This feature was originally published in the June 2016 issue of Guitar World.

By the fall of 1985, David Lee Roth had seemingly put the breakup of Van Halen in his rearview mirror.

Hoping to capitalize on his MTV-driven video stardom, Diamond Dave now set his sights on the big screen.

Along with his creative partner and manager Pete Angelus and writer Jerry Perzigian, Roth wrote a screenplay entitled Crazy from the Heat. Angelus and Roth then sold it to CBS Theatrical Films, secured a 10 million dollar budget, and camped out on the CBS movie lot in Burbank to do pre-production for the musical comedy. Angelus recalls, “I was going to direct it and Dave was going to star in it.” If all went according to plan, Crazy would hit theaters in the summer of 1986.

But in early November, just days before they would begin shooting, the phone rang in their studio offices. It was Roth’s attorneys calling to deliver some terrible news. CBS, facing serious financial woes, had shuttered its film division, leaving Angelus and Roth without a means to make their movie.

Angelus says, “When we put the phone down, I remember we were both kind of speechless for a moment. We’d spent the better part of a year preparing for that film. We’d done the casting. We’d done the location scouting. We’d been working with the set designers and the wardrobe people. We were fully into it and fully prepared.” At that moment, it appeared all their work had been for naught.

This setback seemed tailor-made to trigger a crisis of confidence for Roth. He’d trumpeted his movie plans in the press throughout the summer past, previewing a bikini-packed plot that would see rock star Roth squaring off against his greedy manager while on an island vacation.

He’d minimize the challenges inherent in filmmaking, declaring on the David Brenner Live show that both starring in and making a film was the “next logical step” after his success with video. “It’s the same thing… except our movies have been three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. So now it’s time to just bump it up to 90 minutes.” But now it seemed unlikely that his movie would ever arrive in theaters.

Meanwhile, Roth’s former bandmates in Van Halen had seemingly suffered no ill effects from his summer 1985 departure. They had a new blond-maned, leather-lunged lead singer, Sammy Hagar, and had begun work on the follow-up to their multi-platinum smash, 1984.

Roth also had to live with the fact that Eddie Van Halen, who’d told Roth in the spring of 1985 that he had no interest in scoring Crazy because the guitarist expected the film would “probably stink,” seemed to have made the right decision after Roth’s deal disappeared.

But as the months that followed would demonstrate, Roth was nothing if not resilient.

In the summer of 1986, the rock superstar would re-emerge with a hot new band comprised of virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai, bassist extraordinaire Billy Sheehan, and monster drummer Gregg Bissonette. He’d release a million-selling new album, Eat ’Em and Smile, and two new MTV-hit videos, Yankee Rose and Goin’ Crazy, all built upon the creative foundation he’d laid down for the aborted Crazy from the Heat. He’d follow that up with a barnstorming six-month tour of North America.

Despite stepping out from Van Halen, the massively popular act that had been the vehicle for his stardom, and the unexpected loss of his hard-won movie deal, Roth proved that he could weather adversity and still come out on top, smiling from ear to ear.

In early June 1985, nimble-fingered bassist Billy Sheehan, then a member of the heavy metal band Talas, got an unexpected phone call at his Buffalo home. “It’s from David Lee Roth’s office. He wants me to be in his movie. Can I come out to L.A. right away and talk to him?” Sheehan immediately said yes, passing the word to Roth’s representative that the timing for this meeting was ideal, since the upcoming Talas and Yngwie Malmsteen tour would commence at the Hollywood Palladium on June 7.

Sheehan, who’d gotten to know Roth back in 1980 when Talas had toured with Van Halen, made plans to arrive in L.A. a couple of days early. But prior to leaving home, Sheehan rang up a friend. He says, “I called Ed Van Halen to see if he wanted to come down to the Palladium show. At the time, I didn’t know anything about Van Halen breaking up. Ed said he was busy and couldn’t come, but said, ‘Have a good show!’” Before Sheehan got off the phone, he mentioned that he’d recently received a call from Roth.

“Wait. What! Why’d he call you?”

“Oh, he wants to have a meeting with me at his house.”

“Really? You’re kidding! You’ve got to call me back as soon as you have the meeting, because I think he’s going to pull an Ozzy Osbourne on us.”

In other words, Van Halen’s guitarist suspected that Roth’s next move was to become a solo artist, much like Ozzy had done in 1979 after leaving Black Sabbath.

Sheehan says that he now realized that he’d stumbled onto a minefield of inter-band politics. “I thought, ‘Jeez, now I’m in the middle of something,’ but I went ahead with the meeting with Dave.”

A few days later, Roth detailed his movie plans and laid out his vision for his new group to Sheehan. “We had the talk,” Sheehan recalls, “and decided to start the band. He said, ‘It will be you and me. We’ll find a guitar player and a drummer.’”

Sheehan agreed to join forces with Roth as soon as his two-month tour with Talas ended, but after the singer swore him to secrecy, Sheehan realized he couldn’t return an important call. “So now my head’s about to explode, and I said to myself, ‘Well, I better not call Ed back.’ I felt terrible, because I was friends with Ed.”

As it turned out, Eddie wouldn’t need an update from Sheehan. Around the same time, he and Roth had a climactic meeting of their own at Roth’s place, with the longtime musical partners deciding that it was time for them to go their separate ways.

“When I shook Edward’s hand goodbye,” Roth explained later, “we hugged each other and cried and said, ‘Hey, it’s musical differences and career differences, like all bands.’”

For his part, Roth left that meeting with the impression that their parting was mutual and amicable. But once the star guitarist bitterly denounced Roth for leaving the band to become a movie star in the August 15, 1985, edition of Rolling Stone, an occurrence that Angelus says shocked both him and Roth, the rock world knew that Van Halen had broken up.

Roth shook off this unpleasant episode by searching for a guitar player to pair with Sheehan. After consulting with Ted Templeman, who’d be producing the forthcoming soundtrack album for Crazy from the Heat, Roth offered the gig to Billy Idol axman Steve Stevens. But Stevens told Roth that because of his musical commitments to Idol, he couldn’t work with Diamond Dave sooner than the following summer, a schedule that was unworkable in light of Roth’s movie timetable.

Roth then circled back to Sheehan and Templeman for advice. Sheehan recalls that after Stevens passed, “I mentioned Steve Vai to Dave, and I may have mentioned him to Ted as well.”

Templeman, who’d gotten turned onto Vai’s astounding playing some time earlier, remembers endorsing the former Zappa and current Alcatrazz guitarist for Roth’s new band during an impromptu listening session.

“Dave had a beat-up, noisy cassette of Steve Vai, and we listened together in some garage with the tape player on the fender of a car. I said to Dave, ‘Yes, that’s the guy.’”

Roth then placed a call to the guitarist. Vai said at the time, “I pick up the phone and hear, ‘Hey man, this is David Lee Roth. How ya doin’, Steve? I’m making a movie and I’m looking for some music.’” Vai, who’d just finished working on the soundtrack for the blues-themed movie Crossroads, agreed to get together with Roth and Sheehan once he finished a short summer tour with Alcatrazz.

By August, Vai, along with his drummer Chris Frazier, would appear at the Roth mansion to jam with Sheehan and Roth. Sheehan recalls, “Steve came down to Dave’s basement, and he brought his drummer with him. Chris had worked with Steve on a couple of records.”

Once they plugged in and tuned up, the first signs of the remarkable musical chemistry that made the original Roth band so powerful made themselves manifest, according to Vai. “The moment we started jamming,” he told journalist John Stix, “it sounded great.”

By the end of that day, Vai had the gig, which made perfect sense to Sheehan, and not just because of his remarkable fretwork. “I love Steve Stevens, but Steve Vai had that Zappa-esque, tongue-in-cheek, comedic, entertainment vibe that was really important for the Eat ’Em and Smile band, because we’d be involved in a lot of comedy in our live show.”

Over the next few weeks, Sheehan and Roth, with Frazier on drums, worked up approximately 15 song ideas. In late September, however, Roth abruptly decided to audition other drummers rather than giving Frazier the gig. Sheehan comments, “Chris is an awesome drummer, but for whatever reason, Dave wanted to get somebody else.”

After placing want ads in the local trade papers, Vai and Sheehan set up shop at Hollywood’s S.I.R. Studios. Even though the listings didn’t mention David Lee Roth, word traveled fast in the Hollywood rock community that a coveted spot in Roth’s band was up for grabs. On the morning of the audition, scores of drummers flocked to S.I.R.

One of them was Detroit native Gregg Bissonette. The drummer, who’d gotten an invite call from Vai thanks to a referral from former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent, had a résumé that at first glance seemed ill-suited for a hard rock outfit like the David Lee Roth Band. After graduating with a degree in music from North Texas State, he’d been the drummer for The Merv Griffin Show, soft-rocker Gino Vannelli, and jazz legend Maynard Ferguson. Still, he’d grown up a big rock fan.

Bissonette was thrilled about the opportunity, but when he arrived, his heart sank. “I just remember this huge line, just down the block.”

As he waited, he questioned friends who emerged from the audition room. Bissonette recalls, “I asked Matt Sorum, who later played with the Cult and Guns N’ Roses, and he said, ‘Oh they wanted me to play double bass, but I don’t really play much double bass.’ I did know Hot for Teacher really well, because I was a huge Van Halen fan. So I’m in line, and now I’m getting my feet warmed up, thinking, ‘Here we go – it’s double bass!’”

Soon it was Bissonette’s turn. “So I walk in the room, and it’s Steve and Billy and this funky old drum set. I sat right down and they said, ‘Hey, could you play a solo for us?’” After Bissonette finished, Vai showed him a guitar part that would later be enshrined on Roth’s 1988 album, Skyscraper.

“This piece would end up being Hot Dog and a Shake. Steve wanted me to hit these breaks with him and Billy, and during all that, he would solo. So as Steve was talking I reached into my backpack and took out a Sharpie. I’d brought my own snare, so I started writing out these figures on my snare head. Steve goes, ‘Woah! So you can read and write music? This is amazing!’”

The next day, Bissonette’s phone rang. It was Vai, who told him, “Hey, you’re a great guy and we love the way you play. We’re all going to meet at Dave’s place today, and we’re going to have you play for Dave.”

As Bissonette explained to Modern Drummer, this jam session couldn’t have gone better. “I went in the next day, met Dave, and we played… It was just like magic.” Soon after, he’d audition for Templeman, who, like Roth, came away impressed by Bissonette’s big-band experience and killer chops.

But before Roth told Bissonette he had the gig, he attended to some pressing film-related business.

On October 27, the Fabulous Picasso Brothers, as Angelus and Roth had dubbed their creative partnership, held an old-time cattle call audition at the Hollywood Palace in order to cast new talent for Crazy. With Sheehan, Vai, and Bissonette looking on, Roth marveled at the droves of the wildly attired actors and scantily dressed actresses, telling the Los Angeles Times, “This is a hell of a way to spend a Sunday, isn’t it?”

Bissonette, who like Vai and Sheehan, had never experienced this kind of rock pandemonium, says, “There were just lines of girls in bikinis.”

Bissonette’s week only would get better.

On a night that underscored just how high Diamond Dave’s star had risen in 1985, Roth informed Bissonette that he’d gotten the gig on the same night the singer would be appearing live on national TV. “It was Halloween,” the drummer recalls, “and Dave said, ‘I’m going to be on The Tonight Show tonight!’ Joan Rivers was the guest host, and we all went down to the set. It was like a dream when they told me.”

Bissonette now went to work with the others as they rehearsed and worked up new material. During these sessions, the three sequestered themselves in Roth’s basement while Roth and Angelus worked upstairs on pre-production for Crazy from the Heat. Vai says, “Once we’d all gotten into the basement and started jamming, writing, and playing, it was a very open, free, creative environment.”

Sheehan stresses that much of this creativity flowed from the fact that he and Vai shared many of the same musical influences. He says, “Steve and I were into a lot of the same bands, like early Bowie and Hendrix. When we came up with musical ideas we’d say, ‘That’s kind of a Hendrix-y thing’ or ‘That’s kind of a Bowie-thing.’ The ZZ Top shuffle and the ZZ Top feel were a big part of the influence too.”

Roth, listening through the floor, would regularly join them to review the new material. Sheehan says, “Dave would come downstairs and tell us what he liked, and what he didn’t like. We threw away what he disliked, and then he’d say, ‘Okay, now come up with a chorus.’ We eventually came up with all of these pieces of music.”

Roth also helped inspire Vai and Sheehan’s manic and sophisticated solo parts. As Sheehan explained in Guitar World, when he’d ask Roth, “Hey, Dave, is this bass part too busy?” Roth would shoot back, “No, do it twice as fast and Steve, you double it.” Likewise, Vai told Guitar Player that when he’d ask Roth if he was “overplaying,” Roth would reply, “No, keep going.”

Along with original material, the band considered a number of cover songs for their upcoming release.

Sheehan recalls, “I was in the Kim Mitchell band briefly. He’d sent me a demo with four songs. Kids in Action was one of them, and I just loved it. I played it for Dave and he really dug it. He also dug a Rory Gallagher song I played for him. It was from one of his mindblowing Rockpalast concert performances. I think it was called Secret Agent.”

Roth had plenty of song suggestions too, one of them being Speak of the Devil by the early Seventies Texas power-trio Stray Dog. “He played it for us,” Sheehan says, “and we all said, ‘It’s perfect.’”

At the same time, Roth and Angelus worked to prepare everyone for filming. Vai, who recalls the zany plot included parts for all of the band members, says, “We had a lot of fun preparing for the movie. We got together with [choreographer] Toni Basil and started working out choreography for the songs. It was going to be really great.”

Sheehan says that Roth and Angelus even arranged for a private showing of a cult film that had inspired them as they worked on Crazy. Sheehan continues, “We went to a screening of a 1940s movie called Hellzapoppin’. It’s just a wild, amazing movie, with a bunch of skits and vignettes and craziness. That was one of the templates Dave and Pete were using.”

Sheehan likewise remembers that as filming drew closer, the tunes they wrote soon made their way into the script. “I know songs like Goin’ Crazy were going to be integrated into the movie somehow. I remember reading the dialogue in the movie, and there were a lot of scenes with the band.” These musical scenes included a concert performance of Shy Boy and a nightclub scene that featured Roth crooning his way through Sinatra’s That’s Life.

All of this planning and scheming, however, came to a standstill on that fateful November day when CBS pulled the plug.

Angelus says that after the initial shock dissipated, they began discussing their options, asking each other: Apart from litigation against CBS for breach of contract, what’s our next step? Sheehan recalls telling Roth that day, “‘The hell with it. We’ve got a band. We’ve got songs. Let’s go out and tour!’ Not that he already didn’t think that, and not that he needed any encouragement from me, but I just remember thinking, ‘I’m ready to play.’”

Roth would get clarity about the next moves to make once he, like Sheehan, considered the full breadth of the creative endeavors they all had underway.

“The movie was just one part of a whole program,” he explained to Creem. “Obviously, when the movie fell out, we just continued with the rest of the program.” Angelus observes that what Roth termed “the program” had included “a coordinated release of the film, the [soundtrack] record, and, of course, the tour to accompany it.”

With his film in limbo, Roth and Templeman held pre-production meetings for what would now be a stand-alone rock record rather than a soundtrack album. They decided that the forthcoming Eat ’Em and Smile would include covers and originals, ones that represented a middle ground between the pop flavored, big-band sound of Roth’s Crazy from the Heat EP and the guitar-oriented pop metal showcased on his albums with Van Halen.

As Diamond Dave would later say, even though he’d put together a band capable of playing the most technically sophisticated heavy metal, he didn’t want fans of California Girls wondering “what happened to the brass on this record? Where’s the saxophone? Where’s the shoobee-doobee-doo-bop?”

In late November, just days after the movie was put on hold, the four musicians entered Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios with Templeman and engineer Jeff Hendrickson.

Hendrickson, who’d already worked with Templeman on Hagar’s V.O.A., Aerosmith’s Mirrors, and Roth’s Crazy EP, recalls that the producer had a particular way he liked to begin recording sessions. “Ted and I usually tracked everything in the first couple of days, so the band could just get a feel for things. Sometimes we would keep those as our master takes because they’d turn out so well.”

Templeman believed that this cut-live approach helped musicians avoid the dreaded red light fright and allowed him to determine which songs would ultimately work best on the album.

“We got a lot of keepers that way,” Hendrickson observes, “because when the band members don’t feel like they are on the spot, they play like they do when they’re out on the road, and so you get a lot better feel. But then again, sometimes you’d hear that a certain track would need a lot of work, or even that a track isn’t going to work at all.”

Templeman and Roth then listened back. They’d initially settle on 11 tracks for the album. These included six Vai/Roth compositions and five covers, including the Sheehan-penned headbanger Shy Boy, which dated from his Talas days.

While Roth was well accustomed to Templeman’s ways of working, it took a bit of getting used to for Vai, who had a very different mindset when it came to studio work.

“At times I didn’t know if I liked [Ted’s approach],” he explained to Guitar Player. “But then I realized, boy, it’s really fun. Get in there and do it. We kept about 50 percent of what Dave sang on the basic tracks. I’m used to sitting in the studio and tweaking and playing and punching and tweaking some more and EQ’ing and punching again. With this, it’s get in there and kill the guy with the ball.”

Templeman’s method, as it had done for him and Roth during their Van Halen days, paid dividends at Fantasy. The four musicians produced high-energy, minimal-overdub takes of Roth classics like Tobacco Road, Goin’ Crazy, and even the frenetic Shy Boy.

In the weeks that followed, the band would reconvene in New York to track at the hottest studio in America, the Power Station. Roth, in particular, loved working there because he felt inspired by Manhattan’s energetic street vibe.

“The Power Station is in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, which is more dangerous than New Guinea,” he proclaimed to a reporter. “When you’re there for more than a month recording, you’re bound to soak up a lot of the anxiety from the surrounding streets, and that comes out on the album.”

One track that generated some New York anxiety for Vai was the languid Ladies Nite in Buffalo.

