Billy Sheehan is recognized as one of the world's greatest rock bass players. Over the years he has worked with David Lee Roth & UFO, as well as being part of the successful Mr Big, and more recently been a part of a number of tribute projects and session jobs. He also found time in late 1997 to be part of a reunion of his first recording band, Buffalo's TALAS. From one show, the band recorded & issued the live set "If We Only Knew Then What We Know Now". A few weeks back Talas got together one last time for another show in Buffalo that was again a packed house, and was a great all out high energy rock show!

This is an interview I did with Billy over the phone a few months back upon the release of the highly recommended live CD. I found Billy to be one of the most down to earth guys I've interviewed yet, willing to talk about anything, and maintaining a sense of humour and nice attitude.............Enjoy!

Q: I wanted to get a bit of history on TALAS, because I think you guys basically had a local following, not a lot of national attention or a major deal or anything like that!?

BS: No, we never did have a major deal; but we did eventually - regionally, get everywhere across America, and then we started to get a lot of press and sales in Europe and Japan as well, towards the end.

Q: When did the band originally split up?

BS: I split from those guys in about '83, then in '85 I left Buffalo. In '83, the 2 guys that are with me on this record left the band and I got replacements. It wasn't nearly as good, and we struggled along for about a year, but then David Lee Roth called me and I split!

Q: Was that (version) with Phil Naro?

BS: Yeah, he's up in Toronto now, I understand.

Q: Yeah, he had an album out here a few years ago.

BS: Yeah, I heard his record, and it was pretty good. I was glad for him. Phil's a talented guy, a good guy - the best 'attitude' lead singer I know!

Q: Any major gigs as far as opening?

BS: Yes, we did the Van Halen tour in 1980, we opened for Blue Oyster Cult once down by New York City; we opened for Twisted Sister in New York - their hometown, and that was pretty cool! We opened up for Aerosmith at the Aud in Buffalo, and then we opened for them again, and we opened for Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. And we did an opening for UFO. Oh, and here's the best one - U2 opened for US on a Monday night at Stage One in Buffalo, it was their first tour here.

Q: How did the reunion come about? Was it all from the 97 ROCK stuff? (Buffalo's FM rock station)

BS: They helped get it together after the decision was made, but we made the decision because so many people had contacted us, like on my web-site I got all this e-mail from all over the world saying "i used to go see you with Talas", and then I'd be out here in LA - out on a Saturday night and I'd get people come up to me and say "yeah, I saw you with Talas, I'm from Pittsburgh...or I'm from Cleveland, or Brooklyn" - ya know. It's pretty cool.

Q: So you guys are just going to do 1 more show in the Buffalo area?

BS: Yeah, just one more show - One final blast! (Ed : done, Nov 28 - i was there!)

Q: What do the other 2 guys normally do?

BS: They're in bands back in Buffalo. I think they're gonna get together now and play in the same band again, now. But they've generally been playing around Buffalo and the Western New York area for the past 15 years or so, since I left. (Ed > Since this, Varga & Constantino now play together in a band called "Shyboy".)

Q: You did the cover of "Battle Scar" (Max Webster) on this album, so you must be familiar with the Canadian stuff like Rush and that?

BS: Sure am! I actually played with Max Webster for a short time, right after Mike Pilca - the original bass player left. I did pre-production on their "Mutiny Up My Sleeve" album, but I never ended up playing on the record.

Q: How about the cover of "21st Century Schizoid Man"?

BS: Yeah, we did that as a cover-band for years. It was kind of representative of, sort of our progressive stuff that we did. We were mostly a bar band playing dancing and beer-drinking songs, but once in a while we'd throw something in like "Schizoid Man" to keep all the, uh - 'musician head' satisfied. So we thought we'd roll it in there. It's funny, Mr Big's guitarist - Paul Gilbert wrote to me about the show, and asked me specifically "I hope you guys did Schizoid Man with that part from Yes in the middle.", so I sent him the CD, and said "yes we did - here it is!"

Q: Did you guys play in the Southern Ontario area?

BS: Oh sure, we played in Toronto - The Gasworks, Larry's Hideaway; we played in Hamilton, Oshawa,..

Q: Uncle Sam's in Niagara Falls?

