I was ZZ Top’s drummer for a night and got kidnapped by groupies

1986 ZZ Top concert cover story

ZZ Top concert cover story. Star Time, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 29, 1986

This is an opinion piece.

With Dusty Hill’s death last week, I was reminded of the time - 35 years ago this month – that I had the pleasure of meeting ZZ Top backstage after a concert. I got to be one of the band members for the night and I made some new friends. I wrote this story about it.

For the record, ZZ Top is: Billy Gibbons, AKA ‘The Rev. Willie G’ (lead guitar, vocals, beard.) Dusty Hill (bass, vocals, beard.) Frank Beard (drums, no beard.)

I’ve been an unofficial member of ZZ Top ever since I was musically baptized by La Grange, a blistering, guitar-driven song about a Texas brothel.

In the deepest, throatiest vocal a 14-year-old Kentucky boy can muster, I would growl “that home out on the range, they got a lotta nice girls there … you know what I’m talkin’ about” while playing air guitar on a tobacco stick not knowing the first thing about what I was talking about.

With trash can drums and mop handle guitars, the Hoover brothers – Mitchell, Winifred and Bruce – helped me form a ZZ Top cover band: ZZ Mop. Winifred, who even in his early teens looked like Dusty Hill, played bass. (The name ‘Winifred’ doesn’t hold up well in rural Kentucky. His name was phonetically shortened to ‘Winfurt’ for a few years in elementary school, but it finally just became ‘Wurnt.’ Last time I saw him, about 20 years ago, Wurnt was rocking a full-on ginger Dusty Hill beard.)

Related: Dusty Hill tribute: ZZ Top’s best bass-driven songs

Little did I know that one day I would get a chance to stand in for a real member of the real ZZ Top. We’ll get to that part of the story in a hot mess minute.

As y’all know, ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres is one of the greatest albums the Rev. Willie G and God ever created. I wore that album out, cranking up the record player for the gospel/blues songs (Hot, Blue and Righteous, Have You Heard, Waitin’ for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago) and the cleverly disguised songs (La Grange, Precious and Grace) while turning the volume down to a whisper for Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. I was a preacher’s boy, ya know. I could only crank that one up on those rare, glorious occasions when I was home alone.

After Tres Hombres came the Fandango album and the Top’s biggest hit at the time, Tush.

My most rebellious act as a teenager was to sabotage the jukebox when our family went out to eat at a local diner/fancy-eating restaurant after church. Watching the Sunday-best crowd dining and bobbing their heads to a steady stream of “I’m just looking for some tush” was pure semi-evil entertainment and worth every hard-earned, lawn-mowing quarter.

Let’s skip ahead to 1986. I was a twenty-something young ‘un working at my first job as a cartoonist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. That Little Ol’ Band from Texas had blown up into one of the biggest musical acts in the world, having scored huge success on MTV with their chart-busting Eliminator album a couple years earlier. They were now on their Afterburner tour of the U.S. which was set to end with several homecoming concerts in Texas.

There were rumors this might be the last big tour for the Top. They weren’t getting any younger - the band members were pushing 40, for cryin’ out loud.

The Star-Telegram wanted to send someone with high musical intellect and cultural credibility to cover this event. Instead, they sent me.

The only place north of Hades hotter than Texas in August is Arizona. So that’s where I went to catch America’s hottest band. Phoenix was one of the band’s last stops before heading home, and whatever I got from this concert was to be the cover story for our entertainment guide, Star Time.

Sketchbook and backstage press pass in hand, I set out to witness my first ZZ Top concert and cover the most exciting event of my young cartoony career.

I didn’t wear anything special, just my regular going-out-in-the-1980′s uniform: A long black duster jacket, white shirt, torn jeans, a randomly placed bandana and white canvas Chucks. It all worked great with the mullet, which was in full bloom.

When the band took the stage, I was delighted to see ZZ Top dressed kinda like me. They were wearing black duster jackets and white shirts, too. Hmmm.

On this night, the band opened with Got Me Under Pressure, followed by Sleeping Bag and Waitin’ for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago. Amid a blaze of lasers, a huge ‘33 Ford dashboard and a big mummy head sporting cheap sunglasses, Billy and Dusty stalked the stage blasting greasy funky thunder from a long list of hits and a couple of deep cuts. From his perch in back, Frank slashed the skins, bashed the brass and kept the thunder rolling on time. 90 minutes later, they ended the show with a double helping encore of Tush and La Grange.

With their fuzzy twirling guitars, badass cool vibe and potty-mouth humor, it’s too much fun watching these guys have too much fun. Rough sketches can’t do justice to the ZZ Top outrageous religious experience.

JD ZZ Top story and sketches

ZZ Top concert story and rough sketches, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 29, 1986

After the show, I found myself backstage face-to-face with my icons, stumbling for words. Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons were giants in my eyes, but at this moment, Budweisers in hand, they reminded me of my buddies back home: Just laid-back guys drinking a beer after work.

