On Friday afternoon, mere hours before the first show in their Live Nation Vegas-presented residency – ZZ TOP: Viva Las Vegas, in The Venetian Theatre at The Venetian Las Vegas – I was granted an in-person interview with all three members of That Little Ole Band from Texas; and (as their answers will prove) they were as funny, knowledgeable, irreverent, and charming as I’d hoped they'd be.  Here are the highlights:

Welcome back to fabulous Las Vegas, y'all!  I'm just going to jump right in... Dusty Hill, how’d y’all come-up with “Tush” [from the band’s fourth studio album, 1975’s Fandango]?

Dusty Hill:  How did I get my funny tush? [Hill laughs]  Well, you know what it means…*   

Listen, it was one of those fairy tale recording sessions. I mean, I think it was the greatest - it's not Bob Dylan or anything - but we were doing a sound check [at a rodeo arena] in Alabama, and Billy was having the guy in the front record everything that we did, every sound check.  And we were just fooling around, and Billy starts playing the riff.  Then Frank jumps in, and I start singing off the top of my head. I mean, “I've been up, I've been down,” you know?  And we didn't change more than a few words, and that's it.  We wrote it in five minutes—

Billy F Gibbons:  Yeah…

Hill:  —and we've been trying to do that, ever since. [Hill laughs]. And yeah, sometimes, most of the time, it doesn't work; but that's how "Tush" came about.

Billy, how would you describe Pearly Gates' voice?

Gibbons:  Rich and smooth.  It's one of those kind of almost difficult-to-describe things.  Trying to describe the taste of a peanut, or the color red… That's Pearly.  It's just there.

Frank, what did you learn from your time playing with Lightnin' Hopkins?

Frank Beard:  Lightnin' change when Lightnin' wants to.  There's no structure, you know?  You don't go four bars here, and then four bars here, and four bars here.  You might go seven and one; so, be on your toes.

In numerous interviews, you’ve said that the first time you played together, you did a three-hour shuffle.  What is a shuffle? 

[At this, all three members of ZZ Top laugh, somewhat incredulously, at my ignorance.]

Hill:  Frank, explain that, would you? [Hill chuckles]

Gibbons:  You must be kidding... [Gibbons shakes his head]

I’m thinking it’s something to do with the drums, maybe..?

Beard:  Yeah… [The drummer then proceeded to demonstrate a "shuffle" for me, with his fingers, right there, on our table.  It was pretty damned cool.]

Hill:  It's a beat.  Frank and I’d played together before, but it was the first time I’d met Billy; and so it was "Let's just do a shuffle and see."  

As you play, and maybe sing a little bit, you can start experimenting around; so, it's the easiest format to kind of feel each other out.  And since Frank and I had played together before, we kind of had some experience on having a foundation for Billy.  And that's why Billy was happy, you know?

Because he had himself a rhythm section?

Gibbons:  Yes, sir.

Hill:  Well, I set a foundation. [Hill laughs]

Gibbons:  It was going to be three minutes, and then three hours later, we said, "Wow, I think we've got something here."

Hill:  Yeah. I mean, it was just fun.

So I gather…  How important to your musical sensibility was growing up close to Mexico?

Gibbons:  Well, to this day, it's got its unusual appeal. It's a mysterious kind of entity.  But it was always something we enjoyed…  An escape here: An escape there.

Are you guys going to play “El Diablo” [from the band’s fifth studio album, 1976’s Tejas]?

Gibbons:  We might..!** We’ve been fishing out… [Gibbons chuckles] When you start assessing the depth of the material, there's a lot of stuff… [Gibbons laughs]

After nearly fifty years, I'd say that’s putting it mildly!

Continued in Part 2…

ZZ Top: Viva Las Vegas
The Venetian Theatre | The Venetian Las Vegas
Through April 28th
Click HERE for info and tickets

Get into it!
#ZZTop

[Editor’s Notes: *A double-entendre, in a 1985 interview with Spin, Hill defined “Tush” as being Texan-slang for “lavish” or “luxurious” (in addition to its more conventional use as a synonym for “buttocks”).  **They did not.]

The world’s greatest hip-hop collective returns this weekend with the second edition of the history-making WU-TANG CLAN: THE SAGA CONTINUES… THE LAS VEGAS RESIDENCY