Billy Strings on cannabis, creativity, cards with Willie Nelson and 2025 Australian tour
Ahead of his debut Australian tour, the Grammy Award-winning US bluegrass musician speaks about the danger of playing cards with Willie Nelson, fitness on the road and how he realised he’s not a responsible drinker.
Billy Strings, 32, is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and guitarist whose bluegrass music skills have taken him from filling theatres to arenas within the space of a few years. Born William Lee Apostol in Michigan, his nickname was coined by an aunt who noticed his budding musical proficiency. Ahead of his debut Australian tour, Strings speaks to The Australian about creativity, cannabis, playing cards with Willie Nelson, the challenges of fitting in fitness while on the road, and how he came to realise he’s not a responsible drinker.
I’ve heard you speak about becoming a father, Billy, and you described yourself at that point as being “11 weeks old as a parent”. You’re a bit further along now; how has that experience affected the way you think about making music?
Yeah, I’m five months old as a parent now, coming up on six, and it’s been the most incredible thing. That little guy has changed my whole outlook; the music isn’t life or death, you know? It’s not the most important thing. To me it always has been; it’s been a coping mechanism and a survival tactic and a life raft for me to cling to. My son has taught me that I don’t have to really cling to it – I can just kind of float on it, you know? I can go out there and sing freely, and as long as I come home and my son’s OK, and my family’s all right, it doesn’t matter if I sing the wrong note, or if I messed up the lyrics, or if I didn’t play the right thing on guitar. Those kind of things used to haunt me, and I feel like now, I don’t care. But also, I will say that I want to be a good player because I’m River’s dad. I want his dad to be a cat, man. When he grows up, I want him to be like, “Man, that’s my dad!” So I’m working on my playing all the time, still. And I do believe he will inspire some more tender songs. He has to; it’s just so sweet. He’s the best thing ever.
I love that idea of him inspiring others down the road, because that would be continuing something that started with you and your dad, who you thought was the coolest guy ever growing up, right?
Totally. Yeah, I did, and I saw the smiles on people’s faces when my dad played music. I just was like, “Man, I want to do that some day!” That’s what’s driven me a lot: I have this special connection with my dad through music, and that charges me to keep playing night after night. I can always go back to those songs that remind me of my childhood, and those will always be incredibly special to me. I’m very sentimental about the music that I made with my dad when I was young. So if I’m ever getting bored or stale, or something, I can always go back to the root of it all – and I often do. Not that I am stale or bored or anything, but I just love playing the music that I grew up on, because it feels real to me. It feels like the most real thing that I can do is to play the music that I was raised on, and that I cut my teeth (on); all the songs that taught me how to play.
Has your attitude toward touring changed since River arrived?
No, I still like the road quite a bit. It’s been a nice balance now, because I come home and it’s busy, I’ll say that. Just recently, for instance, I was in the studio for four days in a row, 12-hour days, and then I played three nights in Nashville – and then I came home, and I’m just right into the wringer of being a dad, and I got all these chores and everything. It’s from one job to the next, and it’s 24 hours, seven days a week – but it’s the most beautiful thing, because it’s so humbling, in a way. I was just playing at Bridgestone Arena, sold out, for like 20,000 people (in Nashville) – and then I come home and guess what? It’s like, “You’re not a big guitar god around here, you’re gonna take out the trash!”
It’s humbling, because it keeps me from getting too big for my britches or something. It don’t matter how many people were at your concert last night, we still got stuff to do: dishes and chores and stuff, and the baby needs this (laughs). It’s great.
That’s the stuff of real life; there’s no escaping it.
It’s the best. It brought me back down to earth, you know? I can kind of get drifted off with all this stuff, with the touring and everybody’s talking about you; I guess fame, if you want to call it that. But he keeps me tethered to the ground, and just being here for my family keeps me on the ground.
What have you learned about trying to stay fit while touring?
It’s on my mind more as of late. It’s pretty difficult. You’re travelling around, and my days don’t consist of having extra time built in. I wake up, I write a set list, I go to sound check, I rehearse, I play the gig, and then it’s two o’clock in the morning, and I go to bed – and then I do it again. Sometimes writing the set list takes hours or all day; sometimes I don’t even have it done until sound check. It’s a mind-bending puzzle for me every day. But I don’t have a lot of time to go for a jog or hit the gym or something. But I also have this stomach issue that happens where, if I eat anything that’s good – like pizza or a burger – the next day I’ll just be screwed. So I have to eat chicken, broccoli, salads and smoothies and stuff like that on the road. I’ve had this stomach thing that’s been bothering me for the last five or six years, where I get all sick. It sucks when that happens, when I’m on the road. I’ve had it to where I was supposed to walk on stage, and laying on the floor in the bathroom, sweating and throwing up. “OK, five minutes!” It’s terrible.
I’ve always dreamt of having a security guy that could act as my security, but also be a personal trainer. Somebody who is into fitness, that would be with me every day anyway, and then he could say, “Hey, let’s go down to the gym!” Because I have no idea what I’m doing if I went down there. I think the most exercise I get is probably running around, playing with my dog (laughs).
Your fingers are pretty dexterous, so you get a lot of finger workouts – but maybe not the rest of your body.
