 photograph by Joey Lin |
three admitted ZZ Top fanatics like the guys in El Flaco, inking a deal with Lone Wolf
Management — the music-biz empire built around that Li’l Ol’ Band From Texas
— was better than guitar lessons from Eddie Van Halen. Now, bassist/singer Rob
Gray watches a real-time El Flaco Internet chat in a room brimming with ZZ
memorabilia: jackets, posters, tour schedules, sunglasses, refrigerator
magnets, and a really spiffy-looking belt buckle with the band’s name etched
deep in the heart of Texas. Though he’s been going to Lone Wolf’s
glass-and-steel headquarters out on Bee Caves Road since just after SXSW ’96,
when El Flaco came aboard, his eyes are still big as he travels the halls,
giving an impressed reporter a guided tour of the House that ZZ Built. For Rob
Gray, this is incredibly cool.
But Gray doesn’t go to the office as a ZZ Top fan. He goes as a member of El
Flaco, the trio he, Chris Hay, and Brad Turner formed from the remains of
Bouffant Jellyfish in the early Nineties. Whatever El Flaco has absorbed from
ZZ Top comes naturally, because the band’s potent live shows are usually stark,
brutal, and sweaty — updating bloozy Texas boogie (sound familiar?) with a
stiff dose of metal, noise, and bottom. They’ve been one of Austin’s best bands
for years; and now thanks to the same men who made millionaires of their idols,
they’re ready to take on the world outside the belt buckle.
“Things have just kind of moved to the next level,” says Gray, his
surroundings proving his point; with an enormous hardwood table and oversized
leather chairs, this conference room would make Houston’s top oil fatcats
jealous. It’s the same room where he and his bandmates signed their deal with
Lone Wolf. Not that he’s been around much to enjoy such luxurious surroundings.
El Flaco has spent the past year where bands either put up or shut up — on the
road — doing what they always did: showing up at the club, plugging in their
instruments, and pounding away. And, in this venture, Lone Wolf has helped
plenty.
“They do a lot of the day-to-day things that the band really needs,” explains
Gray. “Besides the fact that they’re really highly connected, they’ve been
doing it for so long that they know the business. So they’ve been able to help
us with things you can’t do when you’re on the road: phone calls, getting
connections to get to better shows, and opening up for bigger bands — help
with everything from equipment problems to business-type questions. Now we can
concentrate on the music and playing.”
That’s all El Flaco wants. That’s all they need. They’re postponing other
plans, like Gray’s eventual Ph.D. in psychology (“Those other things will
always be there.”), and taking the rock & roll plunge. That decision is
what allows them to tour nonstop, playing 17 shows a month and still blowing up
the places like Emo’s, which they packed on New Year’s Eve when Man… or
Astroman? cancelled.
“We’re trying to take it out,” says Gray. “We’ve been working really hard this
whole year trying to do that, take it to as many places as we can.” If
anything, Gray says, Austin is too fun a town, and it’s good the band stays
gone so much because they get more done that way: “What happens is you’ll stay
here forever. We want to bring it to the next level and see if people like us
in other markets, too.” Their relentless touring has already paid off in
Houston, where they’ve been popular for years, and now it’s starting to pay off
in places like Arkansas, Florida, Dallas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where El Flaco
has already been tapped to open for George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars
and Southern Culture on the Skids.
“It’s hard,” he says. “Sometimes you’re not playing to a bunch of people
because it’s totally new and nobody’s heard of us, but it’s starting to roll.
It’s starting to pay off. People are hearing about us and they’re digging it.
We’re finding that other markets can dig it, too. You never know, because
Austin people have really good taste in music.”
The band’s hectic tour schedule still allows the band time to create and come
up with new ideas, though Gray admits sometimes it’s a bit of a stretch. “When
you get home, you kind of want to just lay back and relax, but you’ve gotta get
in there and just write some more songs,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of ideas on
the burner, but we’ve just gotta complete ’em. There’s a lot of new songs ready
to emerge as soon as we can get in the studio and finalize ’em. It’s really a
matter of budgeting our time, because shows are extremely important, and
practice time and songwriting is really important too. You’ve just gotta find
the balance.”
El Flaco know they haven’t found the perfect balance just yet, but they’ve
already shown more of it than most people’s checkbooks. They’ve balanced
aggression and playfulness in their songs and live shows, balanced their
reverence for ZZ Top with a desire to see if it could be done faster, louder,
and with more kick, and balanced the fun of being in a band with the smarts it
takes to make a living at it. Rob Gray and the rest of El Flaco have a lot to
be happy about, but the thing he seems to relish most is the fact that the
band’s primal rock impulse is finally reaching people.
“There seems to be a lot of people who connect with that,” he says. “That’s
what we do. All our influences come together, and come out as basic rocking
out. People pick up on that vibe I think, and it comes across. Rock, man. Rock
is what it’s about.”
El Flaco’s SXSW showcase is on Thursday, March 13, 10pm, at Katie
Bloom’s
This article appears in February 28 • 1997 and February 28 • 1997 (Cover).