One of the very first bands that got me started on my own Rock and Roll adventure was Z.Z. Top and over the years that ‘Little Ol’ Band from Texas’ have brought their own brand of Texan Blues to the masses. It all started an incredible 50 years ago this year with the cunningly titled Z.Z. Top’s first album, but we’re not here to talk about that, we’re here to catch up with the man himself Billy Gibbons who releases his third solo album ‘Hardware’ on June 4th.
Billy: Mark I can hear you loud and clear, this is nice!
Mark: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today Billy.
Billy: You bet.
Mark: One of my first memories of finding music of my own was being a kid of about eight years old listening to a cassette tape of ‘Tres Hombres’ and that led me on to a wonderful path of discovery for Rock and Blues music. So thank you very much for that.
Billy: Very cool, yeah that’s a good way to start (laughs).
Mark: There are a few big anniversaries for you this year so before we get to talk about Hardware, which is definitely my album of the year so far, it’s 50 years since the first ZZ Top album came out.
Billy: Yeah five decades, they have come and they have managed to vanish somewhere in the rearview mirror. Speaking of rearview mirrors that brings up the answer to a question we get asked quite frequently – three guys, the same three guys, playing the same three chords for five decades – how did you do it? And I said well, three simple words: “Separate Tour busses!” (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) It’s also 40 years since one of my favorite ZZ Top albums ‘El Loco’.
Billy: Oh yeah another good one.
Mark: It was great, and I think that was the album that really shone a light on the sense of humor in your work. I find that such an important thing in your music, where does that sense of humor come from?
Billy: Well very early we learned that we were probably not going to be the next Bob Dylan lyricists and we took a page out of the secret language of the Blues, and as you may know it can get very entertaining from time to time, there‘s a lot of stuff in there where you’ve got to say it without saying it!
Mark: And you’ve done that very well over the years. Take it all the way back for us. I know you came from a musical family so music is obviously something that’s always been around – but when did you know that this was going to be it for you – that music was going to be your life? Was it really early on?
Billy: It was very early on. My dear sweet mother took my sister and I to see Elvis Presley. I was five years old and I kinda knew once I saw it “Gee whizz there it is!” And to follow that up my Dad, a couple of years later took me to a recording session. He said look I’ve got some business to do in the studio – I’m gonna put you in a chair and I’d like you to just sit here, but there’s a band coming in and I want you to enjoy watching how a record is made. Well that band turned out to be none other than B.B. King and his orchestra (laughs).
Mark: Wow!
Billy: I was watching B.B. demo strings and I said “Man! There it is!”
Mark: What a wonderful introduction to music! And it’s all led us to this point and ‘Hardware’ which I think is my favorite solo record of yours so far. I think one of the reasons is because it’s so direct and so succinct – you manage to say things in three minutes that it would take someone else a lifetime to say. And I love the way it opens with ‘My Lucky Card’ and ‘She’s on Fire.’ Is that directness and getting to the point part of what you think makes a great song?
Billy: Yes, well going back to your earlier remark of the injection of some entertaining humorous moments – one of the first tracks that was released happened to be ‘West Coast Junkie’ – “I’m a West Coast Junkie from a lonely Texas town” – but the sound emanated from more of a surf guitar sound. The surf guitar was back! And a couple of my buddies who happened to know we had been working in the desert said “Gee whizz, you’re hundreds of miles from water and you’re playing ‘Surf Music’!” (laughs) You combine that with, as you mentioned ‘My Lucky Card.’ Matt’s lovely sweetheart – her name is Ace, and forever the ‘ace’ has been our lucky card – so there’s a little bit of a connection there. And then we get to the track entitled ‘She’s on Fire’ – and this particular studio happened to be twenty miles in the middle of sand, rocks and cactus – I mean we were surrounded with nearly nothing – throw in a few rattlesnakes and you’ve got the studio! So we started each day making the small trek into back into the small town. We had found a Mexican restaurant and we met the girl: she was the owner, she was the cook, she was the bookkeeper, but on one particular morning we walked in and the place was on fire!
Mark: (laughs)
Billy: She came racing around the corner and she said “I’m not burning your breakfast! I’ll get this under control very quickly!” So we left not only with some fine Mexican food behind us – we had a song title “She’s on Fire!” (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Fantastic!
Mark: The chemistry between you and Matt and Austin is wonderful – was it instant?
Billy: Yes. I had been a fan of Matt’s drumming for quite some time, and Austin Hanks, he does some rather remarkable things on the six-string guitar – and it just happened that I can’t watch! I can’t even look at him! He’s playing a right-handed guitar upside down and backwards, and he’s got a weird tuning. And he said “Well, that’s how I learned to play” So I said “Well go for it, don’t feel that I’m not interested – I just can’t watch it!” (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) And you’ve made some great music – ‘Shuffle Step Slide’ I think has to be one of my current favorites – but your guitars on “More, more, more”’ just blew me away! I love the guitars on that song!
Billy: Yes. Upon arrival our usual lineup of backline gear was still weeks away and we were stuck using a few things that we found – there was a guitar in the corner and a drum set over the other side of the room, but it was really kind of that we enjoyed the challenge. Here we were making up songs as we were going along and we were playing on instruments that we had no clue with what these things were going to deliver. But we enjoyed it. I should point out that the guitar was a very old Fender Jaguar plugged into a very old Fender Reverb Unit (laughs) plugged into a very old Fender Amplifier. And same thing, Austin picked up a guitar and Matt said “Gee Whizz, let’s make the best we can, this stuff is ancient!” And in some crazy way it was very inspirational to figure out how to make the kinda sounds we wanted. It seemed to work out!
