MR. BIG bassist Billy Sheehan will be signing autographs and talking about Hartke at the Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany on March 21st. He's currently scheduled to begin at 9:00am. Hartke is located at Stand C35 in Hall 4.0.

Sheehan will also appear at the RotoSound booth. Details to follow.

Go to this location for event information.

RockMusicStar.com's Thomas Stanley Orwat Jr. recently spoke with Sheehan. An excerpt is available below:

Q: Mr. Big is releasing a live CD, Live From The Living Room. This is a stripped down concert that you did in Japan, with a Japanese string orchestra backing the band. This CD really showcases the beauty of the songs. How difficult was it to choose the setlist for this release, and was it at all challenging playing in this environment?

A: "It was really interesting to hear the orchestra come in and perform the string arrangements for the songs. I never worked with strings before, and I’m a huge classical music fan, so it was really cool to work with these great musicians. As far as the setlist, that wasn’t too difficult. We enjoy pleasing our audience, so we played things that they want to hear. But sometimes, what is pleasing to an audience, is to hear a new take on something that they have already heard. So we went through what we had, and chose what we did and let the chips fall where they may. Also, we sing a lot. While we were rehearsing, before we go to play, we are singing a lot of difficult songs when we are warming up. We purposely challenge ourselves to sing songs that are difficult to sing. Things like CSN, THREE DOG NIGHT, stuff like that. So we were pretty prepared for the performance. But whenever you record anything live, there is always that risk of catastrophe or major screw up. It’s a pressure situation, but it’s a good pressure, it makes it so you have to have it together, or you can fall right on your face. So, we worked very hard to be prepared for this. We sang a lot and we know the songs pretty well. So we let them organically re-shape themselves according to the new template in which we were playing. And then we just let it fly and there it was."

Mr. Big will release the acoustic live album, Live From The Living Room, on February 24th in Europe and February 28th in North America via Frontiers Records.

At the end of January 2011, during a week-long promotion trip for their latest reunion album What If and tour, Mr. Big were invited to the WOWOW TV Studios in Tokyo to perform a special show in an intimate setting. When the talk of a broadcast first came up, the band wanted to present something different than they’ve ever done before. Thus the idea of an acoustic show came about and a string quintet was brought in to enhance the project even more, with arrangements provided by Takashi Miyazaki. Although Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan hooked up electric on a few songs, the show was still very much acoustic in nature throughout. Pat Torpey played various acoustic percussion instruments during the gig.

Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin commented: “The idea for the show came out of a quick conversation the four of us had after a day of interviews promoting the new What if CD. We did an acoustic show at the Hard Rock café in Singapore in 1996 that (till this day) is one of my favorite live recordings. It had a stripped down, up close and personal feel to it. If we were going to do something like that again it would have to be extra special. We were talking about the old days when musicians used to live together in a band house and practice day and night. Our favorite rock band posters and tapestry’s adorning the walls, family hand me down furniture, amps that doubled as lamp stands, friends hanging out and the usual cluttered mess on the floor, lyric sheets, guitar cases and chords, music stands, beer cans, Pizza boxes, wine bottles etc. Live From The living room was born out of that. We wanted to recreate a harmonious atmosphere and treat our fans to an informal jam session of songs from the past and present while throwing in a few surprises from our wish lists (Strings, Japanese taiko drums).”

Live From The Living Room tracklisting is as follows:

‘Undertow’

‘Still Ain't Enough For Me’

‘As Far As I Can See’

‘Voodoo Kiss’

‘Take Cover’

‘Around The World’

‘Stranger In My Life’

‘All The Way Up’

‘To Be With You’

‘Nobody Left To Blame’

The first track off the album, ‘Undertow’, is now streaming at this location.