ZZ TOP

ZZ TOP Signs To American Recordings




According to Jonathan Cohen from Billboard.biz, ZZ TOP has signed a new record deal with Rick Rubin's American Recordings imprint through Columbia, Billboard can reveal.

The veteran rock trio is planning to hit the studio with Rubin producing (BW&BK reported here in May), for an album more in keeping with La Grange-era ZZ Top than its pop-friendly '80s sound, according to manager Carl Stubner.

The band recorded for Warner Bros. for the first 20 years of its career before shifting to RCA in the mid-1990s. ZZ Top's last album, 2003's Mescalero, has sold 103,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Stubner, who began managing ZZ Top a year-and-a-half ago, has worked to increase ZZ Top's visibility via an increased focus on licensing and TV appearances, including the finale of "American Idol" this spring.

"We thought this was a great brand that was kind of dusty," he says. "My goal was to polish it and do certain things they hadn't done before."

To that end, Eagle Rock earlier this month released the first ZZ Top live DVD, Live From Texas 2007, which debuts this week at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Music Video chart.

Read more here.