So what is a trio in rock? Certainly not a customary line-up for a modern band, it is workable in a studio scenario but difficult to realise convincingly in a live setting, unless the guitarist is Hendrix. Strangely incomplete, at the same time it has almost mystical connotations—to the magic number, to the three Greek fates, the three Roman graces and, of course, the Trinity. A trio is at once perfect, almost sacred, but it is strangely lacking when it comes to playing live rock’n’roll. And out of this sense of musical deficiency Sheehan has still managed to emerge triumphant. One of the finest musicians rock has ever produced, he had managed to become not only a unique instrumentalist, but also a songwriter able to unite the sophisticated and the austere the way only a few virtuosos can.

Sheehan’s first full-time outfit, Talas, formed in the late ‘70s and remained unsigned for years, despite a huge local following in Buffalo, New York, and grand occasions when the band was opening for such luminaries as UFO and Van Halen. But while Talas was struggling to get their foot through the corporate music biz door, Sheehan quickly became known to the pros as a musician to watch. Important national music mags were soon asking him for interviews, having spotted a player as controversial as he was gifted. They wanted to know how a bassist could use pinch harmonics, hammer-ons and chording, all of it unheard of at the time when it concerned his instrument. How he could solo so expansively and so comprehensively without injuring the form of the song. How he could make a trio’s sound so thick, layering rhythm upon rhythm, texture upon texture, that his guitarist never had to worry about soloing on top of this rolling and tumbling, pulsating safety net of bass extrapolations.

Part of the answer, of course, was that Sheehan was doing all he could think of to make up for the missing rhythm guitar in a three-piece scenario. But there has also always been more to it—an explorative streak to his search which inspired the young player to make the most out his instrument while, amazingly, always giving priority to the form of the piece and the unified sound of the entire band.

Global success, in the end, caught up with Sheehan in the late ‘80s, when in 1988 he formed the supergroup Mr. Big after leaving David Lee Roth’s band, who he had previously recorded two platinum albums with. Mr. Big peaked in 1991, and the band carried on until 2002 with Richie Kotzen eventually replacing Paul Gilbert on the guitar. But Sheehan remained busy despite the changing trends and fashions, among other things playing on many of Steve Vai’s solo records between 2001 and 2007 and performing with him on the road as his touring bassist.

Despite all the events that took place between a humble start in Buffalo and ensuing global fame, Sheehan has never forgotten the joy of playing in a trio format, most recently forming another three-piece, Devil’s Slingshot with Tony MacAlpine on guitar and Virgil Donati on drums. Their 2007 debut release Clinophobia and subsequent tour confirmed Sheehan as one of the most prodigous instrumentalists to emerge from his generation who continues to refine his craft with unflagging energy.

But there is more to Sheehan than being the best bassist a trio can wish for, or a band leader, or a perfect hired gun who can adapt to the demands of practically any musical situation. Sheehan’s solo albums, the first of which was released back in 2001, show a completely different side to him as a musician, a musician in the widest meaning of the word. Here he continues his explorations further but goes beyond pure instrumental craft or straightforward songwriting. On his solo records the roiling intensity of his signature bass style often gives way to delicate yet moving melodies, revealing a different side to his talent, along with the remarkable fact that he proves to be not only a no-nonsense vocalist but a shrewdly competent guitarist, too.

