ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas (2019) - full transcript

This is your good neighbour
along the way,

broadcasting across the land
from XERF

in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila,
Mexico.

I've known these guys
for a long time.

If you look around

the whole spectrum
of the rock 'n' roll world,

there's only one of them.

They're unique,
they're eccentric.

Okay, guys, tell me.

ZZ Top, how did you come up
with a name like that?

We will tell three stories
about it.



But none of them
will be true.

When you'd see them onstage,
it was like,

"Wow, there they are."

It was like seeing Bugs Bunny
in person.

I think the mystique
of the band

is what brought me
to them.

The look of a beard
like that.

What's the rest
of your face like?

All these videos,
all the stuff,

it only added to the mystery.

'Eliminator', where the car
is everywhere.

You don't see who's inside.

These choreographed moves,

it all keeps you from really
knowing who they really are.



Even their sound
had a mysterious quality to it.

I don't think you can put your
finger on what it is.

It's easy to say
it's based on the blues

and all that kind of thing,

but I think it's got something
else in it.

But they may not even have
an explanation for it.

Really if you wanna know
where everything came from,

you have to go back
to the beginning.

I'm a huge Elvis fan,
always have been.

This is actually like
a blanket-type thing.

So, I have Elvis things
all over the house and all over.

I used to carry so much
on the road

that I started getting
a separate dressing room

and it started becoming
a little strange.

When I was a kid,
my mother was a waitress.

And Elvis used to come into
where she worked.

He was not that well known
outside of Memphis at that time.

Anyway, he had a record
that was on the jukebox.

She brought it back with her
when we moved back to Dallas.

And I used to sing to it.

The first time I got money for
singing a song, I was 8.

My brother, Rocky,
two and a half years older,

he and I sang a song
one time

and there was a table
right here beside me

and people started throwing
change on that table,

at least quarters.

So, we were singing,

the guitar player was playing
the guitar lead.

I leaned down to my mother,
I said, "What is that?"

She went, "That's for you."

So, I stopped singing
and started raking the money in.

I don't know what
Compton's like,

I don't know what Harlem's
like, I've never lived there.

But I can remember
walking down the street

where I lived in Dallas,

I was singing cos I didn't wanna
really look at the surroundings

and I didn't want to
smell the air.

I didn't want to hear what was
going on, so I would sing.

You had to know how to work your
way around that neighbourhood.

You did and didn't do
certain things,

so you don't walk around
singing or dancing.

You're liable to limp out,

and playing in a rock band
gives you instant cred.

Anyway, I don't really remember
how exactly it happened,

we were still playing
this one beer joint,

and my brother played guitar
and I sang.

We decided, "We need a bass,
this is stupid."

I went, "OK, well..."

I thought he was talking about
hiring somebody

but he went,
"No, you're it."

This is a group called
Lady Wilde and the Warlocks.

This is about '64,
so I guess I was about 15.

That's my brother, Rocky.
That's me.

The girl was actually
from England.

She'd married a soldier.

And that was Lady Wilde.

And in '64 in Dallas,

if you had someone from England
in your band,

that was it,
you got bookings.

But this was a club,
the Disc a Gogo

and we were
the entertainment,

but our drummer, at the time,
was quitting the business.

So, my brother came up to me
and pointed at Frank

who was playing with another
group, they were onstage.

He went, "He's going to be
our new drummer."

And I went...

I looked at him, he had on
loafers and white socks

and I went,
"I don't think so."

He went, "No, you don't
understand. I'm not asking you.

That's going to be
our drummer."

I was 15,
and had a high school band,

played some frat parties,
did this, that, and the other.

And finally, we got a job

playing at The Cellar club on
Friday night and Saturday night,

in Fort Worth, Texas.

We were going to play
from 8 till 12,

and then, the headline act
was going to come in at 12.

So, we went out, and we played
and when we were through,

The Warlocks came in.

Dusty and Rocky had on
matching blue sharkskin suits,

and Banlon socks
like the blues players wear,

and I noticed that Dusty's
fingernails were manicured.

My God, these guys are right one
step below the Beatles.

I mean, they were just...

I only owned white socks
at the time,

I was a complete rube.

Anyway, I watched
The Warlocks that night,

came back for the
Saturday night show,

and they walked up and offered
me a job, playing with them.

That's when I met Dusty.

I enjoyed playing with Frank
the second we hit a note,

it was just really cool.

When we played together,
we had a way of interacting

that had an identifiable
sound to it.

And him and I,
we locked so in on that

and that was a great step
forward for us.

When Frank joined the band,
all this music was going on.

And now there's a lot of bands
circulating,

so a lot of competition.

So, we wanted to come up with
something different.

People started to get
long hair,

which was dangerous in Texas
at the time, but still...

So we went, "You know,

let's dye it blue and call
ourselves American Blues.

So, I not only have long hair,
in the 603 in Texas,

I've got long blue hair.

I think people thought
I was nuts.

Anyway, the American Blues
lasted quite a while

but, eventually, it was like

we played ourselves
out of the market.

Everybody in town
had heard us.

And I thought, "I can't just
keep just doing this.

I'm just going round and round
and round."

And I just went, "You know what?
I've had enough."

I lost track of Dusty,

and then my girlfriend
got pregnant

and I had to get married.

So I'm married and got a baby
and living in my parents' house.

I was selling a little pot, too,
to make ends meet.

Plus, I started taking acid.

So, my life was changing.

I packed up my drums, my wife
and my baby, and left home.

It was 3 Norman Rockwell
scene.

I mean, Mum's crying,
Dad's pissed off,

and I'm loading shit in the car,
you know.

