Live tour cost an estimated $60 million to stage and grossed more than $89.5 million on its first leg alone. It subsequently circumnavigated the globe numerous times before coming to a triumphant conclusion on September 21, 2013, in Paris.

Everything about the show was enormous, from its 12-piece band to the massive wall erected at the lip of the stage at every performance, symbolizing the alienation from his audience felt by the work’s main character, the disaffected rock star Pink. While this titular prop’s dimensions varied slightly from venue to venue, it generally measured 500-by-30 feet, although it grew as wide as 850 feet across at one show on the tour’s final leg.

Of course, one big thing missing from The Wall Live were Waters’ fellow surviving members of Pink Floyd, the group that created the original album. But then tensions between Waters and his bandmates were running high even when The Wall was first conceived, recorded and toured in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Waters deemed it necessary to bring along auxiliary musicians for the 1980–’81 tour to supplement, if not supplant, the original band members.

The Wall was in many ways Waters’ first step toward becoming a solo artist. A detente of sorts was reached in 2005 when the original members of Pink Floyd reunited for the humanitarian Live Eight concert in London’s Hyde Park. Keyboardist Rick Wright passed away in 2008, but Waters invited guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason to take part in a May 12, 2011, presentation of The Wall Live at London’s O2 Arena.

With the enormous success of The Wall Live, Waters may at last have laid to rest the artistic frustrations that gave rise to the work in the first place and plagued its early history. But then all history, so they say, is written by the winners.

– Alan di Perna

Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies Tour (1973–1974)

In the late ’60s, Alice Cooper was accused of murdering a chicken during a concert. But while the shock-rock trailblazer has always staunchly denied the allegation (claiming he innocently tossed the bird into the audience, where the slaughter was then enacted by rabid fans), there has certainly been no shortage of blood and guts intentionally left on the stage at a Cooper show. And the jaunt organized in support of his Billion Dollar Babies album may have been the goriest of them all.

The album and tour came at a time when Cooper and his band, on the heels of the breakout success of the 1972 School’s Out album, suddenly found themselves with plenty of cash at their disposal to explore their deepest and most disturbing onstage desires. As such, the Billion Dollar Babies show, which at the time was deemed the most elaborate live undertaking in rock history, came off like a sociopath’s vision of a glossy Broadway production, the stage set littered with mannequin body parts and capped by a massive, laser-shooting Egyptian statue.

At the helm was Cooper, outfitted in a torn and bloodstained white leotard (and occasionally wearing a huge boa constrictor around his head and neck). The singer played both the assailant and the victim. At various points of the show, he impaled baby dolls on a sword, molested the disembodied legs and breasts of the female mannequins and beat up a Richard Nixon impersonator.

At other times, he was splayed across a medical table while a mad dentist attacked him with an oversized drill and, as the coup de grâce to the main set, decapitated in a guillotine, a stunt that would go on to become a Cooper trademark.

The Billion Dollar Babies tour proved a massive success, so much so that it continued on through the early part of 1974, by which time Cooper and his band were supporting their follow-up effort, Muscle of Love. The jaunt was reported as the highest grossing rock tour in U.S. history to date, and it proved to be the swansong of the original Alice Cooper band. Soon after, they broke up and Cooper launched his own solo career. To this day, he’s still having his head chopped off on stages around the world.

– Richard Bienstock

U2: Zoo TV (1992–1993)

Zoo TV came at a time when U2 were shedding the overly earnest, chest-beating image that had made them one of the biggest acts of the ’80s in favor of a cooler and more detached (read: “ironic”) stylistic stance.

The tour was itself in support of the group’s 1991 release, Achtung Baby, which showed influences of alt-rock and industrial and electronic music. But if one thing has become clear in hindsight, it’s that the 1992–’93 tour, for all its many bells and whistles, was also a quite sincere and overwhelmingly powerful artistic statement.

More than two decades later, it’s possible that no other show has approached its level of sheer sensory overload or achieved U2’s canny feat of carving out a genuine message – one of a world both brought closer together and sent into a tailspin by technology – from within a riotous medium.

Zoo TV’s many visual effects are almost too numerous to list. They included several dozen video screens and televisions of every shape and size (including colossal “Vidi-walls”) that broadcast the performance as well as pre-recorded clips, random words and phrases, and live television transmissions from around the world via satellite dish.

The set’s massive light show was capped by hand-painted, hollowed-out East German Trabant automobiles fitted with flood lights and suspended above the stage, which was itself connected by a 150-foot ramp to a second, smaller “B” stage. For the outdoor stadium legs of the tour, the stage design included huge spires that due to their height were required, per the Federal Aviation Administration, to be fitted with blinking warning lights for passing planes.

As for the band’s actual performance, in a bold move U2 opened the shows with anywhere from six to eight new songs played in a row, with the clanging, clattering Achtung Baby material expertly reflected in the visual turbulence onstage.

Bono, meanwhile, chewed up the frenetic scenery by inhabiting various personas and used the cutting-edge technology at hand to pull pranks like ordering thousands of pizzas mid-show and calling the White House to request a chat with President Bush. And while Bush never picked up the line, novelist and Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie did answer the singer’s repeated calls. Rushdie joined U2 onstage at a performance in London, despite having a fatwa on his head. For a show literally built on special effects, it may have been the greatest one of all.

– Richard Bienstock

Kiss: The Destroyer Tour: The Spirit of ’76 (1976)

While Kiss made their name practically from day one on delivering an outsized stage show, they brought things to a whole new level when they hit the road in support of 1976’s Destroyer. Fans had already come to expect plenty of fire breathing, blood spitting and pickup-smoking guitar work from the band, but for Destroyer, Kiss’ first studio effort following the breakthrough success of Alive!, they also got high theater, with a stage set that mirrored the conceptual artwork of the album itself.

Measuring over 80 feet in length, the Destroyer set was framed by a post-apocalyptic cityscape similar to the one that graced the album cover. Amp stacks on either side of the stage were hidden behind huge cutouts depicting burned-out buildings in various states of decay.

A twisted and deformed tree was stationed next to bassist Gene Simmons, and massive lighting spires were designed to look like freeway towers (in reference to the album and tour’s opening song, Detroit Rock City) and strung with Christmas-style lights that encircled the stage and stretched all the way to arena balconies.

Other touches included two six-foot cat statues with glowing eyes that flanked Peter Criss’ drum set (a nod to his alter ego, the Catman), a gothic castle from within which Gene Simmons would perform his blood-spitting bass solo, and a platform resembling a lunar surface, where Ace Frehley (the Spaceman) would take his guitar solo spot.

There was also a nod to the year’s bicentennial celebration – the tour was nicknamed The Spirit of ’76 – through the inclusion of red, white and blue lightning bolts that lit up in front of a cloud high above the ever-present Kiss logo hanging centerstage.

Though the Destroyer stage remains one of Kiss’ most awe-inspiring spectacles, Paul Stanley today admits that he felt “a bit at odds with it.” Says Stanley, “It was more theatrical than what we had done in the past, and I was more comfortable surrounded by walls of amplifiers.”

And, in fact, as the jaunt morphed into the Rock and Roll Over tour later that year, Kiss did in fact strip things down, retaining much of the Spirit of ’76 staging but losing some features, such as any that referenced the Destroyer cover art. There was also one other change – the band switched to wireless systems after Frehley, at a show in Florida on December 12, was electrocuted and knocked unconscious when he grabbed a railing that wasn’t properly grounded. The incident also had another aftereffect: It inspired Frehley to write his most well known song with Kiss – 1977’s Shock Me.

– Richard Bienstock

Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts (2022) 

In March 2022, Foo Fighters broke the news that Taylor Hawkins – the band’s long-serving drummer and all-round rock legend – had passed away at the age of 50. The loss was unexpected and devastating. There was only one way to celebrate Hawkins' profound legacy: to host a tribute concert for the ages, with guest appearances from just about every single rock hero under the sun.

The mammoth double-header event took place across two dates – one at London’s Wembley Stadium and the other at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum – with Dave Grohl calling upon a legion of guitar stars, vocal titans and other instrumentalists to help the Foo Fighters honor Hawkins’ memory through rock ‘n’ roll. 

The guestlist was staggering. Not only were individual stars called to the stage to perform some of the guitar world’s greatest hits, iconic bands and once-disbanded side projects also took the opportunity to remember their close friend by reuniting and revisiting their catalog of cult classic tracks.

Names involved in the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert include Wolfgang Van Halen, Josh Homme, Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, Chad Smith, John Paul Jones, Nancy Wilson, Joe Walsh, Dale Peters, Brian Johnson, Chris Chaney, Pink, Lars Ulrich, Brian May, Roger Taylor and Nile Rodgers. And that’s not even the half of it: Nandi Bushell, Roger Taylor, Rufus Taylor, Justin Hawkins, Chrissie Hynde, Stewart Copeland, Greg Kurstin, Liam Gallagher and countless others also took part, with each performing sets of one to four songs.

Since the runtime for each event was around the four hour mark, the list of highlights is almost never-ending. Wolfgang Van Halen showed up to cover Van Halen hits, the James Gang reunited for the first time in 16 years, Them Crooked Vultures performed their first show in over a decade, and Lifeson and Lee performed Rush classics.

On its own, it was one of the biggest live events in music history, but it never lost sight of its overall objective: to honor Hawkins’ memory, and to celebrate the legacy he left behind.

– Matt Owen

The Who: Tommy (May–June 1969)

The Who’s groundbreaking rock opera Tommy became a powerful performance vehicle for them when they premiered it during their U.S. tour in May–June 1969. The concerts propelled the Who to supergroup status and ushered in a new era of theatrical rock spectacles.

The tour kicked off with a three-night stand from May 9 through 11 at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom before it rolled into New York’s Fillmore East for a historic three-night run from May 16 through 18. The concept of long-form narrative was new to rock at the time, and the Who found an ideal storytelling partner in the Fillmore’s resident visual artists, the Joshua Light Show.

Rather than projecting the usual display of abstract psychedelic blobs onto the Fillmore’s large rear-stage screen, the Joshua Light troupe crafted a thematic series of visuals to accompany the Who’s thunderous performance of their new rock opera.

In addition, Bill Graham, the rock promoter behind the New York and San Francisco Fillmore venues, recognized the opportunity in Tommy to create a unique melding of music and visuals and reportedly put up $5,000 to upgrade the theater’s projection equipment and sound gear for the Who performances.

As the first notes of the Overture resounded in the venerable New York theater, white birds seemed to fly into the hall from a massive projection of Tommy’s album cover art. The light show choreography continued throughout the performance with elements drawn from Tommy’s libretto, providing a uniquely integrated audio-visual experience. Visuals would play an even greater role in rock performance with the introduction of theater-sized video projector screens on Led Zeppelin’s 1975 tour and the use of jumbotrons on recent extravaganzas such as the Who’s 2012–’13 Quadrophenia and More tour and Roger Waters’ The Wall Live tour of 2010–’13.

But Tommy’s first night at the Fillmore contained an unscripted dramatic surprise. When an adjacent building caught fire, plain-clothes police officer Daniel Mulhearn clambered onto the Fillmore stage in an ill-advised attempt to stop the show. Mistaking him for an intruder, Who lead singer Roger Daltrey grabbed the officer and held him while Pete Townshend delivered a balletic series of flying kicks to the region where it hurts a man the most. The show was eventually halted, however, and the building was calmly evacuated with no further harm to anyone.

At the end of the tour, Townshend and Daltrey returned to New York to face assault charges and apologize for the unfortunate incident. They also signed a deal for the Who to perform Tommy two months later at one of the rock era’s greatest musical events: Woodstock.

– Alan di Perna

George Harrison and Friends: The Concert for Bangladesh (August 1, 1971)

Superstar charity concerts are commonplace today, but they were unheard of in the summer of 1971 when George Harrison announced a pair of performances at New York City's Madison Square Garden to raise funds for Bangladesh. The star studded event featured a host of Harrison's pals, including former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan.

The idea for the concerts came from Ravi Shankar, the famed Bengali sitarist with whom Harrison had studied Indian music. The war fr the liberation of the Bangladesh state had created millions of refugees, whose dire circumstances were made more desperate by a cyclone and flooding. Shankar hoped to raise $25,000 for their plight through a benefit concert of his own, but Harrison saw the potential to raise much more and bring international attention to the crisis with an even featuring some of rock's most famous artists.

The urgency of the situation prompted him to pull the shows together quickly. Among those shortlisted were Harrison's former bandmates Paul McCartney and John Lennon. McCartney decline due to bitterness about the Beatle's recent breakup. Lennon initially accepted but withdrew over Harrison's demand that his wife and musical partner, Yoko Ono, would not perform.

Under the circumstance, the event could have been a complete disaster. Rehearsals were spotty, held just days beforehand. Harrison had never hosted a concert before and had rarely play in public since the Beatles quit touring in 1966. In addition, Clapton was suffering the effects of heroin withdrawal; he made it through the say only with the help of methadone, supplied by a cameraman.

Dylan's involvement was more uncertain. Though he'd shown up at rehearsals, the folk-rock icon was in a period of reclusiveness and nervous about performing. Harrison wasn't convinced Dylan would show up until he saw him coming onstage at the appointed hour. "It was only at that moment that I knew for sure he was going to do it," Harrison said afterward.

In the end, the performances – which included Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps, My Sweet Lord and Here Comes the Sun – were solid, and the Concert for Bangladesh became a defining moment in rock. Harrison's landmark effort proved the template for charity concerts that followed, from 1985's Live Aid concerts to Roger Waters' The Wall: Live in Berlin Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief in 1990.

– Christopher Scapelliti

Ozzy Osbourne: Diary of a Madman Tour (1981–1982)

Had the Diary of a Madman tour featured nothing more than Ozzy Osbourne playing a set of solo and Black Sabbath tunes alongside guitar virtuoso Randy Rhoads, it still might have gone down as one of the greatest shows in heavy metal history. But Ozzy wasn’t content merely to perform; he wanted to entertain in the most ludicrous ways possible. More than 30 years later, the Diary tour stands as the most over-the-top and at times downright bizarre spectacle ever conceived by Osbourne – or most any rock artist.

The centerpiece of the staging was an enormous stone castle adorned with stained-glass windows, arches, balconies, crosses, flaming torches and other gothic touches. At the show’s beginning, Osbourne would emerge, in a haze of smoke and fire, from a red velvet throne perched high atop a drum riser, while iron gates to his left and right rose to “release” Rhoads and bassist Rudy Sarzo from within the castle’s confines. To enhance the medieval mood, the entire crew – as well as live keyboardist Don Airey – was outfitted in hooded monk’s robes.

Additionally – and quite randomly – on the tour’s early dates, Osbourne would end each performance by hopping into the palm of a 10-foot, fire-shooting, mechanized hand that would carry him over the audience as he catapulted raw meat into the crowd. (The prop was ditched after it malfunctioned and hurled the meat straight into the back of Osbourne’s head.)

But the most peculiar element of the show was Ronnie the Dwarf (so named as a swipe at Ronnie James Dio, the diminutive-statured singer who replaced Osbourne in Black Sabbath). Throughout the evening, Ronnie would emerge from a castle door to hand Ozzy a goblet of his preferred beverage. Osbourne would then show his appreciation for Ronnie’s assistance by having him strung up in a noose and left to twist and sway high above the stage during the set’s big ballad moment, Goodbye to Romance.

The Diary of a Madman tour also had its share of unscripted madness. Osbourne received rabies shots after he bit the head off a bat thrown onstage in Iowa (he thought it was a fake), and he was arrested for urinating on a monument near the Alamo, a stunt that earned him a decade-long ban in San Antonio.

Tragically, it was also during this tour that Rhoads was killed, on March 19, 1982, in a freak airplane accident. Osbourne finished out most of the remaining dates, briefly with Bernie Torme and then with future Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis, the latter of whom appears on the live document of the tour, Speak of the Devil.

– Richard Bienstock

Metallica: Damaged Justice (1988-1989)

By 1988 Metallica had established themselves as the biggest band in thrash metal. With their popularity at a high for the release of their fourth album, …And Justice for All, they embarked on their first ever arena-headlining tour – and pulled out all the stops.

The Damaged Justice tour kicked off on September 11, 1988, and ran for over a year, totaling more than 200 dates across North America and four other continents. The band was flanked by a massive stage production that brought the album of …And Justice for All to awesome 3D life. The setlist for the shows was fierce, beginning with Blackened and continuing with roughly two hours of music that showcased the new material, including the breakthrough Justice ballad One, which hadn’t even been released as a single at the time the tour began.

