Most big time drummers get new kits for every tour, especially when they’re sponsored by a big name drum company and they get them free. So with free drums coming their way, many drummers customize their kits with cool styles or paint jobs. ZZ Top’s Frank Beard played for over 50 years so he’s had more kits than most, and he had a specific artist that did many of his kits with custom paint jobs.
John Douglas is a drum tech and custom kit painter for many big time drummers. He has filled in the drummer’s throne for Frank in ZZ Top on multiple occasions before and played with great artists like Aerosmith where he sat behind the kit during their Las Vegas residency when Joey Kramer wasn’t playing, along with Slash, Van Halen, and Bon Jovi, among many others
As an artist he’s more than just a drum kit painter, too. “Along the way, he has created one-of-a-kind masterpieces of rock and roll icons including Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Stevie Nicks, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), Bono (U2) and The Rolling Stones. These original works of art (several signed by both Douglas and the Rockstar subject) are… in a word… extraordinary.
So here are just some of the kits he painted for Frank.
That first pic with the Jack Daniel’s style barrels on the bass heads was the kit Frank used the last time I saw the band when they played the Florida Strawberry Festival in March of 2024:
See more of John’s artistry as the man who paints Rock N’ Roll in this video.