Sheehan’s new solo album, Holy Cow, released last month, is a solid if not perfect record spanning a range between radio-ready ballads to explosive rock numbers, all rendered with cunning insight seeping through each layer of finely wrought details. Sheehan’s vocals lean effortlessly into the elegant melodies, shining on tunes like the Beatle-esque “Bloodless Casualty” and complimenting perfectly the barnburner rock vibe on stompers such as “Another Broken Promise”. Billy Gibbons hosts on “A Lit’l Bit’l Do It To ‘Ya Ev’ry Time”, instantly recongnisable in his poignantly restrained signature style, while Paul Gilbert makes an appearance on “Dynamic Exhilarator”, a dizzy and feverish number, justifying its name from the word go. But guitar leads on all other tracks are handled by Sheehan himself, his solos earthy and convincing, full of stable, fluent energy, and it’s fascinating to hear him recast the rhythm melodically, supported by a thickly layered bass groove rumbling underneath. In tandem with drummer Ray Luzier, both are a formidable force when their expertly stacked polyrhythms run underneath those tunes like an endless commentary, at times surging to the fore and grabbing the spotlight to raise their rhythmic game to Olympic level. All this is done with a perfect understanding of musical form—be it in a nostalgic ‘80s-style ballad or in an experiment in modern prog rock. And throughout all these adventures with the familiar and the unknown, Sheehan’s vision remains both focused and resolute. So the new album became the starting point of our conversation which took place a few days before the album’s release. This writer’s hands are virtually shaking as she picks up the receiver to answer Sheehan’s call. After all, he is the man most of today’s aspiring players would kill to spend a few moments speaking to.

ALISSA ORDABAI: How long did it take you to write the material for the new album? Was it a process that stretched over a period of time or did it all come together rather quickly?

BILLY SHEEHAN: Pretty quickly. I came up with a writing style that is similar to how you did it in the early days with a cassette player. Where you just put down a little idea and take it later and add it to another one. But it was a long-involved process on a cassette back in the old days. So now with my new Mac Book with a built-in camera I’d sit there with my guitar, open up my laptop and turn the camera on and record a video every time I come up with an idea. So I record myself explaining into the camera what I was doing, by saying, “OK, here’s the chorus. ” And then I’d get the guitar up close to the camera so that you can see the fingering and the chords I was doing, and say, “The chorus is blah-blah-blah, then I’m going into the bridge part.” And I explained songs piece by piece. Later on I took all those and used them as structures to tell me what to do, piecing them together in an actual recording in a session format. So it was kind of like talking to somebody else in a way, because I’m explaining it, and then I’m explaining it back to myself when I’m watching it. So in a way it was almost a fake band interaction, interacting with myself. But it came around pretty quickly. On Friday and Saturday night I’d get down with everything I had to do, and I’d pour a glass of red and I’d sit there. I came up with a lot of stuff pretty quick. And that’s always a good sign in my mind, when it comes quickly, because when you have to labour over a song it never seems to end up being anything that I like.

AO: The album comes though as quite a mixed bag of different styles and different ideas. Was there an initial concept behind this record or did it all come together as you went?

BS: Generally I play baritone guitar. I’m a bass player, of course, but when I play guitar I play baritone, which is tuned down lower than a normal guitar, closer to the pitch of the bass which helps my voice to sing along to that. There is a big factor in the sonic aspect of it when the guitar is tuned lower and a couple of rules that I’ve stuck on this record that I’ve done on my last two, which is that I can’t use the words “heart”, “love”, or “baby”. And I also can’t say anything like “my spirit”, or “your spirit”, because those words are so clichéd. It forces me to think of another way to say something, not to do it in the usual way. So I think that’s a good thing. And trying not to write about the normal subjects. It’s all implied and it’s somewhat normal, but if you listen closely, you can tell there is always far more to it. I like to try to make the lyrics a little bit intriguing and also, dare I say, a bit more challenging and intelligent if I can.

AO: But they are also quite humorous, aren’t they? Even the song titles have a great deal of humour to them, like “Two People Can Keep a Secret (If One of Them is Dead)”.

BS: It’s true. [Laughs] I think that the original quote came from Benjamin Franklin and then, I think, the Hell’s Angels took it as one of their mottos. And I always use it when I speak to friends about conspiracy theories, which I for a long time was intrigued by, and some of them made a lot of sense until I realised that “two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead” is, in fact, true, you know. If they were doing a fake Moon landing, they had to get about six thousand people to not say anything about it by now, so it was kind of tongue-in-cheek in that respect.

AO: When working on a solo album, do you feel a degree of liberation from having to compromise to a certain extent, to take into account the opinions of other members of the band? Whereas with a solo album you feel free to do whatever comes to mind?

