Getty Image / Robert Cianflone / Theo Von
Billy Strings has been the hottest ticket in the bluegrass music scene for more than a minute and he’s joined Theo Von this week to talk about everything from Billy’s struggles with crack cocaine at 16-years-old to the current music scene to, most importantly, how Post Malone is one of the nicest humans on earth.
Those who don’t know Post Malone or know of him and see him for the first time tend to develop very strong opinions on him immediately, due in no small part to his tattoos/appearance. Those who know him, like Theo Von and Billy Strings, and anyone who has met Postie, are quick to praise him as the nicest human being on earth.
Over an hour into the talk, Theo Von and Billy Strings were talking about Usher telling T-Pain he ruined music because of autotune and Post Malone’s name came up as someone who uses autotune tech in his songs. The conversation then shifts and this is one of those moments where you needn’t have ever met Post to know that he’s that dude. They have absolutely nothing but the kindest things to say about him.
Theo Von And Billy Strings Praise Post Malone
Billy Strings: “Check this out man. Like, Post Malone for instance. Like, that’s my dog. And he, you know, he uses a lot of autotune on his rap music and… whatever music. I mean… How do you even classify his music? It’s just like Posty music.”
Theo Von: :Well, He’s a concierge of Joy. It’s honestly how I would (classify him). I’ve only hung out with him once, but he is a concierge (of joy).”
Billy Strings: “He’s f—— best dude ever. But the first time I met him, he invited me over to his place or whatever and we f—— sat there and sang Johnny Cash, Hank Williams… He knows more old country songs than I do, I think.”
Billy Strings: “And he can play them on guitar and sing them like a f—— angel. And it’s like I’m sitting in a room with him watching this like, ‘okay, the dude’s talented. Like I’m f——- impressed.’ He knows the words to more Hank Williams songs than me. I’m like, holy s—.”
Billy Strings: “It’s like the same thing Luke Combs. When I was in a room with him for the first time and he opened his mouth and started singing. I’m just like, wow. Okay. Great voice man.”
Billy Strings: “You know like… the mother f—– can sing, write, and I’m just honored to be around any of these. And especially more than even those cats who are big celebrities… The Jack Pearsons.. And more of the guys who are in my scene… The Belá Fleck’s, the Brian Suttons, the Stewart Duncans, the Jerry Douglass. The, when I like go to the Grammys or something like that. Those are the cats that I’m really… I love seeing the big celebrity and stuff. But. I’m looking past them and seeing who’s in the band.”
Bill Strings Discusses Crack Cocaine
Earlier in the show, they discussed drug use around the 24:40 mark.
Theo Von: “I always wanted to smoke crack. I never got to smoke crack.”
Billy Strings: “It’s uh…”
Theo Von: “Did you ever smoke it?”
Billy Strings: “Oh f— yeah.”
Theo Von: “Really? No way. I didn’t know that you like, smoked crack…”
Billy Strings: “I wasn’t like… on it all the time. I grew up in a town where there was nothing to f—— do, man. I skateboarded a little bit. I played guitar, but it was like a dead end. It felt like there was nothing to do. So everybody did drugs. I mean… I was 16 the first time I ripped a crack rock…”
Theo Von: “No… God, I want that.”
Billy Strings: “And you wanna know what else… I’ve always considered myself to have pretty strong will. Like I said, I’ve been around meth and heroin and s— growing up. You know… crack and lots of coke and whatever growing up and I never got addicted to any of it.”
Billy Strings: “I’ve been around a lot of tweakers and s—. I’ve seen some crazy s—, bro. I’m saying I used to live in a house where they were sleeping on my couch and s—… F—— toothless, sores on their face, f—— cigarette butts on the floor. F—— Tweakerville man. Tweakerville.”
He proceeds to talk about a tweaker named Steve who was always disassembling motorcycles and they’d get this guy a ‘Box’ which is a box of Sudafed which Steve would then ‘cook’ up into illegal drugs. It’s a pretty wild series of stories from Billy Strings whose father died of a heroin overdose.
For what it’s worth, Billy Strings is ‘California Sober’ these days, a phrase I had to explain to a lot of friends recently because they’d never heard that.