Music Instrument News is sad to report the death of ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard, after an extended period of ill health. He was 77.
Although technically not the original drummer in ZZ Top, Beard was with the band from just after the time of their debut single Salt Lick (with drummer Dan Mitchell) in 1969, until this month. Prior to joining ZZ Top, Beard drummed with a pirate lineup copying British band The Zombies, unauthorised by the group.
Frank Beard was born in Frankston, Texas, in June 1949. In his teens, he met bassist Dusty Hill, joining Hill in his band, The Warlocks. After playing with a number of bands, Hill invited Beard to join ZZ Top, and Beard brought in guitarist Billy Gibbons to complete the classic trio.
ZZ Top achieved worldwide success in the late 1970’s which corresponded with Beard’s descent into serious drug addiction. The band took a ninety-day hiatus in 1977 to allow Beard time to enter rehab and get clean. In the end, the break lasted over two years, but the band never considered another drummer for one moment. Beard was the engine room of ZZ Top, and without him, the band would simply not be the same.
Signing with Warner Brothers in 1979, ZZ Top began their hugely successful mainstream period, including 1983’s Eliminator and 1985’s Afterburner, both of which featured clean, punchy production, and radio-friendly single releases, which brought the band to an entirely new pop-rock audience.
The massive success of ZZ Top rests fairly and squarely with the utterly indispensable playing of Frank Beard. Although mocked for the simplicity of his style, by people who don’t know any better, it is Beard’s trademark ‘Texas Shuffle’ that underpins and defines the band’s sound. Drummers the world over will know very well, that the deceptively simple backbeat drumming that Beard brought to the table, relies on an inbuilt sense of timing that players are born with, and it cannot be taught or learned. Ironically, it’s the simplicity of Beard’s style of drumming that hides the difficulty of mastering his style. With guitars, complexity is hard, with drums, it’s simplicity that is harder. And Frank Beard locked down that simple rhythm on each and every song that ZZ Top recorded and played in concert throughout the band’s long and hugely successful career. Former Guns ‘N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum summed up Beard’s technique – “It might sound easy but possibly one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to learn and still trying …… that being said he was born with it in his blood with that Lil Ol Band from Texas they had a name for it … The Texas shuffle! Maybe most folks wouldn’t appreciate it as much as us drummers,”
Together, the trio that made ZZ Top, with their unpretentious blues-boogie sound, became a staple for American rock stations, and eventually, MTV, with their cartoonish videos for hit singles like Got Me Under Pressure, and Legs, which ensured that parent album Eliminator achieved Diamond status for ten million copies sold in the US, and it remained on the Billboard 200 chart for a staggering one-hundred-and-eighty-seven-weeks, which equates to a period of three-and-a-half years.
Frank Beard was plagued with health problems throughout his life, he underwent an emergency appendectomy in 2022, causing him to miss some ZZ Top shows. In March 2025, Beard was again forced away from the band on tour, citing unspecified health issues. Although it was always planned that his absence would be temporary, this time, he was destined not to return. Frank Beard passed away at his home, a Texas ranch, under hospice care, with his family by his side.
MIN extends sincere condolences to Frank’s wife Debbie, and three children.
FRANK BEARD 11.06.1949 – 17.08.2026.
ANDY HUGHES.