Meet Biscuit

Billy Sheehan is to many a living legend having played with his own bands Talas, Light years, Niacin, BX3, and also Mr. Big. He has also been featured on tracks for many major artists around the world over the years. Billy has played it all during his career as a bass player, millions of notes played and millions of records sold...here is a real master of his craft. Let's put the spotlight on Mr. Billy Sheehan.
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BISCUIT: Hi Billy, it's great to have you talk with me for Bass Musician Magazine my friend. I would like to start by talking about the recent reunion tour with Mr Big. How did that all go for you and the guys?

BILLY:  Smooth as silk, it was a real blast. We had a great time and all the shows sold out. The last show in Yokohama was the best of all and we actually filmed the previous one the night before at the Budokan which was great, but Yokohama being the last show of the tour is always something special.

BISCUIT: How long were the sets?

BILLY: Oh, they were about two and a half hours long, and sometimes close to three on some occasions...   we pushed real hard out there.

BISCUIT: They Love Mr Big in Japan don't they...you must have played in some pretty cool arenas over there.

BILLY: Yeah, they like Mr Big a lot, and we were in a lot of ways the biggest western band out there for a long time, and on this tour we played everything from twelve to eighteen hundred seat arena's, right up to the Osaka dome. I played with a domestic Japanese band out there and that market is about ten times larger than for the western bands that play in Japan. I played on one single and it sold around three million units in one day and the band I played with sold more records than Madonna, and they don't really play anywhere out side Japan.

BISCUIT: When was the last time you played with Mr Big before the reunion, I believe it was quite a while ago?

BILLY:  With Paul Gilbert in the band... it was around 1996 I think and "Hey Man" was the last of the four studio records, and then there was a greatest hit's album also, where we did a bonus track called "Stay together" which became a really popular track, especially when we performed it live.

BISCUIT: Since those days you have been very busy with various other projects such as Niacin, BX3, and of course the solo records like "Compression" and "Cosmic Troubadour". Were you pleased with the sales and reviews and the overall success of those projects? And when you embark on your solo efforts, do you feel more musically free, or do you find it just as challenging as working for another artist or band?

BILLY:  No rest for the wicked eh, ha ha. With regards to the solo stuff, I don't look at it that way really, it's just a different set of ideas. I never feel constricted in anything I do anyway, so even if I am asked to play with someone who insists that my bass parts are exactly what they want, for example Steve Vai, I enjoy doing that very much. When you play with someone who requires you to conform exactly to their idea's, that  is a challenge in it's self, and I think it should be a part of every musicians makeup to learn how to do that. It's a discipline that we all need to have ,and when you are working with someone like Steve Vai , he is not going to have you do something that you are not happy with, and his ideas are always very good anyway of course so that makes it kind of easier too. Steve Vai's music is a very specialised type of thing, and that makes it all a very creative and special.