ZZ Top's Elwood Francis Shares Where The 17 String Bass Monstrosity Came From

When I saw ZZ Top the last time at the Florida Strawberry Festival, I was wondering if Elwood was going to bring out the enormous 17 string yellow bass we’ve all seen on the internet. And he did! But where did it come from originally?

Elwood tells Guitar World that he found it surfing the internet:

“I found this guitar, took a screenshot, and sent it to Billy, saying, ‘We should order one of these, and I’ll play it. It’ll be hilarious.’ And three months later, we fucking got it. It came in all the way from China, and Billy pulls out this big-ass yellow 17-string bass and is like, ‘Okay, we’ll play it for a song, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I can do this…’”

“I hate playing that fucking bass. I found it late at night while internet surfing on one of those Chinese websites. I couldn’t believe they were making something like that.

He tells the story about it in an Insta post a few years back

That original bass monstrosity Elwood mentions is by YouTube player Jared Dines:

And in case you missed Elwood playing it live in person, here he is playing it on Got Me Under Pressure.

©2024 Cox Media Group