There were also some oddities sprinkled throughout the sets. On occasion the band jammed on pieces of Deep Purple’s Black Night and Led Zeppelin’s How Many More Times. Kirk Hammett would recreate Hendrix’s Little Wing outro lead during his solo spots, and at several shows the members switched instruments before performing their version of Diamond Head’s Am I Evil (with James Hetfield on drums, Hammett on bass, Jason Newsted on guitar and a shirtless Lars Ulrich prowling the stage and shouting the vocals in what he described as his “Bruce Dickinson impersonation”).

But the highlight of the gigs was undoubtedly the main-set closing performance of the epic …And Justice for All. Toward the end of the nine-minute-plus song, the entire stage, including the towering Lady Justice statue, would crumble, sending huge chunks of “rock” raining down as Metallica played on. (In a nice touch, a lighting rig would also spark and come unattached at one end to swing precariously over the band members’ heads.)

After a short break, Metallica would return to perform encores amid the rubble. The end result was an awe-inspiring and groundbreaking union of speed-metal intensity and arena-rock showmanship. The Damaged Justice tour signaled the moment that Metallica – and, by extension, thrash metal as a whole—– began playing, both literally and figuratively, on the big stage.

– Richard Bienstock

ZZ Top: Worldwide Texas Tour (1976–1978)

In 1976, the era of the live rock spectacle was well underway. The popularity of glarock had brought a new level of over-the-top theatricality to the rock concert experience. Onstage spaceship landings, guillotine executions, giant inflatable phalluses and other must-see gimmicks were the order of the day.

So where did that leave “that little ol’ band from Texas,” ZZ Top? Never one to be upstaged, ZZ Top guitarist and leader Billy F. Gibbons hatched the idea for a rolling extravaganza that would have made P.T. Barnum proud: the ZZ Top Worldwide Texas Tour.

“Taking Texas to the People” was the motto, and true to its word, the tour featured a massive 63-by-48–foot, 35-ton stage in the shape of the Lone Star State. Band members Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard performed before a gigantic hand-painted backdrop and were joined onstage by a live longhorn steer, a buffalo, two vultures, two rattlesnakes and assorted cacti, yucca and agave plants – all flora and fauna of Texas.

Undertaken to promote ZZ Top’s 1975 album, Fandango!, the tour required 13 vehicles to haul it around and a crew of 50 people, including an animal handler and a veterinarian. It launched on May 29, 1976, in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and rolled to a halt on January 1, 1978, in Fort Worth, Texas. Plans to take the tour overseas were scotched by quarantine restrictions on buffaloes.

The Worldwide Texas Tour offered an early glimpse of Gibbons’ oversized visual imagination. A former art student, he found another outlet for his visual talents a few years after the tour with the dawn of MTV and the rise of music videos.

– Alan di Perna

The Rolling Stones: Tour of the Americas ’75 (1975)

Always adept at moving with the times, the Rolling Stones embraced glam-era theatricality in grand style on Tour of the Americas ’75, which saw them performing in the U.S. and Canada. While it was their first tour to feature guitarist Ronnie Wood, who’d stepped in after Mick Taylor exited the previous year, the tour is remembered today less for its musicianship than for the over-the-top gimmicks that the Stones employed to draw public interest and titillate their audiences.

It began with the New York event to announce the tour. Rather than follow the time-honored routine of holding a press conference, the Stones rolled down Fifth Avenue on a flatbed truck that had been turned into a mobile stage, performing their hit Brown Sugar to passersby.

Journalists assembled inside the Fifth Avenue Hotel in expectation of a conventional media announcement scrambled out onto the pavement when they heard the music. The flatbed truck idea had been suggested by Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who’d read that New Orleans jazz musicians used a similar ploy.

Once the tour officially started, on June 3, in San Antonio, Texas, the show’s big attraction – upstaging even Mick Jagger himself – was a gigantic inflatable phallus that loomed large at a critical moment of the performance. Jagger would often climb atop the massive prop and ride it like a horse. The Stones’ image has always been associated with lascivious sexuality, and this crowd-pleasing gimmick was the ultimate expression of – and a wry comment on – the band’s public persona.

But things didn’t always go as planned. At some shows, the huge penis failed to inflate to full size, causing the band to endow it with the nickname “Tired Grandfather.” Sometimes art imitates life all too well.

– Alan di Perna

Live Aid (1985)/Live 8 (2005)

The brainchild of Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, Live Aid was, and remains, one of the most significant live events in rock music history.

Held simultaneously at London’s Wembley and Philadelphia’s John F. Kennedy stadiums, to a combined in-person audience of over 150,000 people, and a reported 1.9 billion people on television, it remains the mother of all benefit concerts.

Held on July 13, 1985, to raise funds for victims of the horrific famine that had devastated Ethiopia at the time, the concerts featured not only many of the biggest artists of that time, but reunions of some of the biggest bands in the history of rock.

The three surviving members of The Who reunited for the first time since their 1983 dissolution, while the classic, original lineup of Black Sabbath performed live together for the first time since 1978.

Overshadowing even those reunions was that of the three living members of Led Zeppelin, though their performance was infamously marred by a lack of rehearsal, out-of-tune instruments and Robert Plant’s hoarse vocals.

20 years later, Geldof and Ure would put on a similarly high-profile Live Aid sequel of sorts, Live 8, which is today most remembered for being headlined by – in the last-ever performance of their classic lineup – a reunited Pink Floyd.

– Jackson Maxwell

When ZZ Top’s Elwood Francis pulled out a bright-yellow 17-string bass during their November 5 gig in Huntsville, Alabama, the guitar world went nuts.

It was difficult to pinpoint the exact origins of the behemoth, which was used for 1983’s Got Me Under Pressure – sure, it had a Fender logo on its headstock, but there’s no way that’s genuine.

But now, thanks to a social media exchange between Francis and YouTube guitar titan Jared Dines following the gig, the story of the monstrous instrument has been made clearer.

After catching wind of Francis playing the bass, Dines took to social media to note its similarities with his Ormsby 18-string guitar, which he commissioned back in 2018.

“I can’t with this…” Dines wrote. “When ZZ Top uses a ripoff version of my 18-string guitar from some website. It even has ‘JD’ on the 12th fret, LOL.”

Shortly thereafter, Francis posted a response on Instagram, confirming that the 17-string was, indeed, a derivative of Dines’ Ormsby 18-string.

“I thought I’d use this bass once or twice for no other reason than amusement,” the bassist wrote. “It’s such a strikingly absurd instrument. We’d all laugh and then move on to something else.

“However, it’s gotten too much attention to not talk about the guy that actually came up with the idea: Jared Dines. The bass I play is a Chinese-made POS. It’s a mid copy of something he plays and he’s probably all pissed off. 

“I don’t know if he designed it but the cat’s an amazing musician and sees me playing simple-ass bass lines that I could play with one string, while he has worked up music to make use of the damn thing. Dude has moved beyond the 17-string and I’d suggest checking him out just to see what he does with it. I just hope he has a sense of humor.”

Clearly appreciative of the shoutout, Dines was quick to dispel any rumors of beef between the pair, commenting on Francis’s post: “Not pissed at all! I thought the picture of you playing it was photoshopped at first. I love that it’s real! Guitars are modified and remade all the time, I’m glad you had fun with it.”

Rounding out the exchange, Francis responded: “Dude, I cannot believe you play these things! We thought it was a joke but then [found] out about you and watched some videos. Bravo motherfucker! The joke’s on me ‘cause I have to play that bootleg piece of shit.”

In the comments section of his Instagram posts on the instrument, Francis explained that the guitar features three sets of regular bass strings and one set of five-string strings, of which he only uses three: two Es and an A. Indeed, if you look closely, you'll note that most of the instrument‘s middle strings are muted by a strip of foam on the guitar‘s bridge.

After unveiling his 18-string Ormsby in 2018, Jared Dines upped the ante in 2021 with a fully functional 20-string Mountain Dew-themed meme guitar.

Elwood Francis joined ZZ Top following the death of the band’s longtime bassist, Dusty Hill. As frontman Billy Gibbons explained last year, Francis’s recruitment was the “direct directive from Mr. Dusty Hill”. 

“When he grabbed my arm and said, ‘I think I'm due to go visit the physician to see if I can bounce back,’ he said, ‘In the meantime, I want you to grab our guitar technician, Mr. Elwood, and take him out of that tech station and strap him up with my guitar and make him carry on with every single note,’” Gibbons recalled.

Last July, Dusty Hill, ZZ Top's longtime bass guitar player, died at the age of 72.

Hill's place in the band, as per the late bassist's wishes, was taken by the band's longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis. 

Now, even though ZZ Top have famously used some rather colorful guitars over the course of their lengthy career, fans at the band's recent (November 5) gig at the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall in Huntsville, Alabama were probably a bit taken aback by what they saw when Francis first stepped onstage with the group.

The bass in Francis's hands wasn't a four-string or a 5-string bass guitar, nor was it a six-string model. 

No, readers, this yellow-finished low-end behemoth was a (by our count, at least) 17-string bass. You can see it in action in the fan-filmed footage of the band's opening number that night (Got Me Under Pressure) below.

Now, not to be a kill-joy, but a spin of the video does seem to show Francis only using three or four of the beast's strings. 

Still, the skill involved from swinging from the low notes at the very top of the bass (fretted, of course, over the top of the neck) to the middle and higher notes all the way at the bottom is pretty impressive. The Little Ol' Band From Texas has always known how to take simple elements (in this case a steady-grooving bass line) and put on a show with them, after all. 

Now, all we need is for Billy Gibbons to invite Jared Dines and his 20-string Mountain Dew Meme Guitar onstage with the band for the djentiest ZZ Top show ever...

Also of note at this particular gig were the purple "fuzz" guitars the band used for Legs.

"The fuzzy guitars have gone Royal," the band wrote of the guitars in an Instagram post last month. "Royal Purple that is!"

For tickets and more info on ZZ Top's forthcoming shows, visit the band's website.

Few players are able to more greatly embody a genre than Billy Gibbons and Texas blues. As lead vocalist and guitarist with ZZ Top, whose sound mixes muscular riffs, deep shuffle grooves and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, Billy and the band perfectly capture the ethos of Texas life. 

Born in Houston in 1949, Billy grew up in a family of musicians keen to nurture his passion for music. He was introduced to a melting pot of genres and it wasn’t long before Billy fell in love with the music of bluesmen such as Jimmy Reed, BB King, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Freddie King and Lightin’ Hopkins.

Gibbons got hold of his first guitar at age 13 and began playing along to his favourite artists. He formed a number of bands including The Moving Sidewalks, who opened for Jimi Hendrix. In 1969 Billy joined up with bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard to form ZZ Top, the group that propelled him in to the spotlight and allowed his guitar skills to shine.  

ZZ Top’s early sound focused on feel-good, groove-based shuffles with raunchy guitar tones. The band toured extensively through the early 70s and released five studio albums, gaining extensive airplay on radio, growing their fanbase, and propelling them to blues-rock stardom. 

However, this gruelling schedule and new found fame began to take its toll and in 1977 they took a hiatus that lasted for nearly three years. 

Upon their return they found that the musical climate had shifted considerably so chose to adapt in order to stay relevant. Gibbons pushed for a more modern approach, including the use of drum machines, synthesizers and sequencers to complement his trademark guitar sound.

The band was also keen to delve in to the then untested MTV market, embracing the new invention of the era, the music video, which greatly contributed to their success. 

It was around this time that they stumbled upon an unintentional new visual gimmick in the adoption of full chest-length beards, a decision that Billy claims was originally intended as a disguise to keep a low profile during the band’s hiatus but, on reforming, the beards remained and became part of the group’s signature look.

All of this, combined with minimal stage choreography and matching guitars (sometimes revolving, or fur-clad), gave the band the commercial appeal that it needed, and ZZ Top broke into the mainstream when MTV leapt on their 1983 album, Eliminator. 

Despite the adoption of a more modern production, Billy’s guitar sound remained true to his Texas roots, with its strong connection to the emotive phrasing of his early influences. 

The thick, tube-driven tone and laid-back feel was still very much a part of the sound, so we continue to see their songs decorated with Minor Pentatonic lines alongside traditional blues licks, plus Gibbons’ trademark pinch harmonic ‘squealies’, shuffle riffs, pick-and-fingers-style playing and two-note chord shapes. 

The band’s sound may have morphed over the years but their philosophy has remained unchanged; they’re not looking to change the world, but simply to have a good time. 

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 6, Bass 3, Middle 6, Treble 5, Presence 4

Gibbons has used many guitars but is probably best known for his 1959 Gibson Les Paul,  ‘Pearly Gates’. He has been a keen user of Marshall Plexi guitar amps, though more recently likes Magnatone. 

Go for a rich, tube amp tone with delay, and a light pick attack. Gibbons uses very light strings (.007s!) and has reportedly never broken one, a testament to his feather light touch.

Example 1. One-Chord Shuffle

This study includes many of Billy’s signature techniques. The pinch harmonics in bar 5 combined with the crotchet triplets are classic ZZ Top and the inclusion of the hybrid-picked open strings in bars 7-9 are another common feature. Keep a relaxed, ‘back of the beat’ feel throughout - and don’t hit the strings too hard!

Example 2. Melodic Bluesy Phrasing

This solo focuses on expressive, melodic ideas. You’ll notice a lot of long sustained notes that lean on chord tones to capture the underlying harmony. 

Don’t go too extreme with the vibrato as Billy’s style is fairly subtle, and pay close attention to slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs to get the correct phrasing and smooth sound. 

British guitar legend Jeff Beck has announced a 27-date US tour, beginning September 23 at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater, in Del Valle, Texas.

The first six shows will see Beck share a bill with ZZ Top and, for selected dates, former Heart vocalist Ann Wilson, on a brief jaunt across Texas, Tennessee and Alabama. 

Beck will then undertake a solo run beginning October 1 in Atlanta, GA at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre, through to November 12 at the Grand Theatre, Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada. 

Reportedly, the bulk of the tour’s setlist is going to focus on Beck’s recent album, 18 (a collaborative project with Johnny Depp), which has given the guitar legend his first top 10 album entry on the Billboard chart.

However, we’re told the guitarist is also promising to pay tribute to friends and influences, alongside some older material, with his interpretations of Mahavishnu Orchestra’s You Know You Know and The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, plus Brush with the Blues all set to make appearances.

Speaking of appearances, we wonder if Depp will be showing up for any of the dates.  Depp previously joined Beck onstage for a number of shows, including a gig in the UK city of Sheffield. 

Meanwhile, Beck’s revealed another star collaboration – a guest spot on Ozzy Osbourne track Patient Number 9, back in June. 

Check out the full list of tour dates below.

Jeff Beck U.S. Tour Dates

• September 23 – Del Valle, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater (with ZZ Top/Ann Wilson)
• September 24 – Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion (with ZZ Top/Ann Wilson)
• September 25 – The Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (w/ZZ Top/Ann Wilson)
• September 27 – Franklin, TN @ First Bank Amphitheater (w/ZZ Top)
• September 29 – Pelham, AL @ Oak Mountain Amphitheatre (w/ZZ Top)
• September 30 – Orange Beach, AL @ The Wharf Amphitheater (w/ZZ Top)
• October 1 – Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre
• October 4 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
• October 6 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• October 7&8 – Port Chester, NY @ Capitol Theatre
• October 10 – Red Bank, NJ @ Count Basie Center for the Arts
• October 13 – Kingston, NY @ Ulster Performing Arts Center
• October 14&15 – Huntington, NY @ The Paramount
• October 17 – Toronto, ON @ Meridian Hall
• October 19 – Nashville, IN @ Brown County Music Center
• October 20 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Andrew J Brady Music Center
• October 22 – Louisville, KY @ The Louisville Palace Theater
• October 23 – Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
• November 1 – Phoenix, AZ @ Celebrity Theatre
• November 2 – Temecula, CA@ Pechanga Resort & Casino
• November 4 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Pearl Concert Theater
• November 5 – Thousand Oaks, CA @ Bank of America Performing Arts Center Thousand Oaks
• November 6 – Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum Theatre
• November 8 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim
• November 9 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Civic
• November 10 – Sacramento, CA @ Hard Rock Live
• November 12 – Reno, NV @ Grand Theatre, Grand Sierra Resort

*All dates subject to change, more dates TBA

For tickets and information, head to Jeff Beck’s official site.

The latest drive pedal from J Rockett takes some influence from the classic tones of ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons and is named after the main man of the Tres Hombres. 

The company says that the pedal’s genesis came about around the same time as Eddie Van Halen’s passing in late 2020. 

Aware of ZZ Top’s influence on Van Halen, J Rockett’s designers were listening to early ZZ Top records to see if they could hear those influences and then evolved the new pedal from an older design that they’d been working on, which was originally developed to emulate Van Halen sounds.

