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.”
