“I found it late at night while surfing on one of those Chinese websites. I couldn't believe they were making something like that”: How ZZ Top acquired their 17-string bass

Remember ZZ Top and their 17 string bass? Who couldn’t. It was back in November 2022 when their long-time guitar tech-turned bassist Francis Elwood whipped out this ludicrous-looking yellow monstrosity at a gig at Huntsville, Alabama.

Anyway, in an interview with Guitar World, Elwood has been talking about how he originally got his hands on the behemoth bass. The answer? China, apparently.

ZZ TOP - GOT ME UNDER PRESSURE - YouTube

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“I hate playing that f**king bass,” he said. “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, saying, ‘We should order one of these, and I'll play it. It'll be hilarious.’ And three months later, we 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…’”

The song was, appropriately, Got Me Under Pressure. And yes, it proved problematic to play, to say the least: “Man, the guitar tech barely got the thing ready for the show,” he says. “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 on stage. I was like, ‘God damn, this thing is hard to play.’

“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.”

Poor Elwood thought that was that. But no, not now we live in the era of social media: “I thought it was over, but the son of a bitch went viral, and I woke up to all these messages and links to all this fucking bullshit,” he says.

“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).”

ZZ Top - Legs (Official Music Video) [HD Remaster] - YouTube

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Never mind. Probably best to think about the 17-string bass as just a late addition to ZZ Top’s long tradition of offbeat iconography, from the furry guitars that were first seen in the Legs video to, well, the shades and the beards.