Brian May’s opinion on ZZ Top

Brian May has always been a big fan of Blues Rock, having even met the legendary Rory Gallagher before Queen was formed. But he wasn’t only interested in that kind of music that was made in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Over the years, he discovered many incredible bands from the USA, including the Texan power trio ZZ Top and has given his opinion on them.

What is Brian May’s opinion on ZZ Top

Brian May has been a big fan of ZZ Top since the early ’70s, when Noddy Holder, the vocalist and guitarist of Slade, played one of their albums for him. He has collaborated with Billy Gibbons a couple of times and has called him the coolest guitarist on the planet. Brian recently praised him in 2026 while talking about a Steve Cropper project they worked on together (song “My Angels Are Calling”).

“I love Billy’s stuff and I love what Steve Cropper does. Steve has stayed so close to his roots; that’s the amazing thing. He’s still that guy playing solid… I don’t even know how to express it; there’s incredible integrity about the era that Steve helped to create. It’s nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix, or Eric Clapton, it’s something which still has the same close attachment to the birth of the Blues. But Billy is a little bit more evolved. He’s Rock-Blues to me. But again, it’s very pure. You never get into histrionics with ZZ Top.”

He continued:

“In musical terms, a long way (we go back). I first heard Billy Gibbons playing when I was at Noddy Holder’s house, you know, Noddy Holder, who was the singer of Slade. We met the Slade guys while Queen was on tour; it was the very first tour Queen ever did, around 1970. So, I went around to Noddy’s house, and he said, ‘You gotta hear this stuff.'”

“He put ZZ Top on and said, ‘This is the coolest thing over there (in the USA).’ I went, ‘Yeah… you’re right.’ But I didn’t meet Billy until a way, way, way long time later. But I’ve always been in awe, and I’ve always loved ZZ Top because of that purity. And again, there’s a wonderful sense of humor going on there, and it’s just so cool. You can’t put a razor blade out anywhere because it’s just unbroken coolness,” he said in an interview with Classic Rock History.

One of his favorite ZZ Top songs is “Gimme All Your Lovin'”, which he included on the “Air Guitar Anthems” (2016) compilation albums, featuring tracks he chose because they are perfect for air guitar. Besides Gibbons, he was also a big fan of Dusty Hill, having lamented his death in 2021, saying: “No! It cannot be. I’m so sad. RIP Dusty Hill,”

Brian May said Billy Gibbons is the coolest guitarist on the planet

“The great Billy Gibbons is the great bonus on this track (“My Angels Are Calling”). He was on the track before I was, so part of my job was to incorporate what he’d done into the song that I was writing. So it’s an interesting (laughs) challenge, but I mean, what a thrill to work with this guy as well (Billy), I’ve met him a couple of times and he’s great.”

“He’s always been very nice to me, but to me he is probably the coolest guitarist on the planet. You know, Billy Gibbons, there’s only one of them and he does a beautiful bit of work on this,” Brian May told Absolute Radio in 2026 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

He had already praised Gibbons on a previous collaboration, in Steve Cropper’s “Too Much Stress”, calling ZZ Top’s guitarist a genius. “You can have fun figuring out who’s playing what – between me, and Genius Billy Gibbons, and Mr Cropper himself. I’m sharing vocals with Roger C. Reale,” Brian May said on his website in 2025. He had already praised that track long before it was released, also saying: “Billy, of course, is the coolest guitar player on the planet. He plays so little, but it counts so much. It’s just very, very cool. He’s not showing off or trying to prove a point. He’s just playing from his heart – so I did the same thing.

Billy Gibbons indirectly influenced May in the late 70s

Curiously, already in 1982, when talking about the technique he used in Queen’s track “It’s Late” from “News of The World” (1977), he mentioned Gibbons as an inspiration, but an indirect one at the time. “I stole it from a guy who said that he stole it from Billy Gibbons in ZZ Top. He was playing in some club in Texas, doing hammering stuff.”

“I was so intrigued by it, I went home and played around with it for ages and put it on ‘It’s Late.’ It was a problem to do onstage. I found it was a bit too stiff. … If I persevered with it, it would probably become second nature, but it wasn’t an alleyway which led very far, to my way of thinking. It’s a bit gimmicky,” he told On the Record in 1982.

In the same month Queen was releasing their debut album in 1973, ZZ Top was already putting out their third record which had one of their biggest hits “La Grange”. Although Dusty Hill passed away in 2021 and more recently the drummer Frank Beard, Billy Gibbons already said the band will keep going.