It’s been a big ol’ career for the little ol’ band from Texas.
ZZ Top has, as of this writing, been around for 56 years, released 15 studio albums — though none since 2012 — and sold more than 50 million records. Its catalog includes classic rock staples such as “La Grange,” “Tush,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “Legs.” The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. And then there’s those beards…
The trio, which makes a tour stop at MGM Northfield Park on Thursday, Oct. 9, also holds a Guinness World Record as the longest-running active band with no lineup changes — 53 years until the death of bassist Joe “Dusty” Hill in 2021 at age72.
The longevity is not lost on singer-guitar Billy F. Gibbons, who has a theory about why ZZ Top is still around all these years later.
“We’ve got this inside-band joke — it’s ‘Don’t learn the fourth chord!’” he says with a laugh. “Three chords pretty much says it all.”
But, seriously, folks…
“We’ve got the good fortune of having the benchmark of… We’ve got a particular sound that helped launch the band’s identity, and we’ve embraced that time and time again,” Gibbons, 75, explains. “We can get as creative and off-the-shelf as we may want to, provided that we remain true to the benchmark, that we remain true to ourselves. That seems to work out best.
“The magic was to find three guys that were born the same years and enjoyed the same kind of music as we were growing up and finding what we wanted to play. That allowed the connection to take place. At the end of the day, we still speak the same language.”
As Gibbons notes, ZZ Top has occasionally strayed from the raw grit of the blues-rock it established on its first few albums — into more textured sonic terrain on releases such as “Tejas” in 1976 and “Deguello” in 1979, and most effectively with the synthesizer- (and MTV-) assisted course on multi-platinum ’80s releases like “Eliminator” and “Afterburner.” The trio’s language translated to the masses, and, Gibbon says, “there’s been this unusual challenge of how to interpret this great American art form of (the blues) — and I used that word ‘interpret,’ because we’re not the originators. We’re lucky to be interpreters, but that allows us to keep moving forward.”
The success has allowed ZZ Top to live on even in the absence of any substantial new music since 2012’s “La Futura.” And the spirit Gibbons describes allows pushed it past arguably the greatest challenge in the band’s history: the loss of Hill, whose health issues preceding his death had forced Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard — who’s been on and off the road this year due to his own health issues — to cancel and postpone several shows.
But Gibbons says Hill, perhaps seeing the proverbial writing on the wall, had a succession plan in mind for crew tech Elwood Francis to take his place.
“I gotta credit Dusty,” Gibbons says. “Not only was he a talented performer, but he was a great friend with a wit and wisdom,” Gibbons says. “He said, ‘Listen, I’m a bit out of sorts. With your permission I’d like to see my physician, and if I’m late getting back, make sure that our longstanding associate, Mr. Elwood Francis, wraps his hands around my guitar.’
“I said, ‘If that’s the wish, so be it.’ (Francis) accepted the challenge, and he has not missed a note. Of course he had big shoes to fill, but he was ready and it’s making a real nice headway. As everybody knows this is the first time we’ve made this kind of (member) change since the beginning, and it’s the only way I think it could have worked.”
Francis also comes with the requisite facial hair that’s part of ZZ Top’s image, though Gibbons says that was not always the case.
“He was the clean-shaven, avocado sandwich skateboarder guitar tech,” Gibbons recalls. “But he wound up following the exact footsteps of what people know as ZZ Top, when years and years back we got lazy and threw away the razor. I didn’t know the guy had whiskers to begin with, but here he is with a doormat longer than mine hanging from his chin.”
Now fans are waiting to see if there will be a new era of ZZ Top recording. In 2022, the group released “Raw,” a collection of favorites recorded on stage during the filming of the 2019 documentary, “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.” Earlier this year, Gibbons released “Livin’ It Up Down in Texas,” a song he recorded especially for the series finale of the Paramount+ series “Landman” — co-written with series star Billy Bob Thornton and singer-songwriter Mark Collie — and included on the recently released soundtrack from the show’s first season.
Gibbons recorded that song with his other band, the BGFs (which played at Northfield Park earlier this year), and he says both that group and ZZ Top have new material in the pipeline — some of the latter worked on while Hill was still alive.
“I suspect that 2025 may reveal something new on (both) fronts,” Gibbons predicts. “The challenge is finding time to put it all together in a recording studio, since we still enjoy stepping aboard the tour bus and making the rounds… because that’s what we really started all this to do, get out there and play for people. We’re like Muddy Waters and Keith Richards and all those people — ‘Let’s do it until we don’t.’”