ZZ Top brimming with ideas for new album

CLEVELAND (Billboard) - Currently between labels, ZZ Top has plenty of ideas for a follow-up to its last album, 2003's "Mescalero," but no songs have been finished and there is no scheduled release date.

"We have 50 different titles, 50 different song ideas," the rock trio's bassist, Dusty Hill, told Billboard.com. "Through the years we've had hundreds of ideas. We've been writing one song for about 25 years and if we ever did finish it, it would scare me."

ZZ Top announced last September that it had ended its tenure at RCA Records, 14 years after signing a five-album contract reportedly worth $30 million. "Mescalero," spent just three weeks on the Billboard 200. Its stint at RCA, beginning with 1994's "Antenna," failed to match its run at Warner Bros. Records, where it recorded the biggest hit of its career, 1983's "Eliminator."

ZZ Top is also eyeing a concert DVD, which would be the first for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act. The band will have plenty of opportunities to record a performance this year, with its concert calendar showing a few European gigs next month followed by a handful of stateside dates. This week, the band is part of the Rock on the Range festival, which takes Saturday (May 19) in Columbus.

Hill says fans can expect a cross-section from ZZ Top's career, including obscure tracks such as "Brown Sugar" and "Francine" as well as the newer song "Mescalero."

This past weekend, the threesome took part in the Las Vegas taping of the second annual VH1 Rock Honors, which is due to air May 24. The band was saluted alongside Genesis, Ozzy Osbourne and Heart. But considering ZZ Top has been together nearly 40 years, what else is there to accomplish?

"There's quite a bit," Hill says. "It's just onward and upward. (We) just (want to) keep on making the best music we can, every night we can."

Reuters/Billboard

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