Billy Gibbons looks back on 50 years of ZZ Top, with a nod to the future

For the past five decades, the trio of Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard has crafted their own special Texas-certified brand of rock and roll as ZZ Top. They’ve run the gauntlet from bluesy and boogie-drenched rock and roll to arena-shaking rockers. Their bigger-than-life and seemingly mythical rise to fame is captured in a new documentary, “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

Prior to the band’s return to the Chicago area with their 50th anniversary tour, the Sun-Times caught up with Gibbons by email to discuss the band’s legacy.

Q. How does it feel to be celebrating 50 years of ZZ Top? What’s it like having this tight of a musical support system?

A. It feels like home. We just enjoy doing what we’ve been doing because, frankly, there’s been no good reason to stop. It’s great to be among these pillars of our sonic community. Just the three of us not against the world but for the world and, of course, a good time, which is what we’ve been having for five decades now.

Q. What do you recall of the band’s earliest shows in and around Chicago? What’s it been like playing Chicago over the years?

A. We’ll keep our deep-dish pizza and Italian beef sandwich thoughts to ourselves here, lest we catalyze a debate we’re not equipped to finish. But the audiences we’ve encountered from the Rosemont Horizon to Poplar Creek to Tinley Park have been among the most enthusiastic of our career. I’m recalling when the book “Billy Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead” hit the streets in ’05, we did an appearance in a store somewhere in the Loop and the throng was a mighty one.

Q. The band was called “that little ol’ band from Texas” in an early negative review but the band used it as a badge of pride. Why do you like the term?

A. Well, that’s really what started us up. It’s descriptive to a “T”.

Q. What are a couple songs that have especially taken on deeper or different meaning for you since you wrote them?

A. Would have to go initially with “Waitin’ For The Bus” in a coupling with “Jesus Just Left Chicago.” Following an editing slip of the splicing blade, the two songs were joined, back-to-back and became a de facto coupling. We became enamored with the effect and continue to deliver ‘em just like it’s pressed. It’s a combination of the sacred and secular and works well as a singular presentation.

And, of course, we all tip our hat to your town as a true “home of the blues” and working that into the song is a tribute. “Cheap Sunglasses” is another one that that started off as an existential exercise and has now become an audience participation centerpiece. You know you got ‘em in there somewhere so dig ‘em out of your pocket or purse and put ‘em on!

Q. The band’s first jam session together, where you played Shuffle in C for three hours, really sold everyone on what this band could be. Why is a shuffle a perfect way to break the ice, so to speak?

A. It’s an easy-going kind of feel and there’s lots of room to stretch out with not a whole lot of pressure to do something flashy or self-aware. It reminds me of a Jackson Pollock canvas. Let the paint drops — in this case sounds — fall where they may, and the result is a memorable picture.

AFP/Getty Images

Q. Trios such as Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience were some of your earliest influences. What do you find most appealing about the trio format and the sound you can achieve?

A. It’s a challenge akin to haiku or a sonnet in poetry. Here are the constraints, now let’s see what you can do within those parameters. Jimi Hendrix, of course, thrived within that context providing a sonic pastiche that has never been paralleled. He set the standard for the rest of in a very real way. Besides, with a trio, there are no tie votes and the biggest “faction” can only be two.

Q. In the film, the band is called interpreters of the blues and musicians who turn the blues into party music. Why do you like honoring the blues in your own unique way? What did B.B. King think of the name ZZ Top being a tribute to him?

A. We get to go out there and pay tribute to Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters and Albert King and those who came before and it’s not a “lesson” but, rather, a party. We don’t try to imitate those guys, but they certainly inspired us. B.B. King was a dear friend and he seemed to feel pretty good about the name over the years. He was, no question, a true King in every sense.

Q. “Eliminator” marked a big artistic jump for the band as you experimented with synthesizers and other new sounds. Why is it important to keep evolving?

A. The earth keeps rotating on its axis and, if standing still, the risk of falling off the planet runs high. Seriously, there was no reason for ZZ Top not to embrace new technology, which is certainly somewhat akin to the day when Muddy Waters, having made his way from Clarksdale, Mississippi, to Chicago, plugged in and, so to speak, “discovered electricity.” That was one huge step for mankind.

Q. What’s next recording-wise for the band? Any plans or goals for the next album?

A. We’ve laid some tried-and-true ZZ-styled ideas down, now bubbling under to hit the streets. Might be an album in the traditional sense or, maybe, a gathering of blues-infused songs to be released in no particular order. We’re with ya’…!

Joshua Miller is a local freelance writer.

Getty Images