ZZ Top drummer and co-founder Frank Beard has stepped aside from the band temporarily due to unspecified health issues.
A statement from the band reads:
Shelter Music Group, ZZ Top’s management, has announced the band’s drummer, Mr. Frank Beard, has temporarily stepped away from the current tour to attend a health issue requiring his focus in the near term.
Beard, along with fellow ZZ Top members Billy F Gibbons and Elwood Francis, presently on the Elevation tour since March 5, have engaged fellow Texan and longtime tech member, percussionist and drummer, John Douglas, for the interim.
Mr. Douglas has maintained a close relationship with Beard and the bandmates, having served with the group in the past.
[Douglas actually filled in when Frank underwent an emergency appendectomy in Paris, back in 2002].
He is looking forward to a speedy recovery
Frank Beard formed ZZ Top with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill in Texas in 1969. Bass player Dusty spent 51 years as a member of ZZ Top up until his death in 2021. The band continued with Hill’s guitar tech Elwood Francis replacing him.
Frank was in The Moving Sidewalks with Billy prior to ZZ Top. On the first and third ZZ Top albums he is credited as Rube Beard.
ZZ Top’s next show is in Georgia on Tuesday 18 March 2025. ZZ Top will tour Australia with George Thorogood & The Destroyers for Red Hot Summer starting 26 April in Bendigo.
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