BS: It’s somewhere in the middle. It’s good because you can do whatever you want, but you have to come up with everything yourself. When I’m in a room with a bunch of guys writing or working, we feed off each other a lot. I always love being in a band and playing as a band and writing as a band and all that. But when there is no band, I worked a lot with the drummer, Ray, who is just one of my favourite drummers ever and who is just a spectacular player, a star of a rise of drumming. When we recorded the drum parts, which are such essential parts to me as a bass player, we really talked things back and forth about how to treat things, and I let him have his way a lot of the time, just saying, “What would you do? How could you make that sound cooler?” Whatever. So in the end it did turn into a kind of push-pull interaction, which I think always brings about a better result. Also with the guy who mixed it, Pat Regan, I did that with him as well, as far as arrangements and things like that went. So there is a little bit of interaction, I like that a lot.

Other than that, I had to rely by the luck of the draw. I managed to really separate in my mind my bass playing from guitar playing. I don’t look at them even remotely the same. Those are completely different things to me. So when I’m playing guitar I don’t think bass at all, and when I’m playing bass, I’m not thinking guitar at all. I know a lot of guitar players who play bass on their own records, but they play it like a guitar player would, they don’t play it the way a bass player would play. Similarly, I don’t know a lot of bass players that play guitar, although there are some. I’m not as familiar with bass players playing guitar as I am with guitar players playing bass, because it’s just probably easier for a lot of guitar players to just lay down an easy bass line than to get a bass player over to the studio. So I hear that a lot. I like to think, although it’s of course up to other people’s opinion whether I’ve succeeded or not, that I have a very solid line drawn between the two.

AO: People, of course, are telling you all the time that your bass technique is very guitaristic, but hasn’t anyone ever told you that your guitar technique often bears the stamp of your main instrument, the bass? You know, the tone, the rhythm-oriented precision, the chunky textures, the exact phrasing?

BS: Cool, I’m glad if that’s the case. It’s hard for me to be objective because I’m in the middle of it. But if that is the case I’m glad because that would make it unique as far as guitar playing goes. But bass playing, a lot of times people confuse a lot of fast lines for being guitar-ish, whereas I always try to make the case that I can’t play that stuff on guitar. The stuff I play on bass I can’t play on guitar at all. And the stuff I can play on guitar, I could probably play that on bass, but it’s still done differently. For a pick I use a stone pick. So to rehash again, I’m trying to make a distinction between the two. But I’m always listening to the drummer as a guitarist, that helps me, I think, to weave the two together. And I always encourage everybody in a band to lock in with the drummer if I am in a band situation, so as a duo-mode guitar / bass player both times I time lock I with the drummer.

AO: Let’s talk a bit more about your bass technique. It has, of course, been called unorthodox so many times throughout the years. But at the time when you were just beginning to develop it, was it all simply for the purpose of making up for the absence of the rhythm guitar in a three-piece scenario…

BS: Absolutely.

AO: Or was there an element of showing off to it, you know, the way Jimmy Page played with a bow?

BS: In all honesty, probably, you know, back in the day. [Laughs] We are archiving cassettes right now from my collection. There is about three hundred cassettes of old demos and live shows. I just found a Michael Schenker demo he sent me in 1979 with him singing on it.

AO: Wow! Are there any plans to release any of this material?

BS: Yeah, I want to put everything everywhere. It’s just a matter of archiving it, editing it, getting it all in shape. But even some of the stuff that sounds a little crappy, I don’t mind letting people hear it because they are just demos or made from rehearsal hall cassette recorders, stuff like that. But I listen to a lot of the early days stuff on those cassettes and definitely one of the main motivations was to make up for what wasn’t there. And playing in a three-piece band you really had to get those chords implied when the guitar player stops playing chords and goes into single notes. Most guitar players I’ve played with are very pleased that they all feel that they aren’t standing there naked in front of the stage when I’m playing bass behind them. And a part of my job that I love is to make that foundation so thick that everyone feels extra comfortable, you know. So that’s an important thing. So primarily it was one of those things. But you’re right, there was an element of showing off. As a matter of fact, the first couple of articles I have done on the national magazines when I was still playing clubs and haven’t been signed, certainly a lot of musicians were there at these clubs and, of course, they would stand with their arms crossed, shaking their head, and I would purposefully just do anything I could do that was impossible just trying to beat them, and generally would win the confrontation, but nothing to do with music, and I don’t know if I would do that today. [Laughs]

AO: You once said that your initial inspiration for playing bass came from the ‘60s British musicians like Paul Samwell-Smith.

