Billy Gibbons Explains ZZ Top’s Beard Look in One Word

ZZ Top is known for their signature long beard look as much as they are for their distinct Southern rock style, but it wasn’t always that way. Although it’s hard to believe a time when frontmen Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill didn’t have a bear that stretched down past their shoulders, such was the case for the band’s earliest incarnations in the 1970s.

In an interview with AXS TV’s Dan Rather, Gibbons boiled down the iconic beard look to one simple, self-deprecating word.

Billy Gibbons Explains ZZ Top’s Beard Look

After first bursting onto the scene in 1969, Texas-based rock band ZZ Top toured virtually nonstop until 1976. As he explained in his interview with Dan Rather, the band would take periodic month-long breaks to give themselves “breathing room.” Otherwise, they worked on the road for seven years straight.

Starting in 1976, Gibbons said, “We were looking at an invitation to join the ranks of the Warner Brothers group. It was the decision by management to take a brief break. We all kind of scattered, keeping in touch only by telephone. Now, it’s two years running, and all the machinations to join the ranks of Warner Brothers were still underway.” During this time, all three bandmates started growing a beard. Gibbons’ one-word explanation? “Lazy.”

When the band reconvened after not seeing each other in person for two years, they discovered they were all sporting a similar look. So, they rolled with it, keeping the beards for their first official release through Warner Records. Gibbons called the LP “the only evidence of [drummer] Frank Beard with a beard. He quickly grabbed the razor and town. But Dusty and I…what started out as a disguise turned into a trademark.”

The Band Was Offered A Million Dollars to Shave

Even without Frank Beard following suit and keeping his beard, the two frontmen’s long facial hair became an easily recognizable signature of ZZ Top. (At the very least, the drummer’s last name fits the theme.) Whether or not they originally intended to, ZZ Top’s beard look became integral to their artistic identity. So, when razor company Gillette offered Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill a cool million dollars to shave off their beards, the answer was obvious.

“No dice,” Gibbons later said (via NME). “Even adjusted for inflation, this isn’t going to fly. The prospect of seeing oneself in the mirror clean-shaven is too close to a Vincent Price film—a prospect not to be contemplated, no matter the compensation.” The guitarist shared similarly tongue-in-cheek sentiments during an interview with KLRU Public Television in Austin, Texas, saying, “We’re too ugly. We don’t even know what’s under here. Not at this point,” he laughed, pointing to his long beard.

During his conversation on AXS TV, Gibbons joked about another cultural entry “into the land of beard.” After the rise of the television series Duck Dynasty, Gibbons said he began getting misidentified on the street as a member of the A&E cast instead of a ZZ Top member. As it turns out, the band only needed a few more decades and a show about a family duck hunting business to turn their signature beard look back from a trademark to a disguise.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Stagecoach