(L-R) Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard from ZZ Top perform at L’Olympia on July 27, 2012 in Paris, France.
David Wolff – Patrick/Redferns via Getty Images
Frank Beard, the longtime drummer of Texas rock outfit ZZ Top, died on Monday at the age of 77. It was sad news that came after several years’ worth of health problems, and rock fans, both Texan and not, paid tribute to Beard. ZZ Top is famous for their harsh riffs and hard-edged, blues rock sound that makes one feel as though they’ve ended up in a biker bar or a rough-and-tumble honkey tonk vibe. But Beard’s drumming was the heart and soul of that vibe.
Take a listen to any ZZ Top track and listen to what’s going on with the drums. Beard is setting the pace for the whole thing; he’s assertive, fierce, but not doing too much. And his talent was apparent on a lesser-known ZZ Top song: The band’s insanely weird, perfect reinterpretation of DJ DMD’s “25 Lighters.”
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It was 2012. ZZ Top, at that point, had been around for 43 years. Their new album, La Futura, would be their first in nine. As they were recording it, frontman Billy Gibbons, according to a 2019 interview with Guitar Player Magazine, was renovating his studio. The band ended up working at Houston sound engineer John Moran’s Digital Services, a nearby studio Houston rap luminaries like Scarface and Chamillionaire frequented, among others. Gibbons ended up talking to rappers who were hanging out in the building’s lounge.
While working on the album, legendary record producer Rick Rubin told the band they needed “one more song,” Gibbons recalled. In search of inspiration, the band pulled up YouTube performances of Lightin’ Hopkins at the behest of engineer Gary Moon. It turned out that Moon had also engineered DJ DMD’s “25 Lighters.” Gibbons had an idea.
“I said, ‘You remember that song you did for Fat Pat and Lil’ Keke?'” Gibbons told Guitar Player. “And he said, ‘Don’t tell me that you’re thinking about that.’ I asked him why.”
As Gibbons recalled, Moon couldn’t envision ZZ Top covering a rap song.
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“And I said, ‘Well, you’re listening to Lightnin’ Hopkins. Maybe the two shall meet!'” Gibbons replied. “And that was the genesis.”
Out of that session came “I Gotsta Get Paid,” which ended up as the lead single on La Futura. It starts with a truly grody, guttural blues guitar tone, one that feels one part Pawn Stars and one part Hopkins. In Gibbons’ telling, the sound came from a contraption they engineered in the studio called “The Frazz,” a signal generator that randomizes the frequencies of the tone.
“It’s all random until you commit it to the tape machine. Then it becomes repeatable,” Gibbons told Guitar Player. “But before it gets repeatable, it is definitely out there. You never really know what you’re going to get.”
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And Beard is on “I Gotsta To Get Paid,” too. He’s banging loud in the back, and his drumming really sells the massive, in-your-face sound that the band went for. It gives the track a braggadocio that fits well with a reinterpretation of a Houston rap classic. Despite ZZ Top being quite old at the time of “I Gotsta To Get Paid,” their energy comes through.
“I got 25 lighters for my 25 folks,” Gibbons sings. “Gonna break the bank with 25 more. Twenty-five fly diamonds in my ring, 25 12s in the trunk to bang.”
Houston rap luminaries were into the tribute, too. DJ DMD, a producer whose real name is Dorie Dorsey, recorded “25 Lighters” in 1997 and put out a single featuring Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat. Dorsey told Texas Monthly in 2012 that he thought it was a joke when he heard from ZZ Top’s management company.
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“I didn’t believe him,” Dorsey said at the time. “I thought someone was trying to play me. So I put him on speakerphone and called my wife and daughters in. Then he played 40 seconds of the song. I was blown away. I’m like, ‘That’s ZZ Top, I know that voice.’ One of my girls said, ‘Daddy, that’s your words!'”
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ZZ Top was good enough to give Dorsey a songwriting credit on the track. Apparently, Texas Monthly reported, Gibbons had heard “25 Lighters” back in 1998 and been obsessed with the phrase “25 lighters on my dresser”—a reference to taking Bic lighters, emptying them out and using them to sell crack cocaine, though Dorsey has said that he never really considered what it meant.
A music video shows Dorie Dorsey in a remake of his hip-hop classic “25 Lighters,” now named “25 Bibles,” at Cee’s House Studio.
Michael Paulsen
The line came from a throwaway recording from an old session Dorsey had done with Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat. Lil Kike himself had apparently lifted the “25 lighters” phrase from a 1995 track called “All in My Mind” by Memphis rap duo 8Ball & MJG. Dorsey took the Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat recordings and mixed them all up with a verse he rapped himself. By the time the song came out in 1998, Fat Pat had been murdered, but Dorsey liked his verse so much that he kept it on the track. Dorsey dropped the CD off at a Houston rap radio station, and the rest is history.
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Years later, “25 Lighters” is such a perfect encapsulation of the Houston rap sound at the time. It was all about enterprising producers, rappers and DJs collaborating with others from around the South, taking bits and pieces of stuff they liked and putting new, cool spins on them to make something cool. The song has become part of Houston rap lore and has also been referenced by countless rappers such as Z-Ro, Kendrick Lamar and Killer Mike. Mac Miller sampled it for “Ride Around.” And with their own reinterpretation, Gibbons and ZZ Top followed in that tradition.