BS: Yes, Paul was a huge influence.

AO: And you also said that the first bass solo you ever took was on Free’s “Mr. Big”. Was Andy Fraser any particular influence on you when you were growing up?

BS: Yeah, a great tone and just… Paul Samwell-Smith, Andy Fraser, Jack Bruce, McCartney too, just great guys who were able to weave in and out with somewhat complex lines but they never got in trouble for it. And I think the reason for it is because they were able to do it musically and they were doing it in the context of songs. There wasn’t so much of a solo mentality that there is today, which I am not particularly fond of, which may sound funny coming from me who does a lot of solos. And that’s kind of why I put my record together the way it is—based on songs where playing is part of the songs and intrinsic to the songs. I do my best to try to make it that way because that is the kind of classic approach of the music I listened so much to when I was younger. So, oddly, a person like myself complaining that people are soloing too much sounds kind of crazy, I know.

AO: You also mentioned Paul McCartney, did he influence you in other ways, for example, in your songwriting?

BS: Absolutely.

AO: One song on the album, “Bloodless Casualty”, that to me sounded like it had echoes of Revolver-era Lennon and McCartney. Was it a conscious nod to the Fab Four?

BS: Probably unconscious, but I’m sure there is a connection there. I always unconsciously end up years later listening to something, going, “Oh, I know where I got this from, this is from so-and-so!” And they say, “Good writers write, great writers steal,” but I don’t steal consciously. When I do, I always give credit where it is due. But the Beatles were supremely important to my life as a person, as a player, as a human being, so it is inevitable that they would end up somewhere in there. If anything I ever do sounds anything like the Beatles, then I’m very happy about it because I grew up on that and it’s really important to me.

AO: Are you more a Lennon person or a McCartney person? [Laughs]

BS: [Laughs] Boy! I’m pretty much spot down in the middle, especially the orchestration of the song “We Can Work It Out” which is such a wonderful sentiment, and then John’s line, almost prophetic, is, “Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting.” It’s just brilliant that those two personalities are showcased in that way in that song. I’m certainly leaning towards one or the other at varying times, but both I love.

AO: How do song melodies come to you? Do you have to lock yourself in a room or do they come to you when you go about your daily business?

BS: They just… I’m a huge fan of so much music that I always have something playing in my head and I always have some variation on a theme. I’m always playing and always writing and I don’t do much else. In the early years of interviews people would ask me what my hobbies were and I’d have to make stuff up because I had nothing to tell them. [Laughs] I just play. So melodically things kind of come from all over the place. And they come pretty easy. I honestly don’t know how some of the stuff happens, I’m kind of just sitting there and suddenly something hits you and there it is.

AO: Your association with Paul Gilbert, of course, goes way back to Mr. Big, but how long have you known Billy Gibbons for?

BS: I met him for the first time in about 1988 or 9. But I saw him perform live in 1974. And I stole two of my best moves from him: pitch harmonics and hammer-ons I got from Billy Gibbons.

AO: Yeah, like he’d hit a note and press it an octave higher. [Laughs]

BS: Yes. [Laughs] And I remember at the show we were right up close to the front of the stage and there he was! And he is just so awesome! The guy is just so automatic, as soon as his hands touch the guitar, it’s him. It doesn’t even matter what he’s playing through. Really incredible. And what a wonderful guy, just a walking encyclopaedia of many subjects.

AO: Musical subjects or general human wisdom?

