Forty years into their career, the founding members of ZZ Top are still grinding out their blues-based rock ‘n’ roll.
The Texas trio has teamed up with super-producer Rick Rubin to record a new album that may see the light of day in 2010. The group has been road-testing songs at live shows.
“We’ve been beating tractor-loads of the new stuff on the asphalt and it’s definitely thrashed ‘n’ mashed to a fine grind,” bassist Dusty Hill said in an e-mail interview. “We be mixin’ things up night tonight.”
To translate that: Fans will get to hear new material along with old classics when ZZ Top plays Comcast Arena in Everett on Monday night.
“It’s an experiment in time travel to some extent,” drummer Frank Beard said.
Fans were robbed of a ZZ Top show this summer when the group’s tour with Aerosmith was cut short. Steven Tyler injured himself when he literally danced off the stage during a performance in South Dakota.
ZZ Top was disappointed by the turn of events, but it didn’t slow the band down. The group quickly booked more shows. The road kept calling, they said.
Live shows give the group a chance to hone their considerable chops on their biggest hits.
“We still like ‘LaGrange’ because the ‘haw, haw, haw’ part is easy to remember,” guitarist Billy Gibbons said.
Songs like that may please the casual fans, but the new material will be just as exciting to the devoted.
The group sounds excited about recording those new tracks with Rubin, who has helped reinvigorate the careers of Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond and, yes, Aerosmith.
“Collectively, there’s a great sense of what works on a recording,” Hill said. “We’re casting our lot with him and vice versa.”
Fans will get to see how the songs translate into a live setting at Monday’s show, which Hill set up in wry and simplistic terms.
“There are lights and microphones, and it’s pretty loud, and we have some fun, and then we jump on a bus and go to the next place and do something like what we just did,” he said. “Uh, not that different from a lot of bands, really.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com.
ZZ Top
8 p.m. Monday, Comcast Arena, 2000 Hewitt Ave., Everett; $35 to $55; comcastarenaeverett.com or 866-332-8499.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
