Houston Chronicle, TX
October 3, 2008

For three nights John Douglas was almost as visible as his art. In October 2002 Douglas sat at a drum kit he had painted and thumped out songs with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill – the only time in ZZ Top’s nearly four decades that the band played without drummer Frank Beard.

Beard had been rushed to a Parisian hospital the night before for an appendectomy. Douglas, the tour’s drum tech, stepped in.

Douglas said the second show — this one was in Belgium — was the worst. His hands were blistered and bloodied from the previous night. For the third show, in Germany, he bought some gloves.

“It was that or duct tape the sticks to my hands.”

Because it was a European tour in a pre-YouTube era, the shows aren’t really documented. Douglas has some bootleg recordings, but “people have to just take my word that it’s me.”

But his art — designs on music instruments — has been seen by millions. His best-known piece is a guitar for Aerosmith’s Joe Perry that has an image of Perry’s wife, Billie, on the front.

Perry played that guitar when Aerosmith performed at the Super Bowl in 2001. Billie’s visibility grew more recently: That’s her on the guitar that a digitized Perry plays on the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith video game.

“I’m proud of that one,” Douglas says about the instrument. “He’s proud of that one. I guess as long as he and Billie stay together, we’ll all be OK.”

Complete article:  (here).