Vai recalled that his original demo “had tons of keyboards and all sorts of guitar overdubs.” But when Templeman had asked the band to first run through Buffalo, Vai gamely collapsed all of his guitar parts into one so they could cut the song live, fully intending to replace this basic track and overdub multiple guitar lines in the coming days.

Templeman, however, had a different take. When he played the track back for everyone, he thought the guitarist had pretty much nailed the song on his first pass. Vai, in turn, thought Templeman had lost his mind. As Vai told Guitar Player, “Of course, being an artist, I hemmed and hawed: ‘I want to do it again.’”

Hendrickson recalls, “Vai kept fighting us because he felt his rough track was terrible. He was so meticulous. But he’d played this basic track that just blew everybody away. We couldn’t believe he wanted to change it.”

Ultimately, Vai says, Templeman and the others got him to see that his guitar part “was beautiful the way it was.”

Despite Templeman’s aversion to overdubbing, a persistent Vai did convince the producer to let him add additional guitar parts to the album. For example, he says, “I remember we were doing Elephant Gun and I said I wanted to double the guitar part. Because the part is all over the place, Ted goes, ‘What do you mean, double it?’

“I can double every single little thing, perfectly.”

After first saying no, Templeman did give the go-ahead. Vai started to double the part, but before he finished, he broke a string. Templeman said, “Well, probably we should just leave it with the one guitar.” Soon after, the producer departed the studio for the day.

Vai immediately went to work. He says, “I finished it. And when Ted heard it the next day, he liked it, so that’s why it made the record.”

Vai also layered some of his patented guitar eccentricity on what would be the album’s first single, Yankee Rose.

As he explained to Guitar Player, “The half-time section in the middle had this nice little arpeggioed chordal thing that was kind of open and bare. So I said, ‘Let me try putting a solo on it. Let me try something weird.’ I hooked up a couple of delays set to some long delay… and they rolled the tape.”

Roth also had some ideas for the guitar parts for Yankee Rose. While Vai overdubbed, Roth got him focused on constructing an outro solo that might be visually arresting for MTV audiences. Roth coached Vai, saying, “Here in the video I want you to do something where you can take the guitar and ram it between your legs.” Vai then came up with the whipsawing whammy bar licks for the song’s conclusion.

Despite Roth’s MTV-driven mindset, the New York sessions also produced a song seemingly more suited for the Thirties than the Eighties.

I’m Easy, a spirited big-band song originally recorded by Australian singer Billy Field, came into Roth’s orbit thanks to Templeman, who thought it fit perfectly with Roth’s “Gigolo” persona. Bissonette recalls that, weeks earlier, when the producer had played it for the band during pre-production, he said, “Gregg, this is going to be right up your alley, because you’re used to kicking five trumpets, five trombones, five saxes.”

At this point, Bissonette got to draw on his musical connections from his Maynard Ferguson days as Templeman worked to recruit session players for the track. He recalls, “Ted said, ‘Hey Gregg, you seem to know everybody. So can you help us put together a killer big band in New York?’ I said, ‘Man, I sure can.’” On the day of the New York session, Ted pulled Bissonette aside to thank him, saying, “Wow, you got all the A-list guys.”

Vai also played a vital role in making the horn parts on I’m Easy sound great. He explained, “I wrote the score and directed the horn section. You should have seen it. I had snakeskin pants on, my hair was flipped out, and I was sitting in this director’s chair with a baton in one hand and a big score in another. Twelve of New York’s best studio blowers were there, and I’m going, ‘Okay, now, can you make this a little more staccato over here?’”

Bissonette says everyone was amazed as they watched the Berklee-trained Vai, nominally a guitarist, do this work for the track. “He just sat down with pen and manuscript paper and wrote out the big band arrangements. The session guys then played along with our track and overdubbed. It was phenomenal.”

As the final overdubbing sessions wrapped up in the spring, Templeman and Roth looked to trim their song list down to 10 songs from the 11 they’d completed.

Ultimately, Kids in Action didn’t make the cut, to the dismay of both songwriter Kim Mitchell and ace session keyboardist Jeff Bova, who’d added synths to the track while the band worked at the Power Station. Bova observes, “I know they were toying with keeping either Kids in Action or Tobacco Road. I remember when the album came out being a bit disappointed because I did a lot of cool keyboard stuff on Kids.” To this day, the track remains unreleased.

With the album in the can, the Fabulous Picasso Brothers turned to scripting and filming promo videos for two of Eat ’Em and Smile’s forthcoming singles: Yankee Rose and Goin’ Crazy! Determined to make good use of their months of effort on Crazy, Roth and Angelus scripted two mini-movies as preludes to the band performance footage that would be the centerpieces of the videos.

Along with casting many of the performers who’d been slated to appear in the movie, they also drew upon their months of work on wardrobes and makeup. As Sheehan explains, “Most of the clothes we had in the Eat ’Em and Smile videos, and the fat suit that Dave wore in Goin’ Crazy, those were all meant for the movie, initially.”

Bissonette adds, “Goin’ Crazy and Yankee Rose were a big part of the proposed look of that movie. Even though Crazy didn’t happen, the videos sure did, and they were amazing. To this day, nobody makes videos like that.”

In June, Roth unleashed an all-out promotional campaign. He talked about his new band, album, and upcoming tour to the press with enthusiasm, telling a reporter, “If you love Van Halen, if you like rock and rolling, you’re going to be blown away. We’ve got all kinds of new tricks to show you.”

He was much less sanguine, however, when it came to the current incarnation of his former band. Responding to the salvos fired at him over the prior months by Hagar and company, Roth stated, “Whenever you have a big ugly divorce, there’s hurt feelings. On the other hand, Sammy’s only angry because he knows I’m better than he is.”

On July 7, Eat ’Em and Smile finally dropped. Driven by the success of Yankee Rose at radio and on MTV, the album would peak at Number 4 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. In the weeks that followed, Warner Bros. Records would also release the Van Halen–esque Goin’ Crazy, and the Sinatra standard That’s Life as singles, pushing sales of the LP over one million copies by the fall.

The Eat ’Em and Smile tour, which began in August, likewise did big business, from the first date onward. Vai, who’d never played arenas before, says that in fact the tour’s sold-out opening night provided him with one of the most vivid memories of his career.

“It was just amazing to be on that tour, but being on the stage that first night was a shock. You realize you’re now a rock star performer. There are 20,000 people out there, and you’ve got to deliver. At one point, Dave did this thing where he just stops and puts the mic out to the crowd. The screaming went on for like 10 minutes. It was so loud that Billy and I were looking at each other because we were scared. It was louder than our amps. I just thought, ‘What’s happened? Because this is wild.’”

Every night the four musicians, along with tour keyboardist Brett Tuggle, would blast through a setlist packed with new Roth favorites and classic Van Halen tunes, interspersed by flashy solo segments by Bissonette, Vai, and Sheehan. But as Sheehan explained to Guitar World, the solo performances of the two guitar players became more engaging as the tour progressed, thanks to the input of Angelus and Roth.

“We needed to come up with something to entertain everyone. At the start of the tour, I did my solo the same way I always did it, and Steve did his own solo, too. Although the musicians in the crowd may have loved it, I’m sure a lot of the other people were yawning… So Pete Angelus suggested that we do a guitar duel – and it’s a riot.”

Sheehan says with a smile that Roth’s advice was to “make it like a contest, like a tractor pull. That was the phrase he used. So Steve would come out there and start playing, I’d come up behind him and stop him and push him out of the way and play a while, then he’d push me out of the way. Then we’d push each other, and chase each other around until we’d get to the end when we’d have this big grand finale.”

Over the course of the next six months, Sheehan, Vai, and the rest of the band would play over 100 dates, entertaining arena audiences all across the continent.

Today, members of the group are both nostalgic about and proud of their accomplishments during these years. Sheehan, who’d leave the group in early 1988, says, “My experience with Eat ’Em and Smile and Dave was just amazing and incredible. On tour, places were packed, there were gorgeous girls, and everybody was at the top of their game.”

Vai adds, “Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and all the elements came together. You could put on the biggest stage show, and you could wear anything you wanted, and boy did we ever. But what was most exciting to me is the rawness, intensity, and attitude of the music.”

Bissonette remarks that since “the David Lee Roth band was my first big rock gig,” these years will always have a special place in his heart. “Dave,” the drummer says, gave “me my platinum musical passport, good over the world. It’s been the coolest.”

Today, both fans and band members are hopeful for a reunion of the classic Eat ’Em lineup. This is especially true after the Hollywood fire marshal blocked Roth, Vai, Sheehan, Bissonette, and Tuggle from performing at an oversold Lucky Strike Live on November 25, 2015, in what would have been their first performance together in decades.

Vai says ruefully, “The Lucky Strike thing was almost like rock star interruptus. People say the fire marshal stopped us minutes before we went on, but it was seconds. I was standing behind the curtain with a hot guitar in my hands and I was ready to start. I did everything I could to get us to play, but we just couldn’t. Afterward I thought we’ve got to do something together, because there’s just too much cool energy here.”

While everyone’s schedules are packed, there’s a shared desire among the principals that they should all reconvene at some point soon, assuming Roth will light the fuse again.

Sheehan observes, “It’s all up to Dave. This is his game. If he wants to do it, I’m so into it. Ideally, it would be great to record a song or two and then go out and do a bunch of shows: Europe, USA, maybe South America, Japan. It would be great, to get everybody together again, to do it all again, just for the hell of it.”

Vai says, “I think that would be really nice to honor the legacy of the Eat ’Em and Smile album and band. There doesn’t have to be any big commitment. It would just be about getting out there and bringing it home, the way we used to do it, while we still have the juice, which we do.”

Last November, Roth appeared to leave the door open to a reunion, suggesting to fans on his way out of Lucky Strike Live that one day the group might have to book the Hollywood Palladium and give it another go.

Billy Sheehan knows a thing or two about holding down the low end for some of the world’s top virtuosos, having worked with everyone from Paul Gilbert and Mike Portnoy to David Lee Roth.

And, it just so happens that Sheehan who introduced another virtuoso – a certain Steve Vai – into the fold when he was playing alongside the former Van Halen vocalist.

In 1984, Vai found himself replacing Yngwie Malmsteen as the lead guitarist of Alcatrazz, with whom he recorded their sophomore album, Disturbing the Peace. However, Vai was soon recruited to join the solo project of post-Van Halen David Lee Roth – although, as Sheehan recalls, Vai wasn’t his first pick.

“The original idea was Steve Stevens, but he was busy with Billy Idol and wisely decided to stay with him,” Sheehan remembers in a new interview with Guitar Player.

“I told Dave I know another Steve, ’cause at the time my band Talas was on Relativity Records out of New York City, and Steve was also on that label, and we’d talked about doing something together before the Roth thing happened.

“Steve, because of his association with Frank Zappa, had a sense of humor about his playing, which was very important for the Roth band.”

As Sheehan describes it, Vai’s stint with a musician as left-field as Zappa left an imprint on his playing, which became “kind of quirky”.

“He had all the fundamentals very, very down, then added the quirkiness from the Zappa thing. So Vai came in and was just awesome, a great, great player,” he continues. “So he was in, and we had a great time putting that Eat ’Em and Smile tour together.”

As for what he remembers from those heady days with Vai, Sheehan immediately replies, “He’s such a dedicated player. We’d be in the dressing room before the show, and he’d be there for hours, just working on stuff, head down for hours at a time before every show, pretty much.

“That also shows how much he cares about the audience, too, ’cause you want to do the absolute best for them all the time. Steve is definitely in that club.”

Later on, Sheehan would join Vai on some of his solo tours as part of his backing band, The Breed.

“It was always a blast,” he recalls. “ We had so much fun on those tours – no nonsense, no drugs, drinking, disrespectful rock star bullshit. We were all just legitimately having fun, and it was like a 24-hour comedy show.

“There was a lot of mutual respect in the bands I played in with Steve. I have nothing but great things to say,” he concludes.

And speaking of Vai, for those in the hunt for their own top-tier home studio, the guitar maestro just listed his LA property – which comes fully equipped with his famed Harmony Hut studio – for $11.7 million.

Rob Reiner’s legendary spoof This Is Spinal Tap remains a mandatory VHS tape among rock bands everywhere. But what happens when moments from the cult music mockumentary enter real life?

“Everything that happened in that movie is based on shit that happened or easily could have happened to any touring band,” Rex Brown told Guitar World. “We were a professional touring machine and Spinal Tap shit happened every day.”

To mark the release of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which features cameos from Paul McCartney and Elton John, we look back on 10 real-life ‘Spinal Tap’ stories from some of the bass world’s biggest names.

1. Victor Wooten

Over the years, we've collected dozens of real-life Spinal Tap stories. This Victor Wooten tale, however, is definitely one of our favourites so far.

“I was wearing these basketball-type pants that button down the side,” said Wooten in this clip from the Beneath the Bassline documentary.

“I was doing something crazy with my bass and the horn of the instrument caught the inside of my pants, and when I went to swing my bass my pants ripped down to my ankles. The show’s still going on, so what do you do?!”

2. Thundercat

Thundercat was recently recruited for a rendition of Spinal Tap’s 1984 track Big Bottom, but it was on tour with Erykah Badu that his real-life Spinal Tap moment actually took place.

“I was playing at the Opera House in Sydney, and I’m trying to make sure there’s a lot of bass onstage. So I’m using an Aguilar DB 751 and I’ve got the wall of doom speakers. There’s this moment where you think everybody’s cheering, but then I look back and the amp is literally on fire.”

3. Robert Trujillo

Robert Trujillo has played bass in the world's biggest metal band since 2003, but his real-life Spinal Tap moment dates back to before Metallica's self-titled 1991 album when he was performing with skate-thrash mob Suicidal Tendencies.

"I was warming up behind my bass amp and a bottle came flying over the backline and slammed me in the top of my head. I go to the front of the stage and I start calling everybody out. It was like I wanted to fight everybody.

“My bandmates actually went out into the audience and proceeded to knock a few people out. I got rushed to the hospital right after.”

4. Nathan East

It was back in 2010 that top session bassist Nathan East bounded across the stage in order to impress his bass hero, Verdine White, but his performance would become memorable for all the wrong reasons.

“It was a double bill with Earth, Wind & Fire and Toto, with probably around 30,000 people gathered around, and Verdine was in the front row.

“With him being one of my biggest influences I start trying to show off with this big high-step thing when all of a sudden it felt as if the stage had gone out from under me. I’d snapped my achilles tendon.”

The incident was captured on camera by a member of the audience, and if you watch closely you can pinpoint the exact moment where East’s tendon tears.

5. Bakithi Kumalo

One of the most memorable scenes from This Is Spinal Tap sees the band take a long walk through the backstage area as they try to get to the stage at Cleveland’s Xanadu Star Theatre.

Best-known for his epic bass break on Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al, Bakithi Kumalo is a bassist who can sympathise with this scenario.

“I had picked one dressing room for myself so I could stop being nervous, but I could hear them announcing the start of the show. I had to get out of the dressing room, but I couldn’t open the door! I still had my in-ear monitors, so I could hear the rest of the band saying, ‘Where’s Bakithi?!’”

6. Duff McKagan

One day a film will be made about Duff McKagan, the punk rocker from Seattle who moved to Hollywood, joined Guns N’ Roses and became a star. Needless to say Duff was happy to oblige when asked to reveal his own Spinal Tap moment.

“I had a belt that had crosses on it and it had this buckle, and I wore it to every gig. We also had this grated metal stage that we’d take around the world with us, but if it got wet outside that stage would get slick.

“I slipped and I fell, and my belt got stuck in one of the grates of the stage floor. We’re in the middle of a song and I’m stuck, and I’ve got roadies trying to undo my belt while I’m still trying to play!”

7. Andrew Gouche

Having held the bass chair with the likes of Prince and Chaka Khan, Andrew Gouche needs no introduction as one of the bass guitar world’s top groove players. Back in 2015 he told his side of the story surrounding the events of a tour bus altercation in Texas.

“We were in the middle of Texas when the air conditioning went out on the tour bus. In that kind of heat and with the frustration of being on a sucking gig that you weren’t making that much money on, two of the guys got in a fight.

“One guy pulled a knife out of one of those big holster things and almost sliced his thumb off. We dropped him off at the hospital in San Antonio.”

8. David Ellefson

Megadeth’s debut album, Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!, was released on June 12, 1985. Two weeks later, the thrash metal band set off on their first US tour, an undertaking that could quite easily have been a scene from This Is Spinal Tap.

“It was the Killing Is My Business… album, which already had a fateful title for a tour! And after the second show our van broke down and I had to rent a car.

“Our drummer happens to be driving and he reaches back behind the seat to grab his DW foot pedals and drives off the road at 85 miles per hour, going over a concrete culvert and nearly killing us.

“So we pull into Cleveland to play the show that night complete with real whiplash, not just from headbanging!”

9. Nick Campbell

Having graduated from the University of Southern California, Nick Campbell has gone on to perform with the likes of Charlie Puth, Josh Smith, Peter Erskine, Vulfpeck, Pomplamoose and Scary Pockets. You may have also seen him in episodes of Glee and the Glee Project.

But his most memorable Tap-style fiasco occurred at Disneyland, and it is so Spinal Tap it makes you realise just how genius a parody the film is.

“A friend got asked to put together a band for Disney, and they wanted smooth jazz arrangements of classic Disney songs. They brought out all these pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean as we played the finale. We hung out there all day and the pirates didn't break character. They were all freaking terrifying!”

10. Billy Sheehan

As the world of bass guitar has evolved, we’ve watched Billy Sheehan ascend to its very zenith – touring relentlessly and still being a man that you’d love to sit down and have a beer with. That is unless you’re a short-changing club owner.

“We were set to play at this club, but when we got there the stage was so small that there was no way we could make it work. We contacted the agent and the owner was real pissed off.

“He said, ‘You guys will never play within 300 miles of this club!’ So I get on the phone and I call the fire department. All I said was, ‘We’re playing at this club and they told us it would be OK to hot clip onto the mains power. Are we liable if anything happens?’ They shut the guy down completely!”

