Rock Music Menu: Catching up with ZZ Top and Billy Gibbons

ZZ Top, approaching its 57th year as a band, has spent the bulk of 2025 on the road, even expanding its ongoing Elevation tour, which began in October 2024, so that it stretches until the end of November.

Late last month, the Texas trio of guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard, and bassistElwood Francis, who replaced the late Dusty Hill in 2021, came to the region for two dates: first at theAmerican Music Theatre in Lancaster and then the Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem.

Following the pair of gigs, Rock Music Menu caught up with Gibbons to touch base on a range of topics.

First up was to see if he was surprised by how well Francis, who did time as Hill’s longtime guitar tech,had been received by the fans over the past few years, as, looking like a dry-spun Q-Tip, he appears tohave been seamlessly slotted into the threesome both musically and image-wise.

“Elwood’s got it,” Gibbons said. “And the reality of his long-standing star quality exuded his poisedinterplanetary acceptance from the very first gig. Not to mention, that huge beard kind of serendipitouslysprouted while that peculiar lockdown invited an abject laissez-faire attitude toward scraping chinwhiskers. Our initial encounter finding ‘Mr. Wood,’ prompted asking our legion of onsite techs (to ask),‘Who is the new bearded guy?’ ”

While Francis’ beard was a hot topic in the ZZ Top camp, he was about to shave it when two thingsconspired for him to keep the growth.

One was the passing of Hill, who had been adamant about “that little ole’ band from Texas” continuing without him, and the other was a certain Hollywood actor and musician in his own right.

“Just in time, Billy Bob Thornton, of all people, sent word to leave the razor alone till he could catch aglimpse of the new Elwood,” Gibbons said. “As it happened, the tradition was maintained with a splendidsegue, stepping up and taking the slot of bass-guitarist, full-time. Elwood comes through, night after night,with a wicked, expert raspiness, all about grinding ZZ’s bottom-of-the-top.”

Live, ZZ Top rips through a solid representation of a five-decade-plus catalog of hits.

From the bluesy Texas boogie of “La Grange” and “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” through the synthesized years of “Gimme All Your Lovin’ ” and “Sharp Dressed Man,” few stones are left unturned.

It was that latter era in the mid-’80s that catapulted the group into the mainstream as the iconic videosfeaturing the perpetually sunglasses-clad trio, two of them sporting lengthy beards — with Frank Beard,ironically, the only one clean-shaven — appearing hourly on MTV.

The experimentation with more electronic elements was rooted in an interesting foundation, a relationship with UK synthpop legends Depeche Mode.

“I was introduced into the world within the Depeche orbit, unexpectedly transfixed with their dramaticapplication over synths and sequencers … all the while submerging into an artistic radius of hard-hittingsounds of soulful rock electronica,” Gibbons said. “We met during an after-show cooling where weexchanged our mutual curiosity with the usual, ‘How do you do that thing you do?’ The quick answer was,‘Well, let’s dig deep and find out.’ Enlightenment ensued as it worked out over time with us both in studioand onstage.”

Another meeting of note in Gibbons’ past was when his late-’60s, pre-ZZ Top outfit, The MovingSidewalks, were tapped to open for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

At the time, they didn’t have enough material to fill out the set and forced to pad it with songs by the headliner, which is not so much a “no-no” as a never, ever do.

“We contracted the Experience tour, later discovering our set was somewhat shy timewise and, havingzeroed in intimately with the album’s recorded compositions, we simply added what we were holdingspecial, that being our fav-rave numbers right off our coveted early import of Jimi’s British release,”Gibbons said.

“During the first night’s closing set, a quick glance caught a shadowy side stage view of a lone figure witharms folded, leaning studiously and nodding his head while we ripped through ‘Foxy Lady.’ As we cameoff the deck, Jimi stepped forward to greet us and said, ‘You cats got nerve. I want to know you.’ Thatwas the inauspicious start of a real friendship. Needless to say, no regrets!”

Vinyl of the Week

Keep an eye on this spot as each week we’ll be looking at new or soon-to-be-released vinyl from a varietyof artists. It might be a repressing of a landmark recording, special edition, or new collection from alegendary act. This week, it’s the debut album from a band that came out at the peak of nu metal.

Slipknot: “Slipknot [25th Anniversary Edition]”

When Slipknot entered the musical consciousness in 1999 with their self-titled debut, it was likeeverything in the burgeoning new metal genre had been turned up to 11.

The music was heavier, the masked imagery of the band, of which there were a staggering nine members, was unlike anything the industry had seen up to that point.

Now, a deluxe reissue celebrating the release of the iconic LP has been released, immortalizing Slipknot’s creative process at the time when the Iowa nine went from a newly signed, fledgling metal act to an unexpected and unstoppable cultural force that redefined heavy music for a new generation.

In addition to a now sold-out six-LP box set with blood splattered vinyl that was limited to 1899 copies,“Slipknot [25th Anniversary Edition]” is available on two-LP and two-CD, in addition to digital on streamingservices. The two-LP set comes pressed on standard black vinyl, a red and black mix, citrus, graphite, andjade colors.

Depending on the format, the release includes the original Ross Robinson-produced album, plus recordings that only the band and their inner circle heard at the time of the production.

All were collected from the original sources and include unreleased takes, alternate versions, and mixes from SR Audio, Indigo Ranch, and more, as well as test mixes from alternate mixers.

Not only are these recordings the full story behind the recording of this now-iconic album, but they also chart the course of choices made and paths taken, and how the Slipknot the world knows today came to be.

As much as the debut album set the stage, Slipknot was also a band unleashed on live audiences in 1999, who had never seen anything like it. Performances on their first world tour cycle are legendary, and the band’s impact was swift as global audiences bore witness.

The “Slipknot [25th Anniversary Edition]” package includes recordings of shows that bookend one chaoticyear: the 1999 show in Hartford, Conn., captures the unbridled raw power of a small stage, while the 2000U.K. recordings document the band’s ability to harness the small stage energy and deliver to a mainstagecrowd.

The audio was pulled from the soundboard’s digital audio tapes, carefully remixed and mastered for the first time, all chosen by the band to best represent the intensity and spirit of the band’s earliest days.

“Slipknot [25th Anniversary Edition]” can be found online and from all respectable retailers who carry vinyl.

To contact music columnist Michael Christopher, send an email to rockmusicmenu@gmail.com. Also, check out his website at thechroniclesofmc.com.

Source: Berkshire mont