“I’m a West Coast junkie from a Texas town,” Billy Gibbons growls in his new song “West Coast Junkie.” The surf-rock jam announces the new solo album from the ZZ Top guitarist: Hardware, his third solo project, arrives June 4th.
Along with the song, Gibbons released a video for “West Coast Junkie” that finds him and his trio — including former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum — on a surreal desert trip in search of Sixties go-go dancers. In fact, Gibbons recorded Hardware in a desert studio, setting up shop in Palm Springs, California.
“We holed up in the desert for a few weeks in the heat of the summer and that in itself was pretty intense,” Gibbons says in a release. “To let off steam we just ‘let it rock,’ and that’s what Hardware is really all about. For the most part, it’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery.”
Hardware is the follow-up to Gibbons’ 2018 solo LP The Big Bad Blues. Hardware‘s title is an homage to Joe Hardy, the longtime ZZ Top collaborator who died in 2019.
Last summer, Gibbons joined fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Dion for the song “Bam Bang Boom.” He’s also a frequent collaborator with the country-rock singer Tim Montana. The two released their own brand of hot sauce in 2019.
From Rolling Stone US