I mean,
it was a sitcom.

Anyway,
we drove down to Houston.

They had an entirely different
scene in Houston

than they did in Dallas.

One of the big bands of Houston
were Moving Sidewalks.

And when we came down,

that's when I started hearing
about a guy named Billy Gibbons.

I'd also heard his song
on the radio,

so I knew who he was.

And I just had to meet
this guy

because,
man, what a guitar player.

I mean, he tore up
guitar strings.

He was wonderful.

I mean, he could really,
really play.

I grew up in Houston,

and Houston was always a hotbed
of musical talent

from the blues perspective.

But, by the mid-605,

as the times began to change,
so did the music.

All of a sudden, there was
a group that showed up

called The 13th Floor Elevators.

The 13th Floor Elevators
embraced the term psychedelic

to describe
what they were doing.

They had a message,
they had a mission,

and it was runaway insane.

No one had seen
anything like it.

This one guy even played
this crock jug

which made this gurgling,
bubbling sound.

They called it the electric jug.

So, The 13th Floor Elevators
were having an impact

on the whole Texas
music scene.

And as our way of acknowledging
the impact,

I said, "Gee whiz, let's see.

Elevators go up, we should be
the Moving Sidewalks

'cause that goes forward."

So, it was forward and up.

We'd written this song,
the '99th Floor'

which became
a well-received single

and it put us on the map.

We got signed, we toured with
Eric Burdon and the Animals,

The Jeff Beck Group.

And we even landed
some dates

with Jim Morrison
and the Doors.

And there was this promoter
at the time, who said,

"There's this act
that wants you to join the tour.

It's a guy by the name
of Jimi Hendrix,

he's got this band,
The Jimi Hendrix Experience."

And I said, "Yeah, Jimi Hendrix,
that's crazy."

They wanted us to play
40 minutes of material,

and the only way
we could do 40 minutes

was to include two songs

that we had learned
from the Jimi Hendrix record.

'Foxy Lady' and 'Purple Haze'.

I'll never forget the opening
night, we played 'Foxy Lady'

and we were going into
the intro to 'Purple Haze'

and I happened to look over
on the side of the stage,

and there in the shadows
was Jimi Hendrix

with his arms folded,
grinning.

And we came offstage
and he said,

"I like you, you've got a lot
of nerve."

This was 1968,

and at the conclusion of the
Jimi Hendrix Experience tour,

two members of The Sidewalks
were drafted.

However, we still wanted
to carry on.

So, having learned the power
of the trio

from working with
The Jimi Hendrix Experience,

we decided that we could
probably do it as a trio.

Then we decided
to rename it.

We had an apartment,

and across the wall
we had collected

all the posters of blues
players.

We noticed there was this
recurrence of a BB. King,

D.C. Bender, ZZ. Hill.

And we said, "Yeah, let's take
the 'Z.Z.' from this end,

and let's take 'King'
down at this end."

So, initially it was ZZ King.

I said, "No, the 'King'
is at the top."

I said,
"How about ZZ Top?"

Shortly after, we cut a single,
but we needed a manager.

I remember playing a show

and Bill Ham showed up
backstage

with a good friend of ours
and he introduced us,

he said, "This is my buddie,
Bill Ham."

Bill Ham said, "Gee whiz,
I like what you guys do,

I'm getting into the management
business.

Would you guys have
an interest

in considering talking
about management?"

Well, little-known fact,

Bill Ham had been a recording
artist back in the 503.

He had several singles
that became quite popular

way, way back.

So, he knew music,
he knew songwriting.

This was not some guy
that was just good at sales.

This was a guy that knew
creativity.

So, we connected,
and he seemed to believe in us.

So, we said, "Let's try."

The next thing you know, the
cigars were being passed out,

in fine rock 'n' roll fashion.

"Boy, I'm gonna make you
a star."

So, ZZ Top is up and running
as an organ trio,

and that lasted for a while.

But our fair organists wound
up auditioning to take the part

for a new TV show that was being
pitched called Mork & Mindy.

He had other aspirations,
as did our drummer.

I didn't wanna be a solo act,

and that's when,
lo and behold,

Frank Beard showed up.

When I drove down
to Houston,

I hunted all over the place,

found Billy Gibbons,
made him go...

I mean,
just threatened him,

made him go to the rehearsal
studio and we jammed.

I was jacked up on speed.

I made him jam for about
eight hours

until his tongue just fell out.

It didn't take 30 minutes,
it didn't take 30 seconds.

I knew that Frank Beard had the
kind of chops I was looking for.

He played fiercely,
he played with determination,

and I decided...

enter Frank Beard as the new
drummer for ZZ Top.

At the conclusion of this jam
session with Frank on drums,

he said, "By the way,
I know a bass player

that would really
round this out.

I've got a guy named Dusty."

Next thing you know,
we're in another jam session.

Now the new face is Dusty Hill,
playing the four-string bass.

We started it off, I said "Well,
let's do a shuffle in C."

That's about as straight ahead
as it goes.

I'll join you here.

'Shuffle in C',

yeah, it wasn't a real song,
it was just shuffle in C.

And I'm serious, that song
lasted for a long time.

And it was just really cool.

Everybody was just like,
"Whoa."

Once Dusty took the stage,

something magical occurred,

and that first shuffle in C

lasted for three solid,
uninterrupted hours.

At the end, we pulled it to
the curb, and I said,

"You know what?
I think this is going to work."

And that's really the genesis
which led up

to the trio that you now know
today as ZZ Top.

The first order of business
for us

was getting ten great songs
together.

And at that time, I guess
we had been in the woodshed

for maybe,
four or five months' time,

working it out, getting the
arrangements built up.