11. Nik West

Known for her jaw-dropping stage persona, Nik West once had a spectacular wardrobe malfunction.

“I had this outfit, and I was going so crazy onstage that the skirt part of it started to slide down. I had on leggings, so I just let it fall. Then I picked it up and I threw it in the audience.”

Back in 2016, bassist Billy Sheehan reconvened with longtime Mr. Big sidekicks Eric Martin (vocals), Paul Gilbert (guitar), and Pat Torpey (drums, with help from stand-in Matt Starr) – to record the band's ninth studio album, Defying Gravity.

Known for such songs as Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy, Green Tinted Sixties Mind, Just Take My Heart, Wild World, Addicted to That Rush, and the international smash To Be With You, the group tracked the new album's 11 songs during an intensive creative burst at California's Ocean Studios.

“We all had a spot open up in our schedules that gave us six days to record with Kevin Elson, our producer from the early days, so we jumped on it,” Billy Sheehan explained in the September 2017 issue of Bass Player.

“Prior to that, we had a couple of songwriting get-togethers – a couple of us, not the whole band – and by the time we got into the studio, we had about four songs completed and another six that were partial, and a few other pieces, too.

“There was a good kind of high pressure that lit a fire under us, and it really made us dig deep and think on our feet. We recorded as a group; that's pretty much how we did our early records, so it's natural for us to work in that fashion.”

Characteristically, the album brims with memorable hooks, radio-friendly choruses, and top-drawer axe-work from Sheehan and Gilbert, while straddling a wide range of genres. “I like it like that. Some classic records are all over the map stylistically: heavy, quiet, melodic – all kinds of things.”

Tracks include such rock stompers as Everybody Needs a Little Trouble, for which Sheehan employed a Hipshot XTender to nail earth-shaking low C#s; acoustic-flavored outings such as I'm in Love Again and Nothing Bad (About Feeling Good); a blues-drenched shuffle, Be Kind; and songs featuring explosive unison guitar/basslines, such as Open Your Eyes and the autobiographical 1992.

“We've known each other for a long time now, so the unison work is usually pretty quick and automatic. I'm used to Paul's note choices, which are ever-evolving and ever-changing, and he's kind of used to mine, too.”

Mean to Me (inspired, according to Gilbert, by the groove of Christina Aguilera's What a Girl Wants) is one of the album's standout rockers, with a blazing main riff and scintillating solo section, during which the guitar and bass trade blistering licks.

In the studio, Sheehan used his Yamaha Attitude III strung with signature Rotosound round-wounds (.043, 065, 080, 110). “The neck-position pickup went to the low amp, while the P-Bass pickup went to the high amp, with clean and distortion mixed together.”

“We also took a separate direct from that P-Bass pickup. I do that often – just have a separate regular, straight-up bass tone on a separate track. If I need it for anything, it's there.”

Following the gritty unison slide of the pickup bar, the song kicks into gear with Sheehan and Gilbert sharing duties for the track's primary motif: a descending two-bar-long 32nd-based figure that underpins the intro and chorus sections.

“Paul came in with the song; it was a pretty wild sound with those 32nd-notes. That's kind of my specialty, doing those fast clusters of notes, so I didn't think it would be a problem. But the pattern of the cluster was such that I had to actually pluck with four fingers (pinkie, ring, middle, index) instead of three, to get that burst of four really solidly.”

The chord sequence from the intro continues into the verse, with sledgehammer accents and strongly syncopated downbeats.

As the guitar rolls out the song's first sustained chords through the verse's second half, Sheehan helps build steam toward the chorus with increasing use of repeated 16ths; dig his hip E major pentatonic fill at 00:37.

The chorus kicks in at 00:46, using the same material as the intro, which leads in turn to a second verse and chorus.

At 02:16, Sheehan conjures a cascading fountain of sound using a tapped, 4th-based pattern, which he deftly traverses down the neck. Following Gilbert's two-bar response, Sheehan unleashes another flurry of tapped 32nds which, like the first, draws primarily on notes from the C# natural minor scale.

“I think I got that section by about the third take. I was in the zone, and it was going pretty good. In earlier takes I was hitting the notes I was going for, but they weren't notes I was happy with. I wanted to change the musical structure, so I went back and reconfigured that pattern to make it musically more to my liking.”

Sheehan taps with his left index and middle fingers, but the index and ring fingers of his right. “It may not be normal for everyone to do it that way, but as long as you get the notes, you're doing it right.”

Gilbert's second response leads into a nine-bar guitar solo, during which Sheehan outlines the chords from the intro/chorus. A final chorus and a hard-hitting two-bar outro bring the song to a close.

“Just take it slow and figure it out. I believe there's nothing I do that someone else can't do. It might take you a while, but you can do it."

Whether you take your Billy Sheehan as a member of Mr. Big, as a solo artist or as a session gun for hire, he needs little introduction. A master of his instrument to almost otherworldly levels, Sheehan has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most accomplished bassists.

“It’s all common sense and natural motions,” said Sheehan about his outrageous yet highly refined playing techniques. “I remember when Space Invaders and games like that first came out. I couldn't get anywhere near the huge scores some of the kids were racking up. I'd just shoot away at anything until I watched some of these high-score heroes in action, and the penny dropped! They were playing in patterns, and could anticipate the movements of the targets. 

“That was it: I applied that system to my bass playing using pattern boxes, or chord shapes, which I got to know really well, and could move about the fretboard. I probably use about three patterns to get the high-speed effects.”

As the new Mr. Big album Ten nears release, Sheehan was on hand to talk technique, and the key to making it work.

How often do you evaluate your bass playing?

“I have torn apart, redesigned, and reconstructed my bass playing probably 10 times. I step back, reassess, and rebuild everything. After years of playing, I still love to pick up that hunk of wood and just hang out with it. I'm generally working on eight to 10 new moves at any given time.”

Can you share a cool move?

“I'll cross my right hand and hold down four notes across all four strings. In one instance it's a C on the E string, a G on the A string, C on the D string, and the octave G on the G string, which is a 5th, a 4th, and a 5th pattern. I reach under the neck with my left hand, and no matter what I play, it comes back down to a very friendly chord that works with almost anything, especially droning stuff.”

Can you describe your three-finger technique?

“I play a lot of driving 16th- or 32nd-note things that are smooth and fast. It's somewhat of a Rocco Prestia vibe, but more rock- or metal-oriented. It's essential to string the notes together consistently in time and flowing with the groove of the track. I always pluck my fingers in the same direction. You can hear accented groups of four, even though I'm playing with three fingers.” 

“So for each bar, the beat one accent is played with a different finger – index, middle, ring, and repeat. It's totally confusing; that's why thinking about it will never work. I just drilled it in over thousands of gigs and created a machine out of my hands. I try to make my playing flow as naturally as breathing – it's automatic, even during a solo. I just fly by the seat of my pants!”

What appears difficult about your style that is actually very simple?

“The three-finger thing is actually rather easy; anyone can do the mechanics eventually. It's like learning the patterns on a video game until you conquer it. You can do that on a bass guitar, but that's not music. In fact, I didn't pay any attention to mechanics for a long time, and I only figured it out when I had to explain it to someone else.” 

Have you read up on the theory behind the technique?

“I still don't usually have any idea what scales l’m playing, but I can hear a scale and understand its function in a song. I wish I knew more theory, and I will someday. I dropped out my senior year of high school, but l'm a tireless self-educator who is always working on learning vocabulary.”

When you play in a new project, what's your starting point?

“The drummer. My very first teacher taught me that regardless of what else goes on, you've got to play a bass note at the same time as the kick drum, which is 99 percent of how bass playing works. Eventually I started incorporating fills and accents, but I only got away with an aggressive style because it was locked to the drummer from the beginning.”

Which drummer do you connect with best?

“Dennis Chambers changed my life. No matter how complicated the rhythm, his internal clock is foolproof, and playing onstage with him gave me a whole new way to treat time. For many years I relied on the drummer's clock. With Dennis I discovered – don't do that. Your own internal clock has to be running.”

DiMarzio has teamed up with Billy Sheehan to present a new shape and feel for Precision Bass pickup covers. With this reinvention, DiMarzio promises pickup covers that improve “both playability and performance”.

DiMarzio used Sheehan's vision for ramp-style surface shapes to minimize all the hard edges from the pickup casing. Furthermore, the pickups experts relocated the height adjustment screws so that they're now below the surface of the pickguard, thereby eliminating finger contact.

There are tonal benefits to the new patent, too. “A by-product of our newly patented design is a shape that allows the twin hum-canceling coils to be adjusted closer to the strings,” comments DiMarzio.

“A secondary benefit from this is an improvement in both dynamics and string-to-string balance.”

The new design is now available on DiMarzio's Relentless Middle, Relentless P, Relentless PJ Pair, Sixties P, and Sixties PJ Pair bass pickups.

See DiMarzio for more info.

In a 2023 interview with Guitarist, DiMarzio founder Larry DiMarzio asserted how getting practical input from artists has shaped, and continues to shape, the direction of DiMarzio pickups.

“You can come up with ideas that you think are good in your design area… and then you still have to take them into the marketplace,” he remarks. “I mean, a lot of the pickups were road-tested, not just by me but by my friends. I mean, imagine if you would, it’s 1973, KISS is formed and recording, but they’re not even out on the road yet.

“Right? Ace Frehley and I meet up and I give him some pickups because he heard about them. Well, those pickups were out on the road for like a year. Now, if there were problems, I was going to hear about it. So I like the idea of getting a product and road-testing it.”

When your professional career spans five decades and all the musical fads that period covers, you've played packed-out stadiums, made platinum albums and scored number one singles, what keeps you going? For Billy Sheehan it comes down to one simple thing: his instrument. “The bass guitar is everything to me," he told BP. “You know, everything I own and have is a direct result of people buying my records, or a ticket to my shows – and that all comes from the bass.”

Obviously Sheehan has been known for his incredible fingerstyle and tapping technique since time immemorial (well, 1979), and interviews with him by hacks like us tend to reflect that fact. But before we get into the details of his insanely evolved playing, Sheehan points out that the true focus of any serious musician should really lie elsewhere. 

“I've spent a lot of time improving the mechanics of my hands, but I'm afraid to show bass players because I'm afraid they'll get caught up in it. They forget that the mechanics is nothing: it's just stretching the canvas on the frame and trimming the brushes before you start to paint. That said, I practise more now then I ever have, and it's paying off. I'm noticing improvements in consistency and getting new stuff onto the stage. Playing new stuff in your hotel is easy, it's getting it on stage that counts.”

According to Sheehan, simplicity is just as valid as complexity. “I still sit down and pick a note, say like a low G or F# and just pound out quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes for an hour. That kind of bass playing can become something else entirely when you have the notes totally under your control – and not a lot of players manage that. You don't need to play with three fingers. You could play a one-string bass with a pick and still create amazing music and be just as legitimate a musician as anyone else.”

Although this is true – any bass geek who, like us, has followed Sheehan's career through shred-heavy albums by Talas, Mr Big and Dave Lee Roth will know what we're talking about – isn't much of Sheehan's reputation based on speedy playing? And given that, does he feel pressure to play difficult basslines?

“I play complex parts because I want to, not because I feel pressured to do it. I also love playing simple songs with simple basslines. There’s a book called The Story Of Philosophy, and many philosophers touch on the idea that music is the greatest art form. I really believe that. As musicians we have an amazing tool in our hands, and I'm very pleased that we have it. What music has done for me and to me is amazing, and I hope that I can do that same thing for other people.

“I do like playing challenging stuff, though – and I still practise a lot of stuff that is new to me. One is a fast tapped thing with different intervals, and another is a lot of fingerpicking stuff where l'll take four notes from three strings, almost like a clawhammer style. I sit there with my iPhone and practise moving tapped figures around. I use the phone to film myself doing it, so I don't forget it. That's useful for song ideas too, not just mechanics. I've got hundreds of little videos, some of which are me in my hotel room in my underpants…”

All this shreddy stuff comes at a price, of course, not least the hours of practice time that Sheehan feels compelled to put in. “I still sit down every morning and hit it hard for a couple of hours. The key is to practise creatively. If you're doing things over and over and not getting better, you have to be able to say ‘Hell, this ain't working, so what am I going to do to make it work?’ Proper practice should be disciplined, self-critical and come from a place of introspection. You can always do something better, but that doesn't mean more notes or faster!”

So what exactly does he practise? “Sometimes the mechanics. I need to not be hindered by the physical aspect of bass playing so that I can focus on the music. Like the three-fingered technique. Because so much of our music is two-and four-based, it's hard to play those kinds of grooves and note groupings with three fingers. With two you have this on-off, on-off rhythm, but with three it becomes on-and-off, on-and-off. I practise endlessly, making that smooth and indistinguishable from two fingers. Other times, though, I'll focus purely on the music side of things – interesting chords or progressions.”

When it comes time to play a solo, Sheehan warns that overthinking your choice of notes is to be avoided at all costs. “To be honest I don't think too much. It’s always a little roll of the dice, and sometimes your number comes up, sometimes not. I've played for long enough now to know that the worst case scenario is it'll get a passing grade, but in the best case you get something really magical. I'm from the Hendrix school – I'd rather see someone play 10 mediocre solos and then one amazing one, than the same thing each night.”

Sheehan's bass solos may change, but his gear does not, at least at its core. He's still sporting a variant of the amazing Yamaha Attitude bass that he first revealed to the public 35 years ago. 

“I got my first Attitude in 1988. It's a man's bass! Larry Hartke told me it's the manliest bass he's seen. It's set up really nice: that's half the battle. I have some other basses too. One of them is a Zemaitis: it's beautiful and very expensive, and they were kind enough to make one for me. I also bought a really old Telebass with the single pickup unit. If you know what you're doing, you can take pretty much any bass and make it sound better.”

Richie Kotzen gave Winery Dogs fans a bit of a scare back in 2017 when he announced that the supergroup trio (which also includes bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy) would be “taking a break,” a phrase commonly uttered – along with “we’re going on hiatus,” another good one – when a band is close to kaput.

“I probably overstated the point, and it caused some confusion,” Kotzen now says. “We toured pretty hard on our first two albums, and we just needed to catch our breath. That’s really all there was to it. It was a break – lots of bands take breaks. The last thing you want to do is tour to the point that you’re burned out.”

As it turned out, the band’s hiatus didn’t last long, and by 2019 they were back on the road while making plans to record their third album. 

“We were feeling fired up again,” Kotzen says. “But then the Covid pandemic hit and everything pretty much stopped. We couldn’t play anywhere. Nobody could play. So we just decided to take our time and work on the album.” He pauses, then adds, “And I think it’s our best one yet.”

He just might be right. The Winery Dogs already aced their way through their sophomore album (2015’s Hot Streak), and on album number three – which just so happens to be titled III – they prove they’ve got plenty of gas in the tank. 

Right from the get-go, the band lets us know they’re not messing about. Xanadu, a walloping hard rock chest-beater, busts out of the gate with an outrageous, almost absurd guitar and bass unison riff – and the energy stays pinned throughout the 10-song set. 

But while the highly pedigreed chopsmiths toss out ferocious licks as easily as they breathe – the time-shifting barn burner Pharaoh and the righteous blues-rock album closer The Red Wine feature colossal moments of warp-speed musical mojo – they wrap all the fancy-pants stuff around widescreen hooks and solid arrangements that go down easy.

“Everybody in the band has achieved notoriety in musicians’ circles, but when we get together, we really try to concentrate on writing songs,” Sheehan says. “Each one of us has a love of classic rock bands, soul and R&B, and they all have one thing in common: great songs.” 

He notes that the spunky, slinky groover Mad World exemplifies his affection for Sixties and Seventies Motown. “It’s got that feel, so I was thinking of the Temptations and one of my bass heroes, James Jamerson, when we cut that track. I think it’s one of the best songs on the record.”

Interestingly, when the three bandmates convened at Kotzen’s home studio in Los Angeles to start work on the album, they had no songs at all – as in none. “It sounds scary, but it’s my favorite way to work,” Sheehan says. “There’s a certain amount of tension when you plug in and look at the other guys; it kicks your ass on an improvisational level and forces you to make something happen.”

Kotzen agrees, saying, “Too many musicians freak out about writer’s block. I’ve never really had that problem, because my general attitude is, if something wants to be written, it’ll get written. If you have to beat yourself up on a song, it’s best to move on to something else.”

Detailing the writing process for III, Kotzen explains that Sheehan and Portnoy would start jamming, which inevitably sparked the guitarist to respond with riffs and scat-singing. “Before you knew it, we had skeletons of songs,” he says. “I didn’t try to write actual lyrics for a while, though. I like to live with the music, so over a period of a few months I tried a bunch of things out and thought about what I wanted to sing. Then I did my thing and sent the songs off to the boys for their input.” 

The manner in which Kotzen composed lyrics and sang vocals differed dramatically from how he cut guitar solos. “My general attitude toward solos is always the same: ‘Let’s go for it and see what we get,’” he says. “I like the fire and adrenaline rush of being on the spot. You start with nothing and suddenly it’s like, ‘OK, something’s there.’ Sometimes I’ll get a solo that’s an immediate keeper; most of the time I’ll keep the front and back, and I’ll say, ‘The middle is garbage. Let me fix that.’”

For all three members, aligning their schedules hasn’t always been easy. Kotzen maintains a thriving solo career and has also enjoyed success with his ongoing collaboration with Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, while Sheehan and Portnoy busy themselves with a host of musical activities that include yet another supergroup, the prog-flavored Sons of Apollo. 

Having not toured in four years, Kotzen, Sheehan, and Portnoy cleared the deck for 2023, and are concentrating exclusively on the Winery Dogs. 

“Whenever you have a band in which the members do other things, it can get a little crazy,” Sheehan says. “Fortunately, this band is a three-piece, so that makes things a bit easier. We’ve got the first round of dates right ahead of us, and we can’t wait to take this record on the road. Thankfully, there’s a lot of excitement from the fans, so here we go!”

