ZZ Top Goes XXX


The part-live, part-studio makeup of ZZ Top's new album, XXX, evokes 
memories of an earlier work from the little ol' band from Texas. But 
guitarist Billy Gibbons had to have his memory jogged to remember which 
one.

"Someone said to me, 'Well, you had done that once before on Fandango! (in 
1975), and I had forgotten that the A-side was studio and the B-side was a 
live recording from New Orleans," Gibbons says. "So XXX is still within 
that ZZ Top tradition, I suppose."

Gibbons says XXX was supposed to be an all-live album, for which the band 
recorded club shows in Los Angeles and Port Arthur, Texas. At the same 
time, however, the group was writing some new songs and playing them during 
the shows, eventually deciding to record them at its home studio in Houston 
and later, in Memphis and California.

During the process, however, ZZ Top found that some old things can be made 
new again. Case in point is one of the live tracks, "Sinpusher," which is a 
revision of "Pincushion" from its 1994 release Antenna. "I think 
'Sinpusher/Pincushion' started developing one night when we played it and 
forgot the words," Gibbons says. "And we liked it better, so we just let it 
evolve."

As for spending 30 years together with bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank 
Beard, Gibbons says the reasons aren't terribly complex. "The answer has 
held on throughout; we still enjoy playing together, and as a band, that 
means a lot. Everything is the unified pursuit of the collective unknown 
and enjoying it. I don't know of anything that we have more fun doing. It 
doesn't seem like 30 years, particularly, but we've been in this band 
longer than marriage, longer than school, longer than anything we've ever 
done." - Gary Graff 

Original article can be found at:
 http://wallofsound.go.com/news/stories/zztop092899.html
* Sent in by Trond Ivar Midthaug