And then, taking off
for the recording studio.

When we first went
to record our first album,

we probably had been
together six months.

We were ready to do a rock 'n'
roll album, go in the studio.

Next thing I know,
we're driving to Tyler, Texas.

Tyler is just supposed to be
the Rose Capital of Texas.

Well-deserved,
beautiful flowers.

But anyway, we pull up,

and I didn't know
what the deal was

because the studio
was a house.

I don't know if it used to be
a garage,

or if it was just built on
the side of house.

But in the back of the control
room there was a door

that led into the house.

Everything was nice and neat,
doilies on the chairs,

it reminded me
of my grandmother's house.

But Robin Hood Brians
knew what he was doing.

I got a call from Bill Ham.

He said, "I've got a group,
I want to bring them up,

they're called ZZ Top."

I said, "OK."
So, he booked about three days.

And we set up and did two days,
maybe three, of recording.

Bill Ham, I will say, was
smart and really knew music,

and he wanted a bigger sound,
something different.

"Well, only one set of drums,
one bass and one guitar.

What can you do?"

We were a three-piece band.

Our favourite bands were Cream
and Jimi Hendrix Experience,

so we were going to be
in that vein.

Although Billy and Dusty
do sing harmony,

we weren't The Hollies
by any means, or The Beatles.

We didn't sound like that.

We kept looking
for a sound.

I mean, I tried everything
I could do.

I put microphones all over
the studio,

I had one right on the amp,
I put one behind an amp.

I put one in the hallway,
I put one up in the ceiling,

I put one out of phase.

So, we kept looking for this
bigger, better, different sound.

It was a grand challenge,

but Robin Hood could relate to
the music we were delivering.

And he had state-of-the-art
equipment,

but most importantly,
Robin Hood knew how to use it.

And he was hell-bent
on getting a good capture.

I kept telling Billy,

"Billy, I did a little trick
on a record.

Double the guitar,
but sort of screw up the tuning

on the strings a little bit

and it gives it
that 12-string flow."

He said, "No, no,
we can't overdub."

Bill Ham made a hard fast rule,
"There will be no overdubbing."

I said, "Billy, you pick up the
ball when I throw it to you."

So, we worked on sounds
and everything

until about 1 o'clock.

I turned to Bill Ham
and I said,

"Bill, you've been promising
these guys

you're going to get them some
ribs from the Country Tavern."

I went over and I winked at
Billy, and Billy picked it up.

He says, "Yeah, my man,
I can't play me no blues

'til I get me some barbecue."

Bill said, "OK,
where is this place?"

The Country Tavern is about
25 miles over there.

It's over across
the county line.

So, when Bill Ham left,
I said,

"Billy, we've got about an hour
and 15-20 minutes."

I said, "Record one song,

and play the rhythm simple
enough that you can double it."

And he did.

So, then I came out
and just messed with the strings

and pulled them, just to
get them a little out of tune.

And he doubled it,
panned that 45 degrees,

voila!

So, that was the sound,

and when Bill came in
with all these ribs, he said,

"Damn, you didn't tell me that
place was in the next county!"

And I said, "You know, Bill,
we go there so much,

it just seems like
across the street to us."

Billy said,
"Bill, we've found a sound.

See what you think
about this."

He reached over
and pushed play.

Boy, Bill listened to that
and he said, "Yeah, that's it!

That's the sound I want."

How the song 'Brown Sugar'
starts, you know.

Man, they told me

It starts out
with such a tip of...

It's blues, in a
traditional sense.

And then, all of a sudden,
it turns into ZZ Top.

It starts here, but it ends
somewhere completely different,

and that journey with ZZ Top
is what's really fascinating.

One of the threads
that go through all three of us,

we all listened
to these same stations,

those X stations out of Mexico,

which were illegal
in the States.

But they had a lot of
blues programmes:

Freddie King, BB. King,
Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf.

And all three of us, not knowing
each other growing up,

had listened
to the same shows,

and were heavily influenced
by them.

Yeah, we loved this stuff,
but we also loved rock 'n' roll.

We never said we were a blues
band, we've never said that.

We're interpreters
of the blues.

They took the licks
from the blues,

and then they played them
rock 'n' roll.

They played them with the big
amps and the loud drums.

It was the combination
of the blues licks,

that unique, overdriven sound
from the amps,

and the lyric content.

So, ZZ Top plays the blues,
but they don't sing the blues.

They turn blues
into party music.

Word had gotten out that

there was this loud rockin' trio
from Houston.

And true enough, we did make
for a gangly group of renegades.

It was craziness,

but it was all because
of the incessant touring.

I mean,
we never stopped.

We were working
all we could.

We would play
at a roller-skating rink,

and then we would play
the next night,

say, at a National Guard Armory
or something like that.

So, it was like throwing
a stone into the water

and where we could go,
it would grow and grow.

We were playing, frankly,
wherever we could,

but we weren't playing
the big places.

I mean, we weren't playing in
Dallas, we were playing in Waco,

before the church thing.

We weren't really playing even
in Austin or San Antonio,

we were playing New Braunfels
or something.

The early days of ZZ Top
were really strange days.

One of the first gigs was
rather unusual.

We came down to this place
in Alvin, Texas.

We were expecting whatever,
hoping for a sell-out.

We'd be happy if it's half full.

This place had a stage
and it had curtains,

and we're behind the curtain.

And when the curtains
opened there was one guy.

And he's looking around like,

"Hey, I'm in the wrong place."

He turned around
and started to leave,

and we're on the microphone,
we go, "Wait, wait a minute.

Stick around, we're gonna play
the whole show for you."

