“I Felt Like an Infant”: Billy Strings Shares Wishful Thinking About Busy Career

Billy Strings is the kind of guitar player that makes the rest of us pine for the day that we can master the fretboard with such lightning-fast agility and multi-genre creativity, but as he revealed while sharing wishful thinking about his busy career, getting to his professional level doesn’t come without downsides. Sure, there are obvious perks to being one of the hottest and most respected lead guitarists of the last two decades (and a half) of this century.

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However, seeing other, more frustrating sides of Strings’ creative process can serve as a helpful shift in perspective for guitarists of all skill levels, especially if you find yourself struggling under the weight of comparison when it comes to technique, bookings, and repertoire.

Billy Strings Admits There Are Notable Downsides To Having A Busy Career

To be clear, we don’t think Billy Strings is ignorant of how lucky he is to have such a prolific and esteemed career at a relatively young age. Since bursting on the scene with his viral videos and impossibly fast bluegrass licks, he’s made a name for himself as one of the most proficient players in the business. He’s shared the stage with countless musical icons, even the notoriously non-collaborative Bob Dylan, and has enjoyed a busy touring schedule full of incredible shows. However, all that performing and traveling comes with a downside: no time to practice.

During a 2025 interview with Rick Beato, Strings admitted that he often finds himself in a cycle of gigging a lot, growing tired of and insecure about his playing, taking a break from touring to practice, getting to a spot where he feels comfortable with his abilities, then going back on the road. Lather, rinse, repeat. “Gigging almost drives me down into a rut, right?” He said. “A couple years ago, I got real sick of myself, I guess.”

“My schedule gets in the way of my practice,” he continued. “My actual gigs. A lot of people are like, ‘Well, you’re out there doing it, man.’ Even my teacher says that, it’s like, ‘Man, so many people are in their room practicing right now, and they wish they could be out playing gigs like you.’ I’m like, ‘I wish I could be at home practicing, you know what I mean?’ I want to get better. Performing is a different thing.”

The Guitarist Has Struggled With His Self-Taught Musical Background

Billy Strings’ guitar legend has put him in the same room as some of the best musicians in the business, which has shown the guitarist how he does (and doesn’t) measure up to others’ technical know-how. While speaking to Rick Beato, he mentioned the process of recording an album with Béla Fleck. He was sitting in a room with Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, and Béla Fleck, “and these guys are talking in math equations, you know.” Strings said he couldn’t keep up with their hyper-technical knowledge of complex chords and other musical theory jargon.

“I really felt like an infant sitting in the middle of the room pretending to know what everybody was talking about,” Strings said. To be fair, most of us would feel like infants trying to keep up with Strings’ mastery of the fretboard. But his comments are a helpful reminder to musicians of any skill or professional level that no matter how good you get, there is always something to work on. Be grateful for the gigs you have. If you don’t have gigs, be grateful for the time you have available to you to practice and hone your craft. There’s always something new to learn.

Yes, even if you’re Billy Strings.

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