Classicrockrevisited.com spoke to bassist extraordinaire Billy Sheehan recently about a number of topics including his new solo album, Holy Cow and the MR. BIG reunion. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Classicrockrevisited.com: The big news is Mr. Big is going to fly again and you’re going to be doing some shows over in Japan this summer.

Billy: "Yeah that was the first thing that came up. We’ve received a lot of e-mails from people asking why we aren’t playing elsewhere but we just haven’t had the time to put it all together yet because it’s our desire to play everywhere.

Classicrockrevisited.com: I won’t go into the reasons for why the band broke up in the first place but there were some issues there. So what’s changed in the last few years to make now the right time to do this?

Billy: "It was a whole bunch of things converging at the same time. It happened to be our 20th anniversary just by chance, which didn’t really have much of an effect on us at all other than the fact that when we got back together to have dinner and talk someone mentioned that it was our 20th anniversary and we had no idea. Paul did a couple of solos on the track 'Dynamic Exhilarator' on Holy Cow and going over to his house to work with him we had a great time. I had jammed quite a bit with Paul here and there and I’d seen him around L.A. of course, he lives here and Pat Torpey as well I see him quite a bit. Paul and I hadn’t worked together though in the studio at least for quite a long time, but we had a great time."

Classicrockrevisited.com: What about Eric (Martin) because I know there were some issues with him?

Billy: "Eric lives up in San Francisco so we weren’t exposed to him that much. Yeah there were some definite issues and issues with management too but we had sent e-mails back and forth over the last year or so that was always pleasant, encouraging and complimentary. He has a couple of kids and one of them wanted to play bass so I found a tiny little bass in Japan and had Yamaha set it up left handed and sent it to him. Generally the atmosphere was just settling out, lightening up and cool. After Paul had played on my record he did a show at The House of Blues and he invited me to come and join him. Pat was on the show also with Ritchie Kotzen and we all got together."

Read the entire interview here.