He didn't know what to do,
he just stood out there.

We played about an hour.

We took a break,

went out and motioned to
the guy and bought him a Coke.

Yeah, we bought him a Coke

because we were thankful
he stuck around.

Then we played an encore.

An encore is supposed to be when
they demand to have you back.

Well, we thought,
"The kid deserves some more."

That guy still comes around
to this day,

and he won't tell us
his name.

He just says, "Remember me?
I'm the guy."

I said, "Of course
we remember you."

In those early days,

even though we were touring
around like crazy,

we didn't do interviews,
we didn't do TV.

Bill Ham wouldn't let us.

If you didn't see us onstage,
or hear us on record,

you didn't hear or see us.

We were not to play on
anybody else's record,

we were not to do
TV shows,

we were not to do interviews
that weren't approved,

we were not allowed to do
anything like that.

Bill Ham, I think he was
very traditionally old school.

He was following the
Colonel Tom Parker model,

that was just
the accepted thing.

I had to ask
every once in a while,

"Hey man,
why aren't we doing

Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson
or something?"

And he'd go, "Boys, the least
they know about you the better."

And I went,
"How can that be?"

And he goes, "Well, the word
will get around."

I said,
"What if it doesn't?"

But the thing is,
when we did play a place,

nobody had seen us.

People were very intrigued
by who we were,

'cause they had no idea.

There was at least
one show

where the mystique thing
really paid off,

and that was
the Memphis Blues Festival.

Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.

Memphis is a magical place,

it gave the world
a new kind of music.

The Beale Street blues,
the Memphis blues,

songs that were to be translated
and sung

in every language
known to man.

So, this promoter from Memphis,
Tennessee called us up

to take part in a blues festival

at the Overton Park bandshell
there in Memphis,

which was a miniature version
of the Hollywood Bowl.

And that was really our first
big jump out of the region.

It was full of great
blues guys.

Muddy Waters, Freddie King,

Albert King,
I think, Lightnin' Hopkins,

just a whole slew of really
great blues guys and us!

The main thing I remember is,

downstairs in the basement,
there was a poker game going on.

At that time, we hadn't met
Muddy Waters,

so, I said to the promoter,

"Man, me and Billy would really
love to meet Muddy Waters."

Me and Billy were
standing there awkwardly,

over watching the game,

but at one point,
he goes,

"Hey, Muddy, I want you to meet
two friends of mine.

This is Dusty and Billy."

And he goes,
"Nice to meet ya."

And that's it, man.
I mean, that was it.

So, rule of thumb: don't get
introduced during a poker game.

Nobody has the time
for you.

The blues festival
was in full swing,

but the weird thing was
that the promoter

had only gotten familiar with
ZZ Top having heard the record.

He never bothered to look at
the watercolour drawing

on the back of the album cover
to realise we were white guys.

So, he shoved us all the way
to the end of the show,

thinking everybody would be gone
and these white guys

wouldn't interrupt
his blues presentation.

But sure enough, by the time
we hit the stage,

no one had left,
it was still packed.

Everyone was so into it.

In fact, halfway through
our set,

way in the wee hours of the
morning, far after midnight,

I'll never forget seeing
Furry Lewis

walking onstage,
waving a handkerchief

egging us on,
"Go on, go on!

Play that stuff,
play that stuff!"

So, it was quite a
reward to be part of that scene.

And that's what really started
the connection

with Texas meets Tennessee.

The next thing that unfolded
in Memphis was we learned

that Led Zeppelin was cutting
their third album out there

under the auspices of
the great engineering staff

at Ardent Recording Studios,
right there on Madison Avenue.

I thought, "Gee whiz,

Led Zeppelin here in Memphis,
Tennessee?"

That got my attention.

Billy was actually looking
for me

because I'd just recently
before that,

engineered the Led Zeppelin III
album, mixed it and mastered it.

And he was saying,
"I want to go to Memphis

and I want to work
with Terry."

The new album
had been partly recorded

at Robin Hood Brians' place
in Tyler,

and they wanted to finish it
at Ardent Studios,

and get that Zeppelin type
of mix sound.

We found ourselves
entering Ardent Studios

and those guys created
such a powerhouse team.

I mean, they pulled out
all the stops, no holds barred.

We dug it.

Those early sessions,

Billy was going for
some extra overdrive.

With 'La Grange',
he tried to sing distorted.

I remember Billy came in,

he said, "I just don't have it
today, I can't do that thing,

we can't do the vocals yet,
but give me a few minutes."

I said,
"What are you gonna do?"

He strips down to everything
but his pants,

his trousers and shoes.

This is wintertime, and he
runs around this huge block

three or four times, just...

He came back in the studio
and goes, "There it is."

It's just, whatever it took.

'Tres Hombres' had
so many elements going for it.

It was crisp, it was the first
record that was big and bold.

We were enjoying the benefit
of that level of talent

that lifted ZZ into a great
sounding group on record.

I was 13, rifling through
my mum's disco records.

I found this green record

with three faded photographs
of hairy cowboys.

I put it on and it completely
floored me.

It painted this picture of
Texas, which was totally exotic.

It was an unimaginable world,
it was totally alien

from where I was from
in London.

'Waitin' For The Bus'
is probably the only lyric

I could have related to
at the time.

You'd heard Cream
and you'd heard Led Zeppelin,

and you'd heard this kind of
English version of blues,

and it was kind of pop.

But when ZZ Top hit,
it was like,

the curtain was removed and
it was put back on the ground,

for what it really was.

You don't expect to hear a John
Lee Hooker-type boogie song

on pop radio.

But there it was.

That music
came out of nowhere,

Texas blues music
with a rock edge

just shot onto the charts
and onto the radio.

