Billy Strings Talks About Playing Willie Nelson’s Guitar Trigger & More On ‘One By Willie’ Podcast

Billy Strings appeared on the One By Willie podcast to discuss his affinity for outlaw country music legend Willie Nelson. Strings covered several topics related to Nelson and detailed his experience getting to play Nelson’s icon acoustic guitar known as “Trigger.”

Each One By Willie episode features an interview with a different guest focused on a song from Willie Nelson’s repertoire. Strings waited until he was on the microphones with host John Spong before revealing the song he chose to discuss: Nelson’s recording of Bob Wills’ “Stay A Little Longer.”

Strings talked about playing the song with the house band at the 2023 all-star Hollywood Bowl concerts celebrating Nelson’s 90th birthday.

“That’s one of the tunes that I did with the house band out there for Willie’s big birthday party at the Hollywood Bowl,” Strings recalled. “I got digging into some older versions of it, and I came across some that are just burning – like the tempo is burning. I was talking to [Willie’s son] Lukas [Nelson] about this too. It’s damn near bluegrass tempo.”

After listening to a portion of “Stay A Little Longer” from the landmark 1978 Willie Nelson & Family Live album, Strings shared his thoughts on the recording.

“Such great guitar playing – he’s so deliberate with what he’s saying on the guitar,” Strings remarked. “It’s so audible because he has so much integrity with every note.”

Another song that was a topic of conversation was “California Sober,” a collaborative single released in 2023 ahead of the Hollywood Bowl concerts, where Strings and Nelson performed the song together in public for the first time. While recalling the “California Sober” recording session, Strings detailed an unforgettable experience of getting to play Trigger — Willie’s 1969 Martin N-20 nylon-string classical acoustic guitar, which he said, “just sounds different from every other guitar on the planet.”

Strings shared his thoughts about playing the iconic instrument:

“I played [Trigger] a couple of times. Like when I went down to record ‘California Sober’ with Willie. It was sitting there and we were hanging out and I said, ‘Man, is it OK if I strum a chord on it?’ He said, ‘Go ahead.’ And it was plugged into the amp, actually.

“So I got to play a few notes on Trigger with it plugged into his amp. And the engineer went ahead and hit record. So I have on a drive somewhere an audio byte of me playing like “Black Mountain Rag” or something on Trigger, which is just awesome to have.

“But the thing about it is when I play — and I guess Willie does too, because that’s why he’s worn a hole through the whole thing — is I plant my pinky down, as an anchor, and every time I went to put my pinky down, it just slipped right in that hole. And I said, ‘Man, how do you play this thing? My finger goes in the hole.’ He said, ‘Yeah, mine too.’”

Strings further discussed his appreciation for Willie Nelson and Trigger. He discussed playing poker (and losing a substantial amount of money) with Nelson after recording “California Sober.”

The One By Willie podcast episode also included Strings telling the wild tale of another Martin acoustic guitar that belonged to the late Jody Payne, who was a longtime member of Willie Nelson’s Family band. Strings brought the guitar to the Hollywood Bowl birthday concerts where fellow Family band member, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, sprinkled some of Payne’s ashes into his old guitar.

“Mickey says, ‘Hey, man, we should sprinkle some of Jody’s ashes in the guitar.’ And I was like, ‘what?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I keep a little vial of him in my harmonica case.’ And I was like, ‘All right, man.’

“And so we did it during sound check out there. I finished playing my song and I look over at Mickey and he waves for me. He’s like, ‘Come here.’ So I go over there. He pulls out this little jar. Tapped down a few times and sprinkled some ashes inside of the guitar there. So Jody’s back out there singing to them arenas and stuff.

“It was just a beautiful ceremony, you know? And hopefully Jody’s spirit is happy about it.”

Stream Billy Strings’ appearance on the One By Willie podcast below: