During a recent appearance on “SiriusXM,” ZZ TOP frontman Billy Gibbons talked about his connection with Beyoncé that goes way back to the pop superstar’s early days.
“I’ve made one adventurous escape from the studio back to a studio back in Houston, and I would say that was the place where we first got head-to-head with the hip-hop community, Gibbons said. “It’s no secret that Beyoncé‘s first foray into the scene when she was with her girl group DESTINY’S CHILD.
“ZZ TOP was in the studio left, the hip-hop guys were in the studio right, and we collided right in the middle in the lounge. There was the GHETTO BOYS, BUSHWICK BILL, and by this time, the intrigue of this particular studio was bringing clients in from as far east as Atlanta, and as far west as Los Angeles. We brought back a little piece of that hip-hop influence and it appears on the track from Hardware [Gibbons’ new solo album] called ‘Spanish Fly,’ and it started off Matt [Sorum, drums], he said ‘Hey, man, could you play that track again?’I said ‘Oh yeah, I brought this back from Houston.’ And it’s a grinding groove, but we still take a page out of any book we can. It’s fascinating where the influences will show up, you never know.”
When asked if Beyoncé “was just another Houston girl,” Gibbons responded: “Oh yeah, we had the ZZ TOP studio, we were giving it a bit of a facelift, so we went down the street to work with John Moran‘s outfit called Digital Services.
“And I want to say that Beyonce calls me her homeboy, and she’s certainly our homegirl. They were tearing it up, and from that rather inauspicious beginning, a lot of great stuff has come out of there. In fact, ‘I Gotsta Get Paid,’ again was drawn from one of the songs, which started from the hip-hop catalog called ’25 Lighters,’ so there’s been some real valuable exchanges along the way, it’s been great.”