BS: All over the map. It’s such an honour… And he came to my house to do it, and I was like, “Oh my god, Billy’s in my house!”

AO: Incredible!

BS: The nicest guy ever and every time I communicate with him it’s just a joy. The song I wrote with him in mind hoping that maybe I can get him to play on it, but I thought, “Geez, the chance is slim!” I tried a few times through management, stuff like that, and it came through dead, and I thought, “I don’t want to do this because it kind of breaks the protocol, but I’ll just e-mail him.” He answered and I was just through the roof. And I thought, “What is going to happen?” But when he laid it down… Because ZZ Top was a huge influence on me and that song is meant to be ZZ Top-ish and boy, he nailed it!

AO: And you can tell right away it’s him. Even from the very start when he’s still just playing little fills between the verses you can tell it’s him.

BS: It’s so Billy, it’s amazing! [Laughs]

AO: But do you ever play purely for enjoyment? Not for practice, not for anyone else, but for yourself?

BS: Quite a bit, quite a bit! I sit around with a glass of red and a bunch of friends. There was once for over seven hours as we sat there and played, and I think I got to go to the bathroom once. It was in a little club, a bass clinc for a university we did at a club and there was nobody there. Someone had a guitar, we started singing and playing and we went on ‘til two o’clock in the morning. By the time we were done there were 250 people in the place. They’d yell out a song or a band and I had to think of something. I surprised myself because I got into a state of mind where I’d figure it out even if I don’t know it, I’d hear a pitch in my head and I’d know where I should be on the fretboard, just sing and play it. It’s a RIOT! It’s one of the greatest joys I have in life is to sit around with a bunch of people on a guitar and just sing and play.

AO: But would you say that playing music can be used for meditation, for a kind of dialogue with yourself or other spheres beyond the everyday world?

BS: Absolutely. Yes, if things are going rough or I’m out of focus or knocked off center or whatever in any aspect of life, I sit down with my bass or guitar and I can get back to planet Earth pretty easy and it’s really the only thing that I do that’s my specialty. I do other things, I’m a pretty good fisherman, I can do some things pretty good, but my main thing is to sit down and play bass and just to sit down sometimes and to go off on it. Not to go fast and not to do anything fancy, but just to play it and enjoy. I often say when I do my clinics when we are talking about success with young musicians, I say that one of the greatest successes that I consider that I have is that after forty years I still love to play. I pick the bass up and have a riot. I really encourage people to play, no matter where they are in life—young or old, just beginning or whatever. Just to get into a musical instrument and beginning to play. I think it’s a really important thing for people.

AO: For professional musicians, of course, it’s difficult to keep that initial spark, isn’t it?

BS: It is.

AO: With all the pressures and worries about, you know…

BS: Yeah, it is. That’s why I consider myself really lucky that this somehow was built into me. I don’t know how. I’m really pleased about it. If it wasn’t there, I couldn’t imagine what life could be like.

AO: Do you have any plans to take the album on the road?

BS: The plans aren’t concrete yet, but that’s the idea. Hopefully this fall I can get out and do it. Right now I am busy right until summer. Then I hope I can get Ray, who’s pretty tied up with Korn gigs. If I could get him for a month or so that would be great, because I love playing with him live. So that’s the idea. If I could grab Ray for a month or so, we could go out do some playing, that would be fantastic.

AO: What elements do you think need to coincide for a good show to happen?

BS: Well, I like a little challenge. As an audience member I like a little bit of a challenge, but I like a little familiarity to kind of get me through the door. And then a challenge. And I want to see something that I don’t see every single day, I don’t necessarily want to see clichéd performances. And I want to see intensity. As a player, those are also the things that I like to do, so maybe that’s also the kind of fan I am, too. I was a fan first before I was a player and I think being a fan moulded the way I approach playing. I try to do those things that I always want to see if I was in the audience, which is to try to avoid being clichéd, try to be a little challenging, but not to be so far out that I’m completely unfamiliar with everyone, and doing it with high intensity. Even if it’s something funny or fun, it’s gotta be some high intensity fun. A real interaction among the musicians on stage and a real sense that the music is alive, in other words, it gets improvised on, it gets risked on, instead of doing the same show the same way every single day, and the same solo the same way every single night. I really avoid that as much as possible, I really want it to be a fresh, a live thing. Because when the musicians are up on stage, they feel it’s alive, and they get surprised, they get to watch, and it’s a whole different attitude, and the audience picks up on that. I know I do as a fan.