BS: Yeah - we did a couple of Uncle Sam's shows. We did a lot of Canadian shows, and a lot of Canadians came over the border to see us too.

Q: So you're familiar with the Canadian scene?

BS: Oh yeah!

Q: Remember some of the bands from the early '80s and late '70s?

BS: Sure do - Saga! There's a million bands, like Chilliwack, Holly Woods, ...

Q: Coney Hatch or Santers?

BS: Coney Hatch - yeah, "Monkey Bars"! And Rick Santers, yeah. We used the same Rick Santers' producer for the "Sink Your Teeth Into that" album!

Q: So you just recorded the 1 gig for the new album?

BS: Yeah, that's the only gig we did, we didn't do a warm up gig. We just walked out on stage, and what you hear on the CD is exactly what happened, we just walked out and went nuts.

Q: Did you have to over-dub anything?

BS: We had to fix some of the drummer's vocals because the audience was so loud - we couldn't hear his voice, because of the way the drum kit works. And a couple of parts, like I think the mic line went dead, and we had to have somebody go in and fix that because one of the vocal things dropped out for a while, so we had to fix that. But pretty much it's all real.

Q: Did you start out on guitar, I would assume?

BS: Well, I had an acoustic guitar, but I wanted to play bass, so when I got my first bass, I just dropped the guitar completely. It was harder to a bass back then then it was a guitar. My sister had a little folk guitar. So I got my first bass, and it was great. I had my first Fender Precision Bass, and I still got that bass to this day.

Q: What got you into playing bass?

BS: There was a guy that lived down the street from me named Joe, and he was the coolest guy in town. Coolest hair, coolest car, best-looking girlfriend, and I thought I wanted to be like Joe, so I started playing bass; plus I also loved the tonality of it, the sound of it. It just was an appealing instrument to me.

Q: Favorite bass players?

BS: Oh man - too many to list! Jocho, Ray Brown, Paul Samwell-Smith, Tim Bogert.

Q: How did you get into working with Ken Hensley?

BS: Well, Ken works for St. Louis Music, which is the company that makes Ampeg Amps. He's their Artist Representative guy, and I used Ampeg SVTs all throughout the '70s, and then they went out of business. Then St. Louis Music started them up again in the late '80s, so I got back together with them, and they started making some amps, and I'm using SVTs again, and they're great!

Q: So do you keep in touch with Ken quite a bit?

BS: Oh yeah. We've done a couple of clinic tours, and Ken has been the guy with me at all times. He's a very good friend of mine; he's a great guy!

Q: Anyway, so you moved on from Talas to David Lee Roth!?

BS: Yeah, Dave called me in the summer of '85, and I was gone.

Q: Was it just from knowing you from Talas?

BS: Yeah. Actually, Van Halen came to see Talas when they had a night off the night before they played in Buffalo, in about '82. And then , of course we opened for Van Halen for about 40 shows. I must have seen them with Dave about 60 times.

Q: So, you're a big Van Halen fan?

BS: Oh Yeah!

Q: What did you think of them post-Dave?

BS: I don't know, uhm, I was just so used to them with Dave that it was hard for me to get into them without him.

Q: Any stories or recollections from that phase of your career?

BS: Well, it was just pretty amazing to get the call from David Lee Roth because I always said I'd never leave Talas unless Van Halen asked me to join, so when Dave called I said "well - that's close enough! I'll go!" ha ha. So I joined up with him, and it was fun, it was a blast! We had a great time - the "Eat 'Em & Smile" album and tour was just so awesome.

Q: I read your quotes in Metal Edge after Dave had announced that the original line-up would get back together, and you weren't too pleased then.

BS: Well no, just because he made an announcement like that without telling us. ha ha. He should find out if we were gonna do it first before he made the announcement. And we just kind of looked silly like that, and I just felt kind of bad for the fans, because I got a lot of e-mails going "All right - we can't wait", and sorry - but we never even discussed it.

Q: Have you talked to him since then?

BS: Uh-uh! (Ed: NO!)

Q: What's the current status of Mr. Big?

BS: We're signed to Atlantic and they want another record, but I don't know if the other guys want to do one or not. I'd love to do another Mr. Big record, but I don't know if the singer or the guitar player are into it or not, so we'll have to wait and see. I'd like to do another record and a tour, and play in America too, and Canada, of course.