Like similar J Rockett pedals, this one is nicely compact and reassuringly robust in its construction. It has a basic three-knob control layout with the standard Volume and Gain knobs and a tone knob labelled Bite, which exerts a powerful influence on the sound. 

At the lowest levels of the Gain knob with the Bite knob set to more or less match your amp tone, you’ll get unity gain at about 11 o’clock on the Volume knob, leaving plenty of extra for a boost.

The Gain knob covers a very wide range from low-level grit right through to something reminiscent of a cranked Marshall Plexi. 

In between there’s something for everyone and certainly plenty of ZZ Top tones, tempting you to ease into the rhythm from La Grange or crank out Tush, among others. There’s a real amp-like feel as the pedal responds to your playing dynamics and variations of your guitar’s volume knob.

Tonally, the overall sound is solid with well-balanced midrange and no obviously wayward frequencies, but the Bite knob is key to the pedal’s versatility.

While it’s great for just tailoring the tone to suit your guitar amp and pickups, it really has a handle on top-end presence in the drive so you can ramp it up for a bright edginess that will cut right through a band mix, or take it down for something altogether smoother.

Verdict

If you are a fan of the Reverend Willie G’s playing, then you’ll find that there are plenty of satisfying tones to be had from this pedal. In a wider context, though, the J Rockett’s El Hombre has a flexibility that could lend itself to many styles of music besides Texas blues and boogie.

Specs

• PRICE: $199 / £185
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Drive pedal
• FEATURES: True Bypass 
• CONTROLS: Volume, Gain, Bite, Bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V battery or 9V-18V DC adaptor (not supplied) 18mA 
• DIMENSIONS: 58 (w) x 102 (d) x 46mm (h)
• CONTACT: J. Rockett Audio Designs

ZZ Top have announced a new, 11-track live album, called Raw.

Recorded at Gruene Hall – “the oldest continually run dance hall in Texas” – in 2019, Raw features the band's original lineup of electric guitar player Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and the late Dusty Hill on bass guitar. 

Made in connection with the 2019 ZZ Top Netflix documentary, That Little Ol’ Band From Texas, the album was produced by Gibbons, and is dedicated “in righteous memory of Dusty Hill." It's set for a July 22 release via Shelter Records/BMG.

You can check out a preview of the album – in the form of some professionally-shot footage of the band playing their timeless hit, La Grange, at Gruene Hall – below.

Raw is "in a very real way, a return to our roots," write Gibbons and Beard in the album's liner notes. "Just us and the music, no audience of thousands, no concession stands, no parking lot social hour, no phalanx of tour busses. Just us and the music. We knew right then it was a very special circumstance, all of us in the same place at the same time – and what a time it most certainly was. 

"It was as bare bones as when we first started touring in a behemoth Chrysler station wagon, driving vast stretches between those early far-flung shows under blackened Texas skies and first hearing our records on the radio," the band continues. "We were bonded as brothers.

"‘The Dust’ may have left the building but he’s still very much with us.”

In tandem with Raw, ZZ Top also announced an extensive North American tour, which will run throughout the summer. Just as he did on the band's shows last year, longtime ZZ Top guitar tech Elwood Francis will take the place of Dusty Hill on bass for the tour. 

For dates, tickets and more info, visit ZZ Top's website.

ZZ Top – Raw:

1. Brown Sugar
2. Just Got Paid
3. Heard It On The X
4. La Grange
5. Tush
6. Thunderbird 
7. I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
8. Gimme All Your Lovin’
9. Blue Jean Blues
10. Certified Blues
11. Tube Snake Boogie

Christmas is on the horizon, and so artists from across the musical spectrum are all vying to become the next Mariah Carey, penning tracks they hope will assure them a yearly place in the charts and on the sound systems of shopping malls the world over.

And the latest artist to toss his hat into the ring – perhaps even literally – is ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, who has recorded a blues-flavored cover of Christmas classic, Jingle Bells.

Logically titled Jingle Bell Blues, the track sees the bearded axe-slinging legend drop the original's tempo by some considerable bpm, offering up his sultry gravelly vocal tones and some fiery bluesy fretboard antics.

In terms of feel, where All I Want for Christmas Is You is the soundtrack to the frantic present opening on Christmas morning, Billy Gibbons' Jingle Bell Blues is one for the stodgy post-Christmas dinner lull. Take a listen below and you'll see what we mean.

“It dawned on us that everybody loves Christmas music, and everybody loves the Jimmy Reed blues vibe, so we figured we'd combine them,” Gibbons says. “We threw in some hot rod references for good measure because our preferred sleigh is the horsepower-propelled kind.”

He continues: “Around Christmas, it always seems that there are five to ten holiday selections listed in the lower right corner of a typical juke box in a typical juke joint, the song titles and artist names printed on wreath-bedecked title strips. Our hope is for Jingle Bell Blues to be one of those records. 

“Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Elvis, Brenda Lee, Jose Feliciano, Otis Redding, Mariah Carey, Nat King Cole, Gene Autry, and not forgetting Adam Sandler, need some company and we'd be thrilled to provide it in the spirit of the season.”

Billy Gibbons isn't the first guitar-wielding artist to dip his toes in the Christmas music game this year; last month, shredder Paul Gilbert announced 'TWAS, an entire album of festive-inspired tracks.

I grew up down Texas way, working summers at my father’s sawmill, and scraping together minimum wage to buy a beat-up SG bass. The fretboard pyrotechnics of Sheehan and Lee were beyond my reach, but inspiration came slithering across the yard one scorching afternoon through the screen door of a nearby rib shack. 

As I unloaded lumber from a boxcar, the bluesman growled about gold tooth displays and beauticians at the wheel of his V8 Ford, the backbeat matching the loping rhythm of our sawmill’s conveyor chain. Heat waves shimmied on the tracks as epiphany struck from the percolating bass, laying a muddy groove wide as the West Texas plains, with a mind-blowing breakdown at the end that was both bad and nationwide. 

The band, of course, was ZZ Top – but copping bassist Dusty Hill’s parts proved to be a different kind of tricky. I dug into their back catalog, discovering that his approach wasn’t so much a matter of technique as attitude. 

He owned the pocket and dug that trench deep, paving a foundation with gusto and restraint, stuttering licks in empty spaces and a funky syncopation engineered to make backsides move. There was plenty of flash and wit in ZZ’s clothes and stage shows, but the Top’s bottom end was all business. 

Joseph Michael ‘Dusty’ Hill was born on May 19, 1949, playing the cello in school band and picking up bass guitar at the age of 13, when his older brother Rocky started a combo called The Warlocks.

“I kind of learned how to play on stage,” Hill told For Bass Players Only in 2016. “Embarrassment is a great motivator. If you don’t play well, standing up there with the lights on, it really stands out, so it behooves you to get your shit up pretty quick.” 

Alongside drummer Frank Beard, Hill honed his chops with Dallas garage rockers American Blues and the Cellar Dwellers before teaming up with a 20-year-old Houston guitar wizard named Billy F. Gibbons to form ZZ Top. 

Early inspiration came from Charles Mingus and Jack Bruce, before the bassist stripped his lines to the purest essence and the “little ol’ band from Texas” hit big in 1975 with Hill’s raucous vocal on their first Top 40 hit, Tush, a 12-bar howling blues with Dusty locked on Beard’s snare and offering nothing more extravagant than the occasional walk. 

Under the guidance of manager Bill Ham, ZZ Top engaged on a world tour that featured ‘The Dust’ decked out in Nudie suits and 10-gallon hats while throttling his Tele bass on a tilted stage the shape of Texas. Vultures, rattlesnakes, and longhorn steers roamed the platform as the band performed electrified, Southern-fried favorites like Jesus Just Left Chicago and Blue Jean Blues. 

The Worldwide Texas Tour was so insane that the band went on hiatus after coming off the road. Beard hit rehab before heading to Jamaica; Gibbons left for London; and Hill got a work shirt with ‘Joe’ on the pocket and took a job at the Fort Worth airport. 

“I didn’t want people to think I was full of myself,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock in 2019. “But the main thing is that I didn’t want to start feeling full of myself.” ZZ Top returned in the early '80s, trading their rhinestone jackets for scruffy suits, leggy blondes in hot cars, and... synthesizers? 

Somehow, the bearded blues lovers went techno without losing their soul, thanks in no small part to the solid workmanship of Hill, whether rocking synth-bass and sequencers or spinning his fur-covered Dean ML Explorer while sporting a dirty fedora and cheap sunglasses. 

The grizzled trio became unlikely stars on an upstart video music channel called MTV – and suddenly, ZZ Top was the coolest band on the planet. Their 1983 album Eliminator went 15 times platinum, yet the band avoided accusations of selling out. 

At heart, the single Legs was just as greasy as ’73’s La Grange, and the Top could back it up live, gliding across stage on giant conveyor belts and ditching the vultures for a tarpsnorting cosmic Sphinx. ZZ Top’s personas became so larger-than-life that Texans petitioned to carve their faces on the side of the Lone Star State’s highest peak. 

From the nimble funk of 1970’s Squank to the 21st-century gristle of Gotsta Get Paid, Hill was the master of bone-rattling swagger, consistently epitomizing the brilliance of economic cool, essential to the band’s swampy mash of surf-metal boogie, Texas swing, and proto-industrial blue-collar rhythm and blues. 

Whether dishing out filthy slap on Thug or dissonant clank for the Talking Heads-meets-Steely Dan jam, Manic Mechanic, he knew precisely when to step up and when to lay back, anchoring the low end so the Reverend Billy G could throw sparks. 

“Sometimes you don’t even notice the bass,” Hill noted in FBPO. “I hate that in a way, but I love that in a way. That’s a compliment. That means you’ve filled in everything and it’s right for the song. You’re not standing out where you don’t need to be.” 

Dusty claimed his only addiction was collecting basses, favoring axes by famed luthier John Bolin and working with Fender to create a signature model fashioned after the Tele he bought from a Dallas pawn shop for 70 bucks.

Those looking to emulate his crunch can search for clues in the single-coil Seymour Duncans, Marshall Valvestate 8008, SFX Thumpinator, and Electro-Harmonix Micro POG – but insiders say the true secret lies in the way Hill’s stubby fingers attacked his instrument. 

“My sound is big, heavy and a bit distorted because it has to overlap the guitar,” he said in 2012. “Someone once asked me to describe my tone, and I said it was like a rhino farting in a trash can.” 

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Keith Richards in 2004, Hill faced a barrage of maladies in the subsequent years – surgeries on his ear, hip, and shoulder, contracting Hepatitis C, even accidentally shooting himself in the gut when a .38 derringer spilled from his boot. 

Still, he didn’t miss a show in five decades, becoming a bass legend mostly for what he didn’t do: Get in the way of a bad-ass song. “I like to believe that I play bass like Dusty Hill,” he philosophized in Classic Rock, “and that’s something nobody else can do as well as me. I’m the best Dusty Hill I know.” 

Every now and then, life comes full circle. Dusty and I both landed in Tennessee. He lived on a 50-acre solar-powered farm south of Nashville, somewhere between Moody Bros. Auto Body Shop and Crossroads Baptist Church. His influence served me well in Music City. Show up, play what’s best for the song, and never take yourself too seriously. Do that one thing you do that nobody else can. 

I traded my SG bass for a ’73 Precision and focused on attitude and feel. One night, I was laying a nasty groove on Gimme All Your Lovin’, thumping accents on the two and four, doing the sidestep ZZ shuffle, heat waves rising while backsides were shaking on a packed dance floor. 

A vision appeared near the back wall, ball cap and wraparound shades, head bobbing, beard flowing like Moses on the mount. His whiskers parted to offer a grin. As I nodded back, he vanished into the crowd. But it just might’ve been a mirage. ZZ Top’s original line-up lasted 51 years. The tres hombres from Texas liked playing music together and having fun. 

They remain the coolest band on any planet. Dusty Hill died peacefully at home, nine days after playing one final show and a last fiery encore of Tush. He insisted that the boys carry on.

Editor's note: this interview was conducted and published in print prior to the passing of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill.

Last year Billy F. Gibbons found himself with a lot of time on his hands. Like most musicians, the sudden cancellation of touring hit the ZZ Top guitarist hard, so he was wide open to drummer Matt Sorum’s suggestion that they get together in a studio in the California High Desert near Joshua Tree National Park to kick around some ideas with guitarist Austin Hanks. 

The three of them had also worked on Gibbons’ 2018 album, Big Bad Blues. “The sessions started with what we suspected would be a 30-minute have-a-look-around-the-studio, and we walked in and didn’t leave for three months,” Gibbons says. The result is Hardware, Gibbons’ third solo album in six years. 

Unlike the previous two, which leaned heavily on blues and Latin music, this one is almost all original material that leans heavily toward greasy, grungy rock. “Holing up in the desert in the heat of the summer – that in itself was pretty intense,” Gibbons says. “We let off steam by letting it rock, which is what Hardware is really all about. It’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery.” 

We caught up with the good Rev. Gibbons by Zoom.  

Most of the album features you, Matt Sorum and Austin Hanks. How does your collaboration work? Is everything a group effort? 

“Everyone is quite familiar with the backbeat from our fearless drummer, Matt Sorum. His history having played with the Cult, Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and on down the line speaks for itself. Matt combines with Austin Hanks, who a lot of people know as the unusual left-handed guitar player. 

“I’ve always enjoyed Austin’s guitar playing as well as his Alabama-based style of singing. When the three of us get together, it’s kind of a natural chemistry and occurrence. Which brings up another salient point: where’s the bottom end when it’s just two guitars and drums? 

“Let’s shed some light on the rather interesting invention that makes this possible: A Little Thunder, the strange guitar pickup that identifies the low note of a guitar and throws it an octave lower and turns it into an accompanying bass guitar sound. When Austin and I are playing this device, it’s actually not a trio but a five-piece band. We had not one but two bass guitars to the mix, so it’s a powerhouse.”

Are you both playing that pickup on every track? 

“Indeed we are. We also added some more traditional basslines when we found an old Fender Jazz – ’64 or ’65 – in the studio and everyone had a go. The unusual one was watching Matt step out from behind the drums and slamming down on a bass guitar. It was quite a surprise.“   

So what guitar are you playing? I don’t imagine you put that pickup into Pearly Gates. 

“No, that came later. When we first arrived at the studio we only had the gear that was existing in that studio. All the backups, the known suspects, were yet to arrive, but in the corner I picked up an old Fender Jazzmaster that was leaning up against a ’61 Fender Piggyback amp and a Fender Reverb tank, something I hadn’t had the pleasure of plugging into for seemingly forever. 

”It was in fine working shape, and after the first few notes, the engineer said, 'Billy, it’s no secret that you became pals with Jimi Hendrix. Wasn’t it Jimi who said that you will never hear surf music again?' [A line from Hendrix’s Third Stone from the Sun.] I said, 'Well, yeah, but things have turned the corner.' There you have it. When you hear the first released track, West Coast Junkie, it’s definitely back to the '60s.”

You’ve said the High Desert setting of the studio (Escape, outside Pioneertown and Yucca Valley) had a profound impact on the sound of this album. Can you elaborate?

“We spent three months there, and that time really allowed us to immerse ourselves in the surroundings, which are fairly sparse. You really have nothing but desert rock, a lot of sand and cacti, maybe a few rattlesnakes thrown in. Then you add the mystery quotient, that strange energy that defies description in writing – and even photographs don’t do it real justice. 

“When you’re there, something descends and it really has an effect. We found it to be quite handy to let it lead the pencil across the blank piece of paper, and every day we were finding the creative lid was being lifted and we took that as part of that desert surrounding. 

“You’ll hear us take a stab at the description on the closing track. We wrapped up the sessions with a song called Desert High, which is our take on a spoken-word delivery, and we tried to tiptoe through it.”

Sounds like you wrote a lot of the material together during those three months. 

“We certainly did. We found ourselves having just tiptoed in with actually no preparation or forethought before going in to see what we could see in the studio. That did lead to some interesting excursions into the writing process, and on certain days it was no surprise to have two or three songs emerge.”

Was Hardware a pandemic production, something that happened because you all had time on your hands?

“Yes. It started with an unexpected call from Matt, saying, 'Man, I’m out here in the Palm Springs desert and I’ve discovered this new studio out in Joshua Tree.' I had mistakenly tagged it as being a reference to a place I’ve worked with Queens of the Stone Age called Rancho De La Luna, which is David Catching’s joint.

“He said, 'No, it’s actually across the road. Would you like to go check it out?' and I said, 'Yeah, OK.' He didn’t mention that it was 20 miles across the road. [Laughs] It’s out in the middle of the desert, but it turned out to be a stunning establishment. Surrounded by nothing, you walk into the confines of a very sophisticated setup.”