• III is out now via Three Dog Music.

Billy Sheehan, quite possibly the most technically gifted rock bass player on the planet, has played with dozens of amazing musicians and travelled the world for decades, which means that he has tonnes of useful advice to pass on.

In a recent backstage interview with Scott's Bass Lessons founder Scott Devine, before getting into the details of his insanely evolved tapping and three-finger technique, Sheehan was asked if he’d ever been tempted by the most reviled totem of 1980s musicianship ever, slap bass. 

“With slap I could never figure out where those notes were coming from,” said Sheehan. “So I sat down and just came up with a slap riff. When I got done it kind of sounded like slap, but then I’d go see Victor Wooten and just give up!”

So what exactly does he practice? “Sometimes the mechanics,” said Billy. “I need my hands to function as machines, and I need to not be hindered by the physical aspect of bass playing, so that I can focus on the music. Like the three-fingered technique. I still work on it everyday.”

Asked about his tapping technique, Sheehan told BP: “You can string your bass guitar light, put the action low and get it to play as easy as a ukulele, but if you push it too hard with your technique you overwhelm the strings and just crash against the frets. You’ve got to find the right balance.”

“It’s natural for some bassists to play a lot of notes,” he adds. “There are some guys who can play 50 times faster than I can, but they can’t play a groove. If it’s natural for you to play fast and if it sounds OK, cool. If you’re doing it just for the sake of playing fast, you’re chasing the wrong thing. At least 90% of my bass playing is locking up with a drummer, but sometimes you get tagged with a certain thing and it’s hard to shake."

Talking of his ferocious technique, Sheehan once came to wield a cordless power drill on his bass with Mr Big. It all started when guitarist Paul Gilbert taped a plectrum to an electric hand drill, which he then applied to his guitar strings. “In the end we got an endorsement from the Makita power drill company," says Sheehan, who did likewise with his bass. “Our manager called them up, they asked how much we wanted as a fee, and when he replied ‘One million dollars’ they actually agreed. True story.”

Ticket and VIP package info for Sheehan's world tour with The Winery Dogs can be found on the band's official website. The trio's aptly named third album III is out now.

Way back in 2018, Eric Martin – lead singer of Mr. Big – announced that the band would likely record one more album and subsequently call it quits.

The band's drummer and co-founder, Pat Torpey, had passed away from Parkinson's disease earlier that year, and Martin felt “uncomfortable” continuing the band for an extended period following Torpey's passing.

A few years have come and gone since, and we've yet to see that new album, but today, Mr. Big – Martin on vocals, virtuosos Paul Gilbert on electric guitar and Billy Sheehan on bass guitar, and new addition Nick D’Virgilio on drums, in place of Torpey – announced “The Big Finish,” a trek that will serve as the band's final worldwide tour.

At each show, the band will perform their 1991 album, Lean into It – including the album's sing-along, chart-topping smash hit single, To Be With You – in its entirety, along with a host of other favorites from their discography.

“We’re in the process of making sure we come up with a suitably big entertainment extravaganza to go along with our music," Gilbert said in a press release, "and since our music has resonated so wonderfully in places all over the world, we’re going to play in as many of those places as we can.”

“I hope the people who come see our shows get to feel what it’s like when musicians get together and really play and sing the songs they wrote,” added Sheehan. “We want the audience to be one with us, and feel our evening together was a magical and beautiful event.” 

Thus far, the band have only announced a run of summer shows in Asia, but more dates on other continents are promised for 2024. You can see a list of those Asian dates below.

"I’d seen the success of the Eat ’Em And Smile band [with singer David Lee Roth] and I wanted to see that level of success with a band I’d put together,” Sheehan told Guitar World last year when reflecting on Lean Into It and its impact on the band. “It changed so many things in my life and for the first time, this was my success – I put the band together. It’s me, Pat, Eric and Paul’s success – we made it happen. It was not only a life-changer, but a life-completer." 

For tickets and updates as more tour dates get announced, visit Mr. Big's website.

Mr. Big 2023 tour dates:

July 20: Nagoya, Japan – Nagoya Shimin Kaikan
July 22: Osaka, Japan – Osaka Maruzen Intec Arena
July 25: Tokyo, Japan – Budokan
July 29: Seoul, Korea – Yes24 Live Hall
July 31: Hong Kong – Southorn Stadium
Aug. 2 : New Taipei City, Taiwan – Zepp New Taipei
Aug. 4: Singapore – Marina Bay Sands Theater
Aug. 5: Singapore – Marina Bay Sands Theater
Aug. 7: Bangkok, Thailand – Show DC Hall
Aug. 9: Manila, Philippines – Skydome
Aug. 12: Kemayoran, Jakarta, Indonesia – The 90's Festival

As one of the world’s greatest ever songwriters, Paul McCartney hardly needs to be recognised as one of the greatest bass players too, but according to legendary producer Rick Rubin, he is exactly that.

Speaking to MOJO magazine (via NME), Rubin said that he believed McCartney was the best bass player of all time and was surprised by the “simple” approach he takes to songwriting.

Rubin was asked how he got Macca talking when he teamed up with the bass-playing Beatle for the series, McCartney 3, 2 ,1.

"I thought about how everything I've seen, Beatles-related, is either about the songwriting or Beatlemania," Rubin reflected. "Paul McCartney the bass player, or Paul McCartney the musician, because he plays everything – that's a little told story. You just think of him as Beatle Paul, yet in my opinion, he is the best of all bass players, he’s number one.”

The super-producer also nodded to Macca's songwriting abilities, noting how he would develop "the simplest thing" into timeless compositions.

“What blew my mind was when he sat at the piano and he started showing me how to write a song,” Rubin said.

“He was saying, ‘See, you could it like this,’ and what he was showing me was the simplest thing, but then he starts moving his fingers around slightly, and all of a sudden it evolves into Hey Jude or Let It Be. He’s using this technique that any child could do, then it morphs into one of the greatest songs of all time!”

If proof were needed, dust down a copy of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, listen to the opening title tracks (remember that McCartney played much of the guitar on the record, too) and then revel in the invention of the bassline on With a Little Help From My Friends.

“He was a great player with a real sense of how to use the bass in a really musical way," said Mr. Big bass virtuoso Billy Sheehan. "Whenever I do clinics I always tell people, ‘Go and learn the whole of Sgt. Pepper – you’ll come out of it a better bass player.’"

Abbey Road was another iconic album considered by many to be a high point of the Fab Four’s career, with McCartney’s acquisition of a Rickenbacker bass in the mid-'60s helping him to experiment with basslines that used high notes and wide arpeggios, including the octave plus a minor 3rd from D to F on Come Together. 

The history of the iconic London studio has recently been charted in a new documentary made by McCartney’s daughter, Mary McCartney.

If These Walls Could Sing features interviews with McCartney and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, alongside the likes of Elton John, Nile Rodgers, and Noel and Liam Gallagher.

“It was quite a complicated documentary to put together, because it’s not about a person or a life story. It’s about a building,” Mary McCartney told NME. “You can tell people really care about Abbey Road, but it’s like, ‘Why do they care about Abbey Road?’ And I think that’s the thing that I wanted to explore.”

If These Walls Could Sing is available now on Disney+.

The year was 1985 and rock ’n’ roll was alive and well. Talas had been flying high – in the few years of their existence they had opened for Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen. But just as they were getting ready to record their third album, the band broke up. 

Almost 40 years later, bassist Billy Sheehan decided it was time to revisit those lost songs.

“We got together and played together again, and we had a riot,” Sheehan says. “So we thought, ‘Why not play? Why not do all those songs that were kind of left behind and never really properly recorded?”

Sheehan, of course, went on to become one of the most well-known and in-demand bass guitar players in history. But Talas always had a place in his heart. So it was with great joy that he teamed back up with vocalist Phil Naro and Mark Miller, both of whom had been part of earlier incarnations of the group. But with none of the group’s past guitarists available, they turned to some fresh blood to step up: a young Macedonian ex-pat named Kire Najdovski who Naro had been jamming with. 

For Najdovski, joining Talas was thrilling and insanely intimidating – here he was, playing next to Sheehan, a position that’s been filled by some of the biggest names in guitar music, including Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert. 

“We all know who Billy Sheehan is – I don’t have to explain; he’s been working with all my guitar heroes,” Najdovski says. “It was just a dream come true. I just had to work harder and harder and harder to prove that I deserve and earned the position to be a guitar player in Talas.”

Despite the joy of the world finally being able to hear properly recorded versions of these songs, the release of 1985 is still bittersweet. Shortly after vocal tracks were completed, Naro succumbed to cancer.

Sheehan said that although the rest of the group had known Naro was ill, he had
managed to hide the severity of the disease. Losing Naro was “awful,” Sheehan says,
remembering his bandmate as “a hard worker and wonderful, sweet-hearted
kid.”

Naro’s final days were filled with music, friends and family, with his son contributing backing vocals to some of 1985’s songs. While it’s unclear what his passing will mean for the future, Sheehan believes the record will stand as a testament to a talent who was taken too soon.

“We were doing this record to celebrate what we had in ’85 and the great time the ’80s were for us and all musicians on the scene,” he says. “But then when we lost Phil, it kind of morphed over to make the record about his legacy. The first part will be included, of course, but we really want that to shine.”

• 1985 is out now via Metal Blade.

In the wake of Jeff Beck’s tragic passing, countless names from the bass world have paid tribute to one of the most influential guitarists in the history of rock. Bootsy Collins, Billy Sheehan, Duff McKagan, Suzi Quatro, Stanley Clarke, Will Lee, and many more have offered heartfelt tributes. “Jeff Beck has left the building and it is a lonelier place without him,” Paul McCartney posted on social media. “God bless Jeff and his family.”

Gene Simmons called it “heartbreaking news … no one played guitar like Jeff. Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness.”

Beck, who rose to fame with the Yardbirds before fronting the Jeff Beck Group, worked with a series of phenomenal bass players during his career. One of those privileged few was Tal Wilkenfeld. “Playing in Jeff’s band was so fun,” said Tal. “It was never about playing for the sake of playing. Everyone had something to say, and something to learn from the conversation. We’ve lost our favorite guitarist, and one of the most intelligent, intuitive and hilarious people I’ve ever met.”

Doug Wimbish, who was hired to play on Beck’s 1985 album, Flash, wrote, “I will never forget Jeff and how kind he was to me. A great person, a great spirit and a total legend to the core.”

“He taught a lot while never claiming to be a teacher,” said Bootsy Collins, who recorded with Jeff for Malcolm McLaren’s House of The Blue Danube, at Pearl Sound studios in Detroit. “Thxs for the gifts u left us with.”

“Nobody had a sound or a soul to match what he had,” said Will Lee. “There’s never going to be another voice like his on any instrument. He was truly amazing.”

More tributes can be found below.

Paul Samwell-Smith      

“What a genius. We wrote Shapes of Things together and Jeff had a blank sixteen bars for a solo in the middle of the song. He not only played an extraordinary solo, but he changed the nature of guitar playing ever after. Jeff was a lot of fun, and very naughty, both in life and in music. What a great life he enjoyed."

Flea

In 2009 Flea joined Jeff Beck, Metallica and a few other very special guests for a rowdy performance of Train Kept A-Rollin at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony. “What an absolutely brilliant musician who carved out a world all his own. A huge influence on a zillion guitarists and a deep part of who I am as a bassist. We will listen to you always, Jeff. Thank you for your gifts. What a rocker. This is the end of an era.” 

Rhonda Smith

“I first met Jeff in 2009 in Montreux, Switzerland. I was there with Prince and I had just had my hair done. I was on my way back to my hotel room when I entered the elevator and there was Jeff Beck all by himself. I knew who he was, but I said nothing… I was in awe.  Who knew that we would spend the next 13 years together? Thank you Jeff for all the special moments and the invaluable things that I learned from you.”  

Will Lee

“Nobody had a sound or a soul to match what Jeff had. When I asked him to play a solo for my album cut of Driftin by Jimi Hendrix, I was blown away that he said yes. And once I heard the solo, I was literally on my knees crying. I replayed it over and over again in disbelief. His solo is the musical equivalent of the sun breaking through clouds. It only takes two notes and you’re on a magic carpet of sound, soaring across the sky on the Jeff-stream.”

Suzi Quatro

“I remember Jeff Beck was in Detroit with producer Mickie Most to record at Motown with Cozy Powell. They were all together in the audience watching me with Cradle when Mickie picked me out as ‘the one’, and the rest is history. I ended up going to the studio with them after the show and jamming on Cissy Strut. It was one of the fondest and most surreal moments in my younger life. Jeff did me the honour of playing on my version of Desperado.”

Duff McKagan

"I got to know Jeff ever since he tried to play with GNR in Paris in the early 90’s. He had to back out because his tinnitus flared up at the soundcheck. A few weeks later he came to a studio in London and played on my Believe In Me record. His guitar playing has remained some of my very favorite of all time.”

Doug Wimbish

“Jeff Beck was one of a kind. A true genius who played from the heart. In the Fall of 1984 I was working in NYC with Arthur Baker, who asked me to play bass on Jeff’s Flash album, which Arthur was producing. Arthur set up a jam session with Jeff, myself and Zack Alford over at Electric Lady Studios and Jeff and I hit it off.

"Flash was released in 1985 and was followed by a tour of Japan. Following the tour, Jeff and I started recording with Mick Jagger on his Primitive Cool album. A great person, a great spirit and a total legend to the core.”

Tal Wilkenfeld

“Jeff Beck’s light and power were so strong. I was convinced we’d be goofing around and making music until the day I leave this planet. Jeff, thank you for believing in me before anyone else did. You treated me like a daughter to the point where Wikipedia actually thought that was true!”

Stanley Clarke

"Jeff had so much fire and patience at the same time in his playing along with an unmatched uniqueness. I remember staying at his place outside of London in Tunbridge Wells along with Mike Garson. We were rehearsing for something and Jeff had his guitars laid out all over the place. We went from playing music to messing around with what I believe was Jeff’s greatest love…. his cars. He had this beautiful brown Roadster. I believe it had red fire decals on the side. I have so many great memories with him.”

Billy Sheehan

“Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds is one of the most important records in my musical life. Paul Samwell-Smith is the inspiration for the neck-position EBO pickup on my original P Bass, and then, of course, Jeff Beck. Of the ‘Big Three’ (Page, Clapton and Beck), Jeff was my guy. From jamming Rice Pudding in a High School band, as well as performing so many others of Jeff’s songs. He was a beacon of creativity and improvisational expertise. Like no other.”

Gail Ann Dorsey

“Arguably the greatest guitarist ever? If not, very close to it. I got to witness his genius here in my hometown of Kingston NY back in 2010 at UPAC. I spent a few moments after the show in his gracious company. I am forever grateful for the innovative, captivating and passionate music he has blessed us with.”

Brian Ray

“For me, Jeff Beck was the true king of the electric guitar. He was a man who spoke a language no one else could speak, but one that we can all understand. Even Jimi Hendrix called him ‘the best living guitar player.’ He was the guitarist's guitar hero.”

Bryan Beller

“You can pretty much draw a line from everyone of note I've ever worked with straight back to Jeff Beck. His boundless creativity and inventive sonic artistry made instrumental guitar-driven rock and fusion a thing in the first place.”

Darryl Jones

“We have lost one of the most singularly gifted guitar masters ever to play the instrument. Jeff Beck influenced generations of players because of his completely unique approach to guitar playing. In my opinion, there is no one that comes close to playing the way he did. The music world has lost an irreplaceable talent.”

Paul McCartney

“Jeff Beck was a lovely man who played some of the best guitar music ever to come out of Great Britain. He was a superb technician and could strip down his guitar and put it back together again in time for the show. His unique style of playing was something that no one could match, and I will always remember the great times we had together. He would come over to dinner at our place or he and his wife, Sandra, would host an evening at their house. I will cherish forever the moments we spent together.

Jeff Beck has left the building and it is a lonelier place without him. God bless Jeff and his family.”

Justin Hawkins has long been channeling his thoughts on anything music-related via his Justin Hawkins Rides Again YouTube channel. In his latest post, Hawkins watches the new video from The Winery Dogs, and reacts to Billy Sheehan’s dazzling bass chops, at one point commenting: “What?! Split harmonics on the bass? First of all, how? And second of all, why?”

After watching the video for Xanadu, Hawkins goes on to provide further musical analysis on Kotzen’s guitar sound. “That sort of guitar playing you only really hear on Strats. It’s not as abrasive as a Les Paul. I’m dying to know which pickup setting he’s using there.”

Elsewhere, he delves deeper into his own rock tutorial. “What I love about the guitar solo is that the rhythm guitar stops,” he says. “It’s just  him with the drums and the bass, which reminds me of Van Halen records where the bass is enough of a harmonic accompaniment for the guitar solo to really hit you in the face.”

Having played literally thousands of gigs with Talas, his band from Buffalo, New York – not to mention his high profile work with David Lee Roth, Mr Big, Niacin and more recently Sons of Apollo – Billy Sheehan’s no-holds-barred bass lines have ensured his status as a rock bass icon. 

This month though, Sheehan’s announced that he'll be hitting the road with The Winery Dogs once again. In addition to the tour, fans will be excited to hear that following a seven-year hiatus from the studio, the trio has released the opening track and lead single from their aptly named third album III. Directed by Vicente Cordero, the video for Xanadu can be found on the band’s YouTube channel.

The new single is typical Winery Dogs – with Sheehan enhancing Kotzen’s big riff energy with his own signature licks and screaming harmonics. Sheehan has always had a very guitaristic approach. The pinch harmonic that you hear at 00:20 is a case in point.

Pinch harmonics (or split harmonics as Justin refers to them in his analysis) have long been popular among guitarists, but they’re much less common in the bass world. “When a guitar player plays a pinch harmonic he slips off the pick and the soft part of his thumb hits the string,” said Billy in a 2014 interview for The Flo Guitar Enthusiasts.

