The ascendant roots shredder shares intimate details from his musical upbringing and gets philosophical on the past and future of bluegrass.
Millennial folk philosopher Billy Strings joins this episode of Wong Notes. The Grammy-winning acoustic picker is an open book—nothing is off limits with Billy, from recounting his days selling magic mushrooms in exchange for passing grades in math class, to an emotional drunk-driving revelation that might have saved his life.
Now, Strings can recount war stories of playing with his heroes in the bluegrass scene, and learning important lessons from the greats about respect while onstage. Strings is at the intersection of the old and the new, often stuck between the traditionalists and the new era of American folk music. He says he doesn’t belong to one or the other; his music is more of “a goulash of all the things put together.” Speaking of which, Billy and Cory connect for a brilliant mashup of Cory’s funk stylings and Billy’s bluegrass flatpicking, proving that music really can be a universal language.
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
Use this link for 30% off your first year.
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
Use this link for 30% off your first year.
Soulive, Lettuce, Tedeschi Trucks, and most recently, Stanton Moore and Branford Marsalis—that's a short list of some of the acts Eric Krasno plays and has played with throughout his career. From one funk guitarist to another, Cory sits down with Eric to talk what it means to play the right amount of notes when jamming, what it takes for Eric to absorb and learn so many different genres, and the impact the jam band community has on its musicians. Thanks for listening to this season of Wong Notes, and be sure to catch the next!
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
Use this link for 30% off your first year.
Jason Isbell's Advice to Songwriters
Cory: Do you have any insight to budding songwriters that are trying to find that thing about their voice as a writer?
Jason: Yes, definitely. Just stop looking for it, immediately. Stop looking for your voice as a writer. I was thinking about that this morning. I saw something I read this morning, somebody talking about finding their voice as a writer, and you're looking for the wrong thing. When Amanda and I got married, we went around to a lot of couples, and we still do this, but a lot of couples that have been together for a long time that we knew and we asked them, "What's the secret?" And they had different answers. With a lot of people, it was sense of humor, or just don't give up on each other, or stick by the decision that you made, no matter how hard things get.
But John Prine said, "You have to remain vulnerable." And of course, John Prine is going to give the best answer to just about anything. That's what he did, but he had a very recognizable voice as a songwriter, and it was the fact that he was open emotionally and he realized that he had something worth saying, and so he just let himself talk.
And I think that's the trick. And it is a little bit ethereal. It's hard to pin down, but just don't run from the things that you might consider mistakes. If you think that, "This doesn't sound like any song that I've heard before, so it must not be right," second guess that instinct and think, "Maybe it doesn't sound like anybody else because it's mine." And if you do that over and over and you remain open and don't judge yourself, that's the thing. There's the Neil Young line where he says, "People don't want to hear a song you like, they want to hear a song you wrote."
And that's huge for me because it's like, don't judge the work while you're doing it. Save that for later. Later on when you're in the booth, you can judge whether it's any good or not or, after it's mastered, you can figure out if you want to put it out, but give yourself a whole lot of leeway and a whole lot of time to do what you think might be a mistake because, just like playing the wrong note, it's not that, it's the one you play right after it. And I think that's the thing. That's it. Just let yourself screw up, and then keep moving, and then eventually you'll have a chance to go back and fix it if it's wrong, but more often than not, you'll find out that's not wrong, that's just me.