 A lot of the album is aggressive, but a couple of the slow tunes really swagger. I’m thinking of Spanish Fly and Vagabond Man. 

“Oh, yeah! Vagabond Man was kind of a step away from that hard-rocking thing that was leading the charge. It was recounting what it was like to be a traveling musician; everyone in the room, including the two engineers, had firsthand experience in not being able to stay in one spot more than one day at a time – and you really know what it’s like to be a true vagabond. 

“We decided to try and put it into words, more on the lamenting of what you miss out on by not being a regular guy, by being a vagabond man. Even with a dollar or two in your pocket, it’s close to being homeless in some sense. 

“When you speak of slowing things down, we can tiptoe over to Spanish Fly, which may be slower in tempo but has a ferociousness that’s a direct result of having spent a lot of time back in Texas, down there in Houston, when we were working in the midst of a lot of the hip-hop guys, like the Geto Boys, Bushwick Bill and Juvenile and Money Fresh from over in Baton Rouge. That was the Cash Money guys. On Hardware, you’ve got a handful of very disparate influences.”

You’re still sort of working in a trio format, but how is it different working with another guitar, and your unique approach to bass, versus the more traditional bass-drums-guitar lineup in ZZ Top? 

“A good question. As you know, working a trio is a very spare outing, with everyone working 100 percent. When you remove the bass guitar, it became incumbent on Austin and me to figure out what the arrangements were going to do. As I drifted into a solo, Austin picked up the beat by really bearing down on his rhythm stylings and then, of course, I would give him the nod and do the same. It was a 50/50 exchange.”

Is that something you enjoy? You haven’t played a lot of rhythm behind another guitar player in your career. 

“Oh, yeah! When Austin cuts loose it’s a delight to listen to him play. What’s antagonizing is trying to watch him play because he’s the upside-down and backwards guy – a lefty playing a flipped-over, right-handed guitar in the Jimi Hendrix and Albert King style with a weird tuning. But somehow he makes it work.”

It’s always intriguing when someone of his generation, like Austin or Eric Gales or Doyle Bramhall II, plays in that style, because they could’ve gotten a left-handed guitar, unlike Albert or Otis Rush. 

“Indeed. I’ve often wondered about this and asked Austin, 'How in the world did you invent this thing?' and he said, 'It’s all I’ve known.' Like a lot of guys, there’s a guitar in the corner and no one there to tune it properly, so you just pick it up and start to play, which is exactly what Austin’s story is.”

Tell me how Larkin Poe came to be on this album. 

“Oh, yes! ZZ Top had the pleasure of working on tour with a great blues guitar player named Tyler Bryant, and there were these two mysterious girls we kept seeing. [Bryant and his band, the Shakedown, have toured often with ZZ Top. Bryant is married to Larkin Poe’s Rebecca Lovell.]”

“Months and months of traveling and I finally braved the question, 'Who are these attractive girls who are following us around? I see them in the dressing room and the catering room.' And he said, 'Oh, they’ve got a band! And in fact, they volunteered to hit the stage and do a little warmup.' It was then and there on the touring road that I got to see Larkin Poe play, and brother, did they ever lift the lid on that end of things.

“They are fierce! And very unique. After seeing them play, I knew that someday it would be of value to turn them loose and see what occurred. With something so unexpected and new, which is a really big piece of this Hardware project, every day was a new song and we actually got to engage with a couple of other players along the way. Larkin Poe do it right and do it well.”

Do you foresee playing shows with Austin and Matt? 

“Yes. We join the many who are ready to see the curtain rise and get back to live entertainment. We’re ready to hit the road. We had quite a successful run billed as the BFGs, and we had a blast out on the road, especially using that crazy pickup that transformed our guitars into bass and guitar all at once.”

Do you run a split signal out of the guitar? 

“Yes, one going to a guitar amp and another going to your bass amp. But when we were recording the album, we stacked a backline with Magnatone amplifiers, so we took both the guitars and the basslines into that, and it worked beautifully. 

“I met the [A Little Thunder pickups] inventor, Andy Alt, when he was operating under the same roof as James Trussart, who told me I had to check out this pickup. Of course, having worked with Seymour Duncan for so many years and lately Thomas Nilsen at Cream T pickups, I thought, 'Oh nice, another pickup.' And James said, 'No, this one is really different.' And he was right! 

“It’s intuitive in that it’s able to identify the bottom three strings of the guitar and also you can assign the task of 'low note priority', which means the pickup has the ability to identify the lowest note and throw it down an octave – or two octaves! It’s a very sophisticated piece of gear. It works as a regular guitar pickup, and then when you engage the octave-lower segment, it throws that in.”

Does the fact that you’re essentially playing bass make you play differently? For instance, did you find yourself leaning more heavily on the low notes when playing rhythm behind Austin? 

“No. What I liked about the effect of this pickup is it doesn’t require re-learning or any kind of new technique. It’s just picking up what you’re already playing, although you can develop some interesting techniques. 

“You can add this effect in a differential manner, but when we were out on the road, Austin and I were just going about things as we normally would. It was quite mystifying to those attending the event. They were hearing a bass guitar and going, 'Where is the bass player? Is he behind a curtain somewhere?'”

You still haven’t told me what guitar you use with this pickup! 

“Ah! John Bolin to the rescue. As a lot of people know, I’ve had the pleasure of working directly with Bolin Guitars out of Boise, Idaho, for the last four decades; he called me and said he got word I was using A Little Thunder and that he had a couple of guitars he thought would be perfect. 

“He had a right-handed version and a left-handed version for Austin, so we slapped the Little Thunder pickups into these guitars – and off we went. It proved to be an excellent combination.”

Tell me about the Jungle Show, your occasional band with Jimmie Vaughan. 

“Shortly after B.B. King passed away there was a tribute organized in Austin, and I was invited to contribute a few sentences of a verbal tribute about what B.B. has come to mean to so many. Then the organizer invited me to join in and play a B.B. King song, joining a grand lineup that included the B.B. King band with Bonnie Raitt, Rodney Crowell, Kris Kristoffersen and others. 

“When I started looking at songs I was really familiar with, they had all been laid claim to! I went and talked to the great Hammond organist Mike Flanigin over lunch and told him we should find something from left field, and he had the perfect suggestion: The Jungle, a song he knew well because the CD had been stuck in his car player for a year! 

“That was the number we laid on them during that tribute. Flanigin said, 'All of us are off the road, so why don’t we throw a little get-together and do a few nights?' And I said, 'Not a bad idea.' He said, 'Jimmie Vaughan wants to join in. Chris Layton, the great drummer, wants to beat the skins, and Sue Foley’s got some blues licks up her sleeves. So yeah! Let’s do this.' 

“Then we have to pivot to what are we going to call this and he said, 'Let’s call it the Jungle Show since it’s the first song on the setlist.' That was six years ago. We’ve played an annual New Year’s show at Antone’s ever since. This past year, the restrictions were well in place so we decided to film the event, and it was released as a streaming broadcast.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan was well known as a guitar player in Austin, and guitarist Bill Campbell told him he had to start singing or else he’d be someone else’s guitar player forever. Did you have a moment of realization like that, or did you always see yourself singing and playing? 

“I started when I got a guitar for Christmas and along with it came a tiny little Fender Champ. Shortly after that I was invited to join the neighbors, who had already put a little outfit together. We decided to call ourselves the Saints, though we were very unsaintly, I must say. 

“When I joined I was guitar player number 3 and the other two guys had big amps. All I could do with my tiny Fender Champ is turn it up, and by the time I had it turned it up to 10 I was screaming to be heard, and that’s how I learned how to step up to the mic and start singing. 

“Jimmie Vaughan tells a very similar story. Jimmie and Stevie started off as guitar players not intending to become frontmen or singers, but as you point out, Stevie got strict instructions from Mr. Campbell to open up and let it rip. Jimmie eventually did the same thing. Mr. Campbell was a guy who played with serious intent and should be remembered as one of the Texas greats as well.“

• Hardware is out now via Concord Records.

Growing up in Houston, Texas in the 50s and into the 60s, the young Billy Gibbons fell in love with the music of arch bluesmen such as Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, Freddie King and Lightnin’ Hopkins. 

He woodshedded hard with his 1962 Gibson Melody Maker, cut his teeth with psych-rockers The Moving Sidewalks, and in ’69 joined up with now-deceased bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard to form ZZ Top.

This trio’s stock in trade was smarter-than-it-sounds boogie rock and Hendrix-approved guitar smarts, all delivered with a tantalizing sense of mystique. They spent the '70s touring heavily, making quietly great albums such as Tres Hombres and Tejas, and writing tunes like all-time classic La Grange. But That Little Ol’ Band From Texas shrewdly knew how to move with the times, and broke into the mainstream big-style when MTV leapt on their 1983 album Eliminator. 

New-fangled synths and sequencers hot-rodded their down-home blues rock on hits like Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs. Gibbons and Hill had their signature beards in place, Frank Beard ironically didn’t, and they were away. 

Back in June 2020, drummer Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver/The Cult) suggested to Gibbons that they forget the world, head out to the desert and ‘make some loud noise’. With a small team including Nashville producer Mike Fiorentino, they decamped to Escape Studio, set some 20 miles deep in the California desert near Joshua Tree, and wrote and recorded Hardware. 

Gibbons’ third solo album is a modern-retro set packed with his trademark Texas tones and tunes drawing on slide-laden blues rock, 60s surf music and the kind of gravel-throated cinematics only The Reverend can provide.

TG caught up with this most cosmic of guitar heroes to get a taste of the album, to look back on 50 years of the Top, and to pick up some six-string tips, advice and philosophical guidance on the way. Strap in! 

Make the most of the gear around you...

“This go round, one of my favorite tracks is West Coast Junkie. The sound has got a lot of my guitar buddies saying, ‘Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re going back to surf days?!’ And I say, ‘Well, yeah!’ 

"I found a Fender Reverb in the corner of the studio, and despite the engineer waving me away we plugged it up and it worked. Parked next to a 1955 Gretsch Duo Jet was an early-60s Fender Jazzmaster, and I thought, ‘Wait a minute – a Jazzmaster and a Fender Reverb? We’re on!’ 

“It was 1962 all over again. Within a couple of weeks, we sent for our personal gear and some of our own favorites showed up. Pearly [Gates, Gibbons’ trademark Les Paul] has managed to be front and centre on just about every recording project of mine.“

Say ¡Hola! to a better sound – use a peso for a pick...

“That was one great thing in the desert – the Mexican peso was always in the pocket, and that was one countable element that wasn’t going to let us down. I got some pals who prefer using a very pliable plectrum, but I’ve gotten used to the fierceness of the peso. There’s zero flexibility – you can really dig in with the attack knowing it’s not going to let you down. You’re on it, you’re right there.“

On the subtleties of slide...

“I like glass and ceramic slides, but in a pinch – and the moms may not be too happy about this – you can go into the kitchen and saw off the leg of a kitchen stool, and you’ve got a nice metal slide. For Hardware, I actually started revisiting the mysteries of the lap steel. 

“On the song Stackin’ Bones, we have two young ladies by the name of Larkin Poe, and I became intrigued by the way [Megan Lovell] was getting around on the Rickenbacker lap steel, the sound she got off it, so I started fooling around. I’ve got an old Rickenbacker ‘Frying Pan’ lap steel from the 1930s [the Electro A-22]. To get the best out of it we went to a solid steel guitar bar, and again that’s another element of sound that’s quite different. 

“I have two of these Frying Pans, one an extended scale length, the other shorter, and I came to realize the shorter neck produced a darker tone. It’s much like Fender and Gibson – the Fender is a quarter-inch longer in scale length, and that makes Fenders a bit brighter. Matt and Mike liked the fat sound of the shorter one – the little one’s bigger!“

Practice, practice, practice. With vinyl, if you can...

“With the lure of leaving school, some people might find themselves in a world of swirl not knowing what to do. But I was pointed – I was going straight back to the house, going into my bedroom, picking up the six-string, firing up the record player and learning what was already in the grooves. I was fearless on that end, but learning to play that agonizing F chord was miserable! 

“In fact I would encourage anybody just starting out to be sure to take time to, as the old adage goes, ‘practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more’. And now, with the unexpected return of the popularity of vinyl, be sure you got a record player handy. Lifting the needle off, you’re taking your hands off the strings momentarily to find that sweet spot on the record that you’re trying to learn. It’s all worth it.“

Your next step forward, that ‘field of greater charm’, is just a record away...

“There were different periods in ZZ Top’s career where we found that the field of greater charm seemed to be just over the horizon. But these are only as far away as the next record that you can learn to play along with, and for me that included attempting to learn all the chops by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Mick Abrahams, Jimmy Page – the list goes on and on. Whatever suits your fancy, make sure you stay close by. I suppose you could download it, but just as long as you’re near it.“

Play live a lot, and try to surprise yourself...

“We toured for seven years running uninterrupted, from the time we started in late ’69 all the way until ’76. A lot of folks might’ve taken that as an excursion into abject boredom, but it was the quite the opposite. 

“The set was two hours, and there was a slot between the first and second hour for two songs – each night the ‘unexpected song title call’ went from Dusty to Frank and back to me, and we never knew what was going to be thrown on the deck. So it kept it lively – here we are playing things we didn’t know how to play, but all of a sudden you’re in it, so the chops were getting honed night by night.“

But don’t work harder than you have to...

“For years I was playing flat-wound strings that were quite heavy, I thought that was where that big blues sound emanated from. Then once I was sharing a dressing room with B.B. King and he said, ‘Hey Billy, can I play your guitar?’ He gave it a few strums, handed it back and said, ‘Man, why are you working so hard? You need to lighten the load – you need some light-gauge strings’, And that’s what turned the corner, man...”

Move with the times, but don’t be afraid to give it some ‘Texas Mud’...

“It seems like we’ve always got one foot in the blues, but back in the early 80s, I became a fan and follower of Depeche Mode, who came blasting into the scene as a synth-pop band. They turned it upside down with Personal Jesus, I Feel You. I went to see them early on, I was looking at their stage – no drummer, no guitar player, no bass player, just three keyboards and a microphone, and that was it. 

“But the sheer bombastic effect blew my mind, and that fateful encounter drew a friendship. This bearded guy from Texas with a bunch of synth-pop guys from the UK? Who’d’ve thought it’d result in friendship! Years later, Martin [Gore] and Dave [Gahan] called and said ‘Man, we’ve got a track here and we need some ‘Texas Mud’!’ That song was Soothe My Soul.“

Be adaptable when it comes to musical technology...

“You become quite familiar with the recording studio, as antiseptic as it may seem, and that used to be years of familiarity. But things are unfolding at such a rapid pace today, now at the end of the next week you’ve got something new you’ve got to wrap your head around. 

"[At the time of Eliminator] the musical instrument manufacturers had reached a point where they were attempting to make discoveries or to be inventive: ‘How do we make something that is musically viable and appealing, but different enough to stimulate the market?’. 

“All of a sudden these very strange things started appearing. We had the good fortune to be recording at Ardent Studios in Memphis, and the owner was not shy about reaching in deep pockets and investing in the next crazy piece of equipment. We discarded the manual immediately and started twisting knobs until we found something that we liked. 

“Some of these new elements [synths, sequencers] just reinforce the rhythm section. It doesn’t really require jumping through hoops for new guitar technique. Frank Beard (the man with no beard) and Dusty and I – the purity of ZZ Top is that it’s just three guys and three chords.“

Mystique is a thing of the past in the social media age, and that’s okay...

“Mystique is like a blank piece of paper, in fact it could be a black piece of paper – it has flipped upside down and become much the opposite. Who wants to wait around any more for the big hero to dash from the black limousine to the stage door? You get nothing. 

“The intrigue of personal interaction has reached a new depth now – we’re living in a time where it is possible to reach in and enjoy the depth of the exchange between strangers. Don’t get me wrong – it can be time-consuming and there’s only so many hours in the day, but the whole planet has become one. [Billy brandishes his iPhone] The new body part, right here – haha!“

• Hardware is out now via Concord.

Billy Gibbon has revealed that the late bass guitar icon Dusty Hill, who recently passed away at the age of 72, recorded bass and vocal parts for an upcoming, soon-to-be-announced ZZ Top album.

Gibbons shared the news while in conversation with Variety, saying that the follow-up to 2012’s La Futura will feature Hill’s rough recordings, which are said to be in need of some “completion work”.

When quizzed about the progress the band had made on the album prior to Hill’s passing, Gibbons reported that many of his vocal parts had been tracked, saying, “I think the luck of the draw was, I handed Dusty a couple of lyric sheets and I said, ‘Hey, see if you can make heads or tails out of this.’ 