Q: You guys got a big following over in Europe, and especially in Japan!?

BS: Yeah, in Europe and Japan we kick ass!

Q: But after the first couple of albums, the 'profile' kind of went down here.

BS: Yeah - they lost us. ha ha. Atlantic Records forgot all about us after they collected all their money from "To Be With You"!

Q: Well, the last album came out, I got it, and thought it was great. But I never heard 'boo' from it on the radio!

BS: Yeah, isn't it wierd? We did everything we could on our end, but in Japan we kicked ass with it!

Q: What's with all the live albums out over there (Japan)?

BS: Well, Japan usually asks us for an album between albums. So, what we'd do is record the tour that we're on and it gets put out, and then when we leave to go back in the studio - we put that one out. So they end up with a lot of live albums; there's 3 or 4 of them at least! There's a "Live At Budokan", and 3 others. The first Japanese live album was actually a board tape, a dat made off the board, opening up for Rush, while we were on the Rush tour. With no over-dubs or nothing!

Q: So I guess you can tell quite a difference in the scene between Europe and Japan, and over here?

BS: Yeah. Unfortunately in the States, North America now...actually it's a little bit better in Canada than it is in the States because it's kind of a little more of a closed community. But, the US is just kind of MTV driven, and MTV doesn't care, and they don't give a f**k about anything other than themselves. It's kind of wierd. I sure hope that things break differently here in the States pretty soon.

Q: Yeah, there's a lot of bands, like yourselves - more of an AOR/hard-rock band, and those bands from the '70s/'80s - who still have a livelyhood over there (Europe & Japan) that they don't have over here.

BS: That's right. It's a shame that it's that way. But who knows, things could change, and I hope they do.

Q: You've been involved in a lot of session work, a lot of tributes (like Rush)...

BS: Yeah, once in a while I go in and do a session like that. I just did a session with uhm..some French singer. She's supposed to be the biggest selling artist in the artist of France, but I forgot her name (ha ha). I played on 3 of her tracks the day before yesterday, right down the street from my house, there's a studio, and I went in there and played. But, yeah - I do a lot of that stuff. An Indonesian band came into LA and asked me to play on their record, which was pretty cool. They're a good little band from Shakarta, Indonesia. It's fun to do stuff like that once in a while.

Q: Some of the tribute albums you've been on - I know the Rush one, and Peter Green, any others?

BS: There were 2 others. This AC/DC thing - which I didn't like too much because I really wasn't too much involved in it, and I probably shouldn't have done it because I really didn't have any say in the end result of how it came out, so as a result it came out not really as exciting as I'd have liked. Then there's an Alice Cooper tribute that I did. Simon Phillips and I went in and did the bass and drums, and they were supposed to use Pat Tabor and Doug Pennick for guitar and vocal. I was excited about that because I thought "great, it'll be cool if they play on the track", and then they called me up with the bad news that it was Vince Neil and Mick Mars, and I thought "oh no!?" ha ha. But oh well, it's a far cry from Ty and Doug, but ...

Q: You don't get a say in those things eh?

BS: No. I was kind of upset about it because the drums and bass were cool, they came out real good. I mean Vince and Mick - they did an OK job on it, but I certainly would've way preferred Doug and Ty from Kings X by a million miles.

Q: What track did you do?

BS: "Cold Ethyl".

Q: Did you have a choice in the tracks or anything like that?

BS: No, actually I would've preferred "Billion Dollar Babies" or something, because that was the record I was most familiar with from Alice Cooper.

Q: How do those things come about? I know Bob Kulick does a lot of them.

BS: He just gives me a call, and says he's doing one - "come on down and lay some bass down". So if I don't already know the song, I'll just review it quick and then run down there. But again, I like doing a favour to Bob to do them, 'cause he's a good guy, but in a way I don't know if I want to do any more because I don't have any control over anything after I leave, and I don't think it's fair for them just to throw my name on there, because it's not really representative of how I would do it, ya know!?

Q: The Niacin project - that was kind of more of a jazz-thing.

BS: Yeah, progressive-fusiony-jazz sort of thing, pretty well. But it's pretty hot and heavy, and it's pretty hard when we play live too. It's pretty cool. We did a tour of the US and we've been to Japan. Recently we did LA, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, and Buffalo. Then we did a bunch of shows in Japan.

