Matthew Dae Smith
| Lansing State Magazine
Video: Billy Strings performs heavy steel band at reunion display
Grammy award-winning bluegrass musician Billy Strings performs with Michigan heavy steel band Flesh and Blood Robotic at a reunion display.
Correction: A prior model incorrectly portrayed how Billy Strings got here to play the reunion display in Grand Rapids. The band approached him about enjoying.
GRAND RAPIDS — Billy Strings’ mother known as his visitor efficiency Sunday with heavy steel band Flesh and Blood Robotic in Grand Rapids a “complete circle” second.
The Grammy award-winning bluegrass musician used to be a large fan of the band as a young person rising up in Ionia County’s Muir and requested to sign up for them on level when he realized in their reunion display on the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids.
“It’s a reunion with family and friends,” mother Debra Apostol stated. “From his early early life bluegrass roots, to his teenage years enjoying in heavy steel bands along with his buddies, after which his go back to bluegrass to this steel display, it brings the whole lot complete circle. For him with the intention to do that, and for his lovers, buddies, and previous bandmates with the intention to come to a display like this — it rocks.”
Strings (aka William Apostol), 31, has garnered a cult following and stardom with from his luck within the bluegrass/jam band global. He sells out iconic song venues such because the Grand Ole Opry’s Ryman Auditorium, Austin Town Limits, and the Crimson Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. He’s shared the level with iconic musicians like Willie Nelson, Les Claypool of Primus, Santana, Bobby Weir of the Thankful Useless, and bluegrass legend Del McCoury.
In his early teenagers, Strings detoured into heavy steel song and turned into an avid fan of Flesh and Blood Robotic. Heavy steel used to be a style the place he may rock out with buddies nearer to his age. It used to be other than the bluegrass song he’d been enjoying for years.
MORE: Mid-Michigan local Billy Strings wins Grammy for “House,” produced in East Lansing
Flesh and Blood Robotic reached out to Strings about their reunion display to invite if he may sign up for them onstage. The solution, clearly, used to be sure.
Strings secretly rehearsed with the band when time allowed.
“We met up in Pittsburgh for a practice session whilst he used to be on excursion. He got here in and hugged all folks. I take into accout him smartly,” drummer Nico Killips stated. “The most productive section used to be that Billy confirmed up on the first practice session in Pittsburgh dressed in a antique Flesh and Blood Robots T-shirt. He remembered our names.”
Information of the wonder Sunday look leaked out on Saturday, when Strings teased his lovers with a practice session video by the use of social media. On Sunday, he showed he’d be enjoying the reunion display, which used to be offered out.
“It’s in reality superb,” Jami Ridi, 37, a early life buddy of Billy’s stated ahead of the display. “It’s like homecoming for a large number of us. We had been all buddies again within the day, and this night’s display we could us relive the ones days.”
Strings has been nominated for 6 Grammy Awards, and gained a Grammy for Highest Bluegrass Album in 2021 for his 2d studio album “House,” produced by means of East Lansing manufacturer Glenn Brown.
Additionally in 2021, Strings donated 200 guitars to the Ionia fundamental faculty he attended as a kid.
