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Billy Pilgrim – originally named for a character in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” a shared favorite novel of the pair – was the first band for Bush, who would later become the soulful half of multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning country duo Sugarland, as well a producer, playwright and solo artist. He met Hyra in Bush’s hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1990 at an open mic night hosted by Hyra and his sister, Annie. As Bush prepared to move to Atlanta to attend Emory University, he persuaded the siblings to also move to the city, where a bustling acoustic scene was unfolding.
Their first major-label effort – the critically acclaimed Billy Pilgrim – arrived in 1994 and spawned the college and Triple-A radio hits, “Get Me Out Of Here” and “Insomniac.” The follow-up, 1995’s “Bloom,” hit No. 37 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and offered fans the melodic-yet-muscular “Sweet Louisiana Sound.” Billy Pilgrim’s videos regularly rotated on VH1 and the band was tapped for numerous high-profile opening slots, including Melissa Etheridge, the Cowboy Junkies, Matthew Sweet and Hootie & The Blowfish.
Following their release from Atlantic Records in 1996, Billy Pilgrim began tinkering with what would eventually become “In the Time Machine.” Nearly five years later, the album received its only public outing at the Eddie’s Attic performance that ended with Bush and Hyra following diverging paths.
FOLK ROCK DUO
FEATURING ANDREW HYRA AND KRISTIAN BUSH
BILLY PILGRIM
ANNOUNCE THEIR RETURN
WITH NEW SINGLE “CALL IT EVEN”
LONG-LOST RECORDINGS RECOVERED DURING QUARANTINE
FULL-LENGTH ALBUM IN THE TIME MACHINE DUE OUT FALL 2020
Photo credit: Michael McLaughlin
LISTEN TO “CALL IT EVEN”:
https://smarturl.it/BP.CallItEven
WATCH THE LYRIC VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/SUvqRjZfd_A
“Breathtakingly delicate and redemptive”
Rolling Stone
July 10, 2020 – Today marks the triumphant return of one of the most coveted folk rock bands of the 90s, Billy Pilgrim. The duo, composed of Andrew Hyra and Kristian Bush (Sugarland, Dark Water), announce the release of a new album coming this fall, titled In The Time Machine, featuring unreleased tracks from the vault, including the new single “Call It Even,” out today.
Nearly two decades ago, Billy Pilgrim recorded this collection of songs, set to be their third studio album release, but the master tapes burned in a fire in late 2000 at Nickel & Dime Studio near Decatur, GA. Fortunately or not, one copy remained, and from it, about 500 CDs were pressed and sold at a 2001 performance at Eddie’s Attic, the Atlanta haven for acoustic music. Following that concert, Billy Pilgrim’s Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra went their separate ways – never disbanding, but also never speaking for the next 15 years. “I remember thinking to myself, man, this band isn’t finished,” Bush says. Fast forward to 2020, during the worldwide pandemic, Bush discovered the lone copy while cleaning out his home during quarantine. This fall, that collection of music will finally receive the attention it deserves, as it becomes available to fans on all streaming platforms.
Along with Bush and Hyra, the musicians featured on In The Time Machine are Brandon Bush (Sugarland, Train) on keyboards; David LaBruyere (John Mayer) on bass; Joey Craig on guitar; and Sigadore “Siggy” Birkis (John Mayer), Marcus Petruska (Corey Davis) and Travis McNabb (Better Than Ezra) on drums. Producer/engineer Don McCollister, who owned Nickel & Dime Studio, co-produced the album along with the Bush brothers and Hyra.
A 90s cult classic, Billy Pilgrim’s music was featured as the soundtrack to some of the decade’s most iconic television scenes, on dramas like Melrose Place, My So-Called Life, and many more. With today’s obsession of the fashion, television, and of course, the music from that moment in history, the uncovering of the lost Billy Pilgrim archive couldn’t have come at a better time.
