Doubling back again with ZZ Top

Not many bands insisted on inviting then-youthful Baltimore Sun music critic Nestor Aparicio backstage after a concert for an interview – but ZZ Top insisted back in January 1991. Turns out when Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of the little Texas band welcomed him into their dressing room for a post-show at the Capital Centre, it was all about their work with the Delta Blues Museum. For the record, the most accommodating rock stars ever…

In January 1991, Nestor Aparicio interviewed Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top backstage at the Capital Centre. The band discussed their three-year association with the Delta Blues Museum, inspired by a visit to Clarksdale, Mississippi. They took a four-year break to focus on new material and wrote a theme song for “Back to the Future Part III.” Their recording process in Memphis shifted from synthesizer-heavy music to a more blues-influenced sound. The band emphasized a mix of old and new songs, with a focus on blues tunes. They also highlighted their environmental awareness through their “Recycler” theme.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

ZZ Top, Delta Blues Museum, recycler tour, blues influence, Memphis recording, environmental awareness, Clarksdale visit, blues icons, new material, Back to the Future, theme song, blues Museum, blues history, blues musicians, blues origins

SPEAKERS

Dusty Hill, Nestor Aparicio, Billy Gibbons

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore. Positive, you are listening to our music classic, and you can find all of our music classic chats out at Baltimore positive.com there are now hundreds of them. I unearth a bunch of them back in about 2014 these are more recent tapes. You’ll find the transcripts of these as well at a Baltimore positive. This is ZZ Top. This is dusty Hill and and Billy Gibbons, mainly Billy Gibbons talking about the Delta Blues Museum. This was recorded backstage at the Capitol center after their recycler tour show on Sunday, January 13, 1991 the band had an interesting publicist, and who was also Stevie Ray Vaughn’s publicist before that, but he insisted that I meet the band and chat with them after the show, which was in my years of being a music critic. And I was about seven years in. This was very late in my music critic career, January of 1991 I had not met a lot of bands who wanted to do interviews afterward, other than Paul Stanley with Kiss did one afterward in a hotel room with me. But this was backstage with the band. They literally were taking off their sunglasses and ordering new prescriptions for their sunglasses. Strangely enough, the show was unbelievably elaborate at the Capitol center. This was they were big, big stars doing multiple nights by 1991 so the these transcript says ZZ Top discussed their ongoing association with the Delta Blues Museum, which they had supported for three years they were inspired to visit Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, after a recommendation, the band took a four year break from touring, focusing on new material and writing a theme song for Back to the Future. Part three got to double back again. Their recording process in Memphis shifted from synthesizer heavy music to a more blues influenced sound. They emphasize a mix of old and new songs in their live performances, with a focus on blues ear tunes. The band also highlighted their environmental awareness to their recycler theme. This is Billy Gibbons and a little bit of dusty Hill and I think even a little bit of Frank beard backstage at the Capitol center in Landover, Maryland on January the 13th, 1991 please find all of these cool interviews out at our Almost Famous ness and our classic music category at Baltimore positive. As far as the Memphis thing getting pressed together a couple weeks ago, I didn’t understand. I didn’t have read any of the stories, or I don’t know exactly we were trying to do there, but I’m pretty serious about that also

Billy Gibbons  02:40

the the press conference that was that unfolded last week, okay, That was a convenient place to locate to discuss the our involvement our ongoing association with the Delta Blues Museum, which is a fund raising association to benefit the Delta Blues Museum, and at that same time, we were recognized as having played an instrumental part in bringing some recognition to the museum.

Nestor Aparicio  03:32

How did you find out about the museum? Or have you been going there?

Billy Gibbons  03:35

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Well, we’ve been going, we’ve we’ve had this particular association going for about the last three years, and it was during the recording session for we were in Memphis doing some kind of a tracking session, and took the weekend off to go to Clarksdale, Mississippi to see the blues Museum, on the recommendation of a friend of ours who happened to see a sign blues museum this away, and we decided to go check it out. And I’m sure it was indeed, it was there.

Nestor Aparicio  04:09

So what is the cure the caretaker this place? What kind of things is he?

Billy Gibbons  04:16

Oh, you’ll find the usual, books, records, videotapes, magazines, but then you start getting into a lot of local icons, old guitars, photographs of Delta blues musicians, things like that. Plus you’ve got the benefit of being in the Mississippi Delta where this music had its origins, and you’ve not only got a great place to focus your attention, but a direct feel from where this music came from. So it’s it’s pretty intense place. It’s got. Going,

Nestor Aparicio  05:00

how’s the score worked out back on the roads?

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Billy Gibbons  05:03

Four years, four years exactly,

Nestor Aparicio  05:06

you were pretty regular, you know, every year and a half two years prior, that

Billy Gibbons  05:10

way? Yeah, we, we kind of the last tour was about two years in length. And at the conclusion of that run, we decided to take little time off. We started writing new material. Then we were called to write this theme song for Back To The Future Part Three, which ended up with us taking making a cameo appearance in the film, and that took some time.