“We are your buddies,” Billy said, “just having a beer after work. But we might be a little purtier than those Hoover boys.”

“Wurnt sounds like a good-looking good guy to me,” said Dusty, lifting his can of Bud in a toast to his Kentucky doppelganger.

“How would you describe your sound,” I asked. “Southern rock? Texas funky blues?”

Billy took a swig from his Bud. In his lowest La Grange voice, he belched: “We sound like four flat tires on a muddy road.”

Damn. I was hanging out, swapping stories and belches with ZZ Top. Some of the crew members were running around, but I had the band pretty much to myself. They even wanted to thumb through my sketchbook. This was excellent quality time with the band, but it wasn’t the scene I had imagined. It’s a pretty lame after-party if your only groupie is a dorky cartoonist.

After a few minutes with Billy and Dusty I walked over to Frank, who was chilling in a corner by himself. I sketched a little while we talked.

Frank told me he got his start in Fort Worth playing behind strippers at The Cellar, a notorious underground bar in the 1960′s and early 70′s. Musicians were encouraged to pop in this black hole of a place and jam all hours of the night. I reckon Dusty and Billy played there, too. Some say George Carlin first tried out his “Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV” set at The Cellar.

We talked about music and life on the road. Was there any truth to the rumor this was ZZ Top’s last big tour?

“I’m not all that wild about fame.” Frank said. “But I love hanging in the back and playing drums behind these guys. If they ever stop, I guess I will too. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Being on the road gets old, but we’re still having fun. Can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Got a favorite song?

“I enjoy ‘em all, but La Grange is still special,” Frank grinned. “Maybe that’s because it’s always the last song of the show.” He asked me the same question.

“You played lots of them tonight,” I said. “But there is one … do y’all ever play Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings?

“I don’t remember that one. You sure it’s one of ours?”

“It’s on Fandango. First cut on side two.”

“I’ll check it out,” he said. (Since that night, I’ve seen three or four ZZ Top concerts over the years and the set included Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings every time. Thanks, guys.)

The conversation was going fine with Frank. But then I made the mistake of asking why he didn’t have a beard and would he ever grow one. This was a question he had heard way too many times.

“No. Never. Right now I’ve got it made,” he said. “I can go into supermarkets. I can buy groceries!” He pointed towards Billy and Dusty. “Those guys can’t go anywhere.”

“‘Nobody knows who I am,” Frank said, “and I’m just fine with that.”

That’s about the time the groupies were released. A throng of fans – mostly young ladies with a few stray dudes mixed in – stormed the room like Walmart shoppers on Black Friday. They were a sight. Most of them swarmed around the two guys with the beards. A handful gathered around the corner where Frank and I were talking. Apparently, all the groupies saw were two guys in black dusters, white shirts and no beards.

“Which one of you is the drummer?”

Frank looked at me with a ‘see what I mean’ smirk.

“This man right here,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “Have fun, Frank!” said the real Frank as he slipped out the back, leaving me to represent.

A groupie dude asked, “Why don’t you have a beard?”

“Because I want to go into supermarkets,” I said. “I want to buy groceries!”

Billy and Dusty saw what was going on and went along with the joke. At one point, I posed with the guys for a band shot. Sadly, I have no photographic evidence.

A couple of grinning girls who had been watching all this walked up. They each grabbed me by an arm and said, “You’re coming with us, Frank!”

I soon found myself on a tour of nightclubs in downtown Phoenix. First, a country music club. Then a rock n’ roll joint. Then a pulsating disco. We wound up at a huge house party with all kinds of music blaring and good times-a-flowing. My fun-loving kidnappers knew all the hot spots.

The girls, let’s call ‘em “Precious” and “Grace”, introduced me to their friends at every stop. They had lots of friends.

“This is Frank. He’s with ZZ Top!”

“ZZ Top? He doesn’t have a beard.”

“He’s the drummer.”

“Why doesn’t he have a beard?”

“Ask him.”

“Frank, why don’t you have a beard?”

“Because I want to buy groceries!”

This conversation - screamed over loud music - was repeated over and over all night long. It was hilarious at first, but then I started feeling the real Frank Beard’s pain.

And his freedom from fame.

Precious, in her cowgirl hat, boots, tank top and skirt was a little bit country. Grace, in her concert T-shirt, jeans and boots was a little bit rock ‘n roll. They both had wavy dirty blonde mullets. They may have been sisters. They could have been my sisters. Looking back, they each had kind of a young Tonya Harding thing going on.

At no point during this wacky night did I ever feel like my purity or kneecaps were in peril. My captors were just out for some fun with their friends. They brought Frank along for the ride.

Precious and Grace dropped me off at my hotel just as the sun was coming up on another hotter than hell day in the Arizona desert.

“Y’all know I’m not really ZZ Top’s drummer, right?”

“Whatever you say, Frank!” I can still hear them laughing as they drove into the sunrise.

Related: Robert Plant head-butted me. Thanks, David Coverdale

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JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix.

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