It was kind of a turning point.

Things began to percolate.

It resulted in ZZ Top's
first big hit record,

which was 'La Grange'.

And then came
an interesting turn,

this explosive announcement.

We got the word
from Bill Ham,

"The Rolling Stones want you
guys to come over and play

in Honolulu."

The word was that Jagger
had heard our stuff,

and he liked it.

And he asked if we wanted to
play with the Stones,

open for them in Hawaii.

You've got to understand,

I love, and always have,
The Rolling Stones.

I mean, I just...

It was just great
'cause we weren't anybody.

You know, you get to go
to Hawaii, for one thing,

and open for the Stones
for three shows.

That was amazing.

We decided we were gonna go over
two weeks in advance,

and it was all under the guise
of, "We're gonna warm up."

Well, the only warming up we did
was walking on Waikiki Beach

and getting some suntan.

Charlie Watts sat at the
poolside bar

probably about 12 hours a day.

He was a fixture
at that bar.

Keith Richards
wore white pants

that were as dirty as you can
possibly get them.

He wore the same pants
all three nights.

I remember the hotel,

hanging out
with The Rolling Stones guys.

After the first night, Bill Ham
came to me and Frank and said,

"Well, you've already run up
this bar tab pretty high.

- You guys have got to cut back."
- "Oh, man."

He went,
"Two drinks a night."

He had us on a two-drink limit.

So, Dusty and I found that
they made a drink

called the 'Chimp in Orbit',

which came in a glass
that was about this tall

and about that big around.

It sat on the ground
and had a giant straw.

He came in and he saw that,
saw me and Dusty sitting there.

And I go,
"This is only my second one."

He just turned around
and walked out.

He didn't say a word.

We did three shows
in two days.

And I had heard
that on the same tour,

Stevie Wonder was
on one of their shows

and actually got booed.

Stevie Wonder!

So I was scared shitless,
I really was.

We walked onstage
the first show,

we had cowboy hats on,
boots and jeans.

And you could hear a pin drop.

When the curtains opened and
they looked at Billy and Dusty,

you know, and they had
the cowboy hats on,

there was just a veil of horror
fell over this entire arena.

It was like,
"Oh, fuck. Country band."

I turned to Frank and Dusty,
I said, "All right, fellows.

We've got to hit it."

Mick watched us.

He put on a hat
and some coveralls,

and stood on the side
of the stage with a broom,

like a janitor,
and watched us play.

I looked over the side,
and I see Jagger looking at us

but he's got a broom turned
upside down like a beard.

Standing.

So, he's got a pretty good
sense of humour.

It was so much fun,
I can't tell you.

We got an encore
each show.

An encore!

I was just on cloud 29.

Those three performances
were just electric.

We did our job,
same bluesy thing

that got us together
in the first place.

It settled the score.

And this wave of enjoyment

permeated through
that whole arena.

The next day,
I was sitting at the airport,

and I was reading
the paper.

They didn't mentioned us,
absolutely nothing.

Almost worse than saying you're
crappy, or they don't like you,

is just dismiss you.

That happened a lot to us.

As far as the journalist and the
press in general was concerned,

they couldn't understand us.

First of all,
Texas was an oddball place,

and here is this oddball band

playing this oddball
kind of music.

And there was a great amount
of confusion.

We were functioning
far outside the pale

of what journalism
was trying to embrace.

That was back to that thing of,
"You've gotta go to California,

you've gotta go to New York."

And we refused to do that.

I think we were just provincials
over there.

They lumped us off with all
the Southern rock bands.

They called us
a 'Southern' rock band.

They didn't know
what to call us.

You see, "That little ol' band
from Texas",

I don't think it was meant
so much as a compliment,

when it first was said.

We grabbed a hold of it,
we thought it was a cool line,

but I think it was actually
supposed to be a cut.

The Village Voice said,

"ZZ Top has a sound like
hammered shit."

So, I had been hired
by Bill Ham

to wrestle this opinion to
the floor and turn it positive.

I had worked with
Michael Jackson, Bob Marley,

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen,
Billy Joel, Paul Simon,

Peter Gabriel and people
like that.

So, I thought I could handle
ZZ Top.

I went down to Texas,
I interviewed them

in a hotel room in Houston.

I got all the background I could
but I didn't feel I had a handle

on the fucking,
goddamn soul of the band,

what it was
that made them tick.

And something started to come
out of these guys.

The rest of us in
the United States of America,

we have 50 states, and we all
think that kids in all 50 states

grow up with the same version
of the history of our country.

No.

What the guys were
revealing to me

was that they grew up
in a foreign country.

They grew up in a country
with its own founding fathers,

and they were not George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Their founding father was
Sam Houston.

When I was a kid,

you took Texas history
before American history.

See, that right there
tells you something.

I'm told I had an ancestor
in the Alamo.

The pride in Texas
is a real thing,

I take it with me
everywhere I go.

I'm a 7th generation Texan.

I know that my father's family
came into to Texas in 1836,

I know that my grandmother,
Bessie Dawson,

walked behind a covered wagon
in 1899 from Louisiana.

We like Texas,
and we like being Texans.

So, we started bringing that
to the fore.

Obviously we took it
much further

when we did
the Worldwide Texas Tour,

which was just one giant piece
of craziness.

I mean, wow.

I guess probably about '74,

a friend of mine approached me
in my dressing room.

I was clowning a rodeo.

He said, "My boss wants
to meet you.

He's the manager
of ZZ Top."

I said, "ZZ who?"

Because I was into Country.

So, I met with Bill Ham
in my dressing room.