Nestor Aparicio  05:45

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What was that like? Your cameo took all two minutes on the screen, right?

Billy Gibbons  05:50

Yeah, we worked for about three days and knocked it out. It was a lot of fun. We actually played between takes, which was like town Fiesta, okay, well, it was, it was a real party. It turned into a real party. And it was fun. It was really great fun. But, in fact, there’s some great outtakes of that evening, a couple of evenings of work professional

Nestor Aparicio  06:22

videos, right? Yeah,

Billy Gibbons  06:26

so that was that was a lot of fun. And then we just started working again in Memphis, after we looked up three years had gone by, and that was the thing to do, but the actual

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Nestor Aparicio  06:40

writing and recording process. This didn’t take any longer. It’s not like you heard these songs for a longer period of time or anything. Well,

Billy Gibbons  06:47

I guess we didn’t plan it that way, but they did get worked on a little longer, because when we got to Memphis, we beat the equipment truck by two days, and in those two days, we had scared up some other gear to jam on, and we started just playing the blues. And that really redirected our attention at a different approach to the sessions. We had actually arrived with one set of books for the Eliminator, After Burner style of music. And then after two days of playing the blues, we chucked it and started over, you chuck the writing and the material, yeah, we just said, Well, wait a minute. You know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I think double back. Was our was that was the first thing we started working on. And we had worked on on that. The rest of the stuff was pretty much written in in Memphis, we just started over. It was a little easier. Just the feel of what we were doing live changed the direction dramatically. So, yes, well, I

Nestor Aparicio  08:02

mean, obviously you recognize the difference in the styles between After Burner. Well, type of days, yes, what is the difference? I mean, what makes you come in and do it one way instead of the other? And why did you change it this time? Well,

Billy Gibbons  08:19

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it just felt better. I think that had we stayed on a synthesizer journey, we might have wound up becoming a, I don’t know, or maybe a rap band. I mean, it was, it was a revelation to be trapped on borrowed equipment, letting the natural feelings come out and therefore changing the direction of the material that dramatically is the material gone forever, then,

09:06

well, I’m

Billy Gibbons  09:07

sure we could, no it’s, it’s still existing in a kind of pre recorded form. And we could certainly go back and do the eliminator After Burner treatment to some of the old some of this other material, but we felt that what was happening was appropriate to continue. So that’s where we left. So

Nestor Aparicio  09:43

are you a little bit disenchanted with that music? Now, I mean, I noticed your show more tush, more LaGrange, you know, more things. I don’t think I’ve heard you do touch that you

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Billy Gibbons  09:51

didn’t do the last story. And I don’t think so

Nestor Aparicio  09:53

there’s some stuff there that you didn’t do, cheap sunglasses. But I’m surprised because this show more you. Brought this. I saw you here in 1980 the first concert ever saw this building. I was 12 years old. Yeah, yeah. I came here and I had third row seats. I got him running the show, and I didn’t know much about him. I remember the reason I came and saw you because of the fiery, easy top logo you had behind this. And I said, that’s cool. We’re gonna see that man, you know. So I came down and saw you guys. Okay, oh, can I

Billy Gibbons  10:24

we got started late, just just a minute more.

Nestor Aparicio  10:28

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So are you at all just chanting with that kind of music

Billy Gibbons  10:31

or not necessarily? I just felt that this association with the blues Museum, a lot of this bluesy alignment kind of fit into restructuring of the way we made music, the way we recorded it, and that’s why you think, that’s why It sounds a little more tushy and Lagrangian, because we were playing more like we did. It’s like Trey sombres meets.

Nestor Aparicio  11:11

It does come forward feeling, and you were feeling the same kinds of things, yeah? So that’s why we got no rough boys. We got no certain segment out there that really likes that After Burner eliminator type of music, even if they do like blues, you know, they know you can synthesize music. By the way, your question is, how much of the synthesizer you’re using on stage now, I mean, how much of it doesn’t come from the three of you. Oh, there’s

Billy Gibbons  11:42

a couple of sequence bits that follow. Frank,

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Nestor Aparicio  11:48

yes, what I heard, I heard in the drums when they

Billy Gibbons  11:51

work, but, you know, you got to cross your fingers on that end. But it’s a lot of it’s a lot of hand work. It’s then

Nestor Aparicio  12:01

doing it, just plant yourself. Well, I mean, you gotta come out here and do this 150 times, you know, if you put an album else, yeah, it’s

Billy Gibbons  12:12

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a little more work. It’s a little more work to coordinate. But it all depends on your taste, how you’re using it, how deep you want to get. And we’re not really that deep into it. We just, we’ve chosen not to.