Q: Is this something that you're going to continue with?

BS: Yeah, because it only takes a short amount of time. I can do a whole record in about a week, because these jazz-cats are pretty fast. They go in there and they know their stuff, it's "roll tape", and it's done! It's great. It's a lot of fun too, and it's a real challenge to play with those type of people. Our last record - "High Bias" album, of course - Dennis Chambers on drums for the most part, Pat Torpe came in to play drums from Mr Big on a track, and we had a bunch of other drummers, and Chick Corea also came in and played on a track, wrote a song. So, it's pretty cool to play with guys like that. It was pretty hot - I learned a lot from it.

Q: Did you get into the writing?

BS: Yeah, half of the writing is mine.

Q: "Explorer's Club" - how did that come about?

BS: Pete Moricelli - an old Talas friend of mine, who was a booking agent back in the old days. He started Magna Carta, and he and Mike Varney contacted me, and we thought it'd be cool to do a record. Plus I was pretty excited about doing a record with Terry Bozzio. So, that was great! A real challenging record, a lot of twists and turns, and difficult arrangements. It was pretty wild. I'm real happy with it.

Q: I saw you on a late night commercial years ago, trying to think what it was....

BS: Oh, you're talking about the dianetics thing. I've been involved in dianetics since about 1971.

Q: What is dianetics?

BS: It's hard to explain. Dianetics is kind of a way of removing some of the bad effects of some of the bad things you've been through in your life, without any mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus or wierd thing.

Q: Like a self-help thing?

BS: Yeah, it's great, and the result of it when you're finished is you can have a higher IQ and a faster reaction time. I've actually taken IQ tests before and after and seen the difference, and it's pretty amazing.

Q: You had a connection with UFO?

BS: I was abducted once! ha ha. I haven't been in contact with any of those guys for a long time, but in '83 I did a tour with them when Pete Way left, and I went in and did a European tour with UFO. It was pretty cool!

Q: Favorite singer/songwriters from your growing-up days?

BS: Joni Mitchell rules! She's awesome! Canadian too. I liked a lot of Peter Gabriel stuff with Genesis. Pretty awesome - "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", "Selling England By The Pound" - stuff from the early days. I think a lot of Kim Mitchell stuff is great too. I love Kim Mitchell's work.

Q: Have you followed him up until recently?

BS: No, I haven't. Actually, I ran in to some friends of his who gave me his number and I've been meaning to call him.

Q: Favorite singers?

BS: Robin Zander, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix - great voice I think.

Q: Future plans?

BS: I'm gonna do a psychotic, ridiculous,ripping, bass record. And then I'm gonna do a sing and song record! - All on my own!

Q: So, a solo album?

BS: Yeah! The dreaded solo album. Ha ha ha.

Q: You're a big hammond organ fan?

BS: Oh yeah, the B3! That was with Niacin.

Q: Yeah, and I read an interview last year where you were talking about the hammond.

BS: Yeah, it's the Les Paul of keyboards! Or the Strat of keybaords. Depending on how you use it. I actually don't play keyboards, but I bought a B3 just because they're so rare. I heard of a guy who had one, with a Leslie (amp) in perfect shape for 1800 bucks, and said - "Sold! Gimme it!" So I got it from him. I got it stored away somewhere, I don't even play the thing. In Japan they're worth about 25 Grand.

Q: Any favorite Uriah Heep tracks?

BS: I got up and played with Ken Hensley, me and Michael Anthony. We played "Easy Livin". I love "Easy Livin" and I love "July Morning", and "Sweet Lorraine" because my mother's name is Lorraine. And actually, speaking of B3s - the guys that supplied our B3 for Niacin, in Buffalo found Ken Hensley's B3 from his Uriah Heep tours. He's putting together for him, and Ken will get it back. (Ed : It's back, and pics are kenhensley.com!)

Q: Yeah, that story's on Ken's web-site.

BS: It's a small world. Ha ha.

For more info on Billy Sheehan's career check out his web-site at 'www.BillySheehan.com' .

For more info on the new Talas live CD check out out 'www.metalblade.com' .

Interview Conducted September 1998.

Copyright Kevin J. Julie