ZZ Top’s perennially bearded vocalist and guitarist previews three UK solo dates in promotion of his third and latest extracurricular release, 2021’s Hardware.
How recently did you begin performing solo gigs away from ZZ Top?
It all started with an invitation to play at the famous Havana Jazz Festival [in 2015]. I said: “Gee, I don’t want to crash a jazz festival with a rock’n’roll party.” We were so curious, it led us to recording a few songs in that style as an experiment, and then down a path to the Afro-Cuban-inspired [solo debut] Perfectamundo [released that same year by Gibbons and his band the BFGs]. We might have never gone in that direction had I not received the phone call.
After more than fifty years of working with the same two guys in ZZ Top – drummer Frank Beard and bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill – stepping away must bring some sense of liberation.
Oh yeah, it was quite a reward. [Drummer] Matt Sorum is famous for playing with Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and The Cult, and we’ve also got our good buddy Mr Austin Hanks, who plays [his bass guitar] upside down, backwards and left-handed. Watching him, he’s like Jimi Hendrix and Albert King on acid.
Back in the nineties, Austin Hanks was a member of the great but sadly overlooked band Slick Lilly.
Yes indeed, Slick Lilly. That was a good one.
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