ZZ Top: Last News

ZZ Top have announced the release of a new live album as well as a summer North American tour – buy your tickets here.‘Raw’, set to be released on July 22 via Shelter Records/BMG, is an 11-track LP recorded for the trio’s 2019 Netflix documentary, That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.The Sam Dunn-directed film sees ZZ Top’s original line-up – guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and late bassist Dusty Hill – perform an intimate career-spanning set at the historic Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas.The show’s setlist included the hits ‘La Grange’, ‘Tush’, and ‘Gimme All Your Lovin”, and deep cuts such as ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Certified Blues’.“It was, in a very real way, a return to our roots,” Gibbons and Beard reveal in the album’s linear notes. “Just us and the music, no audience of thousands, no concession stands, no parking lot social hour, no phalanx of tour busses. Just us and the music.“We knew right then it was a very special circumstance, all of us in the same place at the same time and what a time it most certainly was!”They add: “It was as bare bones as when we first started touring in a behemoth Chrysler station wagon, driving vast stretches between those early far-flung shows under blackened Texas skies and first hearing our records on the radio.

ZZ Top have shared that their drummer, Frank Beard, will be taking time off of their tour to undergo a “health procedure”.The band issued a statement yesterday (March 14) to say that Beard would “temporarily” be stepping away during the ongoing string of gigs, which kicked off on March 5, “to attend to a health issue requiring his focus in the near term.”Beard will be replaced by “fellow Texan and longtime tech member, percussionist and drummer” John Douglas, who they say has a “close relationship” with the group and previously filled in when Beard underwent an emergency appendectomy in Paris in 2002.“He is looking forward to a speedy recovery,” the statement concluded.A post shared by ZZ Top (@zztop)Beard has served as ZZ Top’s drummer for over 55 years, after taking over from founding drummer Dan Mitchell who played on the band’s first single ‘Salt Lick’.Since then, Beard helmed their debut album – the aptly named ‘ZZ Top’s First Album’ – in 1971 through to 2012’s ‘La Futura’, and has co-written songs such as ‘Legs’, ‘Sharp Dressed Man’, ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’, and ‘Tush’.The band’s most recent LP was the live album ‘Raw’ in 2022, which followed the death of ZZ Top bassist, Dusty Hill the previous year.

Maxxxine has arrived in cinemas, but what songs are on the film’s soundtrack? Check them all out here.The official trailer for MaXXXine landed back in April and it promises a violent, mysterious and action-packed ending to Ti West’s popular horror trilogy.The third instalment in West’s horror series starring English actor Mia Goth is set about six years after the events of X.The trilogy began in 2022 with X, the slasher film which follows the cast and crew working on a pornographic film in Texas who find themselves threatened by a homicidal an elderly couple.Released six months later was Pearl, which told the origin story for the villain who would commit violent murderous acts at her Texan family home in 1918.Maxxxine is a direct sequel to X, with Goth reprising her role as Maxine Minx, and co-producing the film.In a four star review of the new film, NME said: “Given slightly less opportunity to impress here (only one role this time, and no monologues), Goth still outshines everyone else in sight. Just as sweetly unsettling as she was in the other two films, now turned ball-stomping survivor she caps the series with another one of horror’s greatest performances.“MaXXXine is far too good to be the end of the story.

Slash, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Myles Kennedy have covered Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Simple Man’ with Warren Haynes’ band Gov’t Mule at Haynes’ 2023 Christmas Jam.On Saturday (December 9), Slash, Gibbons and Kennedy joined Haynes’ band for the nearly 10-minute rendition of the Skynyrd classic as the last song of Slash and Kennedy’s set during the concert. The cover featured vocals from Haynes and Kennedy, along with an extended guitar solo from Slash.Watch Slash, Billy Gibbons, Myles Kennedy and Gov’t Mule cover ‘Simple Man’ below:The concert marks the 32nd edition of Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam, and took place at the Exploreasheville.com Arena in Asheville, North Carolina.

ZZ Top have played their first show since the death of bassist Dusty Hill, who died late last month.Taking place Friday (July 30) in Alabama, Hill’s position was filled by Elwood Francis, who had already been filling in for the job in recent weeks. As Rolling Stone notes, frontman Billy Gibbons acknowledged Hill a number of times throughout the show.“We’re gonna have a good time in here tonight,” he told the audience following the opening track, ‘Got Me Under Pressure’.