Billy Gibbons – Metal Express Radio

BILLY GIBBONS (ZZ TOP) On His New Solo Album: “It’s A Bit Of Serendipity Mixed With A Modicum Of Mojo”

October 24, 2018 Mick Burgess

Releasing his second solo album in three years sees ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons in the middle of a creative streak. Mick Burgess caught up with the bearded Texan for the low down on Big Bad Blues and got an expert lesson in the Blues to boot. Your new solo album The Big Bad Blues, is out very soon. How do you feel ahead of its release? You said it! It’s all about the ‘feeling’. I got to work with some great players so our idea of digging into the Blues is time well spent. The Blues tradition is appreciated and savored. Why did you decide to do another solo album rather than a ZZ Top studio album? John Burk at Concord Records cornered me in their parking lot late one night and made the case for a follow up to Perfectamundo, proposing a Blues-skewed set. That was it! At the same time, a new ZZ Top album continued percolating righteously. A two-for-two punch for sure! This comes three years after your debut solo album, Perfectamundo. You’d done no solo albums in 45 years until then and now we have a second in three years. Are you on something of a creative surge at the moment? That’s it! We’re having such a great time writing, recording and touring that it’s kind of morphed into a ride on the ongoing “party train”. One project begets another and another… after that, most of our works are amplified, literally and figuratively. Whereas Perfectamundo saw you heading into new territory with its Afro-Cuban vibe, The Big Bad Blues is you very much on home turf. Did you always intend to return to your roots with your next record or did it just turn out this way naturally? There’s rarely been a long-range plan of …READ MORE

BILLY SHEEHAN – Holy Cow!

April 14, 2009 Kristian Singh-Nergård

So, it’s time for the third solo album from bass master extraordinaire, Billy Sheehan. Sheehan has over 4,000 gigs in the past touring with bands and artists like Talas, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, and more recently Steve Vai. He is voted the “Best Rock Bass Player” 5 times in Guitar Player magazine’s Readers Poll, and he has sold over 4 million records in his career. In other words, Billy Sheehan has become a living legend since he started out with Talas in the late 70s. Billy Sheehan’s new release Holy Cow! features guest performances by Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Paul Gilbert (Mr. Big, Racer X), Dug Pinnick (King’s X), Simone Sello and Ray Luzier (Korn, ex-Stone Temple Pilots, ex-David Lee Roth). The album showcases Sheehan’s abilities as songwriter, singer and instrumentalist, but though there are some great songs on this album, it doesn’t rock steady till the finish line. The album opener “In A Week Or Two (I’ll Give It Back To You)” is a short Hard Rocker that’s ok, but not brilliant. Compared to the album opener from his previous solo album Cosmic Troubadour (2005), “Toss It On The Flame,” this song dwindles. It contains one element in particular that’s heard several places on this record and can annoy you a bit in the end. That’s Sheehan’s constant use of distortion on his bass sound to enhance and amplify the overtones. It seems that when he’s using this “effect” he overuses it. It could be argued that this is part of Sheehan’s trademark sound, but for those who don’t consider the usage of distortion as a part of a bass’ sound in general, this can be a bit too much. Song number two “A Lit’l Bit’l Do It To ‘Ya Ev’ry Time” features a lead guitar performance by …READ MORE