Music Radar recently caught up with ZZ Top's "fuzz-faced overlord" Billy Gibbons. In the excerpt below, he discusses the talents of and working with rock icon Jimi Hendrix:

Having had the bonus of being befriended by Jimi when I joined the Experience tour, back when I was playing in (Gibbons’ early band) The Moving Sidewalks, I noticed offstage he was, quite surprisingly, somewhat of a shy character. You could say he was almost a retiring person… until you put a guitar in his hands. And when he stepped into the light, it was a different story altogether. He became a showman and a guitar pyrotechnics extraordinaire. He was doing things with his Fender Stratocaster that certainly the designers never intended. Through his genius, the invisible became instantly visible. I took those late-night lessons right into the early days of ZZ Top to the present. And I suppose you could say, with all that backstage carousing in those days… well, not a moment was lost!

Jimi took the three-way toggle switch into five-way. He’s the one that discovered the in-between positions and in order for that not to pop out of place, he showed me how to take off the back scratch plate and remove the spring within the toggle switch, so it would more or less stay in place! And that sound had this extra chimeyness to it. I don’t think he was credited enough for that… there were lots of little things about him, and all very important to how we see the Stratocaster or even the instrument in general through his applied skills.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

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