Billy Gibbons Reveals the Secret of ZZ Top's 40 Years Together

Spinner ^ | 6/11/09 | Steve Baltin

[pissant]

Being on the road this summer with ZZ Top puts Aerosmith in a unique position for the Boston rockers. As guitarist Joe Perry rightly told us of the little ol' band from Texas, "They've been together longer than us." Not many acts can claim to have outlived Aerosmith, and even fewer can last so long with the original lineup. Therefore, it's that much more amazing that 2009 marks the 40th anniversary for bandmates Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill.

Let that digest for a second -- 40 freaking years! Obama is the eighth president ZZ Top has recorded under, the Beatles hadn't broken up yet when they formed, most of today's pop stars hadn't been born yet, there was no hip-hop, it's their fifth decade of touring, and on and on. As most bands are celebrated for a decade together, we decided to ask Gibbons the secret of a happy band marriage. "I think first and foremost is the fact we still enjoy getting to do this more than anything we could imagine and somehow that translates into the nightly performance," Gibbons says. "Those two hours on stage, that's the real payoff. That's when we get together and we may not know what each other is gonna do. Some of it is because we're trying to outguess the next guy, trying to think of what he's gonna do next."

[Sax]

Don’t do that! The TEXAS HOME WRECKER!

[BerryDingle]

Lord take me downtown, I'm just lookin for some Tush.

Watched them in a video once, years later while I was in Japan, I realized ZZ Top had mimicked the hand signals those guys use after they pack people in the passenger trains.

[Costumed Vigilante]

They've got legs.

[Revolting cat!]

Neil Sedaka have been together more than 40 years,so there!

[DainBramage]

Ah How How how....

[therut]

Pearl Necklace. Just sayin...... Slip inside my sleepin bag. Just sayin......

[kickonly88]

‘And since we’re talkin’ trash about 80’s rock, I have to brag again that Robin Zander *KISSED* me back when Cheap Trick was a Garage Band! Wa-Hoo! *SMOOCH*’

I remember seeing Cheap Trick at the Electric Ballroom in Milwaukee just before they released their first album.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I walked into a bar in Madison WI in the fall of 1974 and there was a band that had the gimmick of playing the keyboards when the keyboards were on someone’s back. It was Cheap Trick. I thought they sucked then and never felt any different even after they became famous. Just sayin’.

[Signolife]

The Reverend Billy Gibbons is awesome, indeed. He has always had such a distinctive sound, maybe because he often uses a coin as a pick. Several years ago I happened to see one of his guitars hanging on the wall of the Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street in Memphis. That was a treat. ZZ’s old stuff is the best by far. It doesn’t get any better than Tres Hombres.

[pissant]

I like Tejas just as much.

She used to drive a beatup pickup,
down around San Anton......

[Tainan]

There it is...

[Signolife]

Yep, that’s a good one too....”itchin for that wonderful feel of drivin in an automobile”...(Arrested for drivin’ while blind)

[marine86297]

ZZ Top Bump

[Dust in the Wind]

IIRC I saw them once in Denver, maybe ‘74. It's all so muddled about those years...there were rattle snakes and a coyote on the stage with them.

Great Band

[Mariner]

Gibbons is TOP NOTCH, no doubt.

Still, ZZ Top, like Led Zeppelin...sucks live.

Both Gibbons and Page always needed a second guitar.

Some truly great one's need a second lie the above...and some don't.

[hoppity]

He was supposedly Jimi Hendrix’s favorite.

[pissant]

ZZ Top sucks live? You are sorely misguided.

[BansheeBill]

Steve Miller was memorable, too. First concert with ‘laser beams’ and lots of cutting edge ‘ee-lec-tronics.’ I can only imagine what paying customers expect these days, LOL!

The "Fly Like An Eagle" 30th anniversary CD, came with a DVD with an interview with Miller, and most of recent San Francisco concert by him and the band. He spoke about those laser shows. They used a water cooled laser that was set up behind the amps and had a constant fountain of water flowing over it, to keep it cool. They were very high powered lasers and put on spectacular show. They put mirrors all over the stadiums for the lasers to bounce off of. He had a great photo of them in action. They were totally unregulated at the time, and you will never see the likes of those types of lasers at an outdoor show anymore. I worked at a Jethro Tull show (I think) at Colt Park in Hatford CT in 1976 where a similar laser display was part of the show. It was a cloudy night and lasers shooting up through the clouds GREATLY concerned commercial airline pilots coming in to Hartford Airport. Shortly after that concert, they stopped using lasers at those shows.
Miller also had a funny story about a freon hose used for fog effects breaking loose during a concert and spraying him until his guitar was nearly "frozen" before they got it turned off.

[Daniel II]

Best little whorehouse in Texas! :)

[period end of story]

The sweet smell of success.