The Completely Illegal Thing ZZ Top Did Before Becoming A Band
Long story short, future ZZ Top members Dusty Hill and Frank Beard toured the country for Delta, playing in fake Zombies outfits with fake names, fake backstories and real Zombies songs.
There were a few caveats to the scam, as reported by Buzzfeed. There are only four guys in ZZ Top's charade, despite the fact that the Zombies were a five-piece (according to Ultimate Classic Rock, Beard reportedly told anyone who asked that the missing keyboardist was stuck in jail after getting busted) and the band periodically wore cowboy hats, which definitely weren't worn by English Zombies. Somehow, none of that seemed to matter, as at least two other imitation Zombies bands were playing American venues at the time. Fans and the press eventually realized that the oddly Southern Zombies didn't quite resemble the Englishmen behind the 1960s hits, and the whole thing went belly-up. Hill and Beard took their musical talent and started their own original (and legal) band.
Thankfully, the members of ZZ Top can rest easy knowing that The Zombies forgive the musical identity theft. "In those times, I don't think anybody even knew what we looked like," Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone told CBC in 2017. "We had this huge hit record and there was no band. It's not an ideal situation, but I'm not going to come down too hard on anybody who filled the vacuum."
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