Billy Sheehan

By Dave Fowler

If you ask any bassist to list out those players who have most significantly changed or influenced our instrument, chances are they would mention Billy Sheehan as one of those pioneers. Billy not only innovated the role of the bass in the genres of rock and metal, but he influenced all styles with his amazing techniques and fluid soloing style. But Billy’s genius lies not only in his ability to play fast and to take a mesmerizing solo, but in his maturity and musicianship, which he proves by comfortably locking into a groove and laying back. Billy’s vast musical experiences are valuable to those of us who wish to have a long lasting career in music. I was recently able to sit down and talk with Billy about his past, present and future.


Tell me a little about your childhood. I understand that you grew up in Buffalo, NY.
Yes. Buffalo is kind of a Blue Collar, steel mill, GM town—or at least it was when I was growing up, but not so much any more. So people worked hard for a living. My parents split up when I was pretty young and my Mom had to work hard her whole life just to provide for us. My Grandmother even moved in to help make ends meet. Although my brother and two sisters had it tough, we never went without. My mother taught me respect for women by the fact that she was such an intelligent, hard working woman. And she was also a big influence on me musically, which I’m only beginning to realize now. She took me to the first concert that I ever saw which was Bobby Darren. His wife Sandra Dee was signing autographs that night! And still to this day I love Bobby Darren. He wrote an amazing song called “Artificial Flowers,” the coolest swing song around.

Mom also took me to see Tony Bennet and Ella Fitzgerald. I was still pretty young and I didn’t really get it. I guess she couldn’t afford a baby-sitter so I was brought along if the ticket was cheaper than a baby-sitter. My first rock concert was to see Jimi Hendrix—which my Mom didn’t know about because I snuck off to see him.

Do you think a lot of young kids get that kind of life experience education today?
It’s tough out there today because there are not as many places to play. Back then there were a million places to play. There were bands in every club. There were no disco sound systems with DJ’s back then. I remember the first Bar in Buffalo to get a disco sound system was called Casey’s. I can remember seeing pictures of people packed into this place, drunk off their asses and there was no band. That was like a new thing back then. Little did I know that it was the beginning of the end in a very slow crawl.

But for a long time after that there were a lot of great places to play, but it did begin to peter out around the mid-’80s. But it may come back again. I am beginning to see more younger kids getting into music again and I wish that more clubs would go back to having live bands, because it is the best way to learn everything.

If you learn all about flying from a book, I would never want you as my pilot. If you haven’t logged in many hours as a pilot, then I don’t think I would be very comfortable with you. But a guy who has flown a few fighter missions in WWII and was there when they designed the plane and the first time that they put the engines out on the wings or whatever, that guy I would trust. Although I wouldn’t necessarily compare myself to something of that stature, I have done my time. I’m glad that I was in the front lines, playing in the bars and getting shit thrown at us occasionally, and dating the waitresses! I think every musician should date a minimum of five waitresses, just as kind of a way of understanding how life works.

How has your career evolved since your first band, Opus One?
Opus One was a horn band that had eleven guys in it—alto sax, tenor sax, trombone, trumpet, and guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and three lead singers. There were a lot of guys in that band! It was more like Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Average White Band and more song-oriented bands.

And from Opus One came Opus Two. It was a little jazz thing. The drummer Ron Wagoner went on to be pretty famous in fusion circles around the late ’70s and early ’80s. The sax player is still a pretty well known guy in the New York City area. He had his dreams of playing in a Maynard Fergusen-type band and I had my dreams of playing in a rock band. So sure enough, he got his dream. He played with Maynard and Buddy Rich.

Then came The Tweeds, and that was a bar, copy band. They actually had a hit single out before I was in the band. When they were in High School, they won a battle of the bands and put out a record and had a local hit. Great players—they knew a million songs. That band eventually evolved into Talas.

I remember seeing an interview with you where you said that American kids usually like just one style of music, and if they would just branch out it would help them so much.
Yes. As players and as people too. People get their Metal, Alternative or Country blinders on and they don’t listen or pull anything else into their lives. You know, I bet I could take a Heavy Metal kid to my house and play him Sinatra “Live At The Sands” with Count Basie and blow his mind and he will love it. Or play him some awesome, totally live Gypsy Kings which is as heavy as heavy gets.

You know, I had a girl in my house one time who was 19 years old, and a friend of mine. She stopped over in the afternoon and I played her some records. I played her Grand Funk Railroad, but I told her that it was a brand new band out of Seattle. She bought it hook, line and sinker! She even dug herself into a hole because she said, “Now this is the music that I am really into. This is the stuff!” And she didn’t realize that it was from 25 years ago!

What is your view about how bands that have changed through out the years?
Well, in the old days bands played and then they went in to make a record to document what they did. That is what recording studios were for—to make a record of the thing that you did out live. Now, the thing that they do is make a record then they go out and try to mimic it. I knew of some huge, famous bands that recorded albums with some of their band members on vacation! They didn’t even play on their own albums! And I know some of the producers and engineers that were there when they did it. The producer would play the bass part and some one else would sing all the parts, and they had the other guy come in and layer in some parts. It’s just so phony. I would rather hear the real shit a little out of tune than the phony thing perfectly.

That is why I believe the Alternative thing came on so strong. At least these bands actually played on their records. I truly feel that the audience can sense that honesty and integrity.

