Growing up, he faced poverty and addiction. Now he counts Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan as fans

The Age

17-06-2025

Backstage at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Billy Strings – the new wonder kid of bluegrass – is about to open an early evening set ahead of his heroes. Growing up, he never thought he'd get out of his midwest Michigan hometown; now at 32, he's touring the US with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan as part of the Outlaw Festival.
Wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, jeans and his ginger hair tied back low, Strings is less bluegrass suit and big hat of the past and more psychedelic slacker instead. A jam-band camaraderie drives his modern-day narrative. He's the reason bluegrass made its way back into the Billboard charts for the first time in 22 years, thanks to his hugely successful 2024 release, Highway Prayers.
The bluegrass revival sweeping contemporary music in the States is no accident. The crossover appeal of Chris Stapleton and Lainey Wilson is but one aspect of this unfolding history repeating, but Strings is bringing his own charming demeanour to a traditional sound of yesteryear in the hope of doing more than stirring nostalgia. His is mountain music and tales of rural struggles for a hip city crowd. His songs are tinged with hope as much as sadness, and battle scars aplenty.
The rehearsal room backstage is choked in the damp smell of cannabis. It is LA after all, where 'California sober' is a thing. Hemp drinks and gummies are de rigeur, and getting lightly stoned takes the edge off for many gathered here.
It's a crowd who has turned up for Willie and Bob, ready to lean into the stoner mood of the past. It feels like the '60s all over again, except these audiences are greyer and more withered – but there's plenty of Gen Z and Millennials here for the tune in and drop out spirit, too.
Strings' wardrobe trailer is stocked with guitars. Country and western shirts hang on wire coat hangers, cowboy boots sit beneath them, and some toys – a troll wearing a sombrero hat, an illuminated ghost – and trucker caps fill the top shelf. It's a modest stash for this travelling wilbury.
After Strings won two Grammys for best bluegrass album – in 2021 for Home, and in 2025 for Live Vol. 1 – it taught him to trust the process and realise he has what it takes to succeed. He's collaborated with Post Malone (M-E-X-I-C-O), written and recorded with Nelson (California Sober), and recently wrote a three-page letter to Dylan which his friend – musician T Bone Burnett – assured he had read and was impressed by. Dylan is also a fan of his music; joining the Outlaw Festival bill was not an afterthought.
Strings first heard bluegrass as a four-year-old, his stepfather Terry Barber introducing him to the blues, fiddling and gospel inflected verses. 'My parents took me to the Charlotte Bluegrass Festival in Michigan, not far from where I grew up. That's when I saw bluegrass for the first time,' says Strings, who was born William Lee Apostol and acquired the nickname from an aunt who saw him learn bluegrass instruments with a never-before-seen ease.
'Seeing those old musicians on stage in their suits and big hats, playing gold-tone banjos, standing up to their mics, well, that blew me away,' he says. 'That's when I got bit by the bug.'
Listening to the music of bluegrass Hall of Famers like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin and the Osbourne Brothers set the mood, too. 'Bluegrass is music that's passed down over the generations in my family. My dad learned it from his folks, and I got it from him, and I will teach my son, too. It's a tradition that runs deep,' says Strings.
Songs like Doc Watson's Salt Creek and Beaumont Rag and the Stanley Brothers' How Mountain Girls Can Love were on high rotation at home. Strings played with his dad until the age of 10, before swapping to the electric guitar. 'I had enough of hanging out with old men who I had little else in common with,' he says.
He found his subculture with the skaters, who listened to death metal and hardcore. His eyes light up when he tells me he has collaborated with Canadian death metal band Cryptopsy.
'I don't have anything else I can do if this fails. I'm not a carpenter, and I don't like cleaning windows.'
After finishing high school in 2011, Strings moved in with a friend in Traverse City, Michigan. It was there he took to open mic nights, wooing with traditional bluegrass. The city, known for its beaches, lured him, as did the art gallery scene and microbreweries that attracted university students. There he got a sense that there was more to life than his small-town trappings, and meeting fellow bluegrass musician Don Julin inspired him to branch out and play more.
In July, Strings will embark on his first tour of Australia. He's already got a few friends there, including Tommy Emmanuel and the Melbourne band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (some potential studio time has been set aside should their plans align).
'When I knew I was having a baby, Stu MacKenzie [frontman of King Gizzard] was one of the first I reached out to ask how do you manage touring and raising a family,' says Strings, who married his manager Ally Dale in 2023. The couple welcomed their son River in September.
'Having a son has put everything I do in perspective,' he says. 'Work and music are important, but my family and their wellbeing take the lead. If they're good, I am free to go sing.'
Strings spent a decade on the road before success came his way. It's only in 2025 that he's lessened that gig load. Back in 2017, it was 200 gigs and 300 days away from home. 'You know there's a cornfield out there, but you can't make out the leaves because you're moving too fast,' he reflects of that time.
For all his guitar-prodigy ability, Strings continues with a private guitar tutor and assignments to meet behind the scenes. He writes most of his songs on the road and is already working on a follow-up to last year's Highway Prayers.
The jam-band hero teamed with producer Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Kanye West) to make Highway Prayers, an album Rolling Stone dubbed 'funnier if you're stoned'. There's Americana pop on Gild the Lily; an a cappella harmony leads Leaning on a Travelin' Song, where the banjo gets its rock star moment; while Cabin Song fiddles its way to swamp-like rhythms.
'I don't have anything else I can do if this fails,' says Strings as he leans into his leather sofa at the Sunset Marquis on the day of the gig. 'I am not a carpenter. I don't like cleaning windows or working in the hot sun. I play music and if I don't have this, I don't know how I would provide for my family.
'I want to play the best show possible, so people will come back and see me next time. I don't want to go back to being poor,' says Strings. 'It's truly deeply ingrained in me to survive, and the way I do that is to entertain and go crazy on stage.'
Strings was born and raised in Michigan by his stepfather Barber and mother Debra Apostol. His father died of an overdose when Strings was two. He thanks his maternal grandmother Connie for instilling him with kindness, and says she's the reason he carries a lot of 'Christian guilt' around to this day. She was the closest thing to an angel in his wayward upbringing.
'I grew up in a wild family, a little band of outlaws. I saw a lot of substance abuse and a lot of things happened to me when I was little, things too deep to go into,' Strings says. 'I was exposed to many people ruining their lives. We had toothless tweakers with sunken cheeks sleeping on our couch, and I didn't want to do that. If I stayed in [Michigan], I knew that was where I was headed.'
School was difficult too, and with two addicted parents, finding a voice of reason was hard. 'I failed all through school because I was an asshole, but that was because I had a lot of pain at home,' he says. 'It's hard to learn about history and algebra when you don't know what you're going to eat tonight. I was looking for a break in the wall and when I found that break, I made a run for it and I didn't look back. I didn't want to end up in misery.'
At 23, Strings got sober. 'I have smoked crack, tried heroin, done meth and all sorts of shit, but I knew if I did it regularly, I wouldn't be able to come back from it,' he says. I knew this wasn't a life for me.'
Loading
The proud family man says he's found his purpose in life – it's more spiritual than religious epiphany. Strings admits DMT therapy has helped see the proverbial light. 'I believe it's my duty to wave the bluegrass banner. I love to turn people on it and I have found my happy place,' he says.
'Bluegrass hits harder than an MP3, you know,' he smiles. 'When you hear the banjo in real life and somebody sings into a microphone, it's not enhanced by backing tracks or autotune; it's more human than that. That's where sweetness lies. That's where the songs live and how we survive this game.'