ZZ Top’s famously long beards were nearly sacrificed for a lucrative advertising deal, guitarist Billy Gibbons has revealed. Speaking on Jay Mohr’s “Mohr Stories” podcast, Gibbons shared that the band once received an offer that would have paid each member $1 million if they agreed to shave off their trademark facial hair for a commercial — a proposal that ultimately went unrealized, despite the eye-watering sum involved.
“It’s true,” Gibbons said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “[Gillette] deny it. It was a million dollars per man. But we called Mr. Merlis [music industry veteran Bob Merlis]. I said, ‘Bob, we got this offer.’ ‘What?’ I said, ‘We’ve been offered a million dollars each to shave on TV.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘The money’s good.’ He said, ‘You might as well consider doing it, but I’m not so sure you guys — any of you guys — know what’s under there.’ So we passed. We passed, and our fans loved it. Word got out.”
Gibbons’ anecdote underscores how inseparable ZZ Top’s visual identity has been from their image over the decades. Renowned not only for their music but also for their unmistakable beards, the band ultimately treated the offer as a line that couldn’t be crossed — regardless of the seven-figure payday attached to it.
Billy also revisited the Gillette proposal in an earlier interview with Austin, Texas-based KLRU Public Television, addressing the offer with his trademark sense of humor and a decidedly tongue-in-cheek tone. He said: “We’re too ugly. We don’t even know what’s under here. Not at this point.”
The importance of that look had already been addressed years earlier, when veteran journalist Dan Rather asked Gibbons about the origins of ZZ Top’s now-legendary beards. At the time, Billy explained: “One word: lazy.”
He further elaborated: “We started ZZ Top in 1969. We carried on without stop up until the bicentennial year of ’76. And at that time, we were looking at an invitation to join the ranks of the Warner Brothers Group. And it was the decision by management to take a brief break after literally seven years of nonstop touring. Maybe a 90-day hiatus would give us a little breathing room, which turned into 120 days later. It was one year, and we all kind of scattered, keeping in touch only by telephone. Now it’s two years running and all the machinations to join the ranks of Warner Brothers were still underway. In the meantime, as I mentioned, the word ‘lazy’ came in. Now there’s one telltale photograph. Our first official release for Warner Brothers contained a photograph on the little sleeve inside the 12-inch long-playing album — actually, the only evidence of [ZZ Top drummer] Frank Beard with a beard is hiding inside of that Degüello record. He quickly grabbed the razor and went to town. But Dusty and I — what started out as a disguise turned into a trademark.”