Nestor Aparicio  12:30

Did you program the synthesizers in the last hour? Yeah, you did all that. So in dusty you’re not a slave to the guitar, then you have fooled around with some of the gadgetry. Yeah, I

Billy Gibbons  12:42

pretty much lean on dusty to work it up.

12:47

I was talking on the Osmo,

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Nestor Aparicio  12:50

talking to Lena a little bit about just talking about the different styles of the album. He sort of says there was the eliminator after burning music y’all have ready to go when you went to Memphis, any particular was that just a threesome decision, or was that, well, you

Dusty Hill  13:09

know, it’s like a lot of our decisions, that we don’t sit down and have huge meetings. We follow what Bill and it was a natural thing. You know, it just took another direction to be with.

Nestor Aparicio  13:21

So what happens to that music?

Dusty Hill  13:26

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It was in different stages of completion, too. And we we write some songs 10 minutes, we’ve been writing one song. You can’t write the song. The thing is this for radio? No, we’ll go back and take something to say, Hey, see, I wasn’t changing. See, there’s any feel or not to it. Again, we got a lot of stuff like that. Got a lot in the can. I think it’s interesting

Nestor Aparicio  13:56

talking to you guys after I’ve seen the show, so I draw more conclusions, but sort of like the music you did tonight, and I guess you’re doing the same set every night, reflects the sound on the album more. So there isn’t a lot of the after for her illuminator kind of music on there was that a conscious effort? Well, there’s

Dusty Hill  14:13

a which the set is, I think, a good mix of a lot of our albums. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  14:19

I think I seen you the last two tours, and I did that you were pretty much focusing on that type of music. You don’t think it even did touch

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Dusty Hill  14:26

last we always do

Nestor Aparicio  14:29

the Grange or you didn’t do some of the

Dusty Hill  14:31

older stuff. Yeah, probably not, but we do. We’re doing about a half hour longer, 40 minutes longer, on this tour as well. So there’s a lot more tunes. Maybe it stands out a little bit more as well. We

Nestor Aparicio  14:45

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cut out stuff like rough

Dusty Hill  14:47

wood. I really love doing that. Songs that was hard to cut that one out, but 2000 blues sounds a little too much. We want to do that right?

Nestor Aparicio  14:57

It’s hard.

Dusty Hill  15:00

Have to take out cheap sunglasses. We get a lot

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Nestor Aparicio  15:01

of shit. About a dozen guys getting shit on the way out, yeah,

Dusty Hill  15:05

but, you know, we can’t do them all.

Nestor Aparicio  15:08

Does it come to a point where

Dusty Hill  15:10

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you change it up? Yeah, that’s the deal. But the flow, the flow of the set, has got to have a certain feel to it. You just can’t just take a tune out, put another one in. I guess you can do whatever you

Nestor Aparicio  15:29

want. What about the staging? I guess you guys aren’t the engineers of any kind. But how do you get something like that? The

Dusty Hill  15:38

idea is he’s getting answer a lot of questions. He’s been printing the ideas. Somebody comes up with one, and that just starts the flow. There’s no problem. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  15:56

the whole recycler theme is that very environmental review, drug

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Dusty Hill  16:01

offense, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  16:07

I can’t do everything.

Dusty Hill  16:09

You have a plastic

16:13

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cup, you’re doing your

Dusty Hill  16:18

part. Talking about cars at first, and all that, you know, but, you know, we’re becoming more aware of it as the tourism, because people are talking about it. So there’s a lot of things around the world and people we’re not real. You know, we’re never preached anybody or start these big things. But it’s good people know about, I think the name itself just draws attention

Nestor Aparicio  16:48

to be in Memphis last week. Were you doing the press thing there? That’s why so surprised that. So you guys want to do it in person. But what’s your association with the Delta Blues Museum? Just give me more details about it. It’s, obviously, it’s obviously, it’s pretty important down there, and doing it that

Dusty Hill  17:05

way, yeah, I mean, it’s neat. People should know about it. It’s museum from clues to show the history. And we just try to let people know about, is there a

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Nestor Aparicio  17:15

Blues Hall of Fame, or is this pretty much service that

Dusty Hill  17:19

could be others.

Nestor Aparicio  17:23

Did you talk to the guy about how it all started and how he got the idea for this, and why you didn’t know about it until a couple

Dusty Hill  17:30

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years ago? Mississippi and the library, you know? And unless you have a reason to go to Barksdale, I don’t think a whole lot of people go through there. So

Nestor Aparicio  17:41

how far from Memphis is that, or is that 90 miles? Okay,

Dusty Hill  17:45

it’s not bad. And once they get a good facility going and everything, I think people will make the trip to Memphis. Maybe have some sort of shuttle names, right? It’s a lot of ideas, and I think it’s real important.

Nestor Aparicio  18:01

Oh, you guys have done a lot. I mean, just you meeting the press there. I’ve seen a couple stores in the wire already, and it’s going to turn into something bigger, just because you did it. Thank you. You.