As for “Call It Even,” the track speaks to redemption and in an almost prophetic way, nods to this music’s second chance at life. “It’s quite a thing to sabotage your opportunities,” Hyra confides. “As you get older, It’s quite a bit more of a thing to realize that you sabotaged others. I’ve always loved this recording and song for as grounded as it is in forgiveness. Forgiving oneself and everyone in your life is such a profound expression of love and this song represents that sentiment so well.”
As much as the reunion commemorates Billy Pilgrim’s creative past, it also looks towards a collaborative reunion for the future; a sentiment needed perhaps now more than ever.
“This is a very honest way to re-approach this album. We left off in this moment,” shares Bush, “and this is the moment we want to start back with again.”
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FOLK ROCK DUO
FEATURING ANDREW HYRA AND KRISTIAN BUSH
BILLY PILGRIM
SHARE LATEST SINGLE “TUMBLELANE”
PREMIERED VIA GLIDE MAGAZINE
ANNOUNCE ALBUM IN THE TIME MACHINE TO BE RELEASED SEPTEMBER 4
VINYL PRE-SALE BEGINS TODAY
LONG-LOST RECORDINGS RECOVERED DURING QUARANTINE
Photo credit: Michael McLaughlin
LISTEN TO “TUMBLELANE”:
Spotify
Apple Music
WATCH THE LYRIC VIDEO
PRE-ORDER VINYL ON BANDCAMP
“It’s easy to imagine this song as a hit on 90s radio, and listening to it now makes you long for a time when rock and folk groups that were actually decent could find mainstream success with simple songs that touched on universal themes and ideas.”
Glide Magazine
“Breathtakingly delicate and redemptive”
Rolling Stone
Earlier this summer, 90s indie cult favorite Billy Pilgrim announced some exciting news. Though the duo, composed of Andrew Hyra and Kristian Bush (Sugarland, Dark Water), thought their final recordings had been lost in a studio fire two decades ago, Bush found a remaining copy at his home during quarantine.
Today, the band shares their latest single, “Tumblelane,” complete with a special lyric video and news that the full-length album, In The Time Machine, also featuring their previous single “Call It Even,” will be released on September 4. Following the release, the band plans to release a special edition vinyl via Bandcamp, on pre-sale today. After years of embarking on separate dreams, the two friends have reunited to finish what they’ve started, and over the next few months they have a few more tricks up their sleeves to be revealed.
“‘Tumblelane’ is a point, a coordinate where the choice is made clear,” explains Hyra. “A choice to live in love, hope, faith, gratitude, abundance and to choose this over fear. I don’t want to live in fear anymore. Fear of a virus, of other people’s opinions, of hatred, money, lack of where have I been? I don’t remember with any clarity if my experience was shrouded in fear. We all have this choice, though most of us don’t know it, right now we are at that inflection point where the choice is clear, Tumblelane Choose love over fear, this is the necessary evolutionary expansion we are all up against RIGHT NOW.”
Glide Magazine debuted the track earlier this week, noting that “the song definitely has a 90s sound with its embrace of alt-rock and harmonies. While the song starts in a more intimate, stripped down fashion, it blossoms into a soaring, emotionally powerful rocker complete with soulful organ, pop-infused acoustic strumming, and a catchy chorus.”
Bush offers his thoughts on the track, “When you get caught up in the wave you didn’t see coming and it spins you in the heat of fear, the loss of control shakes you awake. From that place you have a choice, stand up and breathe or hide in fear of the next invisible wind. In the standing up, as the muscles give and take to hold you steady you can ask in the humblest and mightiest of voices, as you see the horizon, ‘where have I been.’ This song is that to me, I can see Andrew lift off the ground as he sings, and it pulls me up with it. I never question pure emotion when I hear it. It is always true, and it is ringing clear as a bell in this recording. Somehow he uses words as colors and his voice paints with them. This is Billy Pilgrim when we turn on the jet engines and open up the throttle.”