Yeah, I got strong muscles right there. Otherwise, no, I kind of got the dad figure going, which is suitable for me right now. It’s nice for River to have something to sit on (laughs).
I love California Sober, your song with Willie Nelson. That’s a term that may be unfamiliar to Australians. What’s your definition of “California sober”?
I just started hearing that in the last couple of years. I think it just means that you don’t drink anymore, or maybe you don’t do hard drugs, but you still smoke weed. You smoke but you don’t drink. Me and Willie are both in that world, to where booze was not good for either of us, because I guess neither of us know how to handle it, but we both like marijuana. When I wrote that song, I had just come off tour with Willie, and I was sitting around my burn pile out back and ripped off this piece of cardboard. I had this melody in my head, and I started writing California Sober. It was such a Willie song to me that I was like, “I can’t record this song if Willie doesn’t do it with me,” because it would be like ripping off a Willie song. I was surrounded by Willie Nelson’s music for a week straight, and I went home and I wrote a Willie song. So I hit him up, and he was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it with you”. So I went down there and made that song with him, played some cards, and had a good old time.
I heard you lost $1000 at his card table. That’s a hard lesson.
Hey, I would have lost a thousand more, man, just to sit there in that chair. Sitting there, playing cards with ol’ Willie? That was like, “Pinch me. This has to be a dream!”
What have you noticed about combining your creativity with using cannabis?
Well, I used to feel like it made me more creative. I would smoke a little bit, and then I would just automatically like, “Man, where’s my guitar?” I would want to play, and I’ve been pretty much smoking every day since I was, like, 12. I was just raised that way. I think nowadays, I’m starting to wonder if it hinders my ability to learn as fast, or to retain information; maybe if I didn’t smoke, I would be able to learn stuff quicker and retain it more. I don’t know.
And with River being born, too, I’ve cut back significantly on the amount of herb intake at all. I can’t smoke here (at home), so I just hit my pen every once in a while after he goes to bed or something. I do feel like I have a clearer head a little bit, but who knows? I still love it; I still love to smoke. I’ll always be a fan of cannabis, even if I stopped smoking. I like the plant, I like the smell, I like the way it makes me feel. I’ve always got along with people that smoke, and you don’t see stoners out there starting fights at parties and stuff.
On the flip side of being California sober: I believe you’re eight years sober from alcohol, coming up on nine. What have you noticed about that change in lifestyle for your health since you’ve stopped?
That was one of the best things for me to do – to stop drinking – because I just didn’t know when to quit. It wasn’t an everyday thing or even an every weekend thing, but every once in a while, when there was something to celebrate, or “I’m with some good friends, and it just feels right,” they just start going down – and next thing you know, I want to stay there until it’s gone, and then go get more.
That’s how I grew up drinking: it was bottles of Captain Morgan and stuff. The whole point was to black out. I never drank a beer because, “Oh, I like beer”. No – I just want to get drunk. So that didn’t work out for me, with touring and trying to make it as an artist, because it got in the way. We’d have a night like that, where I celebrate a little too much, and then it would hinder the gig the next day. That’s not professional to me. So I stopped, and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t stop. I don’t think I would be where I’m at, I know that.
I’ve been able to kind of keep it together, and not easily, I’ll add. Like I said, the lack of sleep, the amount of work, the amount of travelling; let’s say you haven’t slept in a couple days, and the sleep that you do get is on a bus that’s moving, rolling, bumping around, and you’re in a little bunk. It’s not good sleep. And then finding good, healthy food on the road is hard, and sometimes you’re really hungry when the only option is some bullshit. That’s tough.
Even without partying, it’s hard enough as it is to remember to drink enough water, to get enough sleep, to practise any form of meditation or something like that.
It’s a full-time job to just take care of myself on the road, without substances. If you add that, I don’t see how I could do it. I couldn’t. Not with the amount of touring that we do. If we were a band that played every weekend, once in a while, and we just go party hard and stuff, yeah. There’s some artists that can’t go on stage without a couple drinks, to take the nerves off. Sometimes I wish I could, because I have a lot of nerves, and I understand that. Man, I bet you, if I took a couple shots right before we walk on stage, I’d be a little looser (laughs).
But no, some people can do that. All the guys in my band, they never really overdo it. They’re, like, responsible drinkers. I’m just not. I wish I was, because a nice beer sounds good every once in a while – but that’s not what it is for me. For me, it’s, “Let’s drink as many as we possibly can”.
Thank you for your honesty on that. Lastly, and changing topics entirely: when you hear the name Tommy Emmanuel, what comes to mind?
Electricity and lightning. He can summon a storm with his bare hands. He can call in the clouds; he could play the end of the rainbow, and then he could make the clouds disappear (laughs). He’s a wonderful, wonderful man. Music vibrates in every cell of his body, and playing music with him is just such a joy. It’s as much in his toes – and his ankles, heels, back, neck and elbows – as it is in his fingertips. It’s everywhere in him. His whole body is enticed in music, and it’s so compelling. He’s just one of the baddest dudes on the guitar, period, man. He’s gotta be. I love Tommy.
Billy Strings’ debut Australian tour includes concerts in Melbourne (July 15), Sydney (July 17) and Brisbane (July 19). Tickets: frontiertouring.com/billystrings
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