Billy Ray Cyrus has an achy breaky heart for his famous 90s mullet, and jokes about Miley’s wedding
IT is probably the only song Billy Ray Cyrus has made with daughter Miley that you will never hear on a concert stage. The singer explains why as he laments his 90s mullet.
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IT is probably the only song Billy Ray Cyrus has made with daughter Miley you will never hear on a concert stage.
The country music legend, who is in Australia for his first tour in almost 20 years, ruled out playing the nine-minute ambient song Angels Protect This Home which closes out his latest album Thin Line.
The Achy Breaky Heart superstar wrote the song after Miley gifted her father a Tibetan prayer bowl which was shattered the day after they recorded it.
But the entertainer couldn’t help himself joking about performing it at another occasion — Miley and Liam Hemsworth’s wedding. It’s the subject he gets asked most about these days.
“She promised me she wants me to sing it at the wedding; it’s a great wedding song,” Billy Ray joked.
“The chances of performing that with her are slim because somebody knocked it over and it shattered; I was so crushed but Miley was so good about it.”
If you needed any further proof that the Cyrus clan are a close bunch, Billy Ray confirmed he does indeed have one of Hemsworth’s black T-shirts in his luggage, “borrowed” one day when he was doing some work on his daughter’s property.
The family are expected to reunite during his Australian tour, with Miley set to join her father onstage at the Crossroads in the Vines festival in the Hunter Valley on Saturday.
He hopes one of his other hits, I Want My Mullet Back, will be adopted as an Australian anthem during the tour after spotting some spectacular examples of the much-maligned hairstyle in Sydney.
“A busload of people were going by and they all looked like mannequins except this one guy with a hell of a mullet and it was purple,” he said, laughing.
“If I ever get mine back, I would want it to be purple.”
The entertainer said his children, including daughters Miley and Noah, had followed him into the family business because they had “absorbed it” from an early age.
Billy Ray, who also found fame as an actor on the popular American series Doc and Hannah Montana, said they learned about the music business on a tour bus and at fan fairs.
Legends including Waylon Jennings and Carl Perkins would teach a curious Miley how to play songs she loved.
His daughters have always cited their father as a mentor and often invite him to join them on stage at their concerts, sending their young fans into hysterics.
Yet Billy Ray isn’t about to claim that as a sign he is now cool with the kids.
“Maybe I am just a little bit retro but to me cool is Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings,” he said.
“I just did a video with the rock band Godsmack for their new song, me and Sebastian Bach playing a skit at the beginning and end of it. Now if I had done half the things that Sebastian Bach has done, then I might be cool.”
He has checked out his co-stars on the festival bill this weekend, including John Williamson, Kasey Chambers, The McClymonts and Shane Nicholson and said he was keen to take the whole-line-up on tour in America.
“I consider it a real honour to get to share a stage with that calibre of talent and I would like to take that whole package back to America and tour for the rest of summer,” he said.
“I always knew Keith Urban was the real deal talent but now I see there’s a font of it down here.”
Billy Ray’s tour opens on March 22 at The Palms at Crown in Melbourne and then heads to Crossroads in the Vines at the Roche Estate in the Hunter Valley on March 24 where he will be joined by Kasey Chambers, Lee Kernaghan, John Williamson, The McClymonts and more. His final concert will be at the By The Bay Country Music Festival in Brisbane on March 25.
Originally published as Billy Ray Cyrus has an achy breaky heart for his famous 90s mullet, and jokes about Miley’s wedding
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