Billy Strings

Strings concluded that drugs create more problems than they solve.

“I feel like drugs and shit cause a lot more problems than they medicate”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:31:07

Strings said he had smoked daily since age eleven and only stopped once before, during a year of probation after a DUI.

“Dude, I smoked every day since I was like 11”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:29:25

Strings offered his impulse to save some of the drug that killed his mother as an illustration of how addiction works.

“this is literally the stuff that I'm holding in my hand killed my mom. And my first thought is I should take some and just hide it”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:08:15

Strings characterized addiction as an illness and said he cannot drink moderately the way other people can.

“it's an illness. I mean, I think some people are lucky enough not to have it”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:05:15

Strings said the smartest thing he did after the hospital was giving all his pain medication to his wife to dispense, because he knows he would escalate.

“probably the smartest thing that I did coming out of the hospital was I gave all my pain meds to my wife. And I said, you divvy these up”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 59:24

Strings said he refused fentanyl at first because of his recovery, then accepted it on the paramedics' advice.

“we're going to give you some fentanyl. I was like, nah like I'm I was like nah like don't you know how far I've come”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 48:02

Strings disclosed that he was molested as a young child.

“I was molested when I was a child”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:49:51

Strings said his hardships gave him what he calls experiential density along with a sense of terminal uniqueness and isolation.

“I have this... kind of like terminal uniqueness in a way that's like, I never feel like anybody would know what it's like to be in my shoes”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:48:42

Strings said family recordings suggest his father may have been murdered with a deliberately fatal injection rather than dying of an accidental overdose.

“it turns out there's a pretty good chance that he was kind of murdered, you know?”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:21:19

Strings said hearing old recorded phone tapes changed his belief that his biological father cared more about heroin than about him.

“I always thought, Oh, well, he loved heroin more than me. Right. And I'm kind of, you know, I was kind of like, well, screw him”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:20:38

Strings said he believes he is processing his grief in his sleep, waking up crying and unable to breathe.

“I'm like grieving a lot in my dreams. I wake up like suffocating in my sleep”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:13:19

Strings said part of his motivation for quitting cannabis was wanting to be clear-eyed and present for his son.

“He looks at me with these big clear eyes. I want to be clear, you know?”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:48:55

Strings said having his son displaced music as the most important thing in his life, which paradoxically made him play better.

“I am a musician. That's what I do. That's my job. But it's not the biggest thing in life. My family is. And that actually makes me play better because I'm not squeezing it so hard”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:41:32

Strings said performing used to be driven by fear of returning to poverty, which caused him to strangle the music.

“I have strangled the life out of the music before because I'd been so concerned about playing well that I'm playing hard and I'm thinking and I'm trying to lead the band”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:38:12

Strings said he quit smoking cannabis in December after realizing he could not run a twenty-minute errand without his vape pen and after his son worsened while he was getting high upstairs.

“my son is sick, and I'm upstairs getting high”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:29:00

Strings described the song 'Still I Crash' as written days after his mother's death about learning to stand on his own.

“How I just feel like I got to learn how to walk all over again. I feel like a baby deer and my legs are all wobbly”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 2:19:58

Strings said the album cover is the unfinished collage his mother was working on the night she died.

“this was actually the piece that she was working on the night that she died because she was always going to make the next record cover that was kind of our deal”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 2:20:15

Strings said the album title came from not getting a chance to say goodbye to his mother, while his manager read it as a more hopeful farewell-for-now.

“I kept wanting to call it So Much for Goodbyes, and I was thinking about that for a while because I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my mother”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 2:18:15

Strings said that when he tries to recall Dylan's face he can only picture deep blue eyes and white light rather than features.

“All I can see is these the deepest bluest eyes with the most concerning emotion in them. And then this like aura of like white light”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 2:09:28

Strings recounted that he wrote Dylan a letter on hotel stationery after procrastinating for a year, and that Dylan later thanked him for it backstage at the Hollywood Bowl.

“he walked right up to me and he was like, man, thank you for the letter”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:59:39

Strings said he chose the Dylan and Nelson opening slot over a more lucrative headlining tour.

“we could go do our own tour and probably make a lot more money, or we could go on this tour as an opener, but we're going to be able to go tour with Bob Dylan and Willie”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:58:29

Strings said he learned from his mother's autopsy while on tour in Australia that she died of methamphetamine intoxication.

“I got her autopsy and her papers back and her death certificate, and it said methamphetamine intoxication was the cause of death”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 1:06:17

Strings described the large hospital dose of ketamine used while his leg was set as one of the most intense psychedelic experiences he has had, leaving him feeling like an inanimate object.

“I felt like I turned into computer code, or I felt like I was the microchip inside of an iPod sending signals. Bro. And it was wild. I felt very much like an inanimate object”

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: #676 - Billy Strings (Aug 20, 2026) · Listen from 52:20