Considering his jaw-dropping, virtuoso guitar work, the confession by the 31-year-old Michigan native and shining light of modern bluegrass came as a bit of a shock.
“For the first time, I’ve been practicing guitar a lot,” Billy Strings said during a recent a phone interview between band rehearsals in Nashville, noting he’s actually been taking lessons from a guitar instructor.
“I’ve been studying jazz guitar and classical stuff. I’ve been having my nose in the books. … I’ve always just played, and played in bands, but I’ve never had a deliberate practice routine. I’ve got a teacher who (has me) learning all this Bach stuff and Charlie Parker tunes. That’s opening up my world a little bit.”
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The world of Billy Strings already has expanded exponentially beyond the tiny town of Muir in Ionia County where he grew up as William Apostol and started his love affair with the guitar, later making a splash in Traverse City when he began performing with mandolinist Don Julin.
Since then, he’s sold out concerts across the globe, won prestigious awards, appeared on national TV and released chart-topping bluegrass albums.
On Tuesday, he hosted a special, jam-packed Halloween homecoming show at Grand Rapids’ Van Andel Arena, the first bluegrass artist to ever headline a capacity show at the 12,000-seat venue.
“We’re going to tear a crater in Van Andel Arena and the tectonic plates are going to shift,” he said prior to the show. “It’s going to be amazing.”
To be sure, the Michigan bluegrass superstar’s wrestling-themed Halloween extravaganza delivered an unforgettable evening of goofy skits, ultra-talented guests and top-shelf jamming on rock ‘n’ roll covers as well as bluegrass tunes.
The five-hours-plus show had Billy Strings dressed as Hulk Hogan — with his band members and fellow guests costumed as other wrestling personalities – while alternating between acoustic and electric guitars.
Not surprisingly, he performed much-requested originals such as “Away from the Mire,” “Turmoil & Tinfoil” and “Dealing Despair,” while saving some of the night’s biggest surprises for rafter-rattling, jaw-dropping covers of The Fabulous Thunderbirds’ “Tuff Enuff,” Metallica’s “Sandman,” Rick Derringer’s “Real American,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” which closed out the show.
His world-class band (bassist Royal Masat, banjoist Billy Failing, mandolinist Jarrod Walker, fiddler Alex Hargreaves and special guest, drummer Duane Trucks) welcomed a succession of distinguished guests to the stage, all garbed as various wrestling personalities: guitarist Molly Tuttle, Dobroist Mark Lavengood, fiddler John Mailander, mandolinist Sierra Hull, banjoist Chris Pandolfi (of The Infamous Stringdusters) and Bill Nershi (of The String Cheese Incident).
Billed as “The Van Andel Scramble,” the show came complete with bombastic announcers, a wrestling ring, a faux feud with Billy’s guitar tech and theatrical skirmishes between band members, all depicted on three mammoth video screens that served as a backdrop to the smartly lighted, musical mayhem.
“Tonight’s going to be legendary,” one of the announcers exclaimed during the introduction.
Indeed, because as cheesy as the wrestling spoofs were, there was nothing cheesy about the stellar musicianship that Billy Strings and his crew unfurled throughout the evening.
“Thank you for having us in your beautiful city,” the guitarist told fans. “I’m so glad to be here.”
It was his first Grand Rapids show in several years, after being forced to cancel a three-night run at GLC Live at 20 Monroe in 2021 due to COVID. He returned to Michigan last fall to play Kalamazoo’s Wings Event Center and other Michigan venues.
The unprecedented Halloween spectacle came after his most eventful year yet – marrying longtime girlfriend Ally Dale in September while managing a grueling touring schedule and winning another handful of industry awards.
“I work hard. It’s not like I’m out here partying,” he said. “I’m trying to drink as much water as I can, get as much sleep as I can, eat healthy. It’s about being able to deliver the best shows that I can. I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in almost seven years. That’s all because I’ve been focusing on my work.
“This year was tough on me physically. I’ve been exhausted most of the year. We’re trying to figure out how much touring I can take and try to figure out what the right amount of touring is for me to not wear myself out.”
That much-desired break from the road might have to wait awhile longer: They’ll head overseas next week for a November tour of Europe.
“We’re doing 12 gigs in 15 days. Not a lot of sleep in between,” he conceded. “But it’s awesome. We’re in Amsterdam and France; we’re going to all these cool places. It’s awesome to get over there and play music for those folks. We play smaller places than we do over here, so it’s kind of nice in a way.”
He credited his Michigan fans and the devoted “Billy Goats” who helped launch his career and who’ve continued to follow him around the country.
“They’re all my friends. It’s amazing. They’s so supportive and so dedicated to making it to the next show,” he said.
“I can’t believe it and I’m so grateful and I love these folks. They truly are everything to me. This is what I’ve always wanted to do, even when I was a little boy and these folks made it possible.”
As “a little boy,” Apostol proved his guitar prowess at a young age.
Indeed, his mother, Deb Apostol, and her guitar-playing husband, Terry Barber, recognized their son’s prodigious talent at a young age – and more than once.
When Billy was just 3 years old, he started strumming on a little toy guitar.
“Chuck-a-chuck-a-chuck, he had the rhythm, he had that,” Apostol recalled. “Terry and I said it at the same time: ‘That’s a guitar player.’ We knew it right away.”
Later, he would play Terry’s “big guitar” and eventually received an electric Fender Squier guitar with a Pignose amp.
“One day we were sitting at the dentist office and getting a tooth looked at. We heard ‘Barracuda’ by Heart,” Apostol said, recalling that Billy asked about the song and the popular 1970s rock band.
“We went home and he went into the bedroom, pulled out that Fender and he played ‘Barracuda’ note for note. I could not believe it. He heard it one time.”
Of course, Billy would eventually turn up the volume as a teenager, playing in the metalcore band To Once Darkened Skies.
He told Local Spins in a 2017 interview that he dyed his hair black and unleashed sets that were “the furthest thing from a bluegrass traditional performance.”
“We were jumping around the stage, head-banging, sweating, ripping our shirts off, kicking people in the audience, spitting on each other, stage-diving, breaking instruments, just everything,” he said. “Just crazy.”
Since then, Billy Strings has come to inspire hundreds of thousands of fans, including his mother who now calls him “the dream weaver.”
Despite the hero worship and his fast-expanding fan base, he remains, a self-effacing kid from Ionia County who doesn’t see himself as a star.
“I don’t like to even see myself (at all),” he joked. “I just try to keep my head down and play guitar.”