AO: How do you maintain your technique? Does it still require everyday practice?

BS: It is hard. [Laughs] It is painful, and it’s ugly, and it hurts a lot. But in order to keep it up at a certain level… I can play the same stuff lightly all the time, but to really play it live in front of the people on stage, it’s a really heavy and intense physical thing. It’s odd because if you were doing something with your legs or throwing punches, that would be different, but you are doing it with your fingertips, so you are putting all the strength that you can in the little ends of your fingers, and it’s a whole different physicality to it. But it’s tough to maintain, it’s really tough. It takes me a couple of shows just to start getting up to speed. So since recently I try to work out a lot more rehearsals so by the time I do the first show I’m in a pretty good shape, but I’ll never be in as good a shape as I am by the time of the 10th or 12th show, no matter what. It just takes that long for it to happen.

AO: Would you say that being a musician has changed in any major way since the time when you were growing up? Are there more requirements, are the requirements tougher?

BS: I’ve made it tough. I’ve made it tough on myself by making the choices I’ve made. It’s self-induced pain, believe me. [Laughs] I could take an easy way out, but I like it this way, so it’s kind of moulded the way I think about things and the way I approach things, and the way I approach bass, everything comes from that. So the rest of my life is kind of modelled after how I’m playing and my intensity towards that. So it certainly has had an influence on every aspect of my life, I’m sure.

AO: Would you say that virtuosity, instrumental virtuosity, is ultimately about control? Where there are no limits to your domain because you can do anything?

BS: Well, that’s true on a physical level. But I also think it’s important to get out of the physicality of it sometimes and out of the technique thing, to let the inspiration run its course.

AO: But isn’t it what the technique ultimately allows you to do to the full extent?

BS: Yeah. Once you get past the mechanics, you can do that. I think that it’s important to get over the hurdle and take it from there so that you don’t have to necessarily fall over it. I think that there could be major stumbling blocks for someone who is having trouble moving their fingers around while they are trying to get inspired. You have to navigate that minefield to some degree. But I also see a lot of people pushing themselves physically with no musical thought in mind. And that’s a mistake. I see a lot of people e-mailing me worried about their three-finger technique and where their thumb should be, and I am saying to them, “What songs are you playing?” – “None.” [Laughs] So I go, “Well, that’s a problem here.” It kind of leapfrogs. Music and technique comes on top of that, and more music comes on top of that until eventually it comes to the point where it becomes art.

AO: Don’t we see a lot of people falling into a trap with their technique where they end up producing sleek art where in fact, it should be a matter of balance between that and being able to communicate?

BS: Exactly right. When there is no communication I think it’s utterly worthless. Guys sitting in their bedrooms and practicing scales, it’s really not going anywhere. You gotta get out and get on stage, and it’s gotta be delivered. Music is a living art and it lives with other people.

AO: I have one last question, and it’s a bit goofy, I hope you don’t mind.

BS: Ha-ha, I don’t mind at all!

AO: Great. If you were granted an answer to any question in the universe, what would you ask?

BS: Hmm… That’s a great question, let’s see. What do I want to know? Hmm… I guess I would want to know what really is a… [Pauses] Or I’ll go for this one: I’d like to know if the face on Mars is a sculpture or a natural rock formation.

AO: [Laughs] What do you think it is?

BS: I think it’s a sculpture. Yeah.

AO: Ah! Interesting!

BS: Ha-ha! But I guess there is no way of knowing until you walk around it.

AO: True. Well, it’s been great, thank you so much for your time!

BS: My pleasure. Thank YOU.