“Since I don’t have a pick, I use my fingernail up against my thumb. I actually got it from Billy Gibbons who I saw opening for Alice Cooper. I just had to figure out a way to get that sound. Since I didn’t have a pick, I found a way to do it with my fingernail.”

For a full list of tour dates, and to preorder III, head over to The Winery Dogs' website. Xanadu is available on digital formats here. 

The Winery Dogs – the supergroup headed up by Richie Kotzen, Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan – have announced they will be releasing their first studio album in eight years in just over two months’ time.

Titled III, the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Hot Streak will arrive February 3, 2023, and has been previewed by Xanadu – the record’s high-octane lead single, which is headed up by some superb electric guitar and bass guitar interplay from Kotzen and Sheehan.

Though listeners may be tempted to think of a more prog-leaning track of the same name from the late ‘70s, The Winery Dogs’ Xanadu is a classic rock beast in its own right, featuring bounding guitar-and-bass hooks, infectious riffs and some world-class soloing from the former Mr. Big guitarist.

At the 2:22 mark, Kotzen continues his red hot form with a knock-out guitar solo – one that, had it arrived a few months before, would’ve almost certainly been included in our best guitar solo of 2022 poll.

And, in case you were wondering, yes – that is the sound of Portnoy throwing his drumsticks at the end of the song. However, the Dream Theater co-founder explains it was done “not in frustration, but very much in satisfaction of what we had just done.”

Furthermore, according to Portnoy – who calls the single “a barnburner” – Xanadu is “one of the fiercest tracks on the album."

Check out the track below.

As well as announcing their new album, The Winery Dogs have also dropped a host of tour dates for next year, with the supergroup set to embark on a sprawling tour of America, South America and Europe next year.

The US leg of the tour will kick off on February 15 at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and conclude on April 6 at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl.

Three shows in Brazil, meanwhile, will take place on the 27, 28 and 30 of April, with the band set to conclude their tour with 11 European dates across the month of June.

For a full list of tour dates, and to preorder III, head over to The Winery Dogs' website.

Night Ranger electric guitar star Brad Gillis has teamed up with Mr. Big bass guitar virtuoso Billy Sheehan for an all-new project, named Skills.

The pair will also be joined by Giant drummer David Huff and Electric Mob vocalist Renan Zonta, with the four-piece announcing their debut studio album Different Worlds. 

Set to arrive via Frontiers Music Srl on May 13, the quartet have previewed their upcoming offering with Different Worlds’ lead single, Stop the World.

It’s everything you’d expect from a project describing itself as a vehicle that “brings together the worlds of old and new in hard rock” – the guitar immediately dominates proceedings, introducing an upper-fret melody that tinkers away under some oversized, genre-appropriate power chords.

There’s also a classically Gillis – albeit fairly brief – guitar solo that crops up at around the 3:10 mark, with some whammy-tinged bends and gain-drenched descending scale lines that throw you back into the chorus’s deep-end.

The project itself is the brainchild of Frontiers president and A&R director Serafino Perugino, who had been “blown away” by Zonta’s vocal abilities upon first hearing him. Knowing him to be a fan of ‘80s classic rock, Perugino endeavored to pair Zonta with “monster players” from that era.

Gillis, Sheehan and Huff, as well as keyboardist/backing vocalist Alessandro Del Vecchio, joined the fray after Perugino presented them with clips of Zonta performing. Del Vecchio was also enlisted for production duties.

Of course, with a statement band name like “Skills”, you’d expect the group’s musical chops to live up to such lofty expectations. On paper – and, indeed, from the first single – the musical pedigree of the members certainly delivers on the premise.

Gillis, as previously mentioned, is currently part of Night Ranger – who last year announced their first album in four years, ATBPO – though also has a prolific history performing with Ozzy Osbourne and Rubicon.

Sheehan, meanwhile, is currently playing with Mr. Big alongside Paul Gilbert, as well as The Winery Dogs and Sons of Apollo with Mike Portnoy. His resume also boasts stints with Talas, UFO and David Lee Roth.

The tracklist for Different Worlds can be found below.

1. Escape Machine
2. Blame It On The Night
3. Different Worlds
4. Losing The Track
5. Writings On The Wall
6. Show Me The Way
7. Just When I Needed You
8. Need To Fall
9. Stop The World
10. Hearts Of Stone
11. Don't Break My Heart

• Different Worlds is available to preorder now via Frontiers Music Srl.

For those of us of a particular vintage, 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of several influential rock albums – Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Use Your Illusion I and II, Nevermind, Ten, and Metallica’s ‘Black Album’ among them. 

Many of these albums landed within a few months of each other, raising the question: will we ever see such a concentration of influential (and loud) music in such a compressed timeframe again?

Among the many essential releases that year was Mr. Big’s second album, Lean Into It. This was an album of surprises, not least because it contained a platinum-coated worldwide hit. Yet that song almost didn’t progress beyond the writing stage – and was eventually placed at the end of the album, drawing parallels in that sense with Toto’s Africa. 

As bassist Billy Sheehan recalls, no-one expected To Be With You to be a monster hit. “Eric [Martin, vocals] sent us a cassette of songs that he’d been working on,” he reveals. “And at the very end was this little piece on piano, To Be With You. Pat [Torpey, drums], Paul [Gilbert, guitar] and I said, ‘We gotta do it – it’s the perfect “roll the credits at the end of the movie” singalong.’

“At first, Eric was reluctant, but we put it on there, and he sang it beautifully. If we’d known that song would be a hit, we’d have put it first and released it as the lead single.”

Lean Into It went on to become Mr. Big’s biggest-selling album, but it was assembled largely by instinct, Sheehan adds. “We went into a room together and started exchanging ideas. Paul was tuning his guitar at one point, and I said ‘What key is that in?’ It was the key of G, so I added the bass notes underneath it and that became the song Alive And Kickin’. We put it together, sent it up to Eric, and he did his lyrics.”

Gilbert, a guitarist of phenomenal skill and speed, had become known for a trick with an electric drill that he performed live, using the device to ‘play’ his guitar. 

“We’d done the drill thing live,” remembers Sheehan, “so we said, ‘Why don’t we put it on the record?’ and used it on Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy. I remember being at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Strip, and I wrote ideas for the lyrics of that song on napkins.”

All of this was taking place as the first alternative rock and grunge bands were on their way up – but the winds of change hadn’t yet started to blow, he says.

“Even though grunge was coming out, in the USA it didn’t come out as much or as quickly as the rest of the world, although it did catch up eventually. Pearl Jam had the hot record in America, but in Japan, we outsold Pearl Jam by 40 to one – it just didn’t catch on culturally over there.”

The album artwork came about through a twist of fate, it turns out. “We went out to a restaurant for the big reveal to see the artwork photo – and it was just awful!” says Sheehan. “It featured a girl wearing a '50s bathing suit, wearing shoes with a short heel that a nurse would wear. We’re looking at it and saying, ‘What in the world is this? Anything will be better than this!’ On the wall was the photo of the train wreck, so I said ‘That would be better.’ We ended up using that.”

The title of the record came from a slightly bleak in-band joke, he adds. “A fighter jet crashed at an air show, and an engine from the jet came roaring into the crowd. When we saw it on the news, Pat said to me, ‘What do you do if you’re in the crowd and you see 10 tons of flaming, fuel-encrusted jet engine heading right towards your face?’ and I replied ‘Lean into it. You ain’t gonna make it, so you might as well!’”

The success of the album and the To Be With You single – the latter a Number One hit – changed the course of Mr. Big’s career, a point not wasted on Sheehan. 

“I was very lucky. I’d seen the success of the Eat ’Em And Smile band [with singer David Lee Roth] and I wanted to see that level of success with a band I’d put together,” he muses. “It changed so many things in my life and for the first time, this was my success – I put the band together. It’s me, Pat, Eric and Paul’s success; we made it happen. It was not only a life-changer, but a life-completer. 

“Finally, you know that the things you were doing have worth and value,” he concludes. “The fact it was our own thing lays to rest a lot of self-doubt, which we all have, and I still have, of course... but not quite as much! It really helped to move that aside for a while – and to take an honest look at whether or not our decisions were the right ones.”

• Lean Into It (30th Anniversary Edition) is out now via Evox.

Just a few weeks following his announcement of a massive, 54-date 2022 US tour, Steve Vai has revealed the lineup for the latest edition of his popular, multi-day Vai Academy. 

Vai Academy 6.0, as it's being called, will feature electric guitar greats Nuno Bettencourt, Guthrie Govan, Larry Mitchell and Yvette Young, acoustic guitar maestros Tommy Emmanuel and Joe Robinson, and bass guitar wizard Billy Sheehan.

Titled “Finding Your Note,” this edition of the Vai Academy will allow attendees to jam with Vai and his band, attend master classes taught by Vai and attend nightly concerts featuring the virtuoso and other instructors.

There will also be a master class and matinee concert by Tommy Emmanuel, a signing and photo session with Vai, and team breakout workshops and master classes with Bettencourt, Govan, Mitchell, Robinson, Sheehan, and Young. 

It will take place August 4-8, 2022 in Las Vegas at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa.

“Anybody that expresses themself on an instrument has a choice of learning what they hear and trying to reproduce it, or listening deeply to their unique musical creativity voice – their 'note,'" Vai said in a statement. 

"At Vai Academy 6.0, we will be looking into both of these kinds of expressions, but giving great emphasis on 'finding your note.'" 

Those interested can register for Vai Academy 6.0 at the academy's website or via Dreamcatcher Events.

The Winery Dogs – the power trio supergroup comprised of Richie Kotzen, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy – are writing material for a new studio album.

Sheehan confirmed the new activity in a Facebook post that reads: "It’s a beautiful day here in Los Angeles. And what a great reason to visit – with The Winery Dogs writing new songs! I am very happy and excited about this."

The trio's last activity came in May 2019, when they set out on the Who Let the Dogs Out tour of the United States. 

"It was a nice time," Kotzen said of the tour to Eonmusic in an interview this past March. "We had a good time on the road, and we were talking about the idea of doing something again in the studio, the third record.

"The pandemic hit, so now I just don't know," he said at the time.

"I mean, everybody asks, and I'm very positive about the idea of doing it, but I just don't know what's going to happen now. You know, we have the situation where we still don't really know when we can tour, and The Winery Dogs are an interesting situation; we're not going to just phone it in."

Thankfully, the music industry's gradual re-opening seems to have also extended to this talented trio.

Of course though, individually, the band members have kept themselves quite busy over the last year and a half. 

Kotzen released a triple album to mark his 50th birthday and formed a duo with Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith, Portnoy re-teamed with former Dream Theater bandmate John Petrucci for the latter's solo album and for a Liquid Tension Experiment reunion, and Sheehan worked with Sons of Apollo (which, for good measure, also features Portnoy) on that band's second album.

Billy Sheehan has had a long history with Yamaha – 36 years to be exact. Three decades ago, the Japanese company introduced the Billy Sheehan signature series, which has been a mainstay of the company's product range ever since.

To celebrate the anniversary, Yamaha has announced the Attitude 30th bass guitar – a collaboration that pays homage to Sheehan's heavily customized original bass he affectionately calls 'The Wife'.

“Billy Sheehan is one of the most respected, most awarded, and most influential rock bassists of all time,” says Dave Miner, Yamaha Guitar Group's Product Marketing Manager. “The aesthetics of this anniversary edition are inspired by The Wife, as Billy’s custom modifications of that bass laid the foundation for the Attitude series."

Manufactured in Japan, the Attitude 30th bass features a sunburst finish with a complementary multi-ply tortoise pickguard, nickel hardware and a vintage-tinted maple neck with a high-register scalloped fingerboard. Electronics come by way of Yamaha-designed DiMarzio Woofer and Will Power split pickups.

A limited run of just 30 basses is available, each of which includes a numbered certificate of authenticity signed by Sheehan himself, as well as a second signed pickguard.

For more information on the Attitude 30th bass, head to Yamaha.

It’s been a good month for Dream Theater-related solo album news, and now here’s more: former DT keyboardist Derek Sherinian, also known for his work with Sons of Apollo, Black Country Communion and many, many others, will release a new album, The Phoenix, on September 18 2020.

The record, his first solo effort since 2011’s Oceana, features an insane lineup of guest electric guitar players, including Zakk Wylde, Kiko Loureiro, Sherinian’s Black Country Communion bandmate, Joe Bonamassa, and his Sons of Apollo bandmate Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal.

Also on tap for the record is Steve Vai, who Sherinian said in a statement “has always been on my hit list. But it was when I played keyboards on the Generation Axe tour of Asia in 2017 that I asked him to play on my record, which he gladly accepted.” 

Further appearances on The Phoenix include bassists Tony Franklin, Jimmy Johnson and Billy Sheehan and longtime drummer Simon Phillips.

“I truly feel that this is my best solo record to date,” Sherinian said. “Simon [Philipps] and I put a lot of energy into the writing, and I am grateful to all of the great players that contributed to this recording."

For more information, head to Derek Sherinian’s official Facebook page.

As the world of bass guitar has evolved, we’ve watched Billy Sheehan ascend to its very zenith - playing without overplaying, touring relentlessly while staying healthier than a bassist half his age, maintaining an unwavering creative output and still being a man that you’d love to sit down and have a beer with. 

That’s a rare combination in our experience; after a 50-year career of playing bass, something usually gets lost, be it health, playing skill, or just personality. But not Sheehan, whose debut appearance on the cover in 1990 we’re celebrating by appointing him as Guest Editor...

Billy, it’s been 30 years since you appeared on the cover of the Premiere Issue of Bass Player magazine. Would you say you’re playing bass differently now to the way you were in 1990?

"I think so. I know more about what I’m doing. A lot of times I would do things, but I wouldn’t really know what it was or how I did it, and I’d have to go back and relearn it, and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing. But now I’m much more well-versed on what’s happening and what I’m doing and how and why it worked, if it did. I’ve also been tireless in my pursuit of ‘more’ and ‘better’. 

"Not necessarily faster or more notes, but more understanding and playing things better, so that every finger is more precise; everything is where it should be. When there’s slop, it’s good slop. It sounds like it was intended slop as opposed to accidental, unintentional slop!"

Do you work hard at this process?

"I practice more now than I think I ever did in my life. I get up every morning very early and get right at it, go for a couple of hours. I never considered I had any natural talent at all. I just had a burning desire to play, and I’m a good troubleshooter, so those two things combined. I hear notes and music and I go, ‘There’s notes on my fretboard. Why can’t I play those notes on this fretboard with this instrument?’ And that’s been the challenge, so I shoot for that. 

"That relentless work ethic is the thing I’m most thankful for. I don’t know where I got it or how I got it, but I love music and I love playing. I can sit down for hours and have a one-man party on bass and look up at the clock and go, ‘Geez, I’ve been going for three hours. I had no idea’."

Sons Of Apollo’s new album MMXX has been widely acclaimed. How did it come together?

"Pretty smoothly. I generally did a lot of the bass stuff on my own, because we have financial and geographical restrictions. Generally, I prefer to play in a room with people. We did the first record that way, but sometimes that’s not always possible, and sometimes it’s an advantage to play to what’s already been recorded because you can really put the parts under a microscope."

It’s the modern way to do it.

"To some purists that would be quite an abomination, I imagine, and I understand why they think that. However, it’s a new world now. This is 30 years since the beginning of your magazine. So many things have changed, and the economics of the business and making records has changed quite a bit, so you have to cope with it in order to continue putting out music and in order to continue creating what you want to create. You make an adjustment and it’s perfectly okay."

Some of these parts are intimidatingly complex. How much preparation do you need?

"I do my homework extensively. It was also a challenge because I had to figure out what those parts were. I didn’t have anybody there to show me what the fingering was, and there were a lot of fast, low things on the low B-string. Sometimes it’s hard to pick out what that note is, and that was a real challenge. 

"I can’t read music, but I can make notes that I’ll understand, and I can watch my notes go by and say, ‘Okay, I see the chorus is coming up, but it’s different than the last chorus, because at the end of it we go into another thing’, and it will be something written out. It’s almost juvenile, admittedly, but it does work for me. We got it, we figured it out, and we pounded away, and eventually I was very pleased with how it came out."

If you’d had the luxury of all playing together in a room, would your finished bass parts sound any different?

"Probably, but I don’t know if it would necessarily be better or worse. Take to take, it would sound different. If I need to play something exactly, militarily-perfect each time, I can generally rise to the challenge and get it. But I like to do a lot of freeform stuff, so even take to take, it’s going to be a little bit different."

Tell us about your signature Yamahas.

"Well, I have a super long-scale Attitude that they made for me years ago. One of the problems with standard-scale low B-strings is that they flop around quite a bit, so generally I use a giant one, a .120 or .130. Due to physics, it will be tighter, and you have to create higher tension for you to hit that pitch with more mass on the string. 

"So this gave me a real tight low end, which was essential on this record, because I had to really keep those notes fast and sharp, and get them to start and stop super-tight like a keyboard. I have two basses tuned that way, the extra long‑scale and a black Attitude."

You also have two double-necks.

"Yes, where one bass is tuned B E A D. You can play it like you play your normal bass instead of having to get used to a five‑string. I know there’s a lot of guys that have it so well down they don’t ever have to think about it, but initially, when most players pick up a five- or six-string when they’re used to four, there’s a transition period, and I was able to skip that, which was very nice. 

"Many people are kind enough to give me other basses as gifts or at an artist price, and I appreciate that very much, and Yamaha has been very cool with any other basses I might play or have. There’s never been a strict kind of endorsement thing. It’s a very friendly relationship I have with them and I love it very much. A Hipshot D-Tuner is essential on all my basses, too."

Across your career you must have seen rock songs tuned lower and lower.

"Yeah, and I’ve heard guitar players complain about it, that it’s kind of out of range of the song. Now you start getting into controversy, and sadly, musicians really love to go after each other, ‘No, everyone must play it right!’, ‘No, it’s got to be six strings!’... I hate to see that, because I love it all, and whatever you prefer, it’s art. If you want to paint it blue, or if you want to paint it green, you’re still an artist, so everybody calm down! 