“He said, ‘Can I sing it?’ I said, ‘Dusty, you could sing the calendar if you wanted to – people would love it.’ He goes, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea. If we ever get back to go to work, can we add the calendar into the show? I know all the words.’ I said, ‘Get in there. Go sing.’

"So, yeah, we’ve got a couple of things [with Dusty singing lead] that’ll make sense."

As for the album’s four-string parts, Gibbons went on to recall an album recording session from a few months back that left the entire studio in awe of Hill’s “fierce right hand”.

“I remember a night where they said, ‘Well, you’re the producer. You’ve got to tell Dusty to stick around or let him go. He’s delivered his parts,’” reflected Gibbons. “So off he goes, and no sooner had he left the parking lot we encountered a very short section that I had overlooked. It was only eight or 10 bars. 

“I said, ‘Bring me Dusty’s bass,’ and I handed it to the engineer and said, 'You’re a bass player… It’s only eight bars. Let’s just fill in.' Two hours later, we had passed the bass guitar around to every single living soul in the studio, and we still couldn’t match Dusty’s tone.”

Recently, ZZ Top took to the stage for the first time since Dusty Hill's death, supported by stand-in bass player and longtime tech Elwood Francis.

On continuing the tour with Francis, Gibbons commented, "It was a direct directive from Mr. Dusty Hill. When he grabbed my arm and said, ‘I think I'm due to go visit the physician to see if I can bounce back,’ he said, ‘In the meantime, I want you to grab our guitar technician, Mr. Elwood, and take him out of that tech station and strap him up with my guitar and make him carry on with every single note.’

“And I said, ‘Well, if that's your wishes, I'll respect that.’ And sure enough, we've been very fortunate to have a stalwart standby to fill in.”

ZZ Top have taken to the stage for the first time since longtime bass player Dusty Hill's death last week.

Appearing at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater in Alabama on Friday, and at Wild Adventures, in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday, the band – as they have since mid-July – recruited long-serving guitar tech Elwood Francis to handle bass guitar duties.

The band kicked off their performances with Got Me Under Pressure – from their 1983 album, Eliminator – and concluded them with Tush – from 1975's Fandango! The latter was, of course, sung my Hill prior to his death, however Gibbons took on vocal duties, and the band hung Hill's cowboy hat on a mic stand in tribute. Check out footage of the group's Friday show below.

Hill played the first two shows of the band's 50th anniversary tour, before he “requested dismissing himself”, as frontman Billy Gibbons explains in a new interview with Variety.

“He said, ‘Yeah, let me go check this out,’” Gibbons says. “And of course I said, ‘Hey, man, health is number one. Go do your thing.’ And I could tell through those first two valiant attempts, if he's not giving it 110 percent, he was the first one to kind of say, ‘Gee whiz. Let's go take care of this.”

He continues: “It's no secret that over the past few years he had a pretty rough go with a broken shoulder, followed with a broken hip. And he had some problems with some ulcers. 

“So he's been kind of tiptoeing through keeping himself ship-shape, best he could. But I think that this was a real challenge. And by throwing in the towel, it might've caught up with him. Who knows? I'm just glad he's in a good spot.”

When asked about Hill's cause of death, Gibbons explains: “Let's face it, you don't necessarily pass away from a broken shoulder or broken hip. Although the attending physician had earlier warned him that bursitis was not uncommon, even arthritis, and they said it's not a very comfortable place to be. 

“And I could tell that he was moving a little slow. He said, ‘Boy, this shoulder and hip are really starting to become a problem.’ But, as of this juncture, yeah, it was off to dreamland and beyond.”

Regarding the inclusion of Elwood Francis as the band's new bassist, Gibbons says the decision was made with Hill's full blessing.

“It was a direct directive from Mr. Dusty Hill,” he explains. “When he grabbed my arm and said, ‘I think I'm due to go visit the physician to see if I can bounce back,’ he said, ‘In the meantime, I want you to grab our guitar technician, Mr. Elwood, and take him out of that tech station and strap him up with my guitar and make him carry on with every single note.’

“And I said, ‘Well, if that's your wishes, I'll respect that.’ And sure enough, we've been very fortunate to have a stalwart standby to fill in.”

Of course, a new ZZ Top member can't join the fold without appropriate facial foliage. According to Gibbons, Francis grew his out during lockdown.

“What's really got everybody on the ropes is that Elwood had been holding down the guitar technician post for 30 years as a clean-shaven young fellow,” he says. “And when the lockdown was imminent, we all gathered for a band meeting, before things got too fierce.

“And I said, ‘Dusty, it looks like we're not going to be able to go do much or go anywhere. What do you plan to do?’ And he said, ‘Well, I'll tell you what I'm not going to do. And that's cut the lawn. I'm not going to cut the grass.’ And I smiled and said, ‘Well, I'll join you on that.’

“And Elwood piped up and said, ‘Well, if you guys aren't going to cut the grass, I'm not going to cut my whiskers.’ And when we regathered to commence rehearsals just a week and a half ago, here came Elwood, and I said, ‘My gosh, you've got chin whiskers as long as me and Dusty!’”

Members of the music world have taken to social media to pay tribute to legendary ZZ Top bass-playing stalwart Dusty Hill, who passed away earlier this week in his sleep at the age of 72.

Hill’s ZZ Top bandmates Frank Beard and Billy Gibbons have lead tributes, writing on social media, “We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top’. You will be missed greatly, amigo.”

The pair were joined by rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, who commented, “Rest in peace Dusty Hill. My thoughts go out to Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard and all the ZZ Top fans around the world.”

“What an icon,” wrote Paul Stanley. “Always a gentleman from the days of us opening for them through the recent days of them opening for us. I don’t know what to say but, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Rest however you damn well choose!’”

“You were a one of a kind, legend and kind and gentle soul. My condolences to his family, Billy and Frank and the entire ZZ Top organization,” wrote Joe Bonamassa. “So sad to hear about Dusty Hill,” added Jason Isbell. “An all-time great bass player, and a rock and roll institution. Breaks my heart.”

Tributes from John Fogerty, Lita Ford, Billy Corgan, David Coverdale, Gilby Clarke, Paul Young, Frank Turner, Mike Portnoy and many, many more can be found below.

Dusty Hill, the longtime bassist for Texas blues-rock stalwarts ZZ Top, has died at the age of 72, the band announced today. 

"We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, Texas," the band's surviving members – Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard – wrote on social media. 

"We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top'. We will forever be connected to that 'Blues Shuffle in C.'”

No cause of death was revealed in the band's statement.

Famous for his long beard (something he proudly sported along with Gibbons) and punchy low-end work, Hill performed with ZZ Top for over 50 years, starting in 1969. Aside from the band's very first single, he played on each and every one of the band's releases, from the band's First Album in 1971 to La Futura in 2012. 

With Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard (ironically the one member of the trio who didn't sport a long beard), Hill helped ZZ Top perfect a uniquely Texan blend of blues, boogie and – later in the band's career – new wave. Retaining the same lineup for over 50 years, the band sold 50 million albums and became one of rock's most consistently popular touring attractions.

Born in Dallas in 1949, Hill first picked up the bass as a teenager and by the age of 20 was a veteran of the nascent Dallas blues/rock scene. Upon his move to Houston in 1969, he joined up with Gibbons and Beard in ZZ Top, who had just signed a deal with London Records.

After their first two albums failed to make much of a dent, the band cut Tres Hombres  in 1973. Led by the infectious La Grange – which, with its boogie rhythms, attitude-laden blues licks, grooving bass line and innuendo-filled lyrics, set the template for the band's sound – the album made the band stars. 

After a three-year break between 1976 and 1979 (during which Gibbons and Hill grew their trademark beards), the band returned with Degüello, a success that they followed up with 1983's Eliminator, a hit single-filled smash that made the trio superstars on rock radio and MTV.

Though the band's sound and success ebbed and flowed, Hill's steady, quiet presence and impeccable four-string skills remained a constant, affording the band a stability enjoyed by few of their peers.

Hill had endured hip replacement and shoulder surgeries in recent years, and, earlier this month, missed his first ZZ Top gig in over 50 years due to what the band said were hip problems. His place was filled by the band's longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis.

“It’s a cliché and sounds so simplistic, but it’s down to the three of us genuinely enjoying playing together,” Hill said to Classic Rock about the trio's longevity in 2010. 

“We still love it, and we still get a kick out of being on stage. We also have enough in common to maintain a bond between us but sufficient differences to keep our individuality. And after all this time, we all know what winds up the others and what makes them the people they are.”

Everybody, hold your horses. Wild Custom Guitars, in collaboration with ZZ Top icon Billy Gibbons, may have just released the wildest signature guitar of the year so far – The Billy F. Gibbons Special, which features a unique rotating pickup system.

Aside from the gloriously hot-rodded aesthetic design, modeled after a 1934 Ford Coupe dubbed the 'Whiskey Runner,' the eye-catching electric guitar comes equipped with the boutique brand’s newly designed Gyrock system.

Promising instant and seamless pickup changes thanks to a marvelously ingenious barrel-shaped pickup loading bay, the guitar allows users to effortlessly rotate the pin, granting immediate access to a number of different pickups.

Better yet, the design lets those lucky enough to wield the crazy six-string swap out the pickup barrel for any number of versatile options. An array of expansion packs are available, including a Wild Custom P-90, as well as Seymour Duncan's Lipstick Tube and Antiquity Strat Texas Hot pickups.

The Gyrock system sports two signature BFG pickups – the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates and Seymour Duncan Red Devil – as well as an all-new custom-wound humbucker ominously dubbed The Grizzly.

No matter the pickup configuration, the control layout remains the same, meaning a solitary tone control lines up alongside a master volume knob.

Think the spec sheet has peaked already? Oh contraire, dear reader, for this plucky model is just getting started.

Build-wise, the guitar boasts an Eastern European alder body, which has been treated to a honeycomb chambered structure used for its resonant and sustaining sonic character. 

This is paired with a three-ply Canadian maple neck – joined to the body via threaded bushings and mechanical bolts – as well as a Brazliain pau ferro fretboard, which features a 10”-16” compound radius and 22 Medium Jumbo frets.

Other more tame appointments include Mother of Pearl inlays, Schertler open-gear tuners and a bone nut.

What did the man himself have to say about his wild new signature? Well, quite simply: “WoooooooWeeeeee…!”

Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

The Wild Custom Billy Gibbons signature guitar is available now for $9,999.

For more information, head over to Wild Custom Guitars.

Billy Gibbons shares a Texas flood of live memories: “T-Bone could do it behind his back, doing splits on the floor, standing straight, whatever. He was a fretboard genius“

BACK TO LIVE: “I was, of course, blessed to grow up in Texas, where there are and have been so many amazing guitar players, so I’m going to keep my focus right there at home. From my earliest days to last week, I have seen, and continue to see, remarkable talents all around me.

“Let’s go into the wayback machine and talk about Rocky Hill, the big brother of my compadre Dusty [Hill, ZZ Top bassist]. Rocky has largely been overlooked as one of the great Texas gun slingers behind the six-string. His playing was mean and deliberate. There wasn’t a day where he picked up a guitar and didn’t mean business. I had the great fortune of inheriting his wonderful rhythm section of Frank Beard, the drummer without a beard, and Dusty on bass. 

“Rocky found a nightspot called Miss Irene’s in Houston’s Fourth Ward, which had been a honky-tonk, and persuaded the proprietor, Miss Irene, to let him do Monday nights. Keith Ferguson (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds) was on bass and it was a rare, delightful and grand moment to get to see Rocky cut loose. Rocky Hill doing Blue Monday at Miss Irene’s was something you won’t soon forget.“

“As the curtain is slowly lifting and things begin thawing out from our year-plus-long musical freeze, I recently had the pleasure of hearing B3 organ master Mike Flanigin, who is in the Jungle Show with me and Jimmie Vaughan, tear it up with the lovely Sue Foley at Austin’s Sagebrush Lounge. 

“Then, who should happen to get up and join them on stage but Anson Funderburgh, whose particular blues style enters that hallowed realm and lofty regions where the great American art form called the blues goes to another level. Anson and I were sitting on the sideline, and he was just hoping to be a fly on the wall. 

“I urged him to go tear it up and he did. They did a 20-minute rendition of the instrumental track Don’t Lose Your Cool, a delight from Albert Collins, and once they got it going it was hard to get the car pulled to the curb. It was fierce!

“Having grown up in Texas, I had the opportunity to see a plethora of truly fantastic, wholly original blues guitarists rom all over the state during my formative playing years. Freddie King was from up north in Dallas, Albert Collins was in Houston and Gatemouth Brown was from the Gulf Coast. 

“Each of them was mind-bending each time I could see them – and see them I did. Seeing those guys was great inspiration. Their playing styles were just as inspirational as anyone, and they were so unique that every performance showed how it was possible to do your own thing. That also includes the granddaddy of them all, T-Bone Walker, from down in the Beaumont area.

“Even today, years and years after T-Bone’s passing, there are guitar players – including me! – trying to figure out how he created those remarkable sounds and licks while his guitar was lying flat in front of him. And, of course, T-Bone could do it behind his back, doing splits on the floor, standing straight, whatever. [He was] a fretboard genius who never failed to inspire and remains a delightful force to this day.“

Tom Morello

THE CLASH, THE ARAGON BALLROOM, CHICAGO, 1982

“Seeing that my favorite musician, Joe Strummer, used the exact same little Music Man amp that I had in my mom’s basement made me realize that rock wasn’t something I might be able to do in the future. I was doing it now.”

METALLICA, LOS ANGELES COLISEUM, LOS ANGELES, 1988

“Metallica were sandwiched between Kingdom Come and Dokken on the Monsters of Rock tour. They sounded 10 times louder and 10 times better than any of the bands on the bill, and the entire stadium erupted into a chair-throwing, fence-scaling awesome midday heavy metal riot. I’ve never seen another band deliver such an ass-kicking to the rest of a bill.”

NINE INCH NAILS, LOLLAPALOOZA, 1991

“I had never heard of Nine Inch Nails before the 1991 Lollapalooza tour. Trent Reznor and company put on the most exciting, outrageous, violent, ferocious, industrial punk-metal cage match that I had ever seen on stage. Until that moment, I didn’t think you could ever rock properly with keyboards in a band, but Trent proved me wrong.”

Sarah Longfield

ANIMALS AS LEADERS, THE EAGLES BALLROOM, 2010 

“Seeing Animals As Leaders live for the first time (they were opening a tour for Circa Survive, who I also love!) was incredible. I’d been watching Tosin Abasi’s guitar work online a bit and was really inspired by how out-of-this-world it sounded, so getting to see them live was really inspiring. Tosin was also teaching on that tour, so I managed to get a lesson from him that ended up totally changing the way I approach guitar. I consider that show to have a huge impact on how my guitar style evolved.” 

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN / GENGHIS TRON, THE LOFT, 2007

“This concert was the first I’d been to without a parent (I was 14) and it absolutely blew me away. I only got to catch a bit of Dillinger’s set because I had school the next day haha, but it was monumental in defining them as a huge influence for me. 

“I remember Genghis Tron was also on the bill (another of my favorite bands) and that was the first time I’d ever seen anyone try and blend heavy music with screaming AND synthesizers in a way I’d never heard done before. It was perfectly heavy, hypnotic and crushing. Genghis Tron also just released a new album after a long hiatus – you should absolutely check it out!”

Eric Johnson

PETER GABRIEL, AUSTIN COLISEUM, AUSTIN, 1982 

“I saw Peter Gabriel during his tour for the album Security. It’s one of my favorite records, so to see him perform it live was really special. The whole show was brilliant – the presentation, the mix. After all these years, I still remember how I felt when the band played the song San Jacinto – it was so overwhelmingly powerful, like a spiritual experience. I had tears in my eyes. The next day, I read a review with the headline: ‘Peter Gabriel – pretentious and boring.’ Really?”

John Petrucci

RUSH, NASSAU COLISEUM, LONG ISLAND, NY, 1982

“My first concert. I was 12, and I can still remember it like it was yesterday. The whole arena smelled like pot – I’ll never forget that. At that time, Rush were like these mythical figures to me; they didn’t exist in the real world. Suddenly, there they were, in the same place as me – I couldn’t believe it. Even though I had terrible seats, I didn’t care. When they played La Villa Strangiato, Alex Lifeson did a solo that ripped my face off. Everything about the show was phenomenal. It was very inspiring.”

TOMMY EMMANUEL, TOWN HALL, NEW YORK CITY, 2018

“My wife, Rena, and I went to see Tommy play a solo show in Manhattan, and man, it was such a beautiful experience. Watching Tommy play was like seeing the reason the guitar was invented. His talent is just beyond words, but he also draws you in with his warmth and humor. We were in the second row, and I guess he spotted me and knew who I was, because he asked for me to come backstage and say hi. He was so nice to Rena and me. It was great to make that personal connection with him.”

