Elwood Francis onstage with ZZ Top at the Reno Ballroom In Reno, NV (Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

Bill Kehoe's obituary does not mention his time working in the music business. “It just didn’t work out,”Kehoe said in the Bay City Times story. “When all you do is lose money…there’s not much to do but quit. But regardless of what others would have you think, at least I can quit knowing I stayed honest.” I can’t remember how we got the gig,” remembers Dusty Hill, “but I remember a stage hand, an inmate, who was joking about escaping in my guitar case.” Sanders said that shortly before any of theimposter bands went on the road, Kehoe asked him if he was interested in joining the version of the Animalsthat Deltawas putting together. Sanders, who had seen Eric Burdon and the original Animals perform at the Blue Light in 1966,felt that the offer was unethical and turned it down. Sanders left Delta Promotions shortly thereafter.It wasn’t long after that that Ramsey got the call to join the fake Zombies, which at the time featured Beard, Hill, and Meador. He isn’t exactly sure how the offer came about, and is unsurprisingly fuzzy about some of the details of the era. “The ‘60s were consumed with the fascination of experimentation,” he says now, wryly. “Frank was the one who approached me." They were so damn good,” Hocott says. “They were the perfect Zombies. If you heard them play ‘Time of the Season’ you couldn’t tell the difference.” They were so good that Delta Promotions felt comfortable increasing the size and scale of the tours. “They had a tour bus,” Hocott says. “We sent a road manager out with them.” They played small clubs in Michigan and Wisconsin and went up into Canada, where they appeared on TV and played a gig in a prison — it’s there where Ramsey’s story begins to differ from that of Tom Hocott. “I have a feeling that they kinda divided from Delta Promotions and did their own thing,” Hocott says. “Can you imagine? I never would have sent them to prison!” Fake Zombies on Canadian TV The building that housed the Delta Promotions offices still stands, just as it did in 1969, alone on a dusty stretch of Tuscola Road on the outskirts of Bay City, Michigan. From this secluded spot, local businessman Bill Kehoe and his partner Jim Atherton managed Question Mark and the Mysterians and a number of smaller local bands. Tom Hocott was the first employee of Delta Promotions. He now lives in Grand Rapids where he plays music and lives a quiet life. He reluctantly agreed to meet me at a Chili’s outside of town to discuss his time with Delta Promotions. When we sit down to eat, he places a manila envelope on the table. He keeps his hand on it while telling me the story of his involvement with the fake Zombies. And finally he said: ‘I’d like to take a moment and go see the physician and see if we can iron out what’s got me on the ropes.’ He returned to Texas and made an appointment to see the doc. And it was that night he went to sleep and it was… lights out. It was just… it was totally unexpected.”

At the end of last year they sold off their publishing catalogue, together with their income from recorded royalties and performance royalties, to BMG. It’s a move that has not only secured their individual positions financially, but also “ensures the band’s recorded legacy will endure for generations to come”, according to their manager Stubner. The band was made up of members of the Excels, a Beach Boys–inspired band who would’ve likely played at Kehoe’s club, Band Canyon. They were a regional success during the mid '60s, recording a number of singles that charted on local radio. Hocott’s photos of the Michigan Zombies suggest that several of the Excels took part in the fake Zombies; he claims he does not recall any of their names. Multiple phone calls and messages to the surviving members of the Excels were not returned. Aside from the recording session that led to the Raw album, Gibbons says his favourite part of That Little Ol’ Band From Texas was revisiting the story of the band’s trip to Hawaii, where they supported the Rolling Stones for three shows in 1972. Their manager at the time, Bill Ham, had imposed a two-drink limit on the band members for each night of their stay. But the boys found a bar that served a specialty drink called Chimp In Orbit that was so massive it was served in a three-foot-tall container that sat on the floor and could only be drunk through a long straw. The man hired by Bill Kehoe to handle the fake Archies was Bay City native Thomas "Joe" Jamrog. Jamrog was a good friend of Tom Smith, one of the founders of a Bay City teen band called The Epics, and he hung out with the band at Smith's house where they usually rehearsed. Jamrog helped carry the band's equipment which got him in free at their gigs and also gave him an in when chatting up the girls who were attracted to the bands and the local music scene.Kehoe admitted that he had put two fake Zombies groups on the road in the first Rolling Stone story, The 'Zombies'Are A Stiff,published in the December 13, 1969, issue of the magazine. Kehoe was interviewed and stated that after the "original" Zombies from Texas and Florida disbanded, another group took their place. "They really liked the original Zombies", Kehoe stated, "They really admired them." Kehoe went on to say: "They're not a new group, they used to be the Excels....oh, for about five or six years." Hocott’s photos of the Michigan Zombies prove thatfour of the former Excels took part in the fake Zombies, buthe claims he does not recall any of their names. Multiple phone calls and messages to the surviving members of the Excels were not returned until March 2017, almost nine months after Daniel Ralston's original story was published in BuzzFeed. Like the Raw album, That Little Ol’ Band From Texas has also become Hill’s swansong and, as things have turned out, it draws a fitting line under the story of ZZ Top Mk.1. Watching Gibbons, Hill and Beard sitting around a table reflecting on their adventures and then driving off into the sunset together in one of Gibbons’s vintage hot rods has a valedictory feel, to put it mildly. However, Gibbons stands firm in stating that this was not their original intention.