Billy Strings | Artist
William Lee Apostol aka Billy Strings is an American guitarist and bluegrass musician born 1992 in Lansing, Michigan. In 2019 Billy Strings was voted the International Bluegrass Music Association Guitar Player of the Year, and his second album Home won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021. Strings' father died of a heroin overdose when he was two and his mother remarried Terry Barber, an accomplished amateur bluegrass musician whom Strings regards as his father. The family later moved to Morehead, Kentucky, and then to Muir, Michigan. While he was still a preteen, his parents became addicted to methamphetamine. He left the family home at the age of 13 and went through a period of hard drug usage. His family eventually achieved sobriety; Billy stopped using hard drugs and drinking alcohol, becoming "California sober" and consuming only cannabis and similar "light drugs". Barber was a heavy influence on his stepson, introducing him to traditional bluegrass artists at a young age, including Doc Watson, Del McCoury, David Grisman, Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs and Larry Sparks. Strings is also a rock and metal fan, influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Widespread Panic, Phish, the Grateful Dead, Def Leppard, Between the Buried and Me and Black Sabbath, and played in hard rock and indie rock bands in his teens. A master of the guitar, banjo, and mandolin, Billy Strings is a singer and instrumentalist whose music starts with the sound and speed of bluegrass and folds in elements of rock, jazz, and psychedelia. Strings deals in acoustic music, but his lyrics are rooted in contemporary issues ("Dust in a Baggie" sounds like a classic bluegrass breakdown, but the lyrics deal with crystal meth addiction), and the music reinforces this fusion of past and present, melding modern melodic frameworks with fiddles and banjos. To-date he has released five studio albums, several EP's and many live albums. Standout albums include Turmoil & Tinfoil (2017), Home (2019), Renewal (2021), Live Vol. 1 (2024), and his most recent studio album Highway Prayers (2024). Strings is also a member of the duo Billy Strings & Don Julin, who have issued two albums of Appalachian folk music. Apostol got his stage name, Billy Strings, from his aunt, who saw his ability from an early age on multiple traditional bluegrass stringed instruments.
Artist Website: billystrings.com
Featured Albums: Billy Strings
Related Artists: Billy Strings & Don Julin, William Apostle
