Billy Gibbons has announced details for his upcoming LP, Hardware. The ZZ Top guitarist's third solo effort was recorded at Escape Studio outside of Palm Springs in California.

“We holed up in the desert for a few weeks in the heat of the summer and that in itself was pretty intense,” Gibbons explained via press release. “To let off steam we just ‘let it rock,’ and that’s what Hardware is really all about. For the most part, it’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery.”

In fact, Gibbons said the isolated location played a key role in Hardware’s overall sound. “The desert settings, replete with shifting sands, cacti and rattlesnakes makes for the kind of backdrop that lends an element of intrigue reflected in the sounds created out there,” he explained.

Former Guns N’ Roses member Matt Sorum drums on the LP, a position he also held on Gibbons’ last solo project, 2018’s The Big Bad Blues. Sorum also served as co-producer on Hardware, alongside Mike Fiorentino and Gibbons.

Hardware will be released June 4. In anticipation of the album, Gibbons has released a music video for the first single, “West Coast Junkie.” Featuring elements of blues, surf rock and R&B, the track delivers propulsive guitars over an infectious drum groove. Above it all, Gibbons’ distinctive growl shines brightest, proclaiming in the chorus: “I’m a west coast junkie from a Texas town / When I get to Cali it’s going down / My baby’s so tight, like no one around / I’m just a west coast junkie from a Texas town.”

Watch the video for "West Coast Junkie" below.

Hardware’s title is a tribute to Joe Hardy, the legendary recording engineer who worked on seven ZZ Top albums: Eliminator (1983) Afterburner (1985), Antenna (1994), Rhythmeen (1996), XXX (1999), Mescalero (2003) and La Futura (2012). Hardy died in 2019 at the age of 66.

 

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