Billy Sheehan

Born in Buffalo, New York, Billy Sheehan established himself in the 1970s on the American hard rock scene with Talas, a trio built around a highly exposed bass playing style, blending rhythmic precision, melodic approach, and techniques borrowed from the soloist register. After Talas albums in 1979 and Sink Your Teeth into That in 1982, he joined David Lee Roth's circle in the 1980s and played on Eat ’Em and Smile in 1986 and Skyscraper in 1988, before co-founding Mr. Big at the end of the decade with Paul Gilbert, Eric Martin and Pat Torpey. In this group, Billy Sheehan developed a virtuosic and direct hard rock style, documented notably by Mr. Big (1989), Lean into It (1991), Bump Ahead (1993) and Ten (2024). In parallel, he developed other formats, from instrumental jazz fusion with Niacin, started in 1996 with Dennis Chambers and John Novello, to the hard rock of The Winery Dogs, a trio formed with Mike Portnoy and Richie Kotzen, whose albums The Winery Dogs (2013), Hot Streak (2015), and III (2023) extend an aesthetic between hard rock, blues rock and progressive. He also participated in Sons of Apollo, a project oriented toward progressive metal. Billy Sheehan remains associated with a style instantly identifiable, based on a bass very prominent in the mix, at once harmonic, percussive, and narrative.