"Fortunately we have technology now to reproduce low frequencies like never before. I remember those sub-woofers back in the day, where everything cut off at around 30 or 40 cycles, if you were lucky. Now the sub-sonics are well represented."

You’ve built a signal chain from tried and trusted components.

"I have. I use Rotosound strings from England, of course. People sometimes forget how essential your strings are - and they really are. That’s the thing you’re touching, that’s what’s sounding the note. Of course, it’s surrounded by wood and frets and it goes through electronics and amps, but that string is really the source.

Rotosound has an organic thing to it, and a way that they grab your fingers as you pluck that makes the note really sing. [Rotosound owner] Jason How is a dear friend of mine, he and his wife. I love the company and the people involved in it. That’s my main string for my whole life."

"Also, your first stages of pre-amplification really does a lot for what the end result is, I believe, and with my DiMarzio pickups, there’s no batteries and no electronics. I remember back in the day of having custom preamps built, I’d say, ‘You got a pad on the input?’ They’d go, ‘Oh, no, you’re not going to need a pad’... I’d play a note and the clip light would go on."

You also have a longstanding relationship with EBS.

"Yeah. The other night I showed up to do a jam at one of the Nashville clubs where you just go up, plug in and play - no pedalboards; nothing. But they did have a couple of pedals for the bass players, so I plugged in and it was my pedal [the EBS Ultimate Signature Drive] that was down there. It was going through an amp that I was completely unfamiliar with, so I just clicked the pedal on and it was glorious. 

"It’s so nice to know there’s a pedal version of the tone I need to get, and I get emails from people from all over that have the pedal and it’s serving them very well. I believe Rudy Sarzo was kind enough to say he wouldn’t leave home without it now - so thank you, Rudy."

You’re a pioneer of dual bass outputs.

"That whole parallel path is something that I started when I put the second pickup on the bass, but then my P-Bass started to take a parallel path of clean and distorted mix. It seems to be a very popular thing now, which I’m glad to see, because it really is an effective way to keep your bass note happening, but still get a little bit of grime down there without losing your low frequencies. That’s always been the point, and the EBS people did a wonderful job of creating that."

Tell us about the Line 6 Helix Floor that you use.

"The Helix has been wonderful. Line 6 modeled my actual original Pearce preamp - they still have it, too! I’ve got to get it back from them - and I just went in there, I did some work on it just last week, where we sat down and went through a couple of essential components and some new takes on a few things that they’re going to have in the next build, I believe, and so we’ve got some exciting things happening.

"They’re a great company and so co-operative, and they really want to help their players. Again, there’s another point of contention between people of which platform you want to use - the Fractal or the Kemper or the Helix. They’re all great. I tried them all and I like them all. For me, the Helix lands in the best place, and they did model my actual preamp, so that’s very helpful to me, and so I prefer them."

And the amps are still Hartke?

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hartke’s been just wonderful. We started the whole relationship when my situation with Ampeg ended. Larry Hartke called and said, ‘Whatever you need, I’ll be happy to get for you. Don’t worry about endorsement deals or contracts, just I’ll be happy to take care of that’. As a result, the stuff is rock-solid and I love it very much."

It seems that our role as bass players has changed a little over the last 30 years. Is that how you see it?

"Well, anything is legal. It’s all possibilities and music changes through time. It’s always going to change and will continue to change, and the pendulum will swing one way and back the other and maybe even sideways. Who knows how the pendulum will swing? So it’s okay by me. I like to see innovation and guys doing new things, but also people have the right to love what they love, and if you like playing with a certain tonality, it’s what sounds right to you."

I wish people were always that understanding.

"Yeah, because being musicians we’ve got enough problems without having to listen to that. I’m very lucky to have had a career, and I made good money. I’m not rich, but I’m doing good. I’ve got a nice house and a nice car, and that’s really cool. But now it’s tough, especially for newcomers, to get to that spot, and I feel for them and I want to help them."

What advice can you give us?

"The best advice I can give them is stop going after each other, because what we need to do is write great songs, play them amazingly, and reach as many people as possible. And if we’re spending our time screaming at each other over five- or six-string bass, or which amp is best, or whose tone is best - or whose tone sucks - we’re hurting ourselves."

Playing bass for a few decades is relentless on the body. Is everything holding up?

"Generally, but if it hurts, I just keep going. I keep pushing. So it hurts a little bit? No pain, no gain. As you get older, things are going to hurt."

Sure. I assume that you’re taking care of yourself, though?

"Yeah, generally. I watch what I eat. I’m organic all the time, and there’s no sugar. A lot of guys have got problems with joints, and playing, of course, is a joint-intensive activity, so a low-carb, no-sugar diet has helped me a lot. Back in the '70s and '80s, I had so much trouble with my wrists - excruciating pain- and as you get older, things generally only get worse.

"But I’m cured. My wrists are fine, there’s nothing there anymore, and that came right after I stopped eating sugar and carbs. Beer and wine are carbs too, but you’ve got to live, so sometimes I’ll make an allowance for them. At meals they’ll ask me, ‘Sir, do you want a dessert?’ I’ll go, ‘No, thanks - I’m drinking it!’"

• Sons Of Apollo's MMXX is out now via Century Media

Whether you take your Billy Sheehan as a member of Mr Big, as a solo artist or as a session gun for hire, he needs little introduction. A master of his instrument to almost otherworldly levels, Sheehan has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most accomplished bassists – so we can all learn from the five albums that influenced him.

1. Yardbirds - Having A Rave-Up (1965)

"Paul Samwell-Smith was one of my first influences as a bass player. The US version of the LP had the whole band on the cover, and Paul was holding an Epiphone Rivoli bass with black nylon tapewound strings - a duplicate of which I have at my home right now. It sounds just like the bass on the album: the strings have a really cool, unique tone to them. 

"I love it when bass players step out of the herd and try different things. His playing was all great and spectacular, but on side two were some live versions of Here It Is, I’m A Man and She’s So Respectable. On all of them, he just blazes, and the bass has this deep low end because of the neck pickup that washes out the compression from the master mix. It takes over the whole band."

2. Vanilla Fudge - Vanilla Fudge (1967)

"Tim Bogert was a huge influence on me and a lot of other players. Vanilla Fudge were an amazing band. Their first album was all covers, and Tim was all over the place on the bass - but everything he did worked. It was such an inspiration to me, because it was an integral part of the arrangement of the song. 

"Years later I was lucky enough to befriend Tim and I asked him about it, and he said that basically it was a psychedelic version of James Jamerson, which made a lot of sense to me. They had a very heavy Motown influence: go and listen to Jamerson after you’ve heard Vanilla Fudge, and you’ll see what I mean. He was a huge influence, and I like to play those albums to people as much as I can."

3. Jethro Tull - Stand Up (1969)

"Glenn Cornick was another great player who had a Rivoli bass, with that amazing neck pickup. He played great, great bass solos in Bourée, the Bach piece that Ian Anderson played flute on. He had a similar tone to Paul Samwell-Smith and, while it wasn’t a tone that I went for personally, I liked it because it had a real cool, woody body to it. He did some great playing on that record. 

"After this album, which I just loved, I went back and got This Was (1968), which was just great. Aqualung (1971) was okay, but then they lost me, which wasn’t uncommon for me - a lot of bands had amazing first records but they’d lost me by the fourth. I don’t know if it was because of me or because of them!"

4. Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius (1976)

"I think Jaco really defined what a bass player should be about, in that he played songs on the record and solo pieces that were actual pieces of music. His tone and approach were legendary, of course. I daresay that to this day it’s difficult for fretless players to play without people instantly thinking of Jaco. As soon as you hear that note, you go ‘Jaco!’ 

"I play a bit of fretless: I’ve recorded fretless on two songs in my life. We did the Cat Stevens song Wild World and a very famous fretless player called me up and congratulated me on my playing on the song, because it was a hit on the radio - and I said, ‘Well, there’s only one problem: it’s my regular bass, not a fretless!’ I do a lot of bending: we covered Birdland, and when it goes D-C-D, I bend the C up to the D, just to mimic that fretless tonality. Sometimes the bass just lands like that."

5. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

"When I do clinics, I always tell people ‘Go and learn the whole of Sgt. Pepper – you’ll come out of it a better bass player.' McCartney was a singing bass player - I think all of these might be, although I don’t know much Jaco and Paul Samwell-Smith sang. McCartney’s bass playing was unorthodox and wild, he was all over the place. It was fantastically perfect, musically. 

"I have some bootlegs of the sessions and again, he had that neck pickup with that super-deep low tone: you can only hear the fundamental of the notes. It’s like he’s running a single oscillator, real down low. He was just a great player with a real sense of how to use the bass in a really musical way. It was brilliant."  

We’ve reported recently on major guitar stars who have gone fully digital onstage – hello, Mark Knopfler – and now Sons of Apollo's Bumblefoot has stepped up to reveal that when it comes to recording, he doesn’t bother with guitar amps at all.

In a recent interview with Premier Guitar, the man born Ron Thal was asked what his amplifier setup looks like for home recording purposes.

“This will piss off the purists,” responded the ‘Foot. “My guitar, plugged into my computer, and either an IK Multimedia AmpliTube or a Line 6 Helix Native.

“Ampless.”

Bumblefoot’s Sons of Apollo band mate, Billy Sheehan, also gave a shout-out to the Helix, and explained that when the band tracked their new album, MMXX, “It was all direct."

Sheehan said, “I used the Helix and an Ashly Audio compressor. The Helix has been glorious for doing tracks. If somebody calls me, I grab it, put it in the car, get there, and get everything we need – it’s really been wonderful.”

“Sometimes in a session, I’ll plug right into the console, add a little EQ, possibly a touch of compression, and play like that – depending on the session, of course. For Sons of Apollo, we needed a really grindy, pounding, frightening bass tone. I’m really pleased with the way it came out.”

Bumblefoot further elaborated on his gear approach by explaining, “I’ve been a Line 6 guy for 20 years, since the POD 2.0. When you find the right impulse responses to make it feel like you’re moving air, you can really get some nice stuff happening.

“And with the kind of touring I do, which is so diverse – one day I’ll be doing a guitar clinic, the next day I might be playing at a big festival with a band, the day after that might be an acoustic show, or some kind of one-man storytelling evening – it’s great having all your sounds there.”

It’s no secret that Eddie Van Halen has had issues with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony over the years, which eventually resulted in his being ousted from the band in 2006 and replaced with Eddie’s son, Wolfgang.

But way before Wolfie took up the four-string mantle, Eddie apparently had his eye on another player – bass wizard Billy Sheehan, who over the years has played with everyone from Talas, Mr. Big and the Winery Dogs to Sons of Apollo, Niacin and, of course, David Lee Roth in his post-Van Halen, Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper days.

Regarding his Van Halen experience, Sheehan recounted to the Metal Voice, "I was offered the position as bassist three times through the years, and I consider it a great, great honor.

“However, I am torn because I love Michael Anthony, and I think he is the best bass player for Van Halen. And as much as I would have loved to do that, I want to see Michael in the band. I'm not even sure why they asked me to join the band. Michael is an awesome player and a great singer and who knows what the situation was."

He continued, "The first time, I think it was the Fair Warning [ tour in 1981]. "We talked about it then. Then I spoke about it with David Lee Roth, but I mostly spoke about it with Eddie Van Halen in Toronto, Canada. And then the second time was 1984. Eddie showed me the stage setup. We talked about it then. Then the last time was when I got together with Eddie and Alex Van Halen at their house."

While Sheehan never did find himself in the Van Halen hot seat, he did reveal that he has played, in one form or another, with every member of the band – almost.

"I played with Dave. I did a show with Michael Anthony for a NAMM show jam. I jammed with Eddie and Al at their house. I played with Sammy Hagar. I did a Who tribute tour with Gary Cherone,” he said. 

"And I never played with Wolfie – played music with him – but myself, Ed, Steve Lukather and Pat Torpey did a benefit show for Jason Becker in Chicago one year, and Ed was kind enough to offer to fly home with him.  And he was with his son. And Ed wanted to sleep. So I played – he was a little tiny kid, Wolfgang – and we played some number games and letter games and drew pictures. So, technically, I played with him, but not music. But I love that band. I love all those guys."

The Winery Dogs, featuring singer and guitarist Richie Kotzen (Poison, Mr. Big), bassist Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and drummer Mike Portnoy (Sons of Apollo, Dream Theater), recently kicked off their Who Let the Dogs Out 2019 U.S. outing, their first tour in close to three years.

Above, check out the band ripping through “Oblivion,” the lead off track from their 2015 sophomore album, Hot Streak, at Denver’s Oriental Theatre on May 23.

Talking to Guitar World about "Oblivion," Sheehan said, “We wrote that while we were getting ready for another leg of our last tour and popped it together while we were rehearsing at Mike’s house. It went through a few variations until we went in the studio and fine-tuned the lyrics and arrangements.”

For more information head over to TheWineryDogs.com.

The musicians who played with David Lee Roth on his 1986 solo debut Eat ‘Em and Smile—guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Billy Sheehan, drummer Greg Bissonette and keyboardist Brett Tuggle—reunited for the first time in 33 years at the "Ultimate NAMM Night” jam on January 26 for a two-song set. 

The performance, which saw the members joined by former Yngwie Malmsteen and current Sons of Apollo singer Jeff Scott Soto, included run-throughs of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and “Shy Boy,” the latter of which was written by Sheehan for his early Eighties outfit Talas and recorded by the David Lee Roth band for Eat ‘Em and Smile.

You can check out fan-filmed footage of “Shy Boy” above.

Back in 2015, a similar reunion, with Steel Panther’s Ralph Saenz singing, was scheduled to take place at Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood for the 30th anniversary of Eat ‘Em and Smile. It was ultimately shut down at the last minute by the L.A. fire marshal when the venue overcrowded after word got out that David Lee Roth was planning to take the stage with the band.

In an interview with Guitar World not long after, Vai said: “The Lucky Strike thing was almost like rock star interruptus. People say the fire marshal stopped us minutes before we went on, but it was seconds. I was standing behind the curtain with a hot guitar in my hands and I was ready to start. I did everything I could to get us to play, but we just couldn’t. Afterward I thought we’ve got to do something together, because there’s just too much cool energy here.”

Regarding an eventual reunion of the full band, Sheehan said in the same interview: “It’s all up to Dave. This is his game. If he wants to do it, I’m so into it. Ideally, it would be great to record a song or two and then go out and do a bunch of shows: Europe, USA, maybe South America, Japan. It would be great, to get everybody together again, to do it all again, just for the hell of it.”

Added Vai: “I think that would be really nice to honor the legacy of the Eat ’Em and Smile album and band. There doesn’t have to be any big commitment. It would just be about getting out there and bringing it home, the way we used to do it, while we still have the juice, which we do.”

The Winery Dogs, featuring singer and guitarist Richie Kotzen (Poison, Mr. Big), bassist Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and drummer Mike Portnoy (Sons of Apollo, Dream Theater), have announced new U.S. tour dates for May 2019.

The outing, dubbed the Who Let the Dogs Out 2019 tour, will begin in Derry, New Hampshire and wrap in Los Angeles. It will be the band’s first tour in close to three years.

See below for the full itinerary, and for more information head over to TheWineryDogs.com.

The Winery Dogs tour dates: 

May 01 - Derry, NH - Tupelo Music Hall
May 02 - Jim Thorpe, PA – Penn's Peak
May 03 - New York, NY - Sony Hall
May 05 - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse
May 07 - Hopewell, VA - Beacon Theater
May 08 - Nashville, TN - Basement East
May 09 - New Orleans, LA - House Of Blues
May 11 - Dallas, TX - Gas Monkey
May 12 - Houston, TX - Warehouse Live
May 15 - Ft Wayne, IN - Pierre's
May 16 - Milwaukee, WI - Potowatami Casino
May 17 - Milwaukee, WI - Potowatami Casino
May 18 - St Charles, IL - Arcada Theater
May 20 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
May 23 - Denver, CO - Oriental Theater
May 24 - Grand Junction, CO - Mesa Theater
May 25 - Las Vegas, NV - Vamp'd
May 28 - Sacramento, CA - Crest Theater
May 29 - Santa Cruz, CA - Rio Theater
May 30 - Anaheim, CA - The Grove
May 31 - Los Angeles, CA - Saban Theater

Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin has announced that the band, which also features guitarist Paul Gilbert and bassist Billy Sheehan, will record one more studio album before calling it quits. According to Martin, it feels “uncomfortable” to continue on without drummer and co-founder Pat Torpey, who passed away at age 64 in February due to complications from Parkinson's disease.

Martin discussed the state of Mr. Big with Rock Radio N1 (via ultimate-guitar.com):

Regarding a possible new album, Martin said: "I'm the one getting everyone together for conference calls and e-mails and what we want to do. I really want to do it and I want to spend more than six days on it like we did with [2017's] Defying Gravity.

"I want to be a little more prepared. I want to do a new record and I also want to have a couple of different drummers on it—ones that Pat really liked; maybe Mike Portnoy, Gregg Bissonette, Ray Luzier from Korn, I really like his playing. Just get some great drummers to do something to honor Pat Torpey.”

Martin continued on to say that "we don't know if we're going to do an album or an EP; it kinda depends on the songs. If we only have six songs then there's your EP, but if we have more we'll cut an album.”

He added that the band has a small window of time to get it done, “because Paul [Gilbert] is on the road pretty much the rest of the year and then we might have an opportunity in February to cut something. But we are going to do a tour in June and July and then come home for a couple of weeks and then try to do it as much as we can for about three or four months.

"But yeah, that's the last hurrah, that's it. It just feels a little uncomfortable to keep going without Pat Torpey."

Defying Gravity was released in July 2017 via Frontiers Music Srl.

Mr. Big have announced Live from Milan, a new LP that captures one of the band's final shows with drummer Pat Torpey, who passed away earlier this year.

