So it kept it lively – here we are playing things we didn’t know how to play, but all of a sudden you’re in it, so the chops were getting honed night by night.“ But don’t work harder than you have to. “The set was two hours, and there was a slot between the first and second hour for two songs – each night the ‘unexpected song title call’ went from Dusty to Frank and back to me, and we never knew what was going to be thrown on the deck. A lot of folks might’ve taken that as an excursion into abject boredom, but it was the quite the opposite. “We toured for seven years running uninterrupted, from the time we started in late ’69 all the way until ’76. I suppose you could download it, but just as long as you’re near it.“ Play live a lot, and try to surprise yourself. Whatever suits your fancy, make sure you stay close by. But these are only as far away as the next record that you can learn to play along with, and for me that included attempting to learn all the chops by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Mick Abrahams, Jimmy Page – the list goes on and on. “There were different periods in ZZ Top’s career where we found that the field of greater charm seemed to be just over the horizon. Your next step forward, that ‘field of greater charm’, is just a record away. Lifting the needle off, you’re taking your hands off the strings momentarily to find that sweet spot on the record that you’re trying to learn. And now, with the unexpected return of the popularity of vinyl, be sure you got a record player handy. “In fact I would encourage anybody just starting out to be sure to take time to, as the old adage goes, ‘practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more’. I was fearless on that end, but learning to play that agonizing F chord was miserable! But I was pointed – I was going straight back to the house, going into my bedroom, picking up the six-string, firing up the record player and learning what was already in the grooves. “With the lure of leaving school, some people might find themselves in a world of swirl not knowing what to do. Matt and Mike liked the fat sound of the shorter one – the little one’s bigger!“ Practice, practice, practice. It’s much like Fender and Gibson – the Fender is a quarter-inch longer in scale length, and that makes Fenders a bit brighter. “I have two of these Frying Pans, one an extended scale length, the other shorter, and I came to realize the shorter neck produced a darker tone. To get the best out of it we went to a solid steel guitar bar, and again that’s another element of sound that’s quite different. I’ve got an old Rickenbacker ‘Frying Pan’ lap steel from the 1930s. “On the song Stackin’ Bones, we have two young ladies by the name of Larkin Poe, and I became intrigued by the way was getting around on the Rickenbacker lap steel, the sound she got off it, so I started fooling around. For Hardware, I actually started revisiting the mysteries of the lap steel. “I like glass and ceramic slides, but in a pinch – and the moms may not be too happy about this – you can go into the kitchen and saw off the leg of a kitchen stool, and you’ve got a nice metal slide. There’s zero flexibility – you can really dig in with the attack knowing it’s not going to let you down. I got some pals who prefer using a very pliable plectrum, but I’ve gotten used to the fierceness of the peso. “That was one great thing in the desert – the Mexican peso was always in the pocket, and that was one countable element that wasn’t going to let us down. Pearly has managed to be front and centre on just about every recording project of mine.“ Say ¡Hola! to a better sound – use a peso for a pick. Within a couple of weeks, we sent for our personal gear and some of our own favorites showed up. Parked next to a 1955 Gretsch Duo Jet was an early-60s Fender Jazzmaster, and I thought, ‘Wait a minute – a Jazzmaster and a Fender Reverb? We’re on!’ "I found a Fender Reverb in the corner of the studio, and despite the engineer waving me away we plugged it up and it worked. The sound has got a lot of my guitar buddies saying, ‘Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re going back to surf days?!’ And I say, ‘Well, yeah!’ “This go round, one of my favorite tracks is West Coast Junkie. Strap in! Make the most of the gear around you. TG caught up with this most cosmic of guitar heroes to get a taste of the album, to look back on 50 years of the Top, and to pick up some six-string tips, advice and philosophical guidance on the way. Gibbons’ third solo album is a modern-retro set packed with his trademark Texas tones and tunes drawing on slide-laden blues rock, 60s surf music and the kind of gravel-throated cinematics only The Reverend can provide.
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