When the on-track action at Hamilton's V8 Supercars cools off next weekend, ZZ Top will fire up the fans after dark.
Frank Beard, the member of ZZ Top who doesn't possess a fine crop of facial hair, shares the same name as a professional golfer who topped the PGA tour earnings in 1969, the very year the band formed in Texas.
It's a great angle for a story, especially since he also plays a mean round of golf (a scratch handicap)and owns a golf ranch in Richmond, Texas.
But Beard calls in sick the day of the interview, so it's up to singer Billy Gibbons to fill in. Turns out he's cajoled Beard into staying back at the studio to work on the band's next album, produced by another aficionado of the beard, Rick Rubin.
"He's all right," rumbles Gibbons. "He's kinda irritated because I made him stay late," he laughs.
Clearly this is good news for the band's fans. The last album ZZ Top released was in 2003 and they haven't toured New Zealand since a poorly attended show in 2000.
But that's about to change on Saturday, April 16, when they play the Hamilton V8 Supercar Championship at Seddon Park. Fourteen albums deep into a four-decade career, the much-loved trio, all 61, can be forgiven for taking things a little easier these days. After all, they formed the year man walked on the moon.
"Well, it's all we know what to do," laughs Gibbons. "As luck would have it, we're still trying to get our feet on the Earth."
Once praised by Jimi Hendrix as the next hottest guitarist, these days Gibbons divides his time between touring, hotrods, cooking and acting. Those latter two stick out like proverbial oddities. The man who grew his trademark hillbilly beard at the end of the 1970s has garnered a reputation in Hollywood, where he lives, for his passion for preparing authentic Mexican and barbecue cuisine. Apparently his "Renegade Guacamole" is to die for.
And how about that acting career? While not quite troubling the judiciary of the Academy just yet, Gibbons has cemented a recurring role in popular forensics show Bones. He plays the protective father of Angela Montenegro, whose middle name "Pearly Gates", is taken from Gibbons' 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitar.
As for his acting technique, Gibbons is characteristically elliptical in his response.
"I was tryin' to pretend that I learned how to do it in front of my folks," he says. "Just when you think you've learned how to lie you better learn how to lie a little bit better."
Sage words from a man who can't wait to visit Waiheke Island again and "run the town red". Watch out Hamilton, this legend's got legs.
The ITM400 Hamilton V8 Supercar Series runs from Friday April 15 to Sunday April 17. ZZ Top play Saturday night.
- View/Herald On Sunday
