Mr. Big - What Happened to the Band Behind 'To Be With You'?

Mr. Big - What happened to the band behind songs like to be with you and wild world

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I’ve had a lot of requests for this band, so let’s talk about the history of the group Mr. Big.

Mr. Big would sometimes be lumped in with the glam metal bands of the sunset strip and just seen as yet another LA band. They would sprout up at the tail end of the whole glam metal scene in the late 80’s and The history of the band began with bassist Billy Sheehan.

Sheehan’s start in music began in his hometown of buffalo where he started playing guitar before trading it in for a bass and forming a band a band called Talas in 1972.. They had some regional success, putting out three records and even toured with van halen in 1984. Sheehan even played briefly with English band UFO in the early 80’s after Talas had opened for them. It was during that tour Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth took notice of the young bassist.. It was following David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen in 1985 that he enlisted Sheehan to be his band.. Also playing with Roth was guitarist Steve Via and Sheehan thought the band was going to have significant potential. The band collectively recorded Roth’s Debut LP 1986’s Eat Em and Smile. But when it came time to record Roth’s follow up record, 1988 Skyscraper, that collaborative relationship changed int he studio. Sheehan would tell the record newspaper “compare the first two albums and you can hear how manufactured skyscraper sounds. We recorded all our parts separately and i never even heard the complete album until it was released.” He would tell the valley advocate springfield that the album had too many synthesizers on it and he felt too constricted trying to write his parts for the album. It was this experience that gave him an outline of what he wanted to do with his next band, which would be Mr. Big he would add “From my stint as a sideman, I learned that democracy works best.”

There were rumors following Sheehan’s exit, that the bassist was going to be joining ex-billy idol guitarist Steve Stevens at the time. Sheehan was also getting offered solo deals by record labels including Mr. Big’s future home Atlantic Records. It would be mike varney of guitar player magazine who ended up connecting Sheehan with vocalists. Sheehan would reach out to Van Halen producer Ted templeman when it came to finding out the hottest guitar player was at the time. He pointed Sheehan in the direction of Paul Gilbert who the bassist already knew. It turned out Gilbert had played in a band that opened for Talas a number of times in Pittsburgh. Funny enough years later in 1985 in LA, Sheehan was a judge at a guitar wars contest revealing to the buffalo news, one of the contestants was Gilbert, who won the contest. Add to that Sheehan had seen a number of Racer X shows and it was destiny that these two guys were going to play together.

Sheehan would tell the buffalo news When i found out he wasn’t as stably in racer x as i had thought, i called him up and said listen I’ve got Eric Martin to start a band with and he goes Eric Martin you’re kidding. I’ve been listening to him for