He’s worked with several bands including King Loser a Flying Nun band from Dunedin. "These young musicians would race into their pieces and then look at me and let me have my turn, so I’d play something. We did an album together. After that I got a call from DLT, the hop hop band to record a track with them. It was fun, I enjoyed doing that cross over stuff."

Another cross over project has him working with a team who went to India and recorded some Indian mystics up the Ganges river playing their instruments – they’ve asked Billy to play with the pieces as they meld it into something for the contemporary market.

"There are a lot of musicians in the world but what makes each different is the sound or tone they can get from their instrument. When I play I put my all into each note in a solo, I charge it with my energy. To work out the notes and scale is one part but to understand your spirituality is another part of it. When the two go hand in hand that is magic and is what makes it all worthwhile – that’s the diamonds and gold," he says.

He’s also looking around to gather half finished and unreleased material at various studios around the country and looking to release a compilation album of his own material. "There’s legacies from all the different transitions over the years and I’ve not done anything with them."

Billy is currently bringing together recordings he has been involved in from a number of sources to produce the body of a new CD which it is hoped will be released by 2003.