Along with Bush and Hyra, the musicians featured on In The Time Machine are Brandon Bush (Sugarland, Train) on keyboards; David LaBruyere (John Mayer) on bass; Joey Craig on guitar; and Sigadore “Siggy” Birkis (John Mayer), Marcus Petruska (Corey Davis) and Travis McNabb (Better Than Ezra) on drums. Producer/engineer Don McCollister, who owned Nickel & Dime Studio, co-produced the album along with the Bush brothers and Hyra.
Billy Pilgrim’s music has been featured as the soundtrack to some of the 90’s most iconic television scenes, on dramas like Melrose Place, My So-Called Life, and many more. With today’s obsession of the fashion, television, and of course, the music from that moment in history, the uncovering of the lost Billy Pilgrim archive couldn’t have come at a better time.
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FOLK ROCK DUO
FEATURING ANDREW HYRA AND KRISTIAN BUSH
BILLY PILGRIM
RELEASE NEW ALBUM
IN THE TIME MACHINE
LONG-LOST RECORDINGS RECOVERED DURING QUARANTINE
LIVE STREAM PERFORMANCE FROM EDDIE’S ATTIC IN ATLANTA, SUPPORTING NIVA @ 8 PM EST TONIGHT
Photo credit: Andrew Thomas Lee
LISTEN TO IN THE TIME MACHINE:
smarturl.it/BP.InTheTimeMachine
WATCH NEW LYRIC VIDEO FOR “BILLY IN THE TIME MACHINE”:
PRE-ORDER VINYL:
billypilgrimmusic.bandcamp.com
“It’s easy to imagine this song as a hit on 90s radio, and listening to it now makes you long for a time when rock and folk groups that were actually decent could find mainstream success with simple songs that touched on universal themes and ideas.”
Glide Magazine
“Breathtakingly delicate and redemptive”
Rolling Stone
SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 — Today marks a triumphant release for one of the most coveted folk rock bands of the 90s, Billy Pilgrim. The duo, composed of Andrew Hyra and Kristian Bush (Sugarland, Dark Water), share their long-awaited new album In The Time Machine, featuring the singles “Call It Even,” “Tumblelane,” and “Billy In The Time Machine,” with a new lyric video out today. A special vinyl edition of the album is available for pre-order now via Bandcamp.
Nearly two decades ago, Billy Pilgrim recorded this collection of songs, set to be their third studio album release, but the master tapes burned in a fire in late 2000 at Nickel & Dime Studio near Decatur, GA. Fortunately or not, one copy remained, and from it, about 500 CDs were pressed and sold at a 2001 performance at Eddie’s Attic, the Atlanta haven for acoustic music. Following that concert, Billy Pilgrim’s Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra went their separate ways – never disbanding, but also never speaking for the next 15 years. “I remember thinking to myself, man, this band isn’t finished,” Bush says. Fast forward to 2020, during the worldwide pandemic, Bush discovered the lone copy while cleaning out his home during quarantine.
Tonight, Billy Pilgrim take the stage once again at Eddie’s Attic for a one-of-a-kind live stream show together with all the new tunes. Audiences can tune in via Facebook @billypilgrimofficial and YouTube. The event will benefit NIVA (National Independent Venue Association) where donations support independent local venues and promoters across the United States. Yesterday, Billy Pilgrim performed at Paste studios in ATL. Fans can still catch the show at facebook.com/PasteMagazine.
For more information and current updates, follow Billy Pilgrim on Instagram @billypilgrimofficial.
ABOUT BILLY PILGRIM & IN THE TIME MACHINE:
The aptly titled In The Time Machine, a loose concept album, offers a dozen songs presented as they were recorded – the lyrical poetry of “Blindspot” and “Too Fast Coming Down” sitting snugly alongside the idiosyncratic instrumentation that colors “Billy In the Time Machine” and hazy introspection of “Bluelight” and “C’mon.”
