ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard has announced his departure from the group’s forthcoming tour plans due to an unspecified “health issue”.
The Texas band confirmed the news on Saturday (15 March), telling fans that Beard would miss their Elevation tour because he needs to undergo a health procedure.
“Shelter Music Group, ZZ Top’s management, has announced the band’s drummer, Mr Frank Beard, has temporarily stepped away from the current tour to attend a health issue requiring his focus in the near term,” a social media statement posted to the band’s accounts said.
The announcement also revealed that “fellow Texan and longtime tech member, percussionist and drummer” would fill in for Beard, having done so previously when he underwent an emergency appendectomy in Paris, in 2002.
“He is looking forward to a speedy recovery,” the post concluded.
ZZ Top kicked off their Elevation tour in October last year in the US and began the Australia and New Zealand leg on 5 March.
Beard has been a member of the band since 1969, after replacing founder Dan Mitchell on drums, with singer/guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill completing the lineup.
Together with Beard, they grew their hair long and dyed it blue to match their name:
“In the Sixties, having long hair in Texas, you took your life in your hands,” Hill told the Dallas Morning News in 2008. “But having long hair and blue hair, people just assumed we were nuts and left us alone.”
Named in part for Texas blues singer ZZ Hill, the band played some of their first shows at cafeterias and lumber yards.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and have continued to experiment with their later work including 2012’s La Futura, which was co-produced by the legendary Rick Rubin.
The lineup has been mostly unchanged for 51 years. Longtime bassist Dusty Hill, played with the band from the late Sixties until his death in July 2021. It was announced that longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis would play bass, per Hill’s wishes.
