Track By Track: Billy Strings ‘Home’

“Growing up, I played bluegrass first and foremost but, when I was a teenager, I listened to rock-and-roll and all sorts of different stuff. I even played in a metal band for a while,” Billy Strings recounts of the experiences that informed his new album, Home, as well as his dynamic live shows.

“It’s weird—I always say, ‘I learned how to play music by playing bluegrass with my dad, and I learned how to perform music in a metal band.’ I would play bluegrass around the house, but it wasn’t until I was a teenager and joined a metal band that I was actually onstage. That was a lot different—we were throwing our guitars everywhere and head-banging. The whole crowd felt like a mosh pit and it was just insane. That’s how I cut my teeth as far as performing and entertaining. So, even when I walk onstage with a bluegrass band now, I still try to bring that metal energy to it. When you come to the show, we’re a little bit more progressive, a little bit harder and a little bit more psychedelic than a traditional bluegrass show.”

Channeling those varied interests into a cohesive new record, Strings recorded Home just days after his sold-out, three-night New Year’s Eve run at Pontiac, Mich.’s Flagstar Strand Theater. The guitarist and his band, which also includes Billy Failing (banjo), Royal Masat (bass) and Jarrod Walker (mandolin) decamped for Nashville’s Blackbird Studios to rejoin Glenn Brown, who produced Strings’ debut record, Turmoil & Tinfoil. A variety of guests contributed to the sessions, including Molly Tuttle, Jerry Douglas and John Mailander.

“Home is a snapshot of where I am right now,” Strings says. “It’s hard to keep writing when I tour so much, but I’ve been working out that muscle, working on my craft as a songwriter.”

Taking Water

“Taking Water” was one of the songs that I wrote with my good friend Jon Weisberger. We’ve gotten together a bunch of times during the last year or so, and, every time we sit down, we get a song. I like collaborating with Jon—he’s a wonderful writer, and he has a deep knowledge of the bluegrass language.
A lot of the time when I’m writing, I’m using that language and putting a modern twist on it.

I come from a small town, and I’ve traveled through a lot of places that are really desolate—just abandoned neighborhoods where homeless people live. I was thinking about Flint, Mich., and Detroit—there’s been bad water in Flint for years and they still haven’t fixed that—and thinking about all these people that are left behind by society. It’s just not cool.

Life is about love, and some people out there have got it really rough. Whenever I write, it seems like that stuff comes up a lot—small-town poverty and social issues.