{"id":7971,"date":"2012-11-11T15:04:01","date_gmt":"2012-11-11T22:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=7971"},"modified":"2012-11-11T15:04:01","modified_gmt":"2012-11-11T22:04:01","slug":"zz-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/11\/zz-top\/","title":{"rendered":"ZZ TOP"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard<\/p><\/div>\n

ZZ TOP<\/h1>\n

After 40 years of rock and the road, there\u2019s still nothing they\u2019d rather do \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

For their first full-length album in nearly a decade, veteran rockers ZZ Top decided to work with famed producer Rick Rubin. The Texas trio\u2014frontman and guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard\u2014recorded<\/p>\n

La Futura<\/em> over a four-year period in Houston and Malibu. Rubin\u2019s intense brand of perfectionism fit well with the band\u2019s own deliberate style. \u201cRick does tend to be of the \u2018It\u2019s good but you can do better\u2019 school of thought,\u201d says Gibbons. \u201cTurns out he\u2019s right, which is why we\u2019re all\u00a0satisfied with the effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting 10 tracks are a natural progression of ZZ Top\u2019s brawny blues-rock, a sound that\u2019s wowed audiences for more than 40 years. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, ZZ Top has enjoyed a rare achievement among rock bands: longevity. Their secret? \u201cIt\u2019s simple: We like what we do,\u201d says Gibbons. \u201cMost bands fall apart because they\u2019re discontented with each other or some external circumstance.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZZ Top has succeeded in pushing the creative envelope while satisfying longtime fans with an impressive string of smash hits, including \u201cLegs,\u201d \u201cTush,\u201d \u201cLa Grange\u201d and \u201cSharp Dressed Man.\u201d As the band continues an international tour, they\u2019ve reflected on their good fortune. \u201cWe\u2019ve certainly had our ups and downs,\u201d Gibbons admits. \u201cThe most basic element is that the answer is no when we ask ourselves, \u2018Is there something you\u2019d rather be doing?\u2019 If you like, you can think of this as a reunion tour\u2014we just skipped\u00a0the breaking up part.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What were your goals for this album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The band wanted to get down with a sensibility that created who we are. And the way to do that was to take enough time, jam and slam and conjure up some wicked noise. That\u2019s what went down and that\u2019s what happened. When the same guys play together for long enough, a kind of sixth sense develops in how the others react and contribute. The entirety of the process is very organic. We had thrown on the fertilizer and this big funky shrub sprang up\u00a0through the dirt as a result.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Describe your songwriting process.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no set process\u2014never had one. It might be a riff, a verse, a title or a chorus. Once there\u2019s an appealing element in mind, you build it out from there. Sometimes things fall into place on the spot, and sometimes they may take a little \u00a0twisting and bending.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How were songs selected?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We probably recorded 20. The ones that sounded the most like us were those we concentrated on and brought to fruition. It should be noted that culling them is no easy task\u2014they each have merit or else they wouldn\u2019t have been cultivated along, so paring things down is not for the faint of heart. What\u2019s been left behind could be revisited and resuscitated in the future, perhaps. But we\u2019re confident behind the survivors that made the album. We had spent time jamming in the studio, getting loose and throwing ideas around. We thrashed about for a few weeks in Malibu, and then it was back to the road. After that we regrouped in the ZZ studio in Houston and sent up what we thought were close-to-final versions of each number. We\u2019ve known Rick for quite a while on a social basis, but it was something completely new to collaborate with him. His idea was \u201cto let ZZ Top be ZZ Top\u201d but he wanted us to be the best\u00a0ZZ Top we could ever be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What challenges your creativity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

After four-plus decades, it might be a challenge not to default to what we know\u2014yet there are so many great sounds to share and sonic horizons to explore that it doesn\u2019t take much to get us going. Guys like Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins just did it to death all the way through the arc of their careers, and that\u2019s our main aim. They\u2019re the inspiration, and the challenge is to come through for those guys, and our friends and followers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How has your guitar playing evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d say that the emphasis is on economy and tone. It\u2019s so much better to express yourself in 12 notes than it might be in 24. The spaces between the notes are music, too, so there\u2019s a whole lot there and it\u2019s more comfortable to play and hear if you don\u2019t overwhelm everybody. As far as tone is concerned, the dirtier the better. Our\u00a0motto is \u201cgrit is good.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What guitarists influenced you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hubert Sumlin\u2019s playing on those Howlin\u2019 Wolf Chess sides was more than great. Freddie King\u2014who we had the honor of inducting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame\u2014is right up there, too. There are three kings, so add Albert King and B.B. King to that list.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you still practice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We tour so much there\u2019s not a whole lot of time to practice per se, because we\u2019re doing it for real nearly every night. But when we\u2019re not on tour for a few weeks, we open up the road case and keep things limber.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are your favorite guitars?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing else sounds as good as\u00a0Miss Pearly Gates, that special, special\u00a01959 Gibson Les Paul Burst that\u2019s been with us for so long. It\u2019s got its own special blend of herbs and spices, and has stood us in good stead in the studio and on the road. We really like the Gretsch\u00a0\u201cBilly-Bo\u201d that was inspired by Bo Diddley. It\u2019s flexible, it\u2019s light\u2014and it sounds like Bo\u2019s standing over your\u00a0shoulder and patting you on the back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you embraced digital technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The digital domain makes things way faster in the studio\u2014you can find your place and pick up where you left off very efficiently. The fact that we could email a sound file of \u201cFlyin\u2019 High\u201d to our friend astronaut Mike Fossum aboard the Soyuz space vehicle so he could play it for fellow crew members sure beats having to dispatch a FedEx truck out to Kazakhstan with a disc or tape. Can you imagine the driver\u00a0yelling, \u201cHold that launch!\u201d?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How has touring changed over the years for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of our same friendly folks assemble in the audience who we\u2019ve enjoyed getting to know over time\u2014and now they\u2019re bringing their kids, and their kids are bringing their kids. As for our crack crew, it\u2019s more organized and efficient than ever. We\u2019ve also each got our own touring coach so the \u201chome away from home\u201d aspect is part of the deal these days. No reason not to make the best out of a pretty OK situation.<\/p>\n

Any goals left to accomplish?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a spate of BFG [Billy F. Gibbons] solo releases pending, and we hope those are out before long. It\u2019s electronica-skewed work and certainly won\u2019t be confused with ZZ Top, which is the very point. Why do something different if it sounds the same? This is and doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u2013Blake Boldt<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZZ TOP After 40 years of rock and the road, there\u2019s still nothing they\u2019d rather do \u00a0\u00a0 For their first full-length album in nearly a decade, veteran rockers ZZ Top decided to work with famed producer Rick Rubin. The Texas trio\u2014frontman and guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard\u2014recorded La Futura over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[5333,5334,5330,5337,4525,5338,5339,5332,5331,5336,5340,5335,4310,4989],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7973,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions\/7973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}