Vernon Reid

FUNKADELIC, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1973

“My first concert experience dovetailed with the first album I bought with my own money – Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop. I saw them when they were on a bill with Rare Earth and the headliners, War, at Madison Square Garden. Funkadelic were explosive, a driving spectacle of rock and funk. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life. Eddie Hazel destroying Maggot Brain was a standout feature of that show.”

MUDDY WATERS, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS, 1980

“In 1980, I played Europe for the first time with Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society at the world-renowned North Sea Jazz Festival at The Hague in Netherlands. After taking my first flight in a jet plane and checking in to my first fancy hotel room (while standing next to the legendary Mr. Dizzy Gillespie), I witnessed Muddy Waters’ All-Star Blues featuring Pinetop Perkins on piano, James Cotton on harp and Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy on second guitar. It was an incredible show, the spirit of blues boogie made fully manifest. Muddy Waters was in top form, and the band was on fire. This still remains the greatest show I ever had the privilege to attend.”

SOUNDGARDEN, HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM, NEW YORK CITY, 2012

“Soundgarden is my favorite band of early '90s era other than my own – we were both Lollapalooza alumni. Like Living Colour, Soundgarden also had a breakup and hiatus. King Animal marked their triumphant return, and the Hammerstein Ballroom show did not disappoint. 

”Chris Cornell was in full, glorious voice, and Kim Thayil, one of my favorite electric iconoclasts, was on fire. Drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepard epically navigated the odd times and tunings of their alt/metal/prog music that still moves me so powerfully. The Day I Tried to Live gave me solace at a dark time in my life. It was the last time I would see Chris Cornell live.”

Joe Bonamassa

DICKEY BETTS/GREGG ALLMAN, COLEMAN’S, ROME, NY, 1983

“My first concert was the Dickey Betts Band opening for Gregg Allman’s solo band at Coleman’s in Rome, New York. It was in the summer of 1983. I was 6 and my father snuck me in. [It was] a life-changing event. Warren Haynes was on guitar with Dickey, and Dan Toler played guitar for Gregg. It was the first time I saw a sunburst Les Paul played in anger. The first time I saw real pros.”

B.B. KING, HAMPTON BEACH CASINO BALLROOM, HAMPTON, NH, 1991

“I opened the show for Mr. King, who was on fire this particular night. He was 66 and still as vibrant as he was when he recorded Live at the Regal [in 1964]. His singing and playing on The Letter were so soulful that I started weeping. It was the first time I ever cried because of music. I was 13 years old and forever changed.” 

DANNY GATTON, JOHNNY D’S, BOSTON, 1990

“The greatest display of Americana guitar playing I have ever seen in my life. Danny had invited me to sit in on that mini run he was doing on the East Coast. He had his ’53 Telecaster, a modified Vibrolux and a Super Reverb. I have never witnessed any type of musician with such mastery and command of an instrument. He personified the idea that putting in the work pays off. He also loved the gear. He inspired me to be a nerd like him.” 

Reeves Gabrels

JEAN-LUC PONTY BAND, PALLADIUM, NEW YORK CITY, 1977

“This pretty intense night began with Larry Coryell/Alphonse Mouzon followed by the Lenny White band with guitarists Jamie Glaser and Joaquin Lieviano. Al Di Meola sat in for two epic songs. Daryl Stuermer was the guitarist in Jean-Luc Ponty’s band, and I thought, ‘After all that awesomeness, I wouldn’t want to be in Daryl’s shoes.’ I needn’t have worried for him: He was the picture of grace, fire and elegance, owning the bandstand and the night. I learned three things that night: Always be true to yourself as a soloist. Count on the fire. And never underestimate Daryl Stuermer.“

TALKING HEADS, ORPHEUM THEATRE, BOSTON, 1980 

“This was the new, expanded Remain in Light-era nine-member band. It was Fela Kuti and P-Funk go to art school. What I wasn’t prepared for was Adrian Belew. They slowly expanded the band through the first few songs, unleashing Adrian at the end of Psycho Killer.

“Guitar as a pure sound source – but under complete control of the operator. I had never seen or heard anyone do that. I went home that night and stared at my Stratocaster leaning against the wall. How and what the fuck was Adrian thinking? Mind blown.” 

Gretchen Menn

JEFF BECK, TEMPE MUSIC FESTIVAL, TEMPE, AZ, 2006

“I was surprised to find myself unsuccessfully suppressing tears at a rock show. Though almost everyone I admire waxes poetic about Jeff  Beck’s playing, I hadn’t been able to fully get into it… until I experienced it live. I can only describe it as stunning, bordering on spiritual. 

“Beyond his legendary phrasing, dynamics, breadth of sonic expression, raw emotion and fearlessness, his characteristic magic and mojo is something difficult to describe and must be appreciated live. Now having seen at least a half dozen Jeff Beck shows, I’ve learned I’m not alone in being moved to tears when he plays A Day in the Life.’” 

DANIELE GOTTARDO, GUITARE EN SCÈNE, SAINT-JULIEN-EN-GENEVOIS, FRANCE, 2016 

“This is a huge guitar celebration in an idyllic location. In 2016, Carlos Santana and Joe Satriani headlined, and an array of guitar heroes were on the bill, including Daniele Gottardo. Daniele’s music is intricate and virtuosic, distinctive in that he blends electric guitar with chamber orchestra. 

“Knowing him as I do – he’s my best friend, hero and, as of 2019, my husband – I’ve seen the brilliance but also the struggles and sacrifices that go into his work. To watch him perform so powerfully under conditions he and his music merit was profoundly beautiful.”  

Nita Strauss

IN FLAMES, THE WILTERN, LOS ANGELES, 2004

“I was 17, freshly off my first few weekend runs and summer tours with my band at the time when In Flames came through LA with Killswitch Engage, who were about to release The End of Heartache. Both bands were incredible, but when In Flames started their set with those incredible dueling guitar harmonies, my heart was just beating out of my chest. I had never heard guitar tones sound that huge on stage! Sounds crazy, but I was almost in tears at the sheer energy and power in the room that night.”

QUEEN, FIRE FIGHT AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY, 2020

“This was actually one of the last shows I performed at. I was in Australia with Alice Cooper, and we joined a charity bill at the last minute to support bushfire relief efforts. Queen was the headliner that day. I had been friendly with Brian May’s guitar tech before our set, and when Queen went on, he let me sit side stage with him. 

“Those guys keep their amps loud! So hearing Brian May’s soulful, melodic playing so close was unreal. I felt the rush of the audience singing along to the melodies of his guitar solos wash over me, and it really solidified just why those songs, those solos are so iconic.”

Steve Stevens

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1973 

“This was my first real concert. I went with my best friends, and as soon as we entered the arena, the smell of ‘wacky tabacky’ was overwhelming. We felt like we were among our people, our tribe. The show was on a massive scale for its time: quadraphonic sound. 

“ELP were the first band to use an actual lighting truss with rear projection. They were supporting Brain Salad Surgery, and the concert was the perfect combination of mind-numbing musicianship and big-time showmanship. Watching these guys from England do their thing was like seeing Martians who had just landed on stage.”

YES, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1974

“Touring behind Tales from Topographic Oceans, Yes presented themselves on a grand scale with lighting designed by their album artist, Roger Dean. I had waited since 1972 to see my favorite guitarist, Steve Howe, and I had learned much of his music, so I was glued to him. He really was the ultimate rock guitarist. 

“The band sounded incredible – you could hear every note. I remember shaking my head in disbelief at how damn good they were. They opened to a tape of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. To this day, hearing the finale of that piece brings me right back to being a 14-year-old kid, thinking, ‘One day… I will play that stage.’” 

PRINCE, THE RITZ, NEW YORK CITY, 1980 

“I didn’t know who Prince was, but my manager at the time, Bill Aucoin, got me a ticket and said, ‘Go see this guy.’ As I got up to the balcony of the Ritz, I saw Mick Jagger and Tina Turner at a table. I thought, ‘Wow. Who the hell is this guy?’ Out came this little dynamo – black trench coat and panties. Girls were screaming and going wild. 

“By the second song, Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?, I was speechless. I knew I was witnessing greatness. His band was powerful, as well – guitarist Dez Dickerson played his ass off. Over the years, I saw Prince many times, but that first time felt like I was watching something historic.”

Eric Burton (Black Pumas)

RICHIE HAVENS, WOODSTOCK, 1969

“[The performance of] Richie Havens doing a cover of the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever. Anytime I get to revisit Richie, it’s always very special. I love guitarists for their originality in how they elevate songs in their playing. Richie took an unorthodox disposition to strumming the chords of the song while also adding his own chords to the mix for an exceedingly original rendition of a popular song we’re used to hearing a certain way.” 

Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas)

GUNS N’ ROSES, LIVE AT THE RITZ, 1988

“I was too young to watch it when it aired on MTV, but I somehow knew about it, tuned in live and made a night of it on my parents’ TV. GNR were still an up-and-coming band playing a small club, and they performed the most amazing badass shit I’d ever seen on TV. I always thought Slash was cool, but that night I was fixated on Izzy Stradlin. He was the coolest dude on stage, playing the coolest riffs. He was more subdued than the rest of the band, but he also looked like he’d cut you with a switchblade.”

MARC RIBOT, SESSIONS AT WEST 54TH

“A short-lived show in the late-'90s/early 2000s, Sessions at West 54th turned me on to a lot of music that was not on my radar in those days. I remember seeing Marc Ribot on at least two episodes – with his own Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos, and playing lead guitar with Chocolate Genius.

“Ribot was at the intersection of everything I loved as a guitarist – avant-garde jazz, Latin music, rock, blues – and I be-came a huge fan instantly. He was the weirdest guitarist I had ever seen on TV, and he opened my world to all kinds of different music.” 

Ricky Byrd

THE ROLLING STONES, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1975 

“This is the tour in which they had the ‘lotus flower’ stage that opened to form a star. At the start of the show, the first thing you heard was the cowbell to Honky Tonk Women, followed by Charlie Watts’ snare that led into Keith Richards’ guitar riff. 

“Slowly, the flower petals started to open, and there was Mick Jagger hanging on to one of the points of the star. I still get the chills thinking about it. All of these details are the reasons why I pressed on as a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player. Hard times or flush, I was absolutely committed to my path.”

THE WHO, FOREST HILLS TENNIS STADIUM, FOREST HILLS, NY, 1971 

“This tour was for Who’s Next, and the show was filled with tunes from that record as well as all the other great songs you wanted to hear. Pete smashed his guitar, Roger twirled the mic, the Ox’s bass shook the stadium, and of course, Moon was a madman. I remember Keith jumping on John’s back at the end and doing a tumblesault onto the stage. I still have the tour book from the show.” 

Reb Beach

PINK FLOYD, THREE RIVERS STADIUM, PITTSBURGH, 1988

“One of the coolest concerts I ever saw. While we waited for the show, my friend and I heard these weird, metallic noises behind us. The sounds got louder and louder till they were at concert volume. This went on for 10 minutes, and it was freaking me out.

“Suddenly, the curtain dropped and the band played an awesome song. In the middle of the show, the giant inflatable pigs deflated and dropped to the ground; meanwhile, the band made these falling noises with their instruments. It was freaky.” 

THE WHO/THE B-52S/ JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS, TANGERINE BOWL, ORLANDO, 1982

“I’ll never forget seeing the Who when they had the B-52s opening – one of the worst pairings of bands ever. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts were also on the bill, and they rocked hard, which might be why the B-52s weren’t appreciated. I liked the B-52s, but apparently nobody else did. The crowd booed and threw fruit and vegetables on stage. Where they got fruit and vegetables, I have no idea, but the stage was covered with the stuff. The band had to stop playing after two songs. I had never seen something like that happen before.”

Jimmy James (Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio)

SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS, THE MOORE THEATER, SEATTLE 2016

“I saw Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings many times in Seattle because they were my musical heroes of modern soul music. I slowly got to know them and tell them what they meant to me, especially guitarists Tommy ‘TNT’ Brenneck and Binky Griptite (who backed Amy Wine-house on Back to Black with the Dap-Kings), and about the impact they had on me when it comes to soul/funk in today’s era. 

“This night was particularly special and bittersweet, because Sharon invited me up to sing to me, but she also had me sit in and play with them. It’s not often musicians get to say they got to play alongside their heroes. The bittersweet part is that it was Sharon Jones’ last big performance in Seattle before her unfortunate passing a few months later [November 18, 2016].”

A clip of Steven Tyler and Billy Gibbons performing Fleetwood Mac's Oh Well at the Mick Fleetwood & Friends tribute concert has been shared online.

It sees the Aerosmith and ZZ Top frontmen trade lead vocal duties on the 1969 Then Play On cut, while Gibbons also lays down some killer, gained-up electric guitar lines with former Fleetwood Mac six-stringer Rick Vito.

The footage is taken from the star-studded Peter Green tribute event, which took place on February 25, 2020, and saw performances from Kirk Hammett, David Gilmour, John Mayall, Jeremy Spencer, Christine McVie, Zak Starkey, Pete Townshend, Noel Gallagher and more.

Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate The Music Of Peter Green And The Early Years Of Fleetwood Mac is now available in three formats, a quadruple vinyl version, a 2CD/Blu-ray edition that includes a 20-page Mediabook, and a Super Deluxe edition.

The latter also features a 44-page hardback book with notes by Anthony Bozza, co-author of Mick Fleetwood's memoir Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac. 

“The concert was a celebration of those early blues days where we all began," says Mick Fleetwood, "and it’s important to recognize the profound impact Peter and the early Fleetwood Mac had on the world of music. Peter was my greatest mentor and it gave me such joy to pay tribute to his incredible talent. 

"I was honored to be sharing the stage with some of the many artists Peter has inspired over the years and who share my great respect for this remarkable musician."

To pick up a copy of Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate The Music Of Peter Green And The Early Years Of Fleetwood Mac, head to the Mick Fleetwood & Friends store.

ZZ Top singer and electric guitar legend Billy Gibbons has announced his third solo album, Hardware, for release on June 4 via Concord Records.

Gibbons is backed on the album by guitarist Austin Hanks and former Guns N’ Roses, the Cult and Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum – the same team that supported him on his previous solo effort, 2018’s The Big Bad Blues.

You can check out the first single, West Coast Junkie, below.

Hardware was recorded at Escape Studio near Palm Springs, CA, and produced by Gibbons along with Sorum and Mike Fiorentino, with engineer Chad Shlosser providing additional production. 

In addition to West Coast Junkie, the album boasts 10 Gibbons-Sorum-Fiorentino-Shlosser originals, along with a cover of Hey Baby, Que Paso, originally recorded by the Texas Tornados.

According to Gibbons, the album’s title is a tribute to the late Joe Hardy, the legendary recording engineer who worked with Gibbons and ZZ Top dating back to the mid-1980s. 

Sonically, meanwhile, Hardware was influenced by the “high desert circumstance of its recording.”

Says Gibbons, “The desert settings, replete with shifting sands, cacti and rattlesnakes makes for the kind of backdrop that lends an element of intrigue reflected in the sounds created out there.” 

Standouts on the record, which incorporates elements of “traditional hard rock, neo-metal, country rock, new wave, blues and even surf music,” include Stackin’ Bones, featuring a guest appearance from Larkin Poe, and Desert High, the spoken-word-and-guitar closer.

Summing up Hardware, Gibbons said: “We holed up in the desert for a few weeks in the heat of the summer and that in itself was pretty intense. To let off steam we just ‘let it rock’ and that’s what Hardware is really all about. For the most part, it’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery.”

Hardware is out on June 4 via Concord Records and available to preorder now.

Cars and electric guitars have always been intertwined as closely as the pinstripes on a custom Les Paul. DuPont’s Lake Placid Blue Metallic paint graced both Fender Strats and the starship-like cars of the late '50s, such as the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. 

Yet that was far from the only example of crossover between six-string and four-wheeled worlds, as Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues from 1936 attests. The ‘Terraplane’ of the song’s title was an elegant vehicle built by the Hudson Motor Car Company in the same era, making the song an early example of the car cult that later guitarists such as Eddie Cochrane would amplify through rock ’n’ roll hits such as Somethin’ Else.

Guitars and custom cars were, then as now, both symbols of freedom and breathtaking pieces of industrial art. And few men have more feeling for that thrilling connection than Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top. 

Fueled by the band’s prodigious chart successes, Billy has built up a mind-blowing collection of vintage and custom-built guitars, most of which have been used on milestone ZZ recordings - while his outrageous chopped, modded and pinstriped vintage cars often appeared in the band’s videos and album art.

