Billy Strings shreds Open Face Surgery with the death metal band Cryptopsy

Cryptopsy brought Billy Strings out at both of their Michigan shows over the weekend, and the bluegrass guitarist played a solo on Open Face Surgery each night. Fan-shot footage of both performances has been circulating since.

The first was on Aug. 29 at Ionia Freak Fair, the festival Strings runs himself in Ionia, Michigan. The second came the following night at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids, a club show rather than a festival slot, which suggests the first appearance was not a one-off booked for the cameras.

Open Face Surgery comes off Blasphemy Made Flesh, the Canadian band's 1994 debut. Strings has history with the song: when Cryptopsy reissued that album last year they asked him to solo on a new medley called Blasphemy Made Fresh, and he took it.

His enthusiasm for the band is not a recent pose. "Blasphemy Made Flesh is one of the best albums ever. That and None So Vile changed my life," he said when the medley came out, adding that he had been nervous because he had not played heavy music in some time.

Strings built a whole metal presence into the first edition of his own festival, giving the genre a dedicated tent that also had pinball in it. Bane, See You Next Tuesday, For The Fallen Dreams, Heartsick and Flesh and Blood Robot all played it, with Cryptopsy headlining the night Strings came out to solo.

A bluegrass player crossing into a metal set is less strange than it reads, given how much of Strings's technique depends on speed and precision. He has spent the year turning up in rooms he was not booked for, from sitting in with a bar band in West Virginia on a night off to playing in protective headgear after being hit by an object onstage.