ZZ Top‘s Elwood Francis has become a key part of the band’s live lineup, but he has one major regret about his performances. That would be having introduced the gigantic bright yellow 17-string bass guitar into the live shows and it gaining viral popularity as a result.
Back in 2022, not long after joining the band the previous year following the death of Dusty Hill, Francis whipped out a massive 17-string bass guitar onstage, and while the initial novelty of the hulking yellow instrument brought the desired reaction, Francis reveals it’s caused him a great amount of grief in the time since.
Elwood Francis’ Thoughts on His 17-String Bass
Speaking with Guitar World, the bassist remarked with a laugh, “I did it to myself. I hate playing that fucking bass.”
He recalls, “I found it late at night while internet surfing on one of those Chinese websites. I couldn’t believe they were making something like that.”
“I found this guitar, took a screenshot, and sent it to Billy [Gibbons], saying, ‘We should order one of these, and I’ll play it. It’ll be hilarious.’ And three months later, we fucking got it. It came in all the way from China, and Billy pulls out this big-ass yellow 17-string bass and is like, ‘Okay, we’ll play it for a song, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I can do this…’”
So the challenge was presented, and Francis admits it’s not been easy. “The guitar tech barely got the thing ready for the show. And we don’t do soundchecks; I didn’t even play the guitar until the first time, so it was a baptism by fire while we were out onstage. I was like, ‘God damn, this thing is hard to play,'” he recalled.
“I was seriously struggling because you don’t always know where you are, and if you look at it from the bottom, it’s a big blank neck; I was having trouble finding the frets to play.”
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Francis admits he thought showcasing the bass would be a one-time thing, but after the first performance, videos of the bass in action started going viral.
“I woke up to all these messages and links to all this fucking bullshit,” he recalls. “I was cringing because I knew I was struggling to play that piece of shit. I’m like, ‘Great. Of all the things to happen… Now that I got this reaction, Billy’s never going to let me not play it.’ I was thinking, ‘If I can just get through this… it’s just one song, and I’ll never have to play it again.’ But now I’ve got to play it [every night].”
According to the bassist, “At this point, more people ask me about the 17-string bass than they do the fuzzy guitar. Now, the 17-string bass is the thing they want to hold!”
ZZ Top in 2024
The legendary ZZ Top are catching a bit of a breather at the moment, but they’ll pick up their 2024 touring on Aug. 9 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. It’s a pretty steady stream of tour dates for the rest of the year leading up to Thanksgiving. See all of their stops and get ticketing information through the band’s website.
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Gallery Credit: Bryan Rolli