Now, via the pages of a new book, Rock + Roll Gearhead, Billy’s throwing open the doors of his garage to curious visitors. We joined him for a chat about his dual collections and indulged in a personal tour of his most prized custom guitars, many of which share the same design DNA as his hot-rod cars.

What was your first ‘proper’ guitar?

“Sunburst Gibson Melody Maker from 1962. Single cutaway, single pickup. Simple. Straight to the point. Showed up on Christmas Day after turning 13. Ain’t no turning back now!”

You have a superb, ever-growing collection of guitars. Are you still driven to find guitars to fill niches in your music?

“Our curiosity surrounding the many strange creatures in the land of the six-string led us to checking out the personality quirks that lurk beneath the hood of a wide range of electrics. The search remains intact to this day to track the next ‘good one’. Good news is that quality has returned to production. Lots of great stuff off the assembly line.”

Your book features some great shots of your 1955 hardtail ‘La Grange’ Strat. Do you think hardtail Strats have something special going on?

“Definitely so! The hardtail Strat is way different from the trem models as the sound is tighter. Strats with a trem have a very different ring as the back-mounted springs add something quite different from the hardtail versions. 

"I’ve learned from many Strat players, noting that distinctive lingering effect from string to string, note to note.”

How did you come to acquire the original ’61 Lil Red SG?

“There was a great four-piece combo, The VanTels, in Houston, three guitars and a drummer. They released an instrumental single, Memo To Maxie, featuring the ’61 Les Paul, known as Lil Red, as the solo instrument. 

"We retrieved Lil Red from extinction thanks to our pal, Scott Thompson who tracked it after it showed up in Texas Tom Slaughter’s shop way back when. We’ve enjoyed its Vibrola ghostly driven effect on the ZZ cut Vincent Price Blues. 

"The additional incarnation can be seen in the vid-clip, Missin’ Yo’ Kissin when I saddled up with Austin Hanks playing the left-hand, right-hand blackened versions of a modern-day Lil Red.”

You’ve used a few Esquires and Esquire-derived Customs over the years - what does the Esquire offer, in your view, that the Tele doesn’t?

“Simplicity. It’s right down to basics with the Esquire. Single pickup, single cutaway. It gets straight to the point. I’ve conspired to play the upstart Esqy with a couple of pals, namely Brad Paisley and Redd Volkaert, both known for their amazing talents behind the infamous Telecaster, and, at the same time, they too, admire the sheer simplicity of the Esquire. No frills. No nothing except outright ‘get it on’. Nuff said!”

Some of your best-known customs were made by luthier John Bolin. How did you meet him and how did you start working together? Also, what keeps you coming back for more?

“Bolin, yes! The productions from his shop are stunning. It’s a rare opportunity that shows up now and again that brings excellence in artist application to the party. And Bolin Guitars deliver the goods every time. 

"Since the casual introduction in Boise, Idaho in 1983, JB always embraces the most challenging and dramatic electric guitar expressions that one might imagine. The prime element underlying the Bolin touch is exacting detail completing the productions. It’s a remarkable talent that tags his stuff as ‘superb’."

He’s made some pretty wild, outrageous stuff for you - have you ever presented him with a guitar-building challenge that even he didn’t know how to approach?

“Well, as mentioned, Bolin actually enjoys getting outside the box. We have taken Bolin deliveries with some of the wackiest examples of a luthier’s surprise attack, doing the so-called ‘impossible’. We’re presently scheming another wave of weird for Mr JB!”

The Axhandle Guitar Works instrument with a two-piece neck separated by a rifle’s flash muzzle really had us scratching our heads. How does it work?

“Haha! In the new book. Gotta check it out. It’s totally functional! Both necks. The flash muzzle separates the two independent, working necks. The headstock segment is fixed and the strings are tuned to a static C6th. 

"We took inspiration from Houston’s amazing flat-steel guitarist, Hop Wilson, whose recordings showcase his out-of-bounds tunings. He split the eight strings into a four-and-four tuning, the top half strung to C6 and the lower strings tuned to D. 

"In similar fashion, the Axhandle is a two-handed play... ya reach out with the right hand to strike every other measure then, return to regular strumming as the song progresses. It’s a grand time playing one chord throughout.”

How has your love of custom cars informed your love of custom guitars - and vice versa?

“It’s a mad dash to the finish line. Seems when one or the other nears completion, the idea stream flushes a wave of new possibilities. The rigors of the touring trail keeps us enjoying mile after mile trekking down the asphalt when the imagination and creativity run wild.”

Pin-striping looks great on both cars and guitars - who do you think is the best pin- striper around?

“It’s fair to say the mentor of custom-car and hot-rod pinstriping originated in part with the master, Von Dutch. It’s the Von Dutch touch that holds place with a lot of stylistic line draggers around the globe. He’s one of the greats.”

Are there any rare guitars that have so far eluded you that you’d like to have but currently don’t?

“I’m still admiring one of the strangest solidbody electrics, one held by our pal The Edge from U2... That’s the electric the fashion house Gucci commissioned - yes, that Gucci - back in 2000, by bespoke British luthier Mark Nicol. 

"Who’da thought clothing fashion would reach a high note in electric-guitar shaping?”

What’s the best-sounding guitar you own?

“Pearly Gates. No holds barred... Let’s git it!”

Rock + Roll Gearhead by Billy Gibbons with Tom Vickers and photography by David Perry is out now from Motorbooks.

The collection

Moix ‘KruiZZerhed’ Custom

“A custom offering from the artistic talents of Bernard Moix, Switzerland’s leading exponent of cars, guitars and motorcycles. This one was fabricated in the fine tradition of my 1950 Ford ‘Kopperhed.' 

"This classically styled instrument features a rolled and pleated pickguard, a machined engine-styled valve-cover bridge, Ford key ignition switch, single knob and a single pickup arrangement. 

"The guitar, nicknamed KruiZZerhed, is a righteous machine... an original set of Kluson tuning keys, a round-button '50s string retainer, an engine-turned control plate, and the specially numbered pearl inlay position markers complement the 1950 baby Ford hubcap. Surrounded with hot-rod details, this beach beauty evokes the pleasures of pop, hop and bop.”

Neiman Marcus Custom BFG SG

“The Neiman Marcus Custom BFG SG... another challenge to the House of JBL. John Bolin took to the task of reimagining a classic as if the history books of Gibson guitars were being rewritten during the wee hours out in Las Vegas. 

"The finely terraced mahogany top curves gracefully toward the control knobs, leaving the original 1961 Vibrola tailpiece intact. This design... splashed across the pages of a Neiman Marcus fantasy catalogue. A player’s delight!”

Bolin Guitars ‘Tiki’

“This is the Bolin Guitars expression of ‘Tuff meets Tiki’; the elegance of a single pickup powering the bamboo body and neck speaks of rustic times. The simplicity of a ‘war club’ design ethic makes it purely primitive. This guitar brought a supercharged aim to the recording direction of the Rhythmeen sessions. Exotic and hypnotic.”

1965 Fender 'California' Jaguar

“This is the ’65 California Jaguar that was customized and modified in Fullerton around 1969... the surf-shop-stickered guitar. One bridge pickup, engine-turned metal pickguard shielding onboard, signal-boosting circuitry, and there’s a light-up dial under the strings, which, though visibly pleasing, is totally useless. 

"Who’s gonna look at a gauge needle in the heat of a rippin’ moment of madness?! A weird piece in guitar design history. This instrument, acquired in ’73, is heard on three tracks recorded for the Tejas album. Choice axe.”

Nacho Baños De Valencia Leo Fender Special

“From the handwritten notes straight off the desk of none other than Leo Fender comes this intriguing '50s recreation by our notorious Fender freak, Nacho Baños de Valencia in España. Nacho selected a few choice entries from Leo’s files to create this Leo Fender Special and scribed the instructions with Day-Glo ink onto the body of this sensational six-string. This thing is strong! Read the directives carefully... Leo wants it right. And right on it is.”

Bolin Guitars Jellybean

“Another from Bolin Guitars... Jellybean pushes a really hard sound. An overblown Explorer shape, it’s actually a flat-back instrument with a huge, balloon-like top, super-lightweight construction, monochromatic finish, and active electronics. 

"The overall body thickness tops the four-inch mark. A wacky treatment of a traditional design... It’s too much.”

Headless Fender Stratocaster

A matched Strat and Precision bass were dreamed up for the first ZZ Top video, 'Gimme All Your Lovin,' when headless guitars were making the scene. Stock Fenders were taken off the shelf to the workshop backroom where the headstocks were immediately hacked off! The pinstripes were part of ZZ Top’s fixation on hot-rods, so on went the lines. 

"The white finish and tortoiseshell pickguards are pure '60s Fender. How do you tune this thing!? Not exactly playable, but who cares!? This is the movies.”

Cream T has introduced the Super Scanner series of guitar pickups, a new line touted as featuring exact electronic reproductions of famous single-coils and humbuckers.

Appropriately, the company is launching the series with the Billy Gibbons WhiskerBucker set, designed to recreate the tone of the ZZ Top man’s famed Pearly Gates ’59 Les Paul Burst.

The neck humbucker boasts an approximate output of 8.3k, while the bridge comes in at roughly 8.2k. The pickups come boxed in a luxury display case and bundled with Dunlop Billy Gibbons merch.

According to Cream T. the WhiskerBucker set, as well as all future Super Scanner series offerings, utilize a “patented analog spectrum recorder to recreate 100% mirror-imaging of legendary pickups across the board.”

If that sounds enticing, the WhiskerBucker is now available for preorder for £399 (approx. $497), in aged aluminum, with a choice of silver or red pole pieces.

For more information, head over to Cream T.

About a decade ago, ZZ Top guitarist extraordinaire Billy F. Gibbons sat down with Gretsch Billy-Bo in hand to give us a lesson in playing the blues tunes that inspired him to play electric guitar.

We not only got the lesson, we got it on video! Below, we’ve provided the video, along with the relevant TAB figures for the parts that Billy plays. To help you follow along, we’ve provided the quote from Billy associated with each figure, as well as the time at which the figure appears in the video.

Figure 1 (0:22)

“One good starting point for learning the blues might be to go back to the roots with Jimmy Reed. It doesn’t get much simpler than this.”

Figure 2 (1:02)

“Jimmy Reed was accompanied by Eddie Taylor, who complemented that particular riff with this move [a IV-I change, with a b3rd-3rd grace slur]. And you can combine the two.”

Figure 3 (1:40)

“And, of course, the famous answer [turnaround], from the V back to the I, goes all the way back to Robert Johnson.”

Figure 4 (1:54)

“And then Elmore James comes in [with the classic Dust My Broom lick].”

Figure 5

“The second most important thing is to learn your I and V [Gibbons is referring to playing 6th intervals]. In the key of A, it sounds like this.”

Figure 5A (2:48)

Figure 5B (3:20)

Figure 6 (4:25)

“Now, one of my favorite cornerstone licks of the blues comes from B.B. King, and that is sliding up to the I [root] from the I. That’s my all-time favorite - the I on I.”

Figure 7 (5:00)

“Now we’re starting to get into the real, real finite side of things with harmonics. You don’t necessarily have to use a pick either [plays pinch harmonics with his pick-hand fingers].”

Born into a musical family, Billy Gibbons was playing in bands by age 14 - first with the Saints, then Billy G and the Ten Blue Flames, the Coachmen and the Moving Sidewalks, who were signed and recording before Gibbons was 18. Of course, it was ZZ Top that brought the guitarist major success.

With a unique brand of down ’n’ dirty blues-rock, the Texas trio’s early hits included La Grange and Tush, and, in 1983, Eliminator sent them into the musical stratosphere.

As for tone, Gibbons’ 1959 'Pearly Gates' Gibson Les Paul and white-fur-covered Gibson Explorer are the stuff of legend, but, with a huge collection to draw from, you’ll see various guitars in his hands (including the Mojo Maker on the facing page). 

Still, a humbucker-equipped axe and a rich, tube-driven tone are a good start for a ballpark Gibbons sound. Amp-wise, the guitarist has used Fender tweeds and Marshall Plexis in his day, although he’s an enthusiastic fan of Magnatone lately.

Skinny strings (as low as .07- or .08) and a Mexican peso coin for a pick are the icing on Gibbons’ harmonic-laden tonal cake.

ZZ Top’s songs are littered with minor pentatonic lines alongside traditional blues licks, plus Gibbons’ trademark pinch harmonic 'squealies'. We’re also looking at shuffle (swing-eighths) riffs, pick-and-fingers-style playing and two-note chord shapes. Let’s dive in!

1. Easy ZZ

In FIGURE 1, we outline a ZZ Top-style shuffle riff, using the pick on the bass notes and plucking the higher strings with the bare fingers, a technique known as hybrid picking.

The low notes are palm-muted to help the more melodic stuff on the D and G strings cut through. Find a comfy spot on your guitar’s bridge where you can rest your pick hand to mute the low strings.

2. Just got played

Much of the advice from FIGURE 1 applies to FIGURE 2, although you’ll notice that the second half of the four-bar phrase is less tight and focused, introducing some pull-offs and allowing notes to ring together.

There are times when your fourth finger will be the best option here (the fifth fret in bar 3, for example), so be prepared to make use of this oft-neglected digit.

3. Blues licks and pinch harmonics

The lick in FIGURE 3 incorporates bluesy finger slides and quarter-step bends. There’s an element of “feel” here, so be patient and let your technique develop gradually. Notice the pinch harmonics in bar 4 (indicated by the abbreviation P.H.).

The trick here is to lightly graze the string with your pick-hand thumb as you pick a downstroke over one of the harmonic nodes on the string, in the area over the pickups.

Dial in a bright, overdriven tone to help generate a squeal. You’ll need to “troll” up and down the length of the string as you pick to locate those exact sweet spots where the harmonic nodes are located.

4. Traditional blues influences

FIGURE 4 is based on Gibbons’ take on a traditional blues line, and it’ll groove better and “sing” with some finger vibrato. Be sure to let the notes in bar 1 ring together!

There are a couple of pinch harmonics in bar 4. Touch the string with the side of your pick-hand thumb approximately 24 frets above the fretted note for a loud, clean squeal.

This is obviously a theoretical location beyond the fretboard, so estimate where that harmonic node would be, and 'hunt and peck' until you find it.

5. Sharp-picked run

We’re getting a little more sophisticated with the phrase in FIGURE 5, but it’s more about the finer details than any especially complex licks - typical Gibbons!

Keep a close eye on the quarter-step bends and see how much they add to the feel by alternately playing the line without them. The fifth- to sixth-fret hammer-on in bar 1 is a cool blues idea used by many players.

RELEASED: NOVEMBER 14
STANDOUT TRACK: “I’M BAD, I’M NATIONWIDE”

Degüello, ZZ Top’s finest album to date at the time of its release, proves that the “Little Ol’ Band from Texas” was continuing to refine their unique brand of boogie, fusing their knack for a humorous lyric to a more focused take on their trademark sound. GW cover star Billy Gibbons has always been a master of tone and taste - that rare breed of guitar hero who sounds like he’s still got plenty left in the tank and doesn’t blow the goods in every solo. Their visual impact was refined by the time Degüello was released, and they looked pretty much like the band that stormed the gates of MTV a few years later, astonishing long-time fans by turning Texas blues into megahit territory with the addition of samplers and sequencers. 

Ironically, this album was the first to see them dip a toe into the techno waters with the use of clavinet on “I Thank You,” yet it sounds as rootsy as they’d ever sound. Not to state the obvious, but for more about Gibbons and ZZ Top, be sure to check out this month’s cover story!

Jeff Beck has owned and played any number of cool guitars over the course of his 50-plus-year career. But when it comes to his favorite, he says nothing compares to a Fender Stratocaster.

Speaking with Total Guitar awhile back, Beck says that compared to a Gibson Les Paul or Fender Telecaster, “My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me.

“It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

“A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.

“With the Strat, instantly it becomes mine, so that’s why I’ve welded myself to that. Or it’s welded itself to me, one or the other.”

Beck also said the Strat inspires him to dig deeper.

“I’m an experimenter. It’s rich because every album I’ve done, except for a couple of techno-y records, are different. Really you’ve got to hand it to the Fender Strat, because there are songs in [that guitar]. It’s a tool of great inspiration and torture at the same time because it’s forever sitting there challenging you to find something else in it, but it is there if you really search.

“It does respond to touch and the tonal variation is unlimited really, especially with the whammy bar. I have it set up so it becomes almost like a pedal steel.”

Beck is featured in ZZ Top’s live video for “Sixteen Tons,” from the group’s 2016 compilation album Live—Greatest Hits from Around the World. The video is shown below.

ZZ Top will release Goin’ 50, a career-spanning collection that collects material beginning with the band’s 1969 debut through to their most recent releases. Additionally, two bonus tracks, "Salt Lick" and "Miller's Farm"—a single and b-side, respectively—were recorded in 1969 by the original incarnation of ZZ Top.

Goin’ 50 will be released as a three-CD or five-LP set on August 16 via Warner Bros. Records. A single-CD version with 18 tracks, as well as digital and streaming versions, will be available June 14. 

ZZ Top also recently detailed their 50th anniversary tour, which kicks off August 16 in Washington. The outing will feature support from Cheap Trick, with Lynyrd Skynyrd onboard for two shows in Irvine and Concord, California.

“It’s been five decades, and I think we’re starting to get pretty good at all this,” ZZ Top guitarist and singer Billy Gibbons said in a statement. “We’re truly excited to be appearing across the continent this summer and fall, playing our bluesy kind of rock like we started in ’69. The beards, Frank [Beard]’s excepted, are perhaps a bit longer, yet nothing else has changed.  We’re keeping it that way.”

You can check out the full track list for Goin’ 50 below. 

For more information, head over to zztop.com.

Goin' 50 track list:
Disc One

1.  "La Grange"
2.  "Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers"
3.   "Tush"
4.   "Salt Lick" 
5.   "Miller's Farm" 
6.   "(Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree" 
7.   "Francine"
8.  "Heard It On The X"
9.  "It's Only Love"
10. "Arrested For Driving While Blind"
11. "Enjoy And Get It On"
12. "I Thank You"
13. "Cheap Sunglasses"
14. "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide"
15. "Leila"
16. "Tube Snake Boogie"
17. "Pearl Necklace"

Disc Two 

1.  "Gimme All Your Lovin'"
2.  "Got Me Under Pressure"
3.  "Sharp Dressed Man"
4.  "TV Dinners"
5.  "Legs"
6.  "Sleeping Bag"
7.   "Can't Stop Rockin'"
8.  "Stages"
9.  "Rough Boy"
10. "Delirious"
11. "Woke Up With Wood"
12. "Velcro Fly"
13. "Doubleback"
14. "Concrete And Steel"
15. "My Head's In Mississippi"
16. "Give It Up"
17. "Decision Or Collision"

Disc Three

1. "Viva Las Vegas"
2.  "Gun Love"
3.  "Pincushion"
4.  "Breakaway"
5.  "Girl In A T-Shirt"
6.  "Fuzzbox Voodoo"
7.  "She's Just Killing Me"
8.  "What's Up With That"
9.  "Bang Bang"
10. "Rhythmeen"
11. "Fearless Boogie"
12. "36-22-36"
13. "Piece"
14. "I Gotsta Get Paid"
15. "Waitin' For The Bus" (Live)
16. "Jesus Just Left Chicago" (Live)

ZZ Top have announced the full details of their 50th anniversary tour. The trek, which kicks off August 16 in Washington, will feature support from Cheap Trick, with Lynyrd Skynyrd onboard for two shows in Irvine and Concord, California.

“It’s been five decades, and I think we’re starting to get pretty good at all this,” ZZ Top guitarist and singer Billy Gibbons said in a statement. “We’re truly excited to be appearing across the continent this summer and fall, playing our bluesy kind of rock like we started in ’69. The beards, Frank [Beard]’s excepted, are perhaps a bit longer, yet nothing else has changed.  We’re keeping it that way.”

Tickets for the trek go on sale beginning April 12th. 

For more information, head over to zztop.com.

ZZ Top 50th Anniversary tour dates:

August 16 – Ridgefield, WA @ Sunlight Supply Amphitheatre*
August 17 – Airway Heights, WA @ Northern Quest Casino Theater
August 20 – Yakima, WA @ Yakima Valley SunDome
August 21 – Woodinville, WA @ Chateau Ste. Michelle*
August 23 – Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre**
August 24 – Concord, CA @ Concord Pavilion**
August 25 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre*
August 27 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Arlington Theater
August 28 – San Diego, CA @ Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre*
August 29 – Phoenix, AZ @ Comerica Theatre*
September 1 – Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre*
September 4 – Milwaukee, WI @ BMO Harris Pavilion”
September 6 – Maryland Heights, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre*
September 7 – Tinley Park, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre*
September 8 – Sterling Heights, MI @ Michigan Lottery Amphitheater*
September 10 – Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center *
September 11 – Burgettstown, PA @ KeyBank Pavilion*
September 13 – Ocean City, MD @ Ocean City BikeFest
September 14 – Gilford, NH @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion*
September 18 – Boston, MA @ Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion*
September 19 – Wantagh. NY @ Jones Beach Theater*
September 21 – Cleveland, OH @ Jacobs Pavilion *
September 22 – Louisville, KY @ Champions Park
October 5 – Raleigh, NC @ Walnut Creek Amphitheatre*
October 6 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion*
October 9 – Charleston, SC @ Volvo Cars Stadium*
October 11 – Cherokee, NC @ Harrah’s Cherokee Event Center*
October 12 – Manchester, TN @ Exit 111 Festival
October 13 – Alpharetta, GA @ Verizon Amphitheatre*
October 15 – Augusta, GA @ James Brown Arena*
October 16 -St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheatre*
October 18 – Estero FL @ Hertz Arena*
October 19 – Tampa, FL @ MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre*
October 20 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Coral Sky Amphitheatre*

* with Cheap Trick
**with Lynyrd Skynyrd

This video is a few years old, but if you missed it, it provides a great opportunity to see some of Billy Gibbons’ guitars up-close with narration from Billy himself.

In it, Gibbons and his tech Elwood take DunlopTV’s Bryan Kehoe backstage to show off a few of the guitars that he used on ZZ Top’s tour in support of their La Futura album.

Included are a John Bolin guitar with a chambered body, neck and headstock, a Gibson recreation of Billy’s famous “Pearly Gates” Les Paul, and one of his furry Gretsch guitars in the rectangular Bo Diddley shape, among several others.

William Shatner has shared the video for his version of “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” featuring ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on guitar. You can check out the bonkers clip above.

The song comes off William Shatner's first-ever holiday album, Shatner Claus. In addition to Gibbons, the album also features duets and appearances by Brad Paisley, the Cars' Elliot Easton, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Rick Wakeman, Todd Rundgren and more.

Shatner Claus track listing:

01. Jingle Bells (feat. Henry Rollins) 

02. Blue Christmas (feat. Brad Paisley) 

03. Little Drummer Boy (feat. Joe Louis Walker ) 

04. Winter Wonderland (feat. Todd Rundgren & Artimus Pyle) 

05. Twas the Night Before Christmas (feat. Mel Collins) 

06. Run Rudolph Run (feat. Elliot Easton) 

07. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (feat. Rick Wakeman) 

08. Silver Bells (feat. Ian Anderson) 

09. One for You, One For Me 

10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (feat. Billy Gibbons) 

11. Silent Night (feat. Iggy Pop) 

12. White Christmas (feat. Judy Collins) 

13. Feliz Navidad (feat. Dani Bander)

Bonus track:

14. Jingle Bells (feat Henry Rollins) (punk rock version)

Never let it be said that Billy Gibbons isn’t honest. When Guitar World calls the legendary ZZ Top guitarist on his cell phone and asks him where he is, Gibbons, who is out on tour with the Little Ol’ Band from Texas, readily admits he has no idea. “We were in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and we were pulling up stakes last night but I forgot to ask where we were going,” he admits. “So it’s a bit of a mystery on my end!”

There is at least one thing he’s sure of, however: “I don’t hear the buzz of any slot machines, so I know we’re not in Vegas.”

Of course, anyone who’s been gigging for half a century is allowed a locational lapse here and there. What’s more, Gibbons, now 68, is still moving incredibly fast. Even as he’s out on the road with ZZ Top, he’s gearing up for the release of a new solo album, The Big Bad Blues. The follow-up to his 2015 effort, the Cuban-flavored Perfectamundo, the new album, true to its title, finds Gibbons returning to the sound that has always been at the core of his playing, singing and writing. “It’s a rekindling of our attention on an area from which we came,” he says. “And also where we still live.”

To that end, The Big Bad Blues, in addition to a handful of distortion-drenched deep-in-the-pocket Gibbons originals, finds the guitarist tackling some of his favorite blues tunes from the past, including Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ and Tumblin’ ” and two Bo Diddley songs, “Crackin’ Up” and “Bring It to Jerome.” “We were just having a bit of fun,” he acknowledges.  

In the following interview, the always-engaging Gibbons talks to GW about the new album, his gear, his favorite current blues player and, curiously, the reason he chooses to sleep on the floor. In a word? “Solidity.”

What led you to do a straightforward blues album?

Well, as you may recall, we had an interesting success with the Cuban-inspired project called Perfectamundo. And that moved the Concord Records president, Mr. John Burk, to step forward and extend the invitation. He said, “I’d like to pick up the option to do another record. How would you feel about doing something blues-related?” And I said, “Well, that’s where we came from. Let’s give it a shot.”

How did you pick the material?

Coincidentally, when Burk was reaching out to us I had returned to our studio down in Texas and I ran into a couple musician pals, namely Greg Morrow, the great drummer from Memphis. And subsequent to that I ran into Matt Sorum, another great drummer. And we started up a jam session, attempting to tackle our favorite blues numbers. And the good news was, Mr. Joe Hardy, the engineer extraordinaire, had the tape machines rolling the whole time. And I guess it was the second or third day where he said, “Hey, why don’t you guys take a listen to some of this stuff you’ve been laying down?” And so we listened and I said, “Wow, the sound is not too far from where we were aiming to go anyway.” And we had a couple Muddy Waters tunes, some Bo Diddley stuff, there were even some Jimmy Reed numbers. That got us started in what we thought was the right direction. And from there I started composing some original material that was also aimed at that bluesy side of things. 

What led you to cover the Bo Diddley song “Crackin’ Up”?

That’s one of those songs that’s been covered many times by a number of qualified groups. It unfolded later on in the game because it took the longest time to learn how to play Bo Diddley’s guitar intro. [laughs]

The intro on the original recording is one of those inside-out, upside-down kind of insane compositions. But we were determined to crack the code. So it was an interesting excursion into the unknown.

The Rolling Stones do a great version of “Crackin’ Up” on their Love You Live album. They give it an almost reggae-like feel.

Yeah! That stands out. That’s one of my favorite Stones tracks. They did a bang-up job with it.

You also do “Rollin’ and Tumblin’ ” on the new album. Of all the Muddy Waters songs to choose from, why that one?

I think we were having a bit of fun. We were kind of “metalizing” blues standards and that one, the tempo is insanely fast. But it has an appeal behind it. We were taken with the way it turned out. We said, “Gee whiz, let’s keep it.” So in addition to all of these original compositions we felt some legitimizing factor was behind including what we thought were some of the favorites of those early jam sessions. 

It’s interesting to hear you use the word “metalizing.” One of the things I’ve always noticed about how you approach the blues is that you’re not a traditionalist. Whereas there are some players that try to stick as close to the sound and guitar tones of the originals, you’re not so precious with the material. You do your own thing.

Well, that’s a compliment that I’ll take! We’ve always announced that the closest we can get to the blues is being interpreters. Particularly now, with so many of the originators long gone. So it becomes a challenge of interpretation. But I think another word that has to surround these interpretations is that of “feeling.” If it feels right, then you’re on the right track. And as you point out, we’re certainly not strict traditionalists. It’s more an interpretative stab at the art form.

Do you recall the first blues song that really got you?

Yes. I was about 12 years old, and I had a close friend we called Waltaire. Waltaire Baldwin.

Waltaire?

His given name was Walter, but we thought that was too plain. Because even at 12 years old the guy spoke like a poet. So he was not Voltaire, he was Waltaire. [laughs]

Anyway, he had stumbled into the blues quite early on. In fact, he picked up the harmonica and had learned the technique of playing in the cross harp position. He was onto it way, way early. And I remember he found a John Lee Hooker release on Vee-Jay. Of course, it was the classic “Boogie Chillen’.” And that led to… well, if we had two days we could extend the list of blues giants that have impacted me since day one. 

But John Lee Hooker was the first.

Yeah. Hearing John Lee Hooker, it was like, “Wow, what is this?”

Are there any new blues artists out there that have grabbed your ear?

Gary Clark Jr. We wound up doing some shows together and his playing style… he grew up in Austin, Texas, born and raised there. And he had really escaped my radar until recently. Maybe that’s a good thing, because he’s mastered a technique that is so timely and, I’d like to use the word “believable.” When he’s delivering a blues number he’s surrounded with that thing called feeling. It’s not a put-on. He’s right there with it.

What gear did you use on The Big Bad Blues?

In the past we’ve experimented with all sorts of contraptions. But this time it just so happened that since these sessions started off as casual get-togethers we weren’t too fussy about what we were plugging into. For amplifiers, we had two. One was a 1965 Marshall 18-watt — one of the rare ones. It runs on 220 [volts]. It was an original English production piece. It’s got two 12-inch speakers rather than the more common 10-inch. The two 12’s are a little more robust. So this thing’s got a rich, rich tone. The other thing we had on hand was one of the new Magnatone 50-watt amps. A 2x12 combo. So we had the Marshall and the Magnatone running full-steam ahead.

As for guitars, of course we had Pearly Gates, our famous 1959 Sunburst Les Paul that’s never too far out of reach. And we also made use of a 1961 Les Paul — it was the year when they transitioned from the figure-eight body shape to the double cutaway. And our engineer Joe Hardy, he brought out his 1960 Fender Precision Bass that he acquired from [Donald] “Duck” Dunn.

Any main pedals?

Yes. The DeArmond tremolo. We’ve been using those for years now. There was also a really odd pedal from Japan, the Shin-ei Companion FY-2 [fuzz box]. It does drastic-sounding things. But we really didn’t stray too far from straight-ahead stuff, just because of how this project unfolded.

Another aspect that might be of interest was that I wasn’t cracking the whip, saying, “Oh, you’ve gotta play like Frank Beard on the drums,” or “You’ve gotta play the bass parts like Dusty Hill.” I think what distinguishes this release from a ZZ Top record is that the personalities were not compromised. Everybody got to play their own thing and their own style. Although what’s funny is, Frank and Dusty, they were peeking in from the other studio where they were busy at work hammering out some starter pieces for a new ZZ Top record. And Frank was particularly flattered in the fact that both Greg Morrow and Matt Sorum were delivering interpretations of how they thought Frank Beard would be playing. [laughs] So it came all the way back around the clock. It was fun.

You’re on tour with ZZ Top right now. I recall reading somewhere that you always sleep on the floor in hotels.

[laughs] Very true. To this day.

Why?

Well, it gives a certain measure of confidence in this topsy-turvy world we call touring. There’s so many unanticipated events that surround every waking moment. To have the solidity of sleeping on solid ground, I just find it comforting. And you combine that with picking a room that has many right angles. Nothing circular. Avoid furnishings that have rounded armrests, for instance. Because the circles have no definition, whereas with right angles you know where you’re going.

That’s probably helpful, considering you told me you don’t even know what town you’re headed toward right now.

[laughs] That’s right!

What about at home? Do you at least have a nice bed to sleep in there?

I do, but I find myself making a pallet on the floor and just enjoying… I keep coming back to the world “solidity.”

What else does Billy Gibbons do at home when he’s not playing music?

Well, you’ll find me hot-footin’ it back to the West Coast. I’ve got a number of ongoing projects with our hot-rodding automotive enthusiast Mr. Jimmy Shine. Right now I’m working with Jimmy on creating what we’re calling the bad little sister of the famous ZZ Top red car from the video days. We’re doing a fender-less version of a ’34 three-window coupe. It’s got suicide doors, and we’ve yanked off the fenders and dropped it down. The chopped top is radical. Someone said, “Gee whiz, you’ve got mail slots for windows!” So it’s gonna be a barnburner. It’s quite engaging and it gives me great satisfaction.

Next year is ZZ Top’s 50th anniversary. What does that number mean to you?

We just came to grips with that unanticipated term. It seems nearly unbelievable. But what we’ve managed to maintain is the enjoyment factor. Someone said, “What has kept you guys together for longer than most marriages?” Quite simply, we still enjoy that we get to do what we get to do. More than anything else we can think of. It’s like the old saying goes — “If you like what you do it’s not a job.”

That’s a special thing.

Yeah, man. And we’re gearing up to do something special. A 50-year celebration’s quite a rarity in the rock ‘n’ roll world. But you know, I was talking to Keith Richards recently, I bumped into him in Nashville, and he was grinning. He said, “If we can follow in the footsteps of Muddy Waters and do this ’til the day we die, then we’re ahead of the game.”