So after “Light Years,” there was a band named Sheehan.
Yeah, for lack of a better name they called it Sheehan. That lasted for two gigs! Then the Talas guys called me up and asked me back into the band. So I then went back to Talas.

Who are some of the great players you've played with throughout the years?
I played with Michael Shenker, UFO, and I toured with Yngwie. There's been a lot of guys. It has been pretty cool, and I’ve been very lucky.

So after Talas, you got the call to play with David Lee Roth?
Yeah. That was a great band. A couple of times Steve Vai and I have threatened to get back together and show up in some club with Gregg Bissonette and run through the whole set list, or as much as we can remember of it—without Dave there of course. And who knows, that may actually happen some day.

After your time with Roth, you decided to break away and form your current band, Mr. Big.
At first I actually talked with Steve Stevens about forming a band. Many people don’t know that he was the guy that Dave first called about doing the David Lee Roth thing, but Steve wasn’t interested at the time. Steve and I later talked for a while, and we almost did it. I think Steve plays with such incredible tone and is an incredible stylist.

Did you hand pick the guys in Mr. Big?
Yeah. I knew I was probably going to go with Paul Gilbert and Pat Torpey, but before I confirmed that, I wanted to make sure that I could get a singer. When I found Eric Martin, I called Paul. At first, Paul wanted to try out this drummer that he knew, so I kind of humored him—because I knew that once he heard Pat, he would love him. We went and checked out this other drummer for about 20 seconds one night and I said to Paul, “Trust me on this one.” So Pat came down, and after hearing him just warming up we knew that this was the guy. We could tell right away.

Pat helps the band a lot because his time is so good and he has such good sensibilities. We come from similar backgrounds. He has played in bars all his life and he has done all kinds of gigs. He was even the drummer for Rip Taylor, the comedian. He had to vamp “Happy Days Are Here Again” as Rip came out each night. Pat said that it was the funniest gig he has ever done.

How do you prefer to record your bass in the studio?
We mike it up and we also run a direct signal just in case we need a really clean bass tone at any point. It is pretty simple. I can usually get a good tone with almost any rig and a good engineer. I did a demo for Glen Tipton from Judas Priest recently, and he had a Marshall rig in the studio so I just ran into that with a single input to get a little grind in the tone—it was fun.

I don’t know if Glen has a deal yet with this demo. The song we did sounded like the theme to Hell Raiser 5! It was very cool and intense. After listening to his demo, I now know where a lot of Judas Priest ideas came from. There’s a real trademark Priest thing there.

There are rumors out that you may be leaving Rotosound. Is this true?
Yeah. I feel bad about it because Rotosound has been so great to me and they were my first endorsement. I love Rotosound strings but they have a problem with quality control where a lot of times you will get a dead string in a set. That started way back in 1984. Actually when I first started buying the strings and paying full-price for them, we had that happen a few times, which was very painful, because at the time I was pretty broke. Then when I got the string endorsement and started getting them at a reduced price, we still got dead strings. Then when the endorsement expanded and we began getting them free, we were still getting dead strings! I started getting upset when they began putting my picture on the package because people were out there buying them and getting dead strings in their sets.

Each time I brought it up to the company, Rotosound would insure me that they fixed the problem and they would for a short time, then the dead ones would start showing up again. So I had kids coming up to me after the show saying, “Hey I bought your strings and there was a dead one in there.” So I would have the crew guys go get them a new set. I felt so bad about it that after a while I just had to leave Rotosound. They are a great company and I love the strings, but they simply have a problem with their quality control. I don’t know if they are working to fix the problem, but in the mean time I needed to get a string that was consistent. Yamaha at the time did not have strings out in the States—they were just made to put on their basses and for Japan only. So they made up a set and their intonation and tuning is perfect. The new Yamaha strings are awesome!

How important is the bass and drums relationship to you?
Very! Pat and I work the entire set of music out, just bass and drums. I’ve always done that with bands that I have been in. If the guitar player was ever late then we just practiced without him. This type of practicing allows you to really hear what each other are playing, and it allows you to lock into each other better.

What kind of music or what artists do you listen to these days for inspiration?
I love the Gypsy Kings a lot, and I love Paco De Lucia. I love a lot of Spanish and ethnic music like that. I love Deep Forrest, as corny as that is. But I love everything. I even bought a techno record the other day! I just try to throw myself a curve by listening to stuff that I normally might not listen to.

How many cabinets do you actually use live with Mr. Big?
I use two 8x10s and two 15s—one 8x10 for low, one for the high, clean, and the two 15s for stereo distortion. And I also use a cabinet for peddles.

What is your relationship with the Dianetics movement?
I have been involved with Scientology and Dianetics for 25 years. I don’t like to necessarily preach my philosophy to people, as far as that goes, but it has been a great help in my whole life. I think my ability to sustain through times of difficulty, I owe completely to the tools that I have learned about through Scientology and Dianetics. It’s great stuff and the people are awesome. It works like a charm. There isn’t any challenge that life could throw me that I couldn’t find a solution through the technology of Scientology.

So it is something that you would recommend to people?
I recommend that people make up their own minds, which is a very “Scientology” thing to do. Think for yourself, make up your own mind and make your own decisions. Your life is yours, take it back and own it yourself. Be your own authority, you know? So I urge people to investigate, make observations, and make up their own minds.

BF


Originally published in Vol3 No2
©1995 Information Revolution