Billy Strings

I was my dad's rhythm player, and that gave me a chance to just listen to how the songs worked, to just kind of stay there in the bass kind of notes.

and listen to the melodies and listen to the harmonies, how the vocals work together.

And that kind of bluegrass harmony just seeped into my ears, I guess.

And later on, I got an electric guitar, a little mini Squier Strat and a Pignose amp for Christmas one year.

I think I was probably nine or 10 or so.

And that was my first time really trying to play solos and stuff like that.

But it was more, I was getting into Hendrix and I was playing more.

You know, guitar center stuff.

When I got into middle school, I wanted to play with people that were my age.

I'd always played with my dad and his friends, and some of them were much older.

And I just wanted to play music with people that were into the same stuff as I was, like skateboarding and video games, whatever.

And so the only thing that was really going on in my middle school at the time was heavy metal.

And I went to a couple of shows, and I just hated it at first.

It was like, this is not music.

I don't know what this is, but it ain't music.

But I fell into that friend group, and then next thing you know, I acquired a taste for this music, and then I fell in love with it.

But after my bands kept breaking up and falling apart, I kind of got back into Doc Watson at this time, and just bluegrass in general.

This would have been around the time that stuff was really rough around the house.

I remember specifically stealing my mom's old Chevelle one day.

How old were you?