He asked me a lot of questions
about training,

and how much experience I'd had
and stuff.

I said, "Well, yes,
I've trained a lot of animals."

And he said, "Can you train
a buffalo?"

I said, "I can train anything
with hair."

He said,
"OK, you're hired."

This is Texas,

and this is 'that little ol'
band from Texas', ZZ Top.

ZZ Top's Worldwide Texas Tour
is coming!

Bill Ham was the most
sophisticated strategist

of touring that I've ever seen
in my life.

Bill wanted to create
a mystique,

so they put together a tour
called the Worldwide Texas Tour.

They put together
a 75-foot wide stage

in the shape of the state
of Texas.

They had four trucks painted

with a continuous diorama
of Texas landscapes,

just rolling down the highways
of America.

At that point, Texas was
considered unsophisticated

by New York people,
Hollywood people,

and as a result,
people like Janis Joplin,

who grew up
in Port Arthur, Texas,

pretended she was from
San Francisco.

Well, gradually it dawned on
ZZ Top and Bill Ham.

It was time for a movement
for Texas pride.

It was time for them to take
Texas culture to the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, that
'little ol' band from Texas',

ZZ Top!

We finally had a little money
to make a production.

We'd never made
a production before.

We didn't know how to make
a production.

And then, some idiot, I don't
know which one of us it was,

I can't remember, but it's like,
"Let's take a buffalo."

"Yeah, well let's take a
Longhorn steer."

"Well, let's take some
rattlesnakes."

"Let's take a javelina pig.

And let's take some buzzards."

So, all of a sudden,
we've got this theme.

Seven trucks' worth of theme
to go out and do concerts with.

- Which one's that, two?
- Two.

He was with us last year.

This buzzard was

with my rodeo clown career
for 42 years,

and then with ZZ
for several years.

I think we figured she's 49,

almost in six more months
she'll be 50 years old.

When ZZ asked me
to come along with them,

then I suggested the buzzard.

She was staged behind
Frank Beard.

Frank used to tease them.

He used to kind of tease
with them and stuff,

but the buzzards didn't want
anybody messing with them.

The buzzards were right
behind me.

If I was playing a slow blues,

they would get very interested
in me,

like, "Is he dead?",
you know.

So, I'd start moving the arms
a lot more.

The Worldwide Texas Tour
was a huge tour.

It was elaborate,
even for the time,

and it was extremely
expensive.

And we weren't big enough
to do that,

and everybody told us,

but we did it.

It was audacious,
and we liked that.

That very idea of doing that,
is what it means to be Texan.

It was like a circus.

It was like a Texas circus.

You had livestock onstage,
for Christ's sake.

Who'd ever done that?

Who'd ever seen animals
onstage with you?

It was like a rodeo,
a circus, and a rock show

all wrapped into one.

For the band, the Worldwide
Texas Tour finally,

once and for all,
had placed ZZ Top as,

"Oh, those three guys from this
weird place called Texas.

Did you see them with
the travelling zoo?"

80, Texas, at that time, was
starting to become discoverable.

Cowboy hat sales,
which had been relegated

to the borders of the great
Lone Star State,

was now up in New York City
at a western wear shop.

And all due,
in no small part,

to this mythical trio
called ZZ Top.

They've come a long way
from the one-night stands

in beer halls that gave them
their nickname

of That little ol' band
from Texas'.

But the down-home Texas approach
looks like a solid hit

with the teenagers
in grassroots America.

Good night, everybody.

Thank you so much!
Glad to be back at home.

The Worldwide Texas Tour
was a grandiose outing

from the beginning
to the closing.

We had made the rounds coast to
coast and border to border.

The band worked seven days
a week,

and by the time
we pulled it to the curb,

it's safe to say that all three
band members,

we wanted to take
a step back.

When that was over,
we were just exhausted.

We'd literally been on the road
since we formed in late '69.

I kept thinking, "Surely,
we keep going at this pace,

we're gonna burn out."

Everybody just wanted to go
do a little something.

I mean, you know,
get off the road.

At the end of the Worldwide
Texas Tour, with the animals

and the insanity that brought,
there was a definite tiredness.

I think creatively,
everybody was a bit down,

especially Frank.

He was really burnt out
at that point.

I think it was a little bit
of a drudge.

It was hard, but somewhere
in there, I got $72,000.

I remember, that was the first
big money I ever got.

I got a cheque for $72,000,
somewhere in there.

What did you do with it?

I spent it on drugs.

Every bit of it.

I never had enough money
to become a proper addict

until '77,
and then I accomplished that.

The first time I ever did any
drug at all, was I injected LSD,

and boy, I liked it,
you know.

I mean, it was looking for God
and that whole thing.

I really became a seeker
of truth, you know, all of that.

And then, the pills thing came
about just from the workload.

And the heroin thing came
about because I just liked it.

I mean, if you've never done
heroin, you know...

It's great,
it's a vacation for the mind.

And I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

Clapton only snorted heroin,

which is like so fucking
not cost-efficient.

You have to do five times as
much to get the same buzz.

But he was making
more money.

But it's not cost-efficient.

All the money
I pissed off, that's a regret.

I sold my original Ludwig kit

to buy drugs with it.

Relationships I fucked up.

Debbie and I, that was the
reason we broke up.

In the back of my mind,
I knew I needed to kick heroin,

I needed to stop
doing cocaine.

I had done it all,
and I couldn't go any further.

So, I called and told Ham,

I said "Look, I'm going in
to a 30-day programme."

And Bill Ham said, "All right,
take as long as you need."

So, I went to a 12-step
programme.

I just wanted to get sober.

