The guitarist, singer and songwriter Billy Gibbons started his career in 1967 as a member of the Moving Sidewalks, band which ended up opening for Jimi Hendrix in 1969 in the United States. He was lucky enough to hang out with the legendary guitarist and learn a lot from him and in that same year he formed ZZ Top alongside Frank Beard and Dusty Hill.
They became over the decades one of the most unique bands in Rock and Roll music, which were instantly recognizable for their sound. That’s not an easy thing to do and just a few bands can really create a unique footprint and AC/DC is another group which did that.
Gibbons is a big fan of their work and once even revealed which is his favorite AC/DC song.
The AC/DC song ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons said is his favorite
Just like ZZ Top, AC/DC also mix their Blues roots with Rock and Roll music, so it’s not a surprise that Billy Gibbons loves the Australian band. As he told Rock Cellar magazine in 2018, his favorite song of the group is “Highway To Hell”, a hit released on the album of the same name in 1979. He even revealed that he heard his grandmother sing the entire song once.
“My favorite AC/DC song would have to be ‘Highway To Hell’. Quite to my amazement, I heard my grandmother singing along with it, on key and with all the words! When asked how she came onto the song, she replied, ‘Oh me! Sounds like a fun highway to be traveling on!’ …How you gonna top that…?!?!?” Billy Gibbons said.
ZZ Top was formed four years before the brothers Malcolm and Angus Young formed AC/DC. By the time the Australian band got together, the Texan group already had released three studio albums. By the time “Highway to Hell” was out in 1979, ZZ Top already existed for 10 years and had released six studio records.
That famous AC/DC album was the final one with Bon Scott on vocals since he tragically passed away at the age of 33 in 1980. Besides the title-track, it also had famous songs like “Touch Too Much”, “Shot Down In Flames” and “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)”.
Scott was replaced by Brian Johnson and in the same year “Back In Black” was recorded. It remains not only as AC/DC’s best-selling album, but one of the most successful records of all time. It has sold an estimated amount of more than 50 million copies worldwide.
Gibbons mentioned AC/DC when he said ZZ Top wasn’t the first group to keep the sound simple
It’s not easy to find people criticizing AC/DC since they are one of the most loved Hard Rock bands on the planet. But there are fans who criticize them for not changing their sound during the past five decades. They found their unique sound and kept that going during their entire discography. But that’s not something bad according to Gibbons.
As he told Houston Press in 2008, ZZ Top was not the first band to try to keep things simple. AC/DC did that before according him. He mentioned them when asked about ZZ Top’s song “Legs”, which became a “dance-floor-friendly” track.
“It was only made possible because we had remained focused toward good timing. The tempo that was present on the first eight bars was still there on the 128th bar. They could do their dance magic with it as they would. The bass drum figure was four on the floor for a lot of that stuff. It was really simple.”
“We weren’t the first rock band to do it. AC/DC, they had broken ground to keep things on the ultra-simple. So we were taking the messaging matters from a lot of diverse places. But to answer your question, yeah. There was a sense of confidence, and we genuinely liked it,” Billy Gibbons said.