Interview: Billy Strings - Debut NZ Show at Auckland's Spark Arena

Nashville-based, Michigan-raised bluegrass superstar Billy Strings aka William Lee Apostol is venturing to Aotearoa for the very first time, touring his latest album 'Highway Prayers' at Auckland's Spark Arena on 22nd July. Songwriter and game designer extraordinaire Finn Johansson chatted with the Grammy award-winning artist via the magic of online technology, about Billy Strings' undying love for bluegrass, his kaleidoscopic musical influences and more...

Billy Strings (USA)
Tuesday 22nd July - Spark Arena, Auckland (all-ages)
Tickets on sale now via ticketmaster.co.nz

Finn Johansson: I wanted to know a little bit about growing up — did lots of bluegrass guys play metal? Or was that unusual?

Billy Strings: I guess that is kind of unusual, lot of times those kind of lines don't cross. I feel like they did for me, because I grew up playing bluegrass and then when I got to sixth or seventh grade in school, I wanted to play music with people that were my age, instead of these old bluegrass guys. I was fourteen, fifteen or whatever, and these guys who I was playing with are in their seventies. [laughs] I wanted to play music with folks that were my age and that's what led me to playing heavy metal. At first I didn't really like it, but then I acquired a taste for it and now I love it. It's part of my youth and growing up.

Was your dad there in the audience when To Once Darkened Skies played at the Oneida Gospel Church? 

No — my parents, it's not like that music that I was playing wasn't their favourite. They never told me what to do or anything. But my grandma sure did, she hated it. She thought I should be playing bluegrass music. I wish you were still around to see that I kind of came back to it. She called it the devil's music. It was Satan's music.

I think we can say at this point that metal and bluegrass, it's probably a bit early in the timeline for those two things to merge. But I do hear heaps of directions on Highway Prayers. It's very much a cosmic gumbo of genres. Because as well as straight bluegrass, you got a little bit of gospel, little bit of outlaw folk ballads, you've got some Jason Isbell energy, you have 'Escanaba', which I don't know the words to describe. And then it goes even further out into some very psychedelic territory. So the question is, if you have this constellation of influences, and at the centre is things commonly associated with bluegrass — what's the most far out stuff that musically you're tempted to grab and bring it into the Billy Strings extended universe?

I'm just trying to gain more knowledge on the guitar. I guess more jazz and classical influences, as far as my approach goes. Right now, I'm studying a bunch of David Chrisman music, it's definitely what inspired 'Escanaba'. David Chrisman and Béla Fleck and Tony Rice... (they) called them newgrass records back then. There was the second generation of bluegrass cats that were kind of progressive. I really like stuff like that.

So I'm just trying to get better at guitar man, I hope that comes through. But when I'm writing, sometimes like you said, it's a song and it's a bluegrass day or old timey tune, or a harmonica, tin can, or could be anything. A freaking poem. I don't try to make anything happen. I just try to follow wherever the inspiration goes. Some of those songs on that record, they're like stream of consciousness. Just let whatever happens happen, and then just trust that it's a song.
 

Keep the gates wide open... I thought it was interesting to hear that you've got a guitar teacher. That makes sense, but I think a few people would be surprised by that. You've got to stay in that mindset of growing. Could you speak a little bit about having a guitar teacher at this point in your musical life? Is that a new thing?

It's been interesting because I've always played my whole life, but always just by ear. I have no real sense of musical theory. A lot of times I don't know the names of the chords or anything. I'm just playing off the sounds and that's how I've always done it. I just grew up playing bluegrass, you don't really need to know all that mathematical stuff when you're playing bluegrass. There's a language and a dialect with the music that you learn to understand. I can understand that dialect, but I can't blow through some changes like a jazz player, or play something like a classical guitarist could play.

I was already doing pretty good. But I just got to a point where — even though I had a successful career and I was selling out shows and I was a Grammy winner and all this stuff, I wasn't impressed with my own guitar playing. I'm still not really. I always feel like I'm winging it. I go on stage and I try to do my very best. But still, a lot of our music is so improvisational, so it's hard to tell if you're doing good. The thing about that is, if you're on stage and you think you're doing really good, you're probably not. And if you're on stage and you think it's really bad, it's probably fine. It's a really hard thing. So each night, I try to just go play and try not to think about very much. Because it helps.

Something I've found is — songs can sometimes seem normal, but then they teach you something like ten years down the track. I don't know if you can relate to that, thinking that a song was simple and then it gives you a lesson a lot further down.

Sometimes I don't know what the songs are really about until later on, until I've sang them for who knows how long. I had a moment on stage one time when I was singing 'Away From The Mire', I had sang that song for like six months. Newer song, but I had sang it on stage a bunch. Then one night, when I was singing, I sang this lyric and it resonated with me. It was like, whoa, I didn't write that for other people to hear, I wrote it because I needed to hear it.

The interesting thing is that if I wrote a song like that, that's special to me, and some stuff that I've actually been through. People don't know that exact situation that I wrote about, but for some reason, they resonate with in their own way, with their own specific situations that they've been through. That's the thing that trips me out, is the way I could take an influence from my life and write about it, and then someone else could feel it.

That's absolutely wild, isn't it? Yeah? So I was thinking, let's talk about when you're going to be here in July. Stadiums, playing arenas must come with its own challenges... could you let us know what to expect for the Auckland show this July?

I know we're gonna have fun. We're gonna play some bluegrass and come down there and see what y'all are about. See if you like our music and if you want to party with us.

You're gonna love it down here, you're going to find some kindred spirits. There's a lot of love for folk-country music and bluegrass in New Zealand.

It's out first time coming down... I'm happy to be over there, waving that bluegrass flag. Waving the banner and bringing the music out to the folks. Because I just love the music, it's what I grew up on. It feels good for me to go out and play it. It's almost like my duty here, that I feel my job here on Earth is to go play these tunes that I cut my teeth on when I was little. They're so dear to me, because I have a connection with my childhood and with my father and growing up hearing these songs. They mean so much to me, so I love playing them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.