I wanted to be like people
I admired that could sit home,

watch TV and go to bed,

and that was OK.

Frank goes all out
at what he does,

and that includes
the bad things.

He was sick.

If you're a very good friend,
you love a guy,

you don't want to see him die.

You just want to see
your brother get well.

For me,
success is a great thing.

It can also really screw
with you.

Not really sure who you are,

or if people around you
treat you badly,

or treat you really nice,

according to who they think
you are.

I just wanted to feel normal.

So, I got a job at the airport.

I got a work shirt that said
"Joe" on it.

I cut my hair and I worked there
for a couple of months.

I was really happy.

You know, Friday night,
go to the beer joint,

dance, drink and flirt
with the girls.

And everybody knew me as Joe.

It gave me a sense of being
grounded, I guess.

Billy, I think, spent
a lot of time in Europe.

Lord knows what he was
doing then.

We were gonna take
three months

just to kind of reorganise,
relax a bit, chill out,

which turned into six months,
which then turned into a year,

which became two years.

So, I took off to see what was
happening out there.

I was pogoing with punks
in England,

and then dipping into

learning the ways of the gurus
from India.

It was a pretty wide-ranging set
of unusual experiences.

I think it was
a big growth period.

I think all of us
decompressed.

The break that we took, even
though it was my initiative,

worked out for everybody.

Billy and Dusty cleared their
heads and I got sober.

During that period,

the record label put out
a greatest hits album.

And Bill Ham sued them
about it,

he said, "Hey, you didn't have
the right to do that."

He got us out of that contract,

and we were free
and we moved to Warner Bros.

It turned out to be a big move.

Warner Bros,
at that time, ruled.

They owned the record
business.

And they were waving
a contract,

they said,
"We want ZZ Top."

They wanted us to get the gang
back together

and that's what we did.

We all came back together

with a renewed and really
a fresh sense of enthusiasm.

And also, a willingness
to experiment.

Let's get crazy with it
right now!

During that extended
hiatus,

there was this growing
punk scene

that was really explosive
and robust,

and it had such energy
and force.

There was something rebellious
underneath it all,

which we liked.

Those influences certainly
steered us

in a different direction.

We were changed.

I mean, it wasn't quite so
organic bluesy.

It still had a lot of that,

but there had been a lot of
influences

that each of us had been through
during this time off.

So, we were willing to go down
different roads

to find new music.

We did so many
crazy experimenting things,

including on the vocals.

I remember Billy called me up
and said,

"Oh, I've just been watching
the Phil Donahue Show.

They had a guy there who didn't
want to reveal who he was,

so they had him blacked out and
you could only see his shadow,

and they had his voice
all changed.

You've got to see this show,
cos his voice sounds awesome."

So I called up Phil Donahue's
office, and said,

"What did you use to distort
that voice?"

The guy said, "Well, I don't
want to reveal it."

So, I finally begged
and he told me what it was.

So, I got one of those boxes,

that's one of the things we used
to disguise guitars and voices.

So, yes, we went for
a different feeling, sonically,

and we were consciously trying
to get more eclectic.

Yeah!

When you're running around town
in your gold Cadillac

or your tailored Cadillac,

just let 'em know that you're
bad and nationwide.

The other thing is, when we
reconvened after the hiatus,

it was discovered that we'd all
gotten rather lazy.

None of us had shaved
for three years,

and this new version of ZZ Top
appeared.

They take off a little time,

they come back, and they've
got these long beards,

except for Frank, obviously,
whose name is Beard.

I had a beard, but it wasn't
near the beard they had.

So I shaved it pretty much right
after we got back together,

when I saw they had this much,
and I had this much.

Frank didn't mind being
beardless.

After all,
he had the name,

and he could go to the shopping
mall without being interrupted.

He wouldn't go to the mall
with me or anything,

he just went, "I'm not going
out in public with you

because you get
recognised now.

We can't go anywhere
in peace."

I went,
"Well, thanks, buddy."

So, I would hang around
with him anyway.

"This is the drummer
right here."

What started out as a disguise,

over time became a trademark,
I guess you'd say.

It goes where we go.

We're still trying to
figure out,

"Is it better to have the beards
over the covers

or under the covers?"

The everlasting question.

I'm not a big fan of beards.
I thought it looked awful.

I know these guys
and they don't look like that.

Is that fake?

It was kind of a shock,
but it hid their faces.

It kept the mystery, but it let
them come out to the world.

It started another
kind of mystique.

It started the cartoon
characters, ZZ Top people,

which it turned out,
hit at the exact right moment.

I remember, Debbie and I were
lying in bed one night,

flipping TV channels,
and I saw this music thing.

They showed a music clip,
and then another one,

and then another one, and we
watched and we were enjoying it.

About an hour later,
I called Dusty and said,

"Hey, man, there's this special
on TV.

It's all about music,
you need to watch it."

Frank called me, he said he
stumbled across this station,

and he thought it was a special.

He went, "Man, this is a great
show. You've got to tune in."

I tuned in,
and then I called Billy.

He said, "It's on this weird
channel,

it's way down at the bottom."

After about four hours,
I called and said,

"Hey, Frank, when does this come
to a conclusion?

We've been watching four hours,
and it keeps going."

About three,
four in the morning,

we were like, "Goddamn, how long
is this thing, you know?

We've got to go to sleep."

We all are so excited about
this new concept in TV.

We were fascinated

by the possibility of video
meets music.

That discovery of MTV
is what brought the notion

of putting three guys in front
of a camera.

And Tim Newman, the great
director, stepped forward.

I had produced a video
for my cousin Randy Newman

of this song called
'I love LA'.

And apparently,
Bill Ham had seen the video

and had requested
a meeting.

