Billy Gibbons launches video for My Lucky Card filmed at legendary honky tonk

(Image credit: Harry Reese)

ZZ Top man Billy Gibbons has released a video for My Lucky Card, taken from his upcoming studio album Hardware.

The video for a song – a typically lascivious, low-slung blues – was shot at Pappy & Harriet’s Legendary High Desert Honky-Tonk, a famed barbecue restaurant and music venue near Joshua Tree National Park.

Pappy's has previously played host to musicians including Paul McCartney, Eric Burdon, Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age, Babes In Toyland, Rufus Wainwright, Lucinda Williams, Leon Russell, Rickie Lee Jones and Robert Plant, and is also the venue for Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven's annual Camp-Out festival.

“We thought Pappy’s would be a great place for us to do the video since it reflects the rough and tumble high desert vibe that was the inspiration for the album," says Gibbons. “I play a slide guitar in this one but neglected to bring a proper slide along for the shoot. Necessity being a mother, we improvised and used a beer bottle.

"We went through a case or more looking for just the right bottle neck and, at last, found one on a classic Mexican brew. That was some thirst-quenching research to be sure."

“It was a one-man shoot – me – with no crew and using available light, flying by the seat of our pants," says video director Harry Reese, who also worked on the clips for the two tracks already released from Hardware, West Coast Junkie and Desert High. “Billy, Matt [Sorum, drums] and (guitarist) Austin [Hanks] got up there, did it once and Billy said, ‘We got it!’ and that was that.”

Hardware’s title is a tribute to recording engineer Joe Hardy, who died after a short illness in 2019. Hardy had worked with Gibbons and ZZ Top from 1983's classic Eliminator onwards, while the cover of the new album features an illustration of the band's iconic 1933 Ford Coupe.

Hardware will be released on June 4.

Billy Gibbons - Hardware tracklist

My Lucky Card
She’s On Fire
More-More-More
Shuffle, Step & Slide
Vagabond Man
Spanish Fly
West Coast Junkie
Stackin’ Bones (featuring Larkin Poe)
I Was A Highway
S-G-L-M-B-B-R
Hey Baby, Que Paso
Desert High

Billy Gibbons - Hardware album cover — (Image credit: Concord Records)

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.