“Would I play it for a whole show? Absolutely not! I’m so happy to get that thing off. It’s brutal”: ZZ Top’s Elwood Francis on his latest weird bass acquisition – the 15-string ‘High Selecta’ bass

Elwood Francis and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.

If you see ZZ Top in action in 2025, you’ll witness bassist and former guitar tech Elwood Francis playing an absurd 17-string bass. The late Dusty Hill’s replacement brings out the yellow instrument for classic track Got Me Under Pressure – and surprisingly, he says, it gets the job done.

“It’s really not horrible,” Francis tells Bass Player. “But the guitar tech has had to deal with frets coming loose. It’s just your typical shitty, Chinese-made guitar!”