Live from Milan features both the band's early material and more recent work in equal numbers, with some entertaining guitar and bass solos courtesy of Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan thrown in for good measure. You can check out a sample from the album—the band's smoking version of "Alive and Kickin'"—below.

"The gig was packed, really no room to breathe and it was steaming hot in there but the energy and vibe that I was feeling from the guys in the band was that we were going to lean into it," frontman Eric Martin said in a press release. "I know that sounds cliché coming from me but it was true, there was no holding back. I've seen the video of this concert dozens of times now and it's us, hard and heavy and still kicking out the jams."

Live from Milan is set for a July 13 release via Frontiers Music SRl on 2CD+Blu-Ray Combo Pack, 3xLP, and MP3 (audio only). You can preorder it right here, and check out its tracklist below.

For more on Mr. Big, stop by mrbigsite.com.

Live from Milan Track Listing:

Disc 1:

1. Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy

2. American Beauty

3. Undertow

4. Alive And Kickin'

5. Temperamental

6. Just Take My Heart

7. Take Cover

8. Green-Tinted Sixties Mind

9. Everybody Needs A Little Trouble

10. Price You Gotta Pay

11. Paul's Solo

12. Open Your Eyes

13. Wild World

14. Damn I'm In Love Again

Disc 2:

1. Rock And Roll Over

2. Around The World

3. Billy's Solo

4. Addicted To That Rush

5. To Be With You

6. 1992

7. Colorado Bulldog

8. Defying Gravity

What’s better than a master guitarist pouring their guts out through their strings?

How about two master guitarists simultaneously pouring their guts out through their strings? You read me?

Do I hear three master guitarists? Will these questions ever stop?

Whatever the case, synchronized guitar work—which requires skillful harmonization—can take the multi-guitar lineup to its full potential—that is, make all lead parts sound bigger and badder. Here are some of the baddest.

10. Racer X, “Scarified”

That Paul Gilbert and Bruce Bouillet play these stunning neoclassical arpeggios with such apparent ease is enough to make any insecure guitarist closet his ax for good. The fleet-fingered duo speed-pick their way through a cycle of 4ths, sweep-pick across all six strings, and tap the fretboard like some four-armed guitar god that worshippers both fear and revere.

09. Metallica, “Master of Puppets”

It’s rare for James Hetfield to play lead, but when he does he makes it count. The solo he composed for the gentle middle section of this rager about drug abuse is a true attention-getter thanks largely to the sweet melody and high-register trills. In addition, the harmonies here proved that Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett were more than just heavy-handed thrashers.

08. Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan, “Shy Boy”

How does David Lee Roth make himself look good after parting with Van Halen? Well, he hires two Eddies. Sure, Sheehan is a bassist, but he plays the thing like a six-stinger. The breakdown at the song’s end, though short, displays some truly terrifying, ultra-meticulous two-hand tapping. The section functions much like a dangerous high-speed stunt—where a good deal of the audience’s thrill derives from a secret, morbid desire to see the stuntmen fall.

07. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, “Three Guitar Special”

As the hired guns for Wills’s Western swing band, electric guitarist Eldon Shamblin, pedal-steel man Herb Remington, and electric mandolin player Tiny Moore held down three-part harmonies as though they were a horn section from a big band, all the while shredding through sophisticated jazz-based chromatic passages and arpeggios. Check out the ballsy amplification, especially of the mandolin. And this is 1947!

Note: We can't find "Three Guitar Special" on YouTube, so we've included the audio of "Twin Guitar Special" from 1941:

06. Ratt, “Round and Round”

Of those hair-farmin’, lip-poutin’, pantyhose-wearin’ pop-metal bands from the Eighties, this combo—featuring guitarists Warren DeMartini and the late Robbin Crosby—has the distinction of scoring a dual-guitar hit that wasn’t just a sappy ballad. After DeMartini takes a Halen-esque lead, Robbin Crosby joins in for the sustained string bends and descending scales that steal the spotlight from vocalist Stephen Pearcy.

05. Thin Lizzy, “The Boys Are Back In Town”

The trademark sound of the Scott Gorham–Brian Robertson tandem became the prototype for virtually every twin-ax metal band that followed. This sound is immortalized in this Top 40 hit, in which the guitarists' singing lines, adept phrasing and gradual ascension of the fretboard took the song to a dramatic climax above and beyond that of the final chorus.

04. Slayer, “South of Heaven”

Love them or hate them for pioneering a style of metal lead that is more noisescape than it is either tuneful or technical, the team of Kerry King and the late Jeff Hanneman created some of the most instantly recognizable harmony leads around, owing mostly to intervals that will creep the hell out anybody within earshot. If the chromatic descent on this unusually slow pounder doesn’t make you crap your pants, you’ve earned the right to join the Freemasons.

03. Boston, “More Than a Feeling”

When Les Paul pioneered multitrack recording, it was inevitable that someone like Tom Scholz would take it to the limit—by recording a solo six times over. Armed with pristine distortion, this one-man guitar army launched with this song what is perhaps the most evocative melodies in rock. Eventually, the consistent string bends, slurs and vibrato start to feel almost like a synthetic string section on the recording—a fact that would have disqualified Scholz from this list had he not hired Barry Goudreau and Brad Delp to help him reproduce the harmonies live.

02. The Allman Brothers Band, “Jessica”

This joyous tune recorded shortly after the death of superhuman slide guitarist Duane Allman, with Dicky Betts and Les Dudek on electric guitars. They followed this theoretical formula on one of the most famous rock instrumentals of the Seventies: simple, catchy melody times two equals mondo hooks. The countrified harmonies that constitute this instrumental’s “verse” section are, arguably, the most lyrical in all of classic rock.

01. The Eagles, “Hotel California”

Californian country-rock? Yeah, right. But throw in former James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh with Don Felder and Glen Frey and you’ve got a dreamy and dramatic chorus of electric guitars stacking arpeggios over a quasi-Spanish chord progression. Ah, you can almost detect the warm smell of “co-lee-tas” in the air…

Sons of Apollo—the group featuring former Dream Theater members Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Billy Sheehan (The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and Jeff Scott Soto (ex-Journey, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force)—have released their newest music video, for the song, "Alive." You can watch it above.

The track is taken from the supergroup's debut album, Psychotic Symphony, which was released last month.

"When I think of the album, I think of the writing and recording process and the personal involvement," Bumblefoot told Guitar World about Psychotic Symphony in an interview earlier this month. "To me, when I hear the album, I hear five guys paying tribute to their influences. I hear The Who, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and Randy Rhoads. Everything that inspired each member of the band to play music the way that they do."

"There’s Billy’s distinct, undeniable tone, Mike’s tremendous playing, Derek—who is the greatest guitarist you will ever hear on keyboards—and Jeff, who takes the craziest songs and makes them into something you can sing along to. He’s a great singer with a fantastic voice."

Sons of Apollo recently wrapped up a short round of American dates, and will hit the road again later this spring. You can see a full list of the band's upcoming dates below.

For more on Sons of Apollo, follow along on Facebook.

Sons of Apollo: Spring 2018 Tour Dates

Thu 4/5 Monterrey, Mexico Escena

Sun 4/8 Santiago, Chile Teatro Teneton

Tue 4/10 Buenos Aires, Argentina Groove

Thu 4/12 Porto Alegre, Brazil Opinião Bar

Sat 4/14 São Paulo, Brazil Tropical Butanta

Sun 4/15 Belo Horizonte, Brazil Music Hall

Thu 4/19 Montreal, QUE. Corona Theatre

Fri 4/20 Toronto, ONT. The Opera House

Sat 4/21 Grand Rapids, MI The Intersection

Sun 4/22 St. Louis, MO Delmar Hall

Tue 4/24 Lawrence, KS Granada Theater

Wed 4/25 Denver, CO Summit Music Hall

Fri 4/27 Las Vegas, NV Brooklyn Bowl

Sat 4/28 Sacramento, CA Ace Of Spades

Sun 4/29 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre

Mon 4/30 Seattle, WA The Showbox

Wed 5/2 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom

Thu 5/3 Los Angeles, CA The Belasco Theatre

Fri 5/4 Anaheim, CA House Of Blues

Sat 5/5 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre

Mon 5/7 San Antonio, TX Alamo City Music Hall

Tue 5/8 Dallas, TX Canton Hall

Wed 5/9 Houston, TX Scout Bar

Fri 5/11 Nashville, TN 3rd & Lindsley

Sat 5/12 St. Charles, IL Arcada Theatre

Sun 5/13 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theater

Tue 5/15 Cleveland, OH House Of Blues

Wed 5/16 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts

Thu 5/17 Washington, D.C. The Howard Theatre

Fri 5/18 New York, NY Playstation Theater

Sat 5/19 Worcester, MA The Palladium

Pat Torpey—longtime drummer and a founding member of Mr. Big—has died at age 64, the band confirmed on Twitter. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease.

"With breaking hearts we tell you that our brother, friend, drummer and founding member, Pat, passed away Wednesday, February 7 from complications of Parkinson’s disease," the band wrote. "Family, band and management request privacy at this very difficult time."

Torpey was a mainstay of Mr. Big, having been one of its founding members in 1989. He remained with the group until they broke up in 2002 and was a part of their reunion in 2009. Though he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2014, Torpey remained with the group as a percussionist and backing vocalist.

"Pat Torpey has been my closest friend in music for over 30 years," Billy Sheehan, the group's bassist, said in a Facebook post. "Pat was one of the finest human beings I've ever had the privilege of knowing and the honor of working with. All of us in Mr. Big had nothing but the highest respect and admiration for him. He is loved by anyone and everyone who ever met him. And surely one of the finest rock drummers the world has ever known."

"So saddened to learn of the passing of my friend and former band mate Pat Torpey," Richie Kotzen, the band's guitarist from 1997 to 2002, said in an Instagram post. "We spent years touring the world, making music, family holiday gatherings, and even remodeled a house together. Pat’s sense of humor, wit, and smile lit up any room the moment he walked in. I am grateful and thankful to have had you as an incredibly important friend and influence in my life. You will be missed beyond words."

Sons of Apollo—the group featuring former Dream Theater members Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Billy Sheehan (The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and Jeff Scott Soto (ex-Journey, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force)—have announced their first performances in the United States.

The dates—which begin with the “Cruise To The Edge,” which will be sailing to Belize and Costa Maya from Tampa, FL between February 3-February 8—are mostly on the East Coast, with a couple of shows scheduled in the Midwest.

The dates are part of a larger American tour, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

"Ever since this lineup assembled to make Psychotic Symphony [the band's debut album] the thing I’ve been most excited about is anticipating how insane I know this band is going to be on stage," Portnoy said. "Well, the wait is almost over!"

"We plan on being on tour all year long, all over the globe, with plenty of dates now being announced for summer festivals throughout Europe, but these are the very first shows that will get to witness this amazing lineup in person for the first time. We can’t wait!”

You can see the full schedule of announced dates below.

For more on Sons of Apollo, follow along on Facebook.

Sons of Apollo: American Tour Dates

• 2/3-2/8 Tampa, FL Cruise To The Edge
• Fri 2/9 Miami, FL Magic City Casino/Monsters Of Rock Cruise Pre-show
• Sun 2/11 Orlando, FL Plaza LIVE Orlando
• Mon 2/12 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
• Tue 2/13 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
• Thu 2/15 Asbury Park, NJ House of Independents
• Fri 2/16 Buffalo, NY Town Ballroom
• Sat 2/17 Battle Creek, MI The Music Factory
• Sun 2/18 Joliet, IL The Forge

A couple weeks ago, Sons of Apollo—a new supergroup featuring former Dream Theater members Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto—unveiled their first single, "Signs of the Time." Now, GuitarWorld.com presents an exclusive interview with all five members, in which they discuss how the all-star project came together.

"I think the only thing we tried to achieve is just to be true to what our influences were and played what we were really feeling musically at the time," Sherinian says of the project. "We didn't try to go in any specific direction, we just wrote what we felt, and we just got in the room and put together all the riffs and it just organically really came together in a great way."

Considering how intertwined the members are—connections they discuss and reminisce about frequently in the video—it's remarkable that Sons of Apollo didn't come together sooner.

You can explore the band's history and watch the band in the studio in the video below.

For more on Sons of Apollo, follow along on Facebook.

For the past few months, rumors have been circulating about a new secret project including former Dream Theater members Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian. With the announcement of the debut album from Sons of Apollo, a brand-new supergroup featuring Portnoy, Sherinian and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal (ex-Guns N’ Roses), Billy Sheehan (The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and Jeff Scott Soto (ex-Journey, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force), these rumors have been confirmed as true.

The quintet's debut album, Psychotic Symphony, will be released October 20 on InsideOutMusic/Sony Music.

The star-studded band came together organically. Portnoy explains, “Derek and I reunited shortly after I left Dream Theater in 2010 and we put together an all-instrumental touring band with he and I, Billy Sheehan, and Tony MacAlpine. That was my first time working with Derek since the ‘90s when he was in Dream Theater and it was just great to be working with him again."

"Ever since that tour, which was really just a one-off live thing, he has been nudging me to start a real, original, full-time band," he continued. "The timing just had never been right, because I had too many other things on my plate. Long story short, the time was finally right to take the bait and put together a band.”

“Mike and I work at a relentless pace in the studio,” Sherinian added. “The music is modern, but we have an old school soul. What is unique about Sons of Apollo is that we have true rock n’ roll swagger along with the virtuosity; a lethal combination!”

Sons of Apollo will hit the road in 2018 for their first worldwide tour. In the meantime though, you can watch a teaser for Psychotic Symphony below.

For more on Sons of Apollo, follow along on Facebook.

The Fell are a new group that features Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, Winery Dogs) on bass, Randy Cooke on drums, Mike Krompass on guitar and Anthony De La Torre on vocals. Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of the music video for the band's new single, "Footprints."

"'Footprints' is all about the pocket, the groove, and singing!," said Sheehan of the new song. "What a blast it was to record this! I can't wait to play it live!"

You can watch the video, which was made by Jonathan Britt and Anthony De La Torre, below, and as always, tell us what you think!

You can download "Footprints" here. For more about The Fell, follow along on Facebook.

Mr. Big stopped into The Cutting Room in New York City this week for an interview and exclusive live stripped-down preview of a couple of tracks from their upcoming album, Defying Gravity.

Guitar World partnered witht the team at BackStory Events for a long-form interview and a fantastic live performance of the songs "Everybody Needs a Little Trouble" and "1992," plus a cover of "30 Days in the Hole" that rocked our socks off. Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Eric Martin, Pat Torpey, and Matt Starr really know how to do it up!

DEFYING GRAVITY deftly showcases that patented MR. BIG blend of crunch and melody, from the freight-train ride of opening cut "Open Your Eyes" to the harmony-laden wonderment of "Damn I'm in Love Again" to the grateful/wistful nostalgia of "1992" (recalling the days when the band was flying high atop the singles charts with their international #1 smash "To Be With You") to the barnburning slide-blues closer, "Be Kind." Overall, DEFYING GRAVITY is prime evidence that the only thing MR. BIG remains tethered to is their ongoing pursuit of achieving creative excellence.

DEFYING GRAVITY releases July 7. Find out more about at mrbigsite.com

Check out the performance here:

BackStory Events and Guitar World invite you to join us for the live stream of our exclusive interview with Eric Martin, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Pat Torpey and Matt Starr of Mr. Big!

We’ll discuss their upcoming album, DEFYING GRAVITY, and cover career highlights and raucous anecdotes from years of musical pursuits. The band will be interviewed by author and journalist Brad Tolinski.

DEFYING GRAVITY deftly showcases that patented MR. BIG blend of crunch and melody, from the freight-train ride of opening cut "Open Your Eyes" to the harmony-laden wonderment of "Damn I'm in Love Again" to the grateful/wistful nostalgia of "1992" (recalling the days when the band was flying high atop the singles charts with their international #1 smash "To Be With You") to the barnburning slide-blues closer, "Be Kind." Overall, DEFYING GRAVITY is prime evidence that the only thing MR. BIG remains tethered to is their ongoing pursuit of achieving creative excellence.

DEFYING GRAVITY releases July 7. Find out more about at mrbigsite.com

• Once we go live, the stream will appear below.

We’ve teamed up with BackStory Events to present an intimate conversation with Eric Martin, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Pat Torpey and Matt Starr of Mr. Big! Broadcast live from The Cutting Room in NYC on Saturday, June 10 at 12:00pm EST, the event will be live streamed at YouTube.com/GuitarWorld.

We’ll discuss their upcoming album, DEFYING GRAVITY, and cover career highlights and raucous anecdotes from years of musical pursuits. Plus, the band will share a few acoustic highlights following the interview.

Mr. Big will be interviewed by author, journalist, and former Guitar World editor, Brad Tolinski.

If you're in the New York Metro area, you can also purchase tickets to be a part of the studio audience and meet these fabulous musicians. Click here for tickets.

About Mr. Big’s DEFYING GRAVITY:

The call went out. Time for a new MR. BIG album. They convened in a Los Angeles studio and in a matter of six days, the boundless result of all that musical talent is DEFYING GRAVITY, with the release of their ninth original studio album set for release July 7 and start of a new worldwide tour.

DEFYING GRAVITY deftly showcases that patented MR. BIG blend of crunch and melody, from the freight-train ride of opening cut "Open Your Eyes" to the harmony-laden wonderment of "Damn I'm in Love Again" to the grateful/wistful nostalgia of "1992" (recalling the days when the band was flying high atop the singles charts with their international #1 smash "To Be With You") to the barnburning slide-blues closer, "Be Kind." Overall, DEFYING GRAVITY is prime evidence that the only thing MR. BIG remains tethered to is their ongoing pursuit of achieving creative excellence.

Original members Eric Martin (lead vocals), Paul Gilbert (guitars), Billy Sheehan (bass) and Pat Torpey (drums) reunited with producer Kevin Elson (who was behind the boards for the band’s 1989 self-titled debut, 1991’s LEAN INTO IT and 1993’s BUMP AHEAD) for an intensive six-day recording session in Los Angeles. While Torpey was unable to perform some of the songs on DEFYING GRAVITY due to a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, Matt Starr has been filling in for him on a majority of the album. Starr also been touring with the band for the past couple of years, with Torpey able to play a couple of songs at each stop.

