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We mark the 25th anniversary reissue of the mighty Eliminator with an excerpt from a very droll 1985 ZZ Top piece by newly-appointed Interview editor Glenn O'Brien. -- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

One night I was lying in bed, St Elsewhere was just about to come on the tube, and I turned to the beautiful woman lying there beside me and I said, " Gee, wouldn't it be great if ZZ Top was on St. Elsewhere?"

Minutes later, ZZ Top was on St. Elsewhere. I was thunderstruck. There was no way that I could have known. No ordinary way, that is. Since then that woman has been calling me TV Psychic. I can see into the future of broadcast television. The power has never left me since that fateful night when ZZ Top was not on St. Elsewhere.

Actually, ZZ Top was not on St. Elsewhere – it was certain members of the St. Eligius staff impersonating the band in a dream sequence. But they were dead ringers, and they had the guitars, the ZZ car, the beards, and the dusters, and they had "Legs." And if you have all those things, in some way you are ZZ Top.

I will always think of ZZ Top as the force that opened up the TV Psychic power. But they are also my favorite rock band. And in many ways, I am your Average ZZ Top Fan. I, and millions like me, made them the biggest band in the world.

The Average ZZ Top Fan did not buy their first ?-teen albums. The Average ZZ Top Fan saw the 'Legs' video on MTV and a dug a weird vision – the beards, the glasses, the hats, the dusters, the twirling mohair guitars, the cars, the girls. The Average ZZ Top fan realized that this was one of the best rock'n'roll songs in history. The Average ZZ Top Fan realized that here was a band with rock and soul and their own oddball vision of the universe.

As the Average ZZ Top Fan I now own all of their albums, but Eliminator and the new one, Afterburner, are my fave raves. I can hum passable versions of approximately 33 ZZ Top tunes, and I know all of the words to "Sharp Dressed Man."

ZZ Top has been around for about 15 years. These are gentlemen of my own generation. Yet many ZZ fans are subteens, making the Average ZZ Top Fan 23.6 years old. In this way, I am an Above-Average ZZ Top. Fan.

Now you might ask, as the Average ZZ Top Fan, do I find it strange that my favorite band was making big records that I was not listening to for years? Do I feel left out? I'm glad you asked. No, I don't regret not buying Rio Grande Mud the day it came out. It's a good record, but I was heavily in to Al Green that week. Actually, I have a theory that ZZ Top achieved true mega-greatness and funky beatitude only recently. Eliminator is their first great album . And it is great. I don't know if it was years of hard work that got them to the point of greatness or if it was a sudden quantum leap, but Eliminator, which spent an incredible bunch of months on the charts, is Art.

Actually, when the Average ZZ Top Fan thinks about their music, he sometimes thinks that not only is it smoking, but it may also prove to be as classically relevant as your average Bach fugue. There is a strange perfection to ZZ Top's songs – a kind of inspired precision. They remained me of lines spoken by Kool of Kool and the Gang on their album Wild and Peaceful: " We are scientists of sound/ We are trying to find the key to put the light."

ZZ Top is heavy. They are heavier than heavy metal. Their music is rock'n' roll at its most powerful. Heavy metal is a joke. ZZ Top is a joke, too – but they're in on it. ZZ Top is like metal, but its blues roots are truer, and there's no bullshit. ZZ Top is not into the devil, leather, chains, or angel dust. They’re into fun. They have it and they give it away. ZZ Top are into the people. They can show 50,000 people a good time all at once. They are populists. And they're a lot heavier-rocking and a lot more lighthearted than Bruce.

But ZZ Top is fine art too. They do tunes that you can love no matter how smart you are or aren't. And they've got style. Cesspool cleaners love ZZ Top, but not any more than your average fashion model your average fashion model loves ZZ Top because they have great style. College professors love them because their beards seem to have something to do with the function of the mask in Greek tragedy.

Anyway, as the staff Average ZZ Top fan, I figured that it was my job to interview them as they began the big tour that will soon bring them to a hockey or basketball arena near you. I met up with them in Toronto, where I caught the second show of their tour. It was great. The one the next night in Ottawa was twice as great. I can imagine how great they'll be by the time they get to Phoenix.

Read dozens more ZZ Top interviews and reviews at www.rocksbackpages.com. Over 13,000 articles by the greatest writers from the finest rock publications of the last 40 years.