Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame has announced a new solo album due to be released on June 4 2021. The album entitled Hardware will be the third installment for Gibbons’ solo career.
The album was recorded in Escape Studio, which is located near Palm Springs, California and produced by Matt Sorum (Guns ‘N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, and The Cult), Mike Fiorentino, and engineer Chad Shlosser, along with Gibbons himself. Sorum also served as drummer and joined Gibbons’ band on the album. There is also a guest appearance by Larkin Poe on “Stackin’ Bones”, whom Gibbons met through Megan Lovell’s husband Tyler Bryant.
Hardware is said to include 12 tracks, 11 originally written by Gibbons. The cover song in question is “Hey Baby, Que Paso” originally by Texas Tornados. The album title was inspired by long Gibbons and ZZ Top collaborated, Joe Hardy who worked with them in the mid-1980s. The inspiration for many of the album’s songs came from recording in the desert, as Gibbons notes, “The desert settings, replete with shifting sands, cacti, and rattlesnakes makes for the kind of backdrop that lends an element of intrigue reflected in the sounds created out there.”
The single, entitled “West Coast Junkie” was released today and is viewable on YouTube:
Shot near Joshua Tree, the song is instantly catchy and has that classic ZZ Top rock vibe many have come to love. The music video itself definitely can put smiles on people’s faces as it pulls from those classic B-movies from the 60s/70s filmed in California, such as Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! If this is what it means to be a West Coast Junkie, then sign me up!
Gibbons was born and raised in Houston, Texas where at a very early age he began to have an interest in music. Later, whilst studying at Warner Brothers’ art school in California, he began to join bands and perform. And so there’s a lot of references to Houston and (because true to his nature) driving, touring and cars. It’s Billy Gibbons after all.
What’s always been impressive about Gibbons is his talent in nearly every genre of rock music. Hardware is said to have all of that mixed in; there’s classic rock, there’s country rock, there’s the blues, heck–even some surf!
“We holed up in the desert for a few weeks in the heat of the summer and that in itself was pretty intense. To let off steam we just ‘let it rock’ and that’s what Hardware is really all about. For the most part, it’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery,” said Gibbons.
Gibbons has been busy since last year with tributes and performances to Fleetwood Mac, and recording Desert Sessions Volume 11 with Josh Homme.
Hardware track listing:
1) My Lucky Card
2) She’s On Fire
3) Shuffle, Step & Slide
4) Vagabond Man
5) Spanish Fly
6) West Coast Junkie
7) Stackin’ Bones (featuring Larkin Poe)
8) I Was A Highway
9) Hey Baby, Que Paso
10) Desert High
And 2 unknown as of yet.
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