“It was great to get back in the studio with our original producer, Kevin Elson,” says guitarist Paul Gilbert. “Kevin recorded all of our original classic albums from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and we immediately felt that magic chemistry with him on DEFYING GRAVITY. We basically played live in the studio. Over the years, we’ve all had a chance to experiment with every recording technique possible, but it’s still always the best just to play together as a band. Most of my guitar solos were tracked live with the band. I’ve worked hard on my improvisation in the last few years, and it really paid off on this record…both melodically, and on the face-melting stuff.”

Find out more about the album at mrbigsite.com.

These are exciting times in the world of Mr. Big. The band, which was formed almost 30 years ago in Los Angeles, will release their ninth studio album, Defying Gravity, next month (July 7). They just launched a world tour, and they've already released a taste of the new disc, a rocking track called "1992."

Today, we've teamed up with the band—Eric Martin (vocals), Paul Gilbert (guitars), Billy Sheehan (bass), Pat Torpey (drums) and Matt Starr (drums)—to bring you an exclusive clip dedicated to "1992."

In the video, which you can watch below, the band members discuss the new tune and its inspiration—their experiences in the early Nineties after "To Be with You" became a massive hit.

"That was one of my songs that started out as a title," Gilbert told us last month. "I had that phrase and was obviously thinking of the time in our history when we had the number-1 single with 'To Be with You' and took off internationally. It was an amazing time, and the song grew out of that seed of the title.

"For the music, I realized that on the last tour I did, my sound check song was a Humble Pie song called 'Stone Cold Fever.' The riff starts with an E chord over and over, and whenever I checked my amp, that was my riff. Philosophically, I think riffs that start with E repeating itself are almost guaranteed to be great [laughs]. I have two riffs that are different but have the general philosophy of let’s just do a lot of E before we go anywhere else. '1992' is one of those; 'Open Your Eyes' is another one."

Defying Gravity was produced by Kevin Elson, who worked with the band on their classic Eighties and Nineties albums. Most of Gilbert’s guitar solos were tracked live with the band.

For more about the album, read our new interview with Gilbert right here.

Below (in order), check out the "1992: behind-the-scenes" clip, the official audio of "1992," the "making of Defying Gravity" video and, of course, the "To Be with You" music video, which was incredibly difficult to miss in 1992.

"1992" is available on iTunes now, and the entire album is available for preorder.

For today's Friday Flashback, we revisit June 20, 2009, when Mr. Big performed at the world-famous Budokan in Tokyo, Japan.

During the second half of the band's set, which is available as an impressive CD/DVD called Back to Budokan, bassist Billy Sheehan and guitarist Paul Gilbert took the stage for a truly phenomenal solo; well, a truly phenomenal duet, to be more exact. The duet is listed as "Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan Duo" on the DVD.

Both Sheehan and Gilbert are playing double-necked instruments—Sheehan with his Yamaha and Gilbert with his Ibanez—although they basically stick to their respective lower necks for the entire solo. Sorry—duet.

At the 3:27 point, the rest of Mr. Big—singer/bassist Eric Martin and drummer/bassist Pat Torpey—come out and fret some of the notes on Sheehan's bass and Gilbert's guitar. By the way, if you like solos, this is the DVD for you. It also includes lengthy tracks called "Pat Torpey Drum Solo," "Billy Sheehan Bass Solo" and "Paul Gilbert Guitar Solo," the last of which we've included below (bottom video). Enjoy!

This past Saturday night, a host of shred and rock greats got together to help out an ailing friend, Tony MacAlpine.

The 55-year-old guitarist was recently diagnosed with colon cancer; his wife also has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

"The Benefit for Tony MacAlpine," which took place at Los Angeles' Wiltern Theatre, featured appearances by Steve Vai, Zakk Wylde, Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan, Derek Sherinian and John 5, plus Tom Morello, Nuno Bettencourt and RIchie Kotzen. That Metal Show's Eddie Trunk served as master of ceremonies.

Below, check out fan-filmed clips of Wylde performing three Black Sabbath songs at the event—"Fairies Wear Boots," "N.I.B." and "War Pigs." The band, which went by the Zakk Sabbath moniker that night, featured Sheehan (bass), Sherinian (keyboards) and Portnoy (drums).

Is it just me or is it rare to see Sheehan playing Black Sabbath songs? Maybe it's just me ...

In addition to the show, several artists donated their personal instruments, which will be available for auction through December 19 at tonymacalpine.com. All proceeds will be collected on behalf of MacAlpine and his family.

Auction items include:

• Personal guitars donated by Vai, Kiss, Steve Lukather, Satriani, Steve Stevens, Paul Gilbert, Joe Bonamassa, John Petrucci, Tom Morello, Richie Kotzen, Vinnie Moore and Jeff Loomis

• Signature snare drums from Simon Phillips, Gregg Bissonette, Portnoy and Eric Singer

• Signature bass from Sheehan

• Bass lessons with Rudy Sarzo

• Stage outfit worn by John 5 on the Rob Zombie tour

• A balcony stateroom and two Gold VIP packages from the Axes & Anchors Cruise (February 20 to 24, 2016).

Raffle items at the event included a matching pair of A Little Thunder pickups designed by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. A Little Thunder is a humbucker that adds a -1 or -2 octave bass signal to the bottom strings of your guitar while still preserving all six guitar strings. There's no MIDI, drilling or 9V batteries required for this drop-in replacement. Head here for more information.

Stay tuned for more videos and photos from the show.

Photo: Andy Alt

This Wednesday night (November 25), Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and drummer Gregg Bissonette will reunite at Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood, California, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of David Lee Roth's Eat 'Em and Smile album with a one-time-only show.

They'll be joined by guest vocalist Ralph Saenz, also known as Steel Panther's Michael Starr.

The show is free, and it'll kick off 8:30 p.m. It will mark the first time in 30 years that Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette have played together. They'll be recreating music from the 1986 album and tour.

Eat 'Em and Smile was the first of two Roth albums to feature Vai and Sheehan.

"As a teenager, I was really into Frank Zappa and composition, but I had also always fantasized about being on the big rock stage and jumping around like crazy and playing to thousands of people," Vai told GuitarWorld.com earlier this month. "At the time, that was the most coveted gig for a guitar player. I had opportunities to audition for other big rock bands, but none of them really felt right.

"But then I got call from Billy Sheehan, who said, 'Dave Roth is looking for a guitar player and I hipped him to you.' I don’t know what it was but as soon as Billy said those words I was like, 'Yep. That’s going to be my gig!' I can’t explain it. There was just never any doubt. As soon as Billy said it, that was the pull and it took me about one second to think about it and say yes.

"It was alluring because I loved Van Halen. Dave was the quintessential rock star and I loved the idea of being on the side. It was an amazing situation to be in at the time, and we played our asses off. Everything was about playing as good, hard and crazy as you possibly could while still being a showman. Looking back at the Eighties, I was so lucky to be a part of that."

This show is part of "Ultimate Jam Night," a series of free performances that take place Wednesdays at Lucky Strike Live. This particular "Ultimate Jam Night" certainly lives up to its name.

In this exclusive video, the Winery Dogs' Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy discuss "Empire," a track off their new album, Hot Streak.

As it turns out, "Empire" almost didn't make it onto the album. Find out the full story in the video below!

"We all had some down time this past January and decided to get together at my place to throw some ideas around," Kotzen told GuitarWorld.com. "Before we knew it, we had about 15 musical 'skeletons,' as I like to call them. I sat with them for a few months and out of nowhere started hearing melodies and lyrics.

"Then I sent them to the guys and said, 'Hey, I think we have a record here!' Everything was fresh from the very beginning. It’s a true representation of what we do together."

Hot Streak will be released October 2 via Loud And Proud Records. It's available now for pre-order at Amazon.com.

In conjunction with the release of Hot Streak, the Winery Dogs will embark on a world tour that kicks off October 3 in the U.S. Stay tuned for those dates!

For more about the Winery Dogs, visit thewinerydogs.com.

Two years after taking the world by storm with their infectious self-titled 2013 debut, the Winery Dogs are back with a blistering new album dubbed Hot Streak.

On the new album, which is set for an October 2 release, we find the power trio of guitarist Richie Kotzen, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy once again firing on all cylinders, not to mention expanding their horizons while staying true to their roots.

Whether it’s the blistering guitar attack of “Oblivion,” the Eighties-rock feel of “Captain Love” or the hauntingly beautiful “Fire," Hot Streak shows the evolution of the Winery Dogs as artists and songwriters.

In conjunction with the release of Hot Streak, the Winery Dogs will embark on a world tour that kicks off October 3 in the U.S. Stay tuned for those dates.

In the meantime, see what Kotzen and Sheehan have to say about Hot Streak, their gear and more.

GUITAR WORLD: What was the writing process like for Hot Streak?

SHEEHAN: We approached this album a lot like the first one, without any planning or discussion. We all just got in a room together and started playing to write. The only thing we brought in differently was the experience of having done 100-plus shows on stage together.

KOTZEN: We all had some down time this past January and decided to get together at my place to throw some ideas around. Before we knew it, we had about 15 musical “skeletons,” as I like to call them. I sat with them for a few months and out of nowhere started hearing melodies and lyrics. Then I sent them to the guys and said, “Hey, I think we have a record here!” Everything was fresh from the very beginning. It’s a true representation of what we do together.

Did you take any chances musically on this record?

SHEEHAN: “Ghost Town” is a track that people find appealing. It has spooky, distant lyrics and an unusual breakdown in the middle. “Spiral” is a real wild one that came from an arpeggiated bass line that’s going to be an arm buster to play live.

Let’s discuss a few more tracks from the new album, starting with "Oblivion."

SHEEHAN: We wrote that while we were getting ready for another leg of our last tour and popped it together while we were rehearsing at Mike’s house. It went through a few variations until we went in the studio and fine-tuned the lyrics and arrangements.

How about the title track, "Hot Streak"?

SHEEHAN: The main riff was a bass line I had that was an adaptation of a Stanley Clarke lick. “How Long” and a few others were also built on a bass line where the other guys would jump in and play along.

KOTZEN: I remember walking into the studio and hearing Billy playing that lick. I said, “That’s cool! That could be a song!” So Billy started playing it over and over and then Mike started playing the drum beat and I started singing the melody. We started calling chords out and wound up recording a few minutes us jamming on that riff. Then I went back and spliced it up on my computer and came up with an arrangement.

When we got in the studio to record I said, “OK. Play it down the way the demo is and I’ll make it work when I do my overdubs.” Later that night, I took it back to my studio, recorded the guitars and lead vocal and then moved all kinds of things around. I didn’t touch the drums and there was no bass on it at the time. I showed it to the guys the next day and they loved it. Then Billy put his bass on, I came back in and did the backgrounds and added a few tweaks and that was it. It was essentially a song born out of an exercise Billy had, and with some clever vision and editing, it became one of the coolest songs on the record.

"Captain Love"

KOTZEN: That’s a very interesting song. I remember when I came up with the idea. I started playing the chords and asked Mike to play a straight beat and then Billy chimed in too. Musically, it sounds huge and the reason it does is because there’s a lot of space. Lyrically, the cadence of the melody came to me but I wasn’t really sure what to sing. Then one day I wrote lyrics that were a bit silly but for some reason worked perfectly for the track. It could easily be a tongue-in-cheek throwback Eighties rock song. It’s a fun song and I’m looking forward to playing it live.

"Fire."

KOTZEN: That’s one of my favorite songs. It’s a melody and chord progression I had in my head for a long time.

SHEEHAN: That’s a beautiful piece. I remember pulling pieces together and Richie just started stinging melodies without any real words to it yet. The melody was haunting but instantly memorable. When he got the lyrics it really brought the whole thing home.

What can you tell me about the upcoming Winery Dogs tour?

SHEEHAN: We’ll be starting in the U.S. and we'll go through November. Then we’ll pick up the beginning of next year overseas and go extensively and come back to do some festivals in the U.S. and Europe. We want to hit a lot of shows everywhere.

KOTZEN: This is going to be a world tour, and we plan on staying out and playing as many places as we can.

What’s your setup going to be like for the tour?

SHEEHAN: Pretty much the same except that I’ll be using Hartke HyDrive cabinets. I did a show a few years ago in Indonesia with PSMS (Portnoy, Sheehan, MacAlpine, Sherinian) where we went out with no crew and used local guys. They had HyDrive instead of my usual AK cabinets. I wasn’t really sure if I’d be able to get used to the sound, but the bass tone was spectacular and it was one of the best nights I’ve had at a festival. It really impressed me. I’m going to try those for this one.

KOTZEN: I’m going to bring back my Signature Model Cornford RK 100 guitar head. I plugged that in one day and had forgotten how good it sounds. I wound up using that amp on 90 percent of the new record. So I decided to take it out on the road again. It’s not available for people to buy, but it sure is a cool amp.

Richie, in addition to the new Winery Dogs album you’ll be releasing a live DVD. What can you tell me about it?

KOTZEN: It’s going to be released the same day as the Winery Dogs record, and I’m super excited about it. I’ve never really had a DVD done with great audio and camera. Not only is it recorded well but it’s also a great representation of what I do. I’m really proud of it.

Billy, are there any other projects you’re working on?

SHEEHAN: I just produced a record for a young lady named Madame Mayhem that will be out in mid-October. It’s a cool record that has me on guitar and bass, plus Bumblefoot, Russ Parish from Steel Panther and Ray Luzier playing drums on it.

What excites you the most about Hot Streak and this next chapter in the Winery Dogs career?

KOTZEN: We really outdid ourselves on this record. It’s a step above the first one and I’m excited to get out there and find out how people respond to it.

SHEEHAN: Now that everyone has had more than a year to dig deep and listen long to the first album, it will be interesting to see how people react to this new record and respond to it live. I’m looking forward to playing the new songs and putting them together with a great mix of the old stuff along with a few surprises and then carrying it around the world.

For more about the Winery Dogs, visit thewinerydogs.com.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

Check out the premiere of the new Winery Dogs song “Oblivion” below. The track is from the band’s forthcoming album,Hot Streak.

This will be the second album from the group, which features guitarist Richie Kotzen, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy.

“I feel we’ve taken the band to another level,” Kotzen says of Hot Streak. “The compositions are stronger on this album. I feel more connected lyrically and musically to what I did on this record than on the last one. We’ve widened the musical scope of the band on this record and moved it forward.”

Hot Streak arrives on October 2 and can be preordered here. The Winery Dogs will tour on behalf of the album.

From working with Steve Vai, David Lee Roth and Paul Gilbert, to sharing the bill with Yngwie Malmsteen, bassist Billy Sheehan has some amazing stories to tell.

With that in mind, No Guitar Is Safe invited Sheehan to be a guest on the most recent episode of its weekly podcast.

You can check out Sheehan's appearance, not to mention several other episodes of No Guitar is Safe,right here.

Unfamiliar with Sheehan? Watch this bass solo!

As we've reported, the Winery Dogs—Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy—will kick off their Dog Camp 2015 this summer at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York, from July 27 to 31.

Dog Camp is an unforgettable program for musicians and fans of all levels, interests and ages.

It's an opportunity for campers to get up close and personal with three legends as they attend instrument-specific clinics, learn songwriting mechanics and enjoy intimate performances from the group.

As part of a special promotion, if someone (you, perhaps!) signs up during the next two weeks, the Winery Dogs will offer 10 percent off any room, plus a free pair of tickets to any Winery Dogs show on their upcoming North American tour this fall.

The promotion lasts through midnight May 24—so sign up now!

For more about the Winery Dogs, visit thewinerydogs.com. For more about this summer's Dog Camp, check out the two new videos below and visit winerydogcamp.com.

Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan and Richie Kotzen of the Winery Dogs have announced Dog Camp 2015, their second-annual immersive program for aspiring musicians of all ages and levels. It's set for July 27 to 31 at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York.

This year's Dog Camp also will feature bassist Dave Ellefson (Megadeth) and guitarist Alex Skolnick (Testament, Rodrigo Y Gabriela).

Here are comments from the Winery Dogs and their Dog Camp guests:

Alex Skolnick: "I'm greatly looking forward to appearing as a guest instructor for my friends the Winery Dogs, guys who prove that serious players of their instruments can rock as hard as anyone. Having co-hosted a camp at Full Moon in the past, I know firsthand that it's a perfect location for combining the focus of a learning intensive with the fun of a vacation.”

Mike Portnoy: "We’ve all done clinics over the years, but it’s always been something that’s primarily centered around one instrument that each of us has typically done on an individual basis. Dog Camp is the first time any of us have hosted or participated in a true band camp. As a result of that, we’ve got some incredible surprises in store for everybody attending.”

Richie Kotzen: “What's interesting is to talk about music, concepts, objectives, reasons why you're playing the instrument, what you want to achieve, and how to get to that point, rather than talking about major versus minor scales. I love that feeling of sharing concepts with people. In The Winery Dogs, we all have various experiences that a lot of other people don't have. It's an opportunity to share that and grow; the feeling of moving forward and learning and experiencing something new. That's what excites me about Dog Camp. It's the creative process and creativity that make me want to do music, and I want to share that."

Billy Sheehan: "I want to emphasize that players should keep an eye on what we're doing and why during the performances. In between songs or mid-song, I want to stop to make a point about what's going on and why. The expertise of being able to play ensemble is a bit of a lost art with kids today. They don't do what we did when we were growing up. Right away, we just got in a band whether we could play or not. Now, kids want to get up to a level of expertise and then join a band."

You can check out Dave Ellefson's comments in the top video below.

Produced by Dreamcatcher Events, this vacation experience offers the opportunity to get up close and personal with music legends as campers attend instrument-specific clinics, learn songwriting mechanics and enjoy intimate performances and jam sessions.

Look for the daily itinerary for Dog Camp to be announced in the coming weeks. Registrations for Dog Camp are on sale now at winerydogcamp.com.