Three days ago, a Reddit user uploaded a photo of “Zee Zee Top” playing a prom in Texas. The Huffington Post picked up the image (above), and it quickly went viral. According to HuffPo, “The photo matches up with an account of a 1971 appearance at the Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School prom.” 

Then, seeming to corroborate the year, a commentor on the Reddit thread wrote: 

This is from my dad’s senior prom in May 1971! This was taken at Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School in Orange, Texas.

Apparently some time between signing the contract to play for the dance and the actual prom itself, the band broke out big. They tried to get out of the contract, but the school couldn’t find a replacement on such short notice so ZZ Top still performed. My dad said that people were climbing through the windows, crashing their prom, just to hear the band play. This was all at a really small school with a graduating class of around 100, maybe less. I’ll try to get him to scan his yearbook that has this exact picture in it.Sorry to hijack the top comment.

I called Gibbons, who was traveling on a bus from Nashville to North Carolina, to ask him for more details about the photo in question: 

Obviously, you’ve seen the image.
Yeah. It’s funny how that photo has gone viral. There’s not a day that goes by where somebody doesn’t say, ‘Hey I saw this funny picture of you guys. When was that?’ It has to be 1970.

That makes sense, because in the Huffington Post item about the photo it says, “The Reddit thread on which the image originally appeared identified the photo as being taken in 1969, but Hill didn’t join the band until 1970.”
We started in December of 1969. Frank and I joined forces for three or four nights in January, playing gigs as just the two of us, drums and guitar. Frank said he knew a guy that was pretty tough bass player. As it turns out, of course he knew Dusty Hill–they’d played together in the Dallas band American Blues. When Dusty made the scene he fit like a glove because he and Frank had already ironed out a rock-solid rhythm section arrangement.

Does anything in the photo help date it?
Frank and I are sitting on a PA system amplifier head made by Kustom—a rolled and pleated job. Kustom amps featured a puffy padding, a sofa upholstery-type thing. They were probably the worst sounding piece of gear you could get, but very affordable. I think they were only offered in 1970, so that helps date the photo.

The prevailing theory is that it was Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School in Orange, Texas. Does that sound right?
That makes sense. That is probably correct.

The other theory is that it’s May 1971. But that’s too late, right?
I’d say May 1970 is correct. Dusty is there, but it’s not long after he joined up.  And proms are in May, so I’d venture May 1970 is the right date.

Even if it’s early in the band’s life, given American Blues and your Moving Sidewalks, it seems like you’d already be past playing prom gigs. Because of your other bands, how quickly was there a ZZ Top audience?
Frank and Dusty enjoyed their own set of followers because of American Blues—you know the ol’ legends, they dyed their hair blue and got charged extra by hotels because the dye would rub off on the pillows. And I had the Sidewalks audience. Collectively, we could draw a little based on what we’d set up before ZZ Top,

Was there ever a time it was spelled Zee Zee Top?
People always want to know when we stopped being The ZZ Tops plural. But we’ve never been uncertain about the fact that its ZZ, no period, all upper case. And never an “ee”. That’s a yearbook club error.

Is this the only prom ZZ Top ever played?
I’m certain of that.

Bar Mitzvahs?
[Laughs] We may have done one of those.

Weddings?
Ha. Yeah. We’ve been a band of all occasions.

It is just how young and how non-hirsute y’all are that makes this photo special? 
I suppose it’s what you’d call the real ZZ Top? I guess it’s the real early ZZ Top, for sure. You can see the intensity behind the facial features. Dusty is the entertainer here. There’s something telling about that image. There’s a young ambitious spirit on display.

And now you’d ask that people stop emailing it to you?
Yeah. I’ve seen it. [Laughs.] I definitely have.

ZZ Top released “Consumption” a track from their new four-song digital collection, Texicali, which was produced by Rick Rubin. Listen to it here: