ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons rocks crowd-funding for new audiences
LOS ANGELES — Consider this: When Billy Gibbons released his first album with ZZ Top in 1971, other chart-toppers that year included the soundtracks to Shaft and Jesus Christ Superstar, and new albums from Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin.
Yet Gibbons is not only still rocking, he's contemporary and digital, too.
The Texas guitar-slinger is now crowdfunding to raise money for a tequila start-up, Pure Vida; takes a positive, "optimistic" view of music streaming; and is amused by all those online videos about how to play guitar like Billy Gibbons.
Crowdfunding "has exploded and resulted in a robust bonus for a lot of daring individuals," Gibbons said in an exclusive Talking Tech interview in a booth at the historic El Coyote Cafe here. "It's a way for investors to reach their investors."
As part of the rewards for backing Pure Vida tequila on Indiegogo, investors can get an autographed Fender or Gibson guitar starting at $750 or a backstage pass to a ZZ Top show for $2,500.
Some $287,000 has been raised so far for the campaign, which ends July 4.
So let's go back in the time machine to 1969, when ZZ Top formed. Could Gibbons imagine using crowdfunding to get the group off the ground if they were just starting today?
"Not with these beards," he jokes.
The band, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, has released 17 albums since 1971. Unlike some other holdouts — including the Beatles and Taylor Swift — ZZ Top's albums are available on streaming music services such as Spotify and Rdio, which have come under fire for not paying enough royalties to musicians.
Gibbons isn't concerned. In fact, he's "optimistic," he says.
"We seem to be balancing in old school ethics and new school priorities," he says. "We're at a pinnacle where somewhere there will be a zenith, where the artist and purveyors will meet."
Gibbons, who has featured fast cars in many classic ZZ Top music videos, isn't so sanguine about the concept of driverless cars.
"I still like to drive my cars," he says. "With driverless cars and me at the wheel, they'll probably be safer than me."
What's clear is that, at age 65, Gibbons hasn't lost any of his zeal for rocking.
With all those YouTube videos that promise to show guitarists how to sound like Gibbons, we asked the master himself for some advice: "If you have the advantage of being bonused with a pre-amp stage gain control and a master volume, your worries are over...you can get to crunch stage."