Billy’s schedule continues to fill up with shows booked through the end of this year! Highlights include joining Sony BMG recording artists Jypsi on the Q98.5 Stage at the On the Waterfront Festival in Rockford, Illinois on August 29.
October 11 and 12 will mark Billy’s 3rd consecutive year playing the Chicago Country Music Festival, continuing his relationship with corporate sponsor Best Buy! Later in the year, it’s off to Las Vegas to open the first three nights – December 4, 5, and 6 – of the National Finals Rodeo at South Point Casino, which serves as the host hotel for the official awards ceremonies for this event.
Last month, Billy took home the title of Kenny Chesney’s “The Next Big Star” in Chicago! Upwards of 400 fans filled the Hard Rock Café in downtown Chicago, Illinois, on Friday, June 20, to cheer on Billy and three other regional finalists. Billy was up first and his energetic set included “A Man’s Gotta Do... What a Man’s Gotta Do,” “June 99,” and “Cowboy Up” – all from his debut release, A Man’s Gotta Do... What a Man’s Gotta Do! The following afternoon – also the first official day of Summertime – Billy kicked off the Poets and Pirates show at Soldier Field, sharing the stage with an all-star artist lineup: Luke Bryan, Gary Allan, LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban, and of course, the man who made it all possible: Kenny Chesney! Billy is grateful to Kenny for creating this new and unique opportunity for unsigned artists across the country to be heard. With his win, Billy also advances to the national competition to compete for the Grand Prize. The package includes the opportunity to open for Kenny Chesney on the THREE final dates of his Poets and Pirates Tour, a $25,000 cash prize, and an audition for record company executives at Sony BMG Music!
Billy’s debut album is titled A Man’s Gotta Do... What a Man’s Gotta Do. He recorded the album in Nashville at The Grotto, the studio owned by Rodney Good and his wife, singer/songwriter Jamie O’Neal (“There Is No Arizona,” “When I Think About Angels”). Rodney co-produced A Man’s Gotta Do... What a Man’s Gotta Do, and one of the highlights on the album is “This Night,” a romantic ballad featuring a guest performance by Jamie.
Raised in the piedmont region of western North Carolina, Billy grew up surrounded by the sounds coming down off the Blue Ridge Mountains that cut a winding trail between Charlotte and Nashville. That music dominated the soundtrack of his childhood and etched a permanent impression on his creative sensibilities. Although his love of that music remained constant, the whining pedal steel guitars and plucking banjos would begin to play second fiddle to the screaming guitars and funky synthesizers of hard rock as he entered his teenage years. During those years he found himself living a double-life: on the one hand, it was made up of late night jam sessions in numerous garage bands with the group of long-haired metal heads he'd befriended. On the other hand, it was marked by many a Saturday afternoon mixing it up on the gridiron with his other group of buddies - the helmet heads. After a sidelining injury in high school, Billy began to ponder what the next handful of years held in store. After deciding that his football days had run their course, the options of future pursuit included college, more music and preparing for a more involved role in a small family business enterprise.
A whole new adventure began for Billy when he moved to Chicago to study music and business. It is there where he connected with a group of like-minded musicians who, together, have been formulating distinct country-rock sounds through a blending of the genres and styles of their early musical influences. For the last several years Billy and his band have roamed the Chicago area refining their sound and electrifying stage show in countless dive bars, hole-in-the-wall honky-tonks, suburban park districts, prominent dance halls, small and large county festivals and fairs. Upon completion of his studies in the spring of 2006, and after a busy summer tour schedule that year, Billy headed to Nashville to focus on recording his album, A Man’s Gotta Do... What a Man’s Gotta Do.
