ZZ Top

underrated local heros:



3 Guys and 35 Years of a 'Little Ol' Band From Texas'

By ALAN LIGHT
Published: November 10, 2005

"It's just the same three guys, playing the same three chords, and we've been doing this for 35 years."

That's the explanation Billy F. Gibbons, ZZ Top's lead guitarist, offers onstage to explain his band's success. When asked about this bare-bones description of the bewhiskered, blues-powered "Little Ol' Band from Texas," Mr. Gibbons chuckled. "As trite as that is, it's the tried-and-true formula for us," he said over the phone from Phoenix, before heading to a gig at the Arizona State Fair.

"I've seen our fair drummer, Mr. Beard - the man with no beard - madly tapping into his calculator, and each time he ends up with the same figures. We've been in this band longer than school, longer than marriage, longer than anything else we've ever done."

With Mr. Gibbons's searing fretwork, the lock-step rhythm section of the beardless Frank Beard and the bassist Dusty Hill, and the two guitarists' cartoon-style, foot-long facial hair, ZZ Top built itself up into a stadium-filling powerhouse in the 1970's. Its 1983 album "Eliminator" tightened up the songs, added electronic rhythms, and - with a series of silly, sexy videos - shot the band into MTV icon status.

Tonight and tomorrow night the band will wrap up its latest six-month jaunt at the Beacon Theater, its first appearance in New York City in a decade. "We're seeing the end of a lengthy, successful tour," Mr. Gibbons said, "and we decided we'd land it right smack dab at the center of the universe."

But ZZ Top hasn't released a new album since "Mescalero" in 2003. (It plans to return to the studio early next year.) The musicians' sound has never varied much from their signature Southern boogie, described by the singer and songwriter Lucinda Williams, a longtime fan, as "hot, sweaty, grungy, sexy rock music that stays true to the blues." So how are they able to keep things interesting onstage?

"The rigors of the road are grinding," said the soft-spoken Mr. Gibbons, 56, "but the longstanding friendship between the three of us has brought us to just short of mind reading. It's become a real expeditious endeavor on any given night, in terms of anticipating who might do what onstage, so we can turn the corner and avoid the train wreck."
More specifically, Mr. Gibbons clarified, they keep themselves on their toes by leaving their set lists open each night. "There's a couple slots in the middle of the show which are reserved for somebody's spot call," he said. "The other night, Dusty pulled one out of the ZZ Top bag that we haven't played in two decades," the Muddy Waters tune "Two Trains." "I grinned and said 'Man, you're really testing us, aren't you?' "

According to Mr. Gibbons, continually experimenting with equipment keeps the band's juices flowing. "The novelty of new gear helps to lubricate those pitfalls," he said. "Frequently, a new setting on an amplifier, a new guitar - that's enough to keep things energetic. Just tonight, I got a call from Dusty, and he's all excited, he's got a new bass. I asked, 'What have you got?' and he said, 'I don't know, but it's red!' "

For the first time, Mr. Gibbons has started turning up on albums outside the confines of ZZ Top, adding his inimitable touch to albums by such younger rockers as Kid Rock and Nickelback. He singled out the new-school metal band Queens of the Stone Age as his favorite collaboration. "It's a pretty tight-knit group of pals," he said. "They have a rather handsome amount of time behind them, and they're really good players. And as a bonus, they've got some real exotic gear - like, they had Watkins Dominator amps. They haven't made those since 1963, you can't find them, and they had two of them!"

If Mr. Gibbons's fascination with equipment sounds a little obsessive - well, it is. "In an attempt to find something else with the remarkable power of 'Pearly Gates,' that first Les Paul I acquired, I kept stacking up guitar after guitar," he said. "It started morphing into these myriad other sounds, and one day I looked up and there was a warehouse full of instruments."

In addition to the hundreds of guitars he has acquired, Mr. Gibbons has a celebrated stable of hot rods and custom cars, the most famous being the red 1933 Ford "Eliminator Coupe," the true star of those unforgettable videos. Both collections are chronicled in the just-published "Rock & Roll Gearhead" (Motorbooks). It's a combination memoir, band scrapbook and catalog of his favorite autos (including the "CadZZilla" and the "Slampala") and six-strings (like the cowhide-covered Fender and the Gibson in the shape of Texas).

"Rock 'n' roll and automobiles have always had this synergistic connection," Mr. Gibbons said. (He will be signing copies of the book on Monday from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble store at 555 Fifth Avenue, at 47th Street.) "You get a guitar, you learn how to play music, and then you've got to have a car to get to the show!" he said. "It all boils down to just that."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/arts/music/10zzto.html?pagewanted=all