After posting photos hanging out with Tool drummer Danny Carey earlier this week, Billy Strings made a guest appearance with the progressive metal legends during their show at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center Wednesday night. Videos and photos of the collaboration have been sparse due to Tool’s strict policy against cell phone use at its shows, but a few clips have made their way onto social media (“naughty naughty,” Strings joked in a repost of one of the contraband clips).
The jamgrass firebrand sat in on “Jambi” appropriately enough, trading his usual acoustic guitar for an electric axe. Strings took an extended guitar solo on what appeared to be a Fender Stratocaster, living out the metal god dreams apparent to anyone who has seen him head bang to bluegrass during his own performances.
While Billy is best known for bluegrass, he has noted on various occasions that he played in a multitude of metal bands as a teen. As he said during an interview with Cory Wong last spring. “When I was a teenager playing in metal bands and stuff, like, paying to play, [I started realizing] wow, this is really tough and that’s kind of an unfathomable dream and this is probably not going to happen,” he explained. “But I just stuck to it and I realized that, okay, I’m not gonna be Jimi Hendrix but I could be, like, a dude that makes a living playing music and have a good life and not have to work some job that I hate.”
Scroll down to check out a handful of photos and fan-shot clips of the Billy Strings sit-in with Tool in Salt Lake City.
Billy Strings concludes his fall tour in the Midwest this week and will then head to Europe in November after celebrating Halloween in his home state of Michigan. Tool is also wrapping up a fall tour, and the band announced 2024 tour dates earlier this week. Click here for more info, and to purchase tickets, visit the band’s website.
Tool w/ Billy Strings – “Jambi” – 10/11/23
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