Along with Bush and Hyra, the musicians featured on “In The Time Machine” are Brandon Bush (Sugarland, Train) on keyboards; David LaBruyere (John Mayer) on bass; Joey Craig on guitar; and Sigadore “Siggy” Birkis (John Mayer), Marcus Petruska (Corey Davis) and Travis McNabb (Better Than Ezra) on drums. Producer/engineer Don McCollister, who owned Nickel & Dime Studio, co-produced the album along with the Bush brothers and Hyra.
Billy Pilgrim – named for a character in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” a shared favorite novel of the pair – was the first band for Bush, who would later become the soulful half of multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning country duo Sugarland, as well a producer, playwright and solo artist.
He met Hyra in Bush’s hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1990 at an open mic night hosted by Hyra and his sister, Annie. As Bush prepared to move to Atlanta to attend Emory University, he persuaded the siblings to also move to the city, where a bustling acoustic scene was unfolding.
The then-trio regularly played Trackside Tavern as The Hyras before Annie headed to Miami to work as a journalist, leaving Hyra and Bush to plow through gigs that might earn them $60 on a weeknight.
But the “special sauce,” as Bush likes to say, of Billy Pilgrim was evident.
“Musical stuff for me is about chemistry, and it’s the kind of chemistry you don’t know until you’re in it,” Bush said. “Creative chemistry is how I bounce up against Andrew and he bounces up against me and it’s a complete mystery. Expect when it happens, it’s completely absorbing.”
Added Hyra, “There were so many things that were interesting about Kristian and me as musical compatriots. Both of us are strong, individualist writers, but we have a unique harmony. You can have a unique voice and the other guy can have a unique voice, but when you sing together, that’s a transcendent thing.”
The band released their independent debut, “St. Christopher’s Crossing” (as Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra) in 1991 before morphing into Billy Pilgrim and landing a deal with Atlantic Records in March 1992.
Their first major-label effort – the critically acclaimed “Billy Pilgrim” – arrived in 1994 and spawned the college and Triple-A radio hits, “Get Me Out of Here” and “Insomniac.” The follow-up, 1995’s “Bloom,” hit No. 37 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and offered fans the melodic-yet-muscular “Sweet Louisiana Sound.”
Billy Pilgrim’s videos regularly rotated on VH1 and the band was tapped for numerous high-profile opening slots, including Melissa Etheridge on her 1994-95 worldwide “Yes I Am” tour, the Cowboy Junkies, Matthew Sweet and Hootie & The Blowfish. In 1994, the band shared the main stage of the Beale Street Festival in Memphis with Beck and Bob Dylan.
Following their release from Atlantic Records in 1996, Billy Pilgrim began tinkering with what would eventually become “In the Time Machine.” Nearly five years later, the album received its only public outing at the Eddie’s Attic performance that ended with Bush and Hyra following diverging paths.
As Bush hit country radio gold with Sugarland, Hyra moved to Connecticut – where he still lives – put down his guitar for several years and dove into carpentry.
“I got kind of overwhelmed,” Hyra said of Billy Pilgrim’s initial success. “For me, it was such a whirlwind and it’s probably no surprise I wound up being a carpenter, because working in carpentry is very grounding.”
In recent years, Bush continued his high-profile run with Sugarland, released a solo album (“Southern Gravity” in 2015), co-wrote the musical “Troubadour” at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre (2017), produced the debut of country upstart Lindsay Ell (“The Project,” 2017) and recently debuted the jam-rock band Dark Water with brother Brandon and guitarist Benji Shanks.
Hyra returned to music in the late 2000s and in 2014 teamed with Atlanta guitarist Brian Bristow, along with McCollister, to form the Smokin’ Novas.
While the “reunion” of Bush and Hyra took place at the 30A Songwriters Festival in South Walton, Fla., in 2015, it was a 2016 Bush benefit concert at Eddie’s Attic when the magic of Billy Pilgrim was initially renewed.
Now, the time machine is firmly pointed toward the future.
“This is a very honest way to re-approach this album. We left off in this moment,” said Bush, “and this is the moment we want to start back with again.”
CONNECT:
Instagram: @billypilgrimofficial
Facebook: @billypilgrimofficial
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