Mark: It certainly did. The dirty desert sounds of ’Stacking Bones’ is great too with Larkin Poe making a guest appearance. What a great song and another with a great sense of humor – where did that one come from?
Billy: Well we started, and every day seemed to bring about a new challenge – it was bank paper and a pen! You can read about going to the desert, you can see photographs about going to the desert but when you’re there that energy curtain descends and you’re surrounded by something very, very instrumental in igniting that creative spirit. When it came to Larkin Poe I must point out I had only seen them unbeknownst to me as players. They were backstage, we were on tour and I kept seeing them in the dressing rooms, I saw them in the catering room, we saw them day to day – they were coming and going. I finally asked the guitarist who was on tour with us Mr. Tyler Bryant, quite a talented Blues player, I said “Who are the girls we keep seeing in your dressing room?” “Oh sorry” he said “that’s my gal and her sister.” So I said “Oh right, do they do wardrobe for you?” and he said “No, they’re performers.” So I said “Do tell.” He told me that they were going to stand in and do the sound check for him that afternoon and that is when I realized that Larkin Poe were players. They were actually writing songs, playing songs and doing a great job. It was a very interesting introduction.
Mark: It would have been. One of the first big outdoor concerts I attended as a kid was ‘Rocking the Castle’ at Donington – the Monsters of Rock show that ZZ Top headlined back in 1985. It was an amazing day as a young music fan. You’ve played some wonderful tours over the years and I’ve seen you play on some great bills with some great bands – one of my favorites with Aerosmith at the Super Pages Pavilion in Dallas back in 2010 (now the Dos Equis Pavilion). In the 50 plus years you’ve been playing are there any that stand out for you?
Billy: I would easily point out our engagements bring on Jeff Beck. Not only does he play the guitar in ways that came from some other planet or beyond! We really enjoy when Jeff makes his presence known. Over the years we’ve figured out when it’s time to bring Jeff on for a few numbers. We had gotten to a very interesting place when the volume on our stage was quite low, and we did that purposely in order to communicate between one another. Jeff on the other hand prefers to play quite loudly! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Yes he does!
Billy: The first night he came on board I asked him what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to do one of his favorites – a tune off the ‘Afterburner’ record by Z.Z. Top. I asked him which one and he said “Can we do ‘Rough Boy?” and I said sure. Well it is a rather intriguing ballad, so I said “Jeff, you start it off” and he counted it down, and blazing guitar was just thrashing off the stage! And he looked around and he could see us playing but he couldn’t hear us playing! (laughs) So he learned quite quickly – he said “I don’t know if you were throwing a curve-ball at me or if you were giving me a mild hint to turn it down?” I said “No let’s go, we’ll crank it up for you.” So over the years we’ve got a special place for Jeff Beck onstage. And we go from low volume to high volume when he’s with us!
Mark: A wonderful guy and a spectacular guitarist. Mentioning ‘Afterburner’ I think that was the first album you recorded with Joe Hardy who the new album is dedicated to. It’s been a long relationship – give us a few words about the man.
Billy: Yeah Joe ‘Party’ Hardy! It’s been spoken of many times that Memphis Tennessee became our second home. It was ‘T’ for Texas and ‘T’ for Tennessee. The Ardent recording studio had on call three great engineers – John Hampton, Terry Manning and Joe Hardy. And I guess that takes us back to the 70’s. And finally we had the opportunity to work one on one with Joe which started this long-lasting relationship. And I’ve gotta say, when you find a guy with the kind of talent that Joe possessed you don’t want to let it go. And with the release of ‘Hardware’ unfortunately he’s taken the taxi cab to someplace else now, but we weren’t about to let him go so (laughs) ‘Hardware’ has a rather heartfelt meaning standing behind it. Joe ‘Party’ Hardy! (laughs)
Mark: A wonderful dedication and a wonderful album. If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any album, just to be there in the studio to see it being made, what would you choose?
Billy: An easy answer – the first Jimi Hendrix record. It came to us in the States as an import from the UK where it first showed up, but later having the luxury of joining The Jimi Hendrix Experience Tour I realised that here was a guy who was playing a very familiar instrument – the Fender Stratocaster, but he was obviously doing with the guitar things that the designers had never thought of. And to this day just about every example of recorded Jimi Hendrix it causes one to wonder ‘How did he think of doing this?’ And to have been present when they made that first Jimi Hendrix record would have been a real eye-opener! We’re still big fans, and the funniest thing when we were hired to join the tour, the contract required us to play for 45 minutes and at that time we had accomplished learning 45 minutes of presentable material. Two of the songs were Jimi Hendrix numbers!
Mark: (laughs)
Billy: And as we closed our show I remember walking off stage and in the shadows was a guy standing there with his arms folded, and as I walked past I felt a grasp on the shoulder. I turned around and he said ‘I want to get to know you, you’ve got a lot of nerve – I like you!’ (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Billy: (laughing) that became a real interesting way to start a friendship.
Mark: A wonderful story. And our final question, and I guess very pertinent these days – what is the meaning of life?
Billy: Gosh! If you pick up the newly released solo record that we’ve talked about ‘Hardware’ there’s a song that has only consonants in the title. We took a page out of the early work by one of our favourite trios ‘Cream’ when Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton were doing their thing. They had a song entitled ‘S.W.L.A.B.R.’ on ‘Hardware’ you’ll find the title ‘S.W.L…’ and I’ll let you figure out the reminder of it. We couldn’t figure out the Cream version and I’m going to leave that as a challenge to figure out the BFG solo version on ‘Hardware’! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Billy: If you can figure it out then you’ve got life in hand! (laughs)
Mark: Thank you so much for your time today Billy, it’s been wonderful to talk to you.
Billy: Thank you Mark. Look forward to seeing you man, talk to you soon.
