Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Billy F Gibbons, Concord Records 2021.
Hardware is the third solo record from ZZ Top guitarist and front man Billy Gibbons.
The album was recorded in the midst of the pandemic last year with guitarist Austin Hanks and former Guns & Roses, The Cult, and Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum at the Escape Studio in the Californian desert near Joshua Tree national Park.
This is the same band that supported him on his last solo effort The Big Bad Blues (2018).
Billy described the writing and recording process as the band just “letting off steam and letting it rock” as they were holed up in the desert in the mid-summer heat.
And the desert experience does exert its influence on the record.
They tried to enter the studio with a blank sheet of paper and just let the environment and their chemistry take over.
Working spontaneously ideas began to flow, stories were told, and songs were created.
At some point Billy starts channelling Jim Morrison who famously had his own desert experience which resulted in a number of songs for The Doors including Riders On The Storm.
On the final cut on the disc, the half spoken and half sung Desert High, (very much a Doors technique) Billy even references Morrison in the lyrics.
Billy commented that musically they were really trying to channel Howlin’ Wolf and Tom Waits and “to recite a few lonely lines across a cowboy themed Western movie soundtrack seemed to match the presence and the gravel with a haunting blueness.”
There’s a cinematic element to a number of songs on the album. Vagabond Man for instance seems to be heavily influenced by Tom Waits’ tales about the down and out.
Even the single, She’s On Fire, is a narrative song and the magnificent Stackin’ Bones, featuring Larkin Poe, is laden with Waits like imagery and is the best track on an album of outstanding tracks.
The highway is also a recuring theme. In the trackI Was a Highway he complains “you’d think I was a highway the way she hit the road”, making him one.
I think that Hardware is the best album from Billy Gibbons in a long time. His writing, singing and playing have rarely been better.
