www.whiskeyriff.com
Billy Strings Practiced Playing Guitar With His Eyes Closed Growing Up: “Maybe If I Take This Sense Away, This One Will Expand”
Billy Strings is truly one of a kind.
You won’t find a lot of modern country artists playing bluegrass music, and that’s honestly okay, because Billy Strings has it pretty much covered. Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson sometimes dip into the realm of bluegrass, but there’s no one that specializes in it more than William Lee Apostol, A.K.A. Billy Strings.
Strings sat down with Rick Beato recently to talk all things bluegrass, how he got into the style of music, and the wild ways that he learns and approaches guitar playing. If we’re being honest here, this interview is basically a masterclass in bluegrass and guitar-picking… you usually have to pay for something like this.
Towards the beginning of the hour-long conversation, Billy Strings explained how his parents had an incredible influence on his love for music. The 32-year-old even discussed that his father’s guitar playing was one of the first instances of seeing the power of music bring joy to others. From that moment on, he was hooked.
Another huge part of Strings’ musical journey was being taken to a bluegrass festival in Michigan at the ripe age of four-years-old. It was one of the first moments that Billy can remember seeing music live, and all of the bluegrass instruments coming together to create a beautiful harmony. It was life changing for him, as he explained:
“I was floored. It was like the moment when I was a little kid when I saw the firetruck or the policeman or the whatever else. It was like, ‘I want to f**king do that.’ They were so cool to me.
I remember shortly after that, I was in kindergarten and we were making a book of like ‘This is my friend,’ and ‘I weigh 43 pounds this year.’ And ‘when I grow up, I want to be a’ and it was a blank line, and I said I want to be a bluegrass player when I grow up.”
Pretty prophetic if you ask me.
Obviously, Billy Strings didn’t just magically turn into a master bluegrass player overnight. He dedicated himself to playing guitar and learning music at a young age, even studying the likes of bluegrass legends like Doc Watson and trying to emulate the greats. During the interview, Rick Beato noticed that Billy wasn’t really looking at the fretboard as he went on a patented, mind-bending riff, so he asked about it.
Billy Strings explained that he’s conditioned himself not to do so through years of practice:
“No, I don’t look very much. Unless I need to, or if I f**k up, I’ll open my eyes and say, ‘Oh sh*t,’ and start (correcting), you know? A lot of times I just (*plays wild riff*) kind of know where I’m at because of relative location and feeling on the fretboard.”
Notice that he said, “I’ll open my eyes?” Strings went on to elaborate on why he tends to play – and practice – with his eyes closed. It all goes back to his younger days when he was looking up to established bluegrass artists:
“Doc Watson was blind, and that’s my guy. A lot of time I spent practicing growing up, (I was) playing with my eyes closed just because I was trying to hear the music more… listen closer. Maybe if I take this sense away, this one (my hearing) will expand.”
Somehow, that’s both something I would have never expected to hear from Billy Strings and one of the most Billy Strings things I’ve ever heard. Does that make sense? If I rattled your brain with that sentence, just wait until you hear some of the picking progressions that Billy rips through in this interview below:
The post Billy Strings Practiced Playing Guitar With His Eyes Closed Growing Up: “Maybe If I Take This Sense Away, This One Will Expand” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
