How ZZ Top discovered and dominated MTV by “accident”
There is little to prepare you for the shock of seeing ZZ Top perform live. If you entered their show with a blindfold on, with no prior knowledge of the band, it would be safe to assume that you would not be able to give an accurate description of the group. A band born out of the blues rarely has two frontmen with beards as long as their torsos and hats that refuse to leave their heads. But that’s exactly the band we have in front of us.
The Texan group have long been championed as one of classic rock’s most potent outfits. During their heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, the group were a force to be reckoned with, providing ample foundations for the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan to excel with his brand of countrified electric guitar. Formed in 1969, the trio of guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, captivated millions of fans with their swashbuckling songs, including anthems like ‘Legs’ and ‘Gimme All Your Lovin”, which both arrived during their commercial peak in the 1980s through the “phenomenon” of MTV.
While the musicality of the group is always interesting — Billy Gibbons is routinely referred to as one of Jimi Hendrix’s favourite guitarists of all time — some of the most captivating points of the band’s career are their off-stage activities. Like all rock and roll bands of the time, the group had to adapt to find the peaks and troughs of making it work on MTV. The new channel was a lightbulb moment for the music industry, and it was a shock to see how well the band adapted to it, something that Billy Gibbons said happened fairly accidentally.
Speaking to Uncut about the group’s impressive albums, Gibbons reflected on the 1983 record Eliminator and how it allowed the group to hit the MTV airwaves and capitalise on the newfound technology: “We fell onto MTV by accident. Frank Beard, the man with no beard, rang me up, and he followed up by calling Dusty, and he said, ‘Hey check it out, there’s a great music show.’ We collectively thought it was maybe a late-night performance, and after about eight hours and staying up all night long, I called him and said, ‘When is this concert ending?’ Only to find out later – somebody said, ‘That’s a new 24-hour music channel.’ That was our introduction to MTV.”
“There was such curiosity about it – it was wild, no holds barred, no rules laid,” continued Gibbons, “it was total guesswork. But we had diligently worked at wrapping up this series of sessions that became Eliminator, and the earmark of that recording was strict adherence to the study of keeping good time. We were trying to dismiss the bad stage habits of speeding up and slowing down and incorporating that with some really unexpected sound additions. Those two elements, plus some interesting compositions – you combine that with somebody stepping forward and saying, ‘Hey, let’s join this video phenomenon,’ which resulted in that trilogy of ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’, ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ and then ‘Legs’. And that stamped us forever – cars, girls, and fast and loud music.”
The vision MTV would beam into the homes of rock and roll lovers around the country captivated audiences and sent them, in droves, to the music of ZZ Top. From this, the band would go on to dominate the decade with hit records, sell-out tours and even the odd film cameo, including Back to the Future III and Bill & Ted. What’s most inspiring of all is that success happened rather accidentally.
