ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons is fascinated by guitars. Not just playing them but also talking about them, like how different guitars can help change or add to the sound of tracks. However, among his favorites, the guitarist has an aversion to one specific guitar, and that is the acoustic.
Gibbons talked about his dislike towards the acoustic guitar in an 2015 interview with Texas Monthly. Here’s how Billy described what he considers to be a ‘cursed instrument’:
“They’re [acoustic guitars] bad luck. I won’t touch ’hem. In fact, don’t bring an acoustic guitar around me. I’d rather have a high-speed cigarette racer rather than wait for a big blow of wind to power my sailboat. Don’t give me a blow-boat, I’ll take the yacht.”
The rocker revealed the last ever time he worked with an acoustic guitar for a ZZ Top track. He recalled:
“On our 1976 album ‘Tejas,’ there’s a tune called ‘Asleep in the Desert.’ That’s the last time I’ve wrapped my hands around an acoustic, but it was a Spanish gut-string, like Willie’s Trigger.”
Gibbons is an electric blues rocker at heart. So during his interview he also shared that the acoustic guitar does not deliver the rock n’ roll he always looks for in a guitar tone. He expressed:
“But generally, there’s just not enough power for me. It’s rock and roll’s kick-in-the-pants rebelliousness that drives me. And electric guitars part the seas that much faster.”
Going back to Billy’s love of guitars, during an interview with the Music Radar podcast in 2009, he talked about his passion for guitars and how he is actually living his dream. The guitarist said:
“They say if you can make a living doing with you love, then you’re a fortunate man. But for me, guitars are an obsession, my raison d’etre. So for me to get paid to indulge in my greatest passion, it goes without saying that I am truly blessed.”
You can read Billy Gibbons’ 2015 interview with Texas Monthly here and listen to ‘Asleep in the Desert’ below.
