ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons releases his third album this Friday.
Hardware was recorded in California's Mojave Desert and he tells Pollstar that they "only thinking that really unfolded was realizing we’d got 16 tracks. But it was pointed out as we got into it, we’d only needed a dozen. So, we sorted what was there, and put out a pile to keep. The leftovers felt predictable, like a ZZ Top song. I took all that, put it in a box and sent it back to Texas."
That album is steeped in his trademark love for the blues. Gibbons adds, "It’s funny how in some ways, the blues are the blues are the blues. Yet, you know, there are people turning them inside out and upside down all kinds of ways."
Hardware is the follow-up to 2018'sThe Big Bad Blues.
"The Big Bad Blues took us around the country -- and the world," says Gibbons. "I’m ready to have a good ole time onstage again. Once we clear the deck of all this, we can get back to being ourselves again. Get back to smiling, too."
But touring behind Hardware will have to wait as ZZ Top begins a tour on June 23rd in El Paso, Texas.