Last year they finally entered Foam Box Recordings in Houston, working full time to lay down the tracks that would comprise La Futura. They signed to American Recordings a few years ago and have been working on what would become La Futura in spurts since then. Known for decades by the sobriquet That Little Ol' Band From Texas, ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Keith Richards in 2004 and has maintained a very active international and domestic touring schedule over the intervening years. The fact that the new album's title is in Spanish is a nod to an early ZZ Top tradition manifested in the titles of some of the band's earliest albums including Tres Hombres, Fandango!, El Loco and Deguello. The result of this melding of the past and the present is, of course, La Futura." "We wanted to recall the directness of our early stuff but not turn our backs on contemporary technology.
"We thought long and hard about what this album should be," commented Gibbons. Now celebrating their 42nd year with the same line-up, Gibbons along with bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard have come up with ten tracks that reflect the band's intuitive take on rock brought to new, sometimes surreal, plateaus. At its fundament, this is the incarnation of the band whose influence resonates today with such artists as THE BLACK KEYS, JACK WHITE, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE and many others. La Futura, produced by Rick Rubin and Billy F Gibbons, the band's guitarist/singer, finds the legendary group infusing the newly recorded work with the electric blues/roots approach that typified ZZ Top's earliest work while, at the same time, reaching for new sonic horizons. The album harks back to the hallmark raw sound of the band's formative years and will, inevitably, be considered a return to form on multiple levels. The first new studio album from ZZ Top in nine years is La Futura, set for release September 11 by American Recordings. Go to this location for the complete interview. He was very helpful but never pressured us which made the circumstance a truly enjoyable one." Rick's stated mission was not to reinvent ZZ Top but to give us a platform to be ourselves. Was that Willy G and the band or Rick’s doing? Jeb: Much of the album has an old school ZZ Top feel. That guitar breakdown is something of a tribute to the great Lightnin' Hopkins, another of our 'heroes of the Houston ghetto.'"
It really stayed in our head for all that time while we figured out how to deconstruct it and transform it into a guitar-based, blues-infused rocker as you hear it on La Futura. It was recorded at a Digital Services Recording in Houston and we worked there as well, so we got to know those guys and that song just stayed with us for all that time. Willy G: "Yes, it's based on a rap song from the 1990's entitled '25 Lighters' by Lil' Keke and Fat Pat.