Billy Sheehan musician known for his work with Talas, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, Niacin, and The Winery Dogs. He has won the "Best Rock Bass Player" readers' poll from Guitar Player magazine five times for his "lead bass" playing style. Check out his career-spanning interview with Slash bassist Todd Kerns below.

On leaving the David Lee Roth Band and forming Mr. Big

Sheehan: "I've always been a band guy, even writing-wise, I like to work with people, with the band, work together, be in the same room and come up with parts. For me, that's how The Beatles did it, and that's my template for many, many things. So when that all went down, I recorded the Skyscraper record and left right after it was done, and Steve (Vai) quit halfway through that tour, I believe also - because it just was a big change. And Dave, god bless him, he took a chance, and he went a little more pop, and almost dance, and unfortunately it didn't work because the dance people hate the rock people, and rock people hate the dance people, and never the two shall meet. If it would have happened, it could have been the most amazing breakthrough record of all time. Uunfortunately, it just didn't fly for whatever reason. How many bands or records you know of that are amazing, and it just never happens? It's so many bands, it's sad to see, so that was that.

I thought, 'Well, I want to do a band where we have the idea rather than the person rules.' I already knew Paul Gilbert, he used to come to see Talas play, Pat Torpey (drums) I knew from a couple of other things around L.A., and then I found the singer (Eric Singer) through Mike Varney, always showcasing new guitar players in Guitar Player Magazine. And fortunately for us, we got connected right away with an amazing manager Herbie Herbert - legendary. He got us our deals, he made the #1 single happen "To Be With You", he got us into Japan, he got us tours, he got us the Rush tour, Scorpions tour, Aerosmith, all these tours, they were all his doing.

"We were all pretty cool, and it was right away a pretty reasonable, equitable situation. I had just come off of David Lee Roth, Racer X broke up, so Paul was available, Pat just did the Belinda Carlisle tour, he played with Ted Nugent, a lot of people too, and Eric had had three record deals and nothing happened for him. So when I came off from David Lee Roth, I was in a good position just to say to them, 'I think if we get together, we'll get enough attention from people that would maybe do something.' It was a pretty cool, pretty even-tempered, nice situation. All bands fight, but we didn't fight that much."