Billy Gibbons returns from the desert with hard rocking new ‘Hardware’
Stopping to drop some friends off at their home in Cuero, Billy Gibbons utters a line that is perhaps the most Billy Gibbons line ever uttered.
“Hold on,” he says. “Let me hop out of this hot rod right here …”
He bids farewell to some friend and proceeds to talk about his new album. Gibbons has many interests — music, African art, cars, guitars, etc. So he doesn’t complain about the past year and a half. But he seems to have done the best he can to get through it, making music when he can and riding hot rods in South Texas when he can.
We’re talking about “Hardware,” the third solo album he’s made in a period of six years. And all three have represented different sides of what Gibbons does: “Perfectamundo” in 2015 had what he calls “a Spanish or Cuban thing”; “The Big Bad Blues” (2018) was bluesy as billed. “Hardware” is a heavy rock album served straight, with Gibbons joined by guitarist Austin Hanks and drummer Matt Sorum.
“We recorded it in the desert surrounded by nothing but sand, cacti, a few rattlesnakes and a lot of rock,” he says. “So I thought it was time to get back to rock.”
Gibbons gets back to touring with ZZ Top later this year. In the meantime, fans fan delve into “Hardware,” knowing ZZ dates and new music are on the way. Q: “Hardware” suggests you weren’t idle during the pandemic.
I was in Spain, following an appearance at a Fleetwood Mac tribute concert in London. And I had a hankering to hang out with my buddy in Valencia, Mr. Nacho Baños. (Laughs.) That’s his real name, by the way. He was showing us these five-star restaurants in Valencia. However, we were looking at some approaching tour dates that were to begin in March 2020, and unbeknownst to us, in Valencia, this virus was exploding. We had no clue — until I landed in Las Vegas, whereupon the taxi driver said, “Billy, am I taking you to your house?” And I said, “Well, I need to drop something at the venue first.” He told me the show was canceled, and I asked why. He said, “Where have you been?”
Q: That’s one way to find out about a cancellation.
A:
Yes, indeed. So we were trapped like everybody else after the curtain dropped. Until I got a phone call from Austin Hanks and Matt Sorum in June. They said, “Are you tired of doing nothing?” And I said yeah. They’d discovered this recording studio in Joshua Tree. They knew I love the desert in California. They said, “We’re gonna make it loud in Death Valley.” So off we go. I got to the studio and thought I’d have 30 minutes to look around. It turned into 30 days and then into a few months. But, brother, talk about having a good time. It was a most unexpected turn of events, so we did not call for the equipment
truck. We handpicked a few items found in the dusty corners of the studio. There was a Fender Jazzmaster guitar for Austin and a Fender Jaguar for me. We started to work on what would be “West Coast Junkie.” It sounded like surf music. Miles from the nearest drop of water, making surf music.
Q: That song also had the very Houston-centric tip to Skipper Lee Frazier.
A:
Yes indeed! We couldn’t leave Houston off the map. I remember his afternoon DJ position, that big window at KCOH. If you’d drive by slow
enough, he’d say, “Hey, hey, hey, Cadillac, how’re you doing?”
Q: I can’t quite put my finger on it, but “My Lucky Card” … both the opening riff and the solo reminded me of “Just Got Paid.” Did it feel like a dial back to you?
A:
You’re not far off. I would tend to lean in that direction. It’s funny, these sessions, we were in the desert, literally 20 miles from civilization. So there were times we were waiting for the engineer to show up. There’d be a dice game in one corner, a card game in another
corner. There was definitely money on the table. And I guess in the same way “Just Got Paid” was a big question mark when we made that one. In this case, though, to the rescue came Matt Sorum’s sweetheart Miss Ace. We started to feel like she was our lucky card — she always seemed to show up when we were stuck. That’s pretty much the gist of it.
Q: Clearly this process differed from how you’ve conducted business with ZZ Top over 50 years.
A:
Well, I enjoyed the balance between the two: This and what
you’d expect from a ZZ Top session, which has five decades of familiarity. This was the opposite side of the seesaw. When we arrived, we had nothing more than a blank piece of paper and a pencil. So every day was a new surprise. The only way around it is to start doing something. That’s pretty much the backbone of “Hardware.” One example is that I happened to have this demo version of Augie Meyers’ famous composition, “Hey Baby, Que Paso.” Austin and Matt were familiar with the track but had not heard this version. Augie presented it to me long ago, a first pressing little 45 rpm thing with the same song on both sides. They asked me what the second verse was. And I said, “I don’t know. Maybe we should call Augie?” Which we did. I asked what the verse was and he said, “Well we just called it ‘Fake Spanish.’ ” We asked if we could interpret it, and he said, “The only thing to know if you’re doing fake Spanish is to make sure everything rhymes with ‘San Antone.’ ” Which we did.
Q: There are murmurs that we may get the first ZZ Top album in nearly a decade. Anything to that?
A:
Well, we’re heading to Houston to start, what’s the phrase? To peel the next layer of the onion. Yes, there’s a new project in the works, hopefully we’ll have something at the end of the year. I’ve been thinking about next year. 2022. The number 22 … the numbers look a little like the letters “ZZ.”