So, I had this meeting
with Bill Ham and he said,

"We wanna do a video for the
song 'Gimme All Your Lovin'."

He said, "The video's got
to have a car

and it's got to have girls."

It was sort of like,
the unspoken thing was,

"Besides that,
do whatever you want."

That was the creative brief.

Tim Newman had an idea,
he said,

"I've heard about this
hot rod car, can we bring it in?

Because I've got three
pretty girls

to match you three
ugly guys."

Get back to work.

I'm a product
of that early MTV era,

and fascination with discovering
music through video in that way.

My introduction was
Eliminator',

and that's the sonic version
of ZZ Top.

Now, if you are a blues purist,

that could be very dangerous
for them.

That could have backfired
in a major way,

because they're toying with
something sacred.

People don't like that
that much.

You know, "Don't toy with
my idols, my altar."

A lot of people's introduction
to ZZ Top

was the MTV videos and
'Eliminator'.

'Eliminator' has got
great songs,

but it was a departure.

A couple of people
at the record company,

and a couple that we knew,
were real against it.

They said, "No, you can't
release that song.

That song, it's not you.

You're gonna get a lot of crap
about it."

We stood up for it.

We really wanted to do
some different things,

things like a synthesizer
or different technology.

We wanted to use it.

If you don't do that,
you play shuffle in C forever.

We had to maintain
a willingness

to continue this business
of experimentation.

This notion of what blues
should or shouldn't be,

was thrown out the window.

Combining the new sound
with the videos,

with the girls,
the car and the keys,

and the cartoon character
band guys

fading in and out
and doing things,

that was so out of the ordinary
to happen.

I love films, and I come from
the idea of narrative.

It didn't interest me to do
a performance video.

So, somehow,
I got the idea

that it would be interesting
to turn these videos

into a story that had to do with
the band as magical heroes.

Their mission was
to help out young people

who were having a really
crappy life.

Tim Newman,
his sense of vision...

He was the first on the block
that really brought

Hollywood-movie-like
scripting

into a three-minute
expression.

Gee, I'm sorry.

That's OK, any time.

- Oops!
- Watch your dress!

The band suddenly became
larger-than-life.

We came, we appeared lending
our hand to the underdog.

Boy meets girl, girl and boy
ride off into the sunset.

And we're still playing.

We're still the musicians.

That's all ZZ Top is,
we get to play.

It was just so potent,
it was so stylised,

that it just laser-etched
in your brain when you saw it.

No one else looked like them,
no one else sounded like them.

You didn't even have to own
a ZZ Top record to know ZZ Top.

It made them cultural icons,
it made them so recognisable

that they will be
recognisable forever.

It was one of the handful
examples of artists

whose careers were completely
transformed by music videos.

They could go and tour Europe
and Asia.

The end result
of the videos was

they became international
superstars.

Right here we have the fabulous
ZZ Top!

I just can't tell you
how important it was to us.

Without videos,
I don't think

'Eliminator' would have been
what it was.

I always wanted to do
the Carson show.

We finally got to do it.

Would you welcome,
ZZ Top!

Did 'Eliminator' define ZZ Top?
I don't know.

But as the old saying goes,

"As long as we're in there
somewhere."

There's that even stronger
statement,

"It only takes one."

And we continue
to make music.

We continue to get in the studio
and thrash it out.

Let's face it, the Eliminator'
peak really brought

so many new faces
to the party.

They're still there
and so are we.

Here's the deal,

we don't really know what's kept
us together this long.

I make a joke about,
that we've been together

because early on we got
separate tour buses.

But, the love of music
certainly bonded us together.

We grew up listening to kind of
the same stuff.

But that happens 8 lot and
it doesn't keep bands together,

so, I don't know.

I would say, for me, I've found
the people I want to play with.

And I was able to do that
at a very early age.

I'm still satisfied
with them.

I'm satisfied with Dusty
and I'm satisfied with Billy.

With these two guys,
I've never wanted to quit

and I've never wanted
to get fired.

I'll drink to that.

Oh, OK.

Well, there's an easy answer
to what's kept the band together

for now nearing
five decades,

which is probably longer
than most marriages,

but the general consensus,
and we talk about it frequently,

we still enjoy getting to do
what we get to do.

There's such a richness

in meandering down
this long trail together.

Dusty, Frank, and I, four going
on five decades later,

we've stayed on course,
and we turned it up,

cranked it up,
and we never looked back.

When I first met Billy,
it was to play together

in the studio on
a Queens's record.

He was playing,
and he hits this note,

and his beard fell
and it muted the strings

and it made this harmonic.

I sat there stunned,
dumbfounded,

and we looked at each other
and he's like,

"This is the first ever
beard harmonic."

Even his beard

is a pretty good
guitar player, you know.

I think that the fact that
ZZ Top has the same three guys,

had been together
for fifty years,

is really an amazing
achievement.

And they will be remembered
for 150 years.

200 years from now,
people will be going,

"Everybody's crazy 'bout
a sharp dressed man,

Who are those guys?"

How much are you getting off
any of these cameras?

Is it just table-height?

It's pretty much from
about here.

How about
this camera here?

We're not seeing below
the table.

- OK, that's what I'm asking.
- Yeah, yeah.

So I can take my pants off.

Bill Ham, was probably one of
the most charismatic men

I've ever met in my life.

He's the reason we were able to
grow out of "just another band",

that was out there, a B-level
band trying to make it,

that we were able to grow
into what we are.

It's difficult to talk about it
'cause it's kind of too soon.

He just gave me direction,

not only as part of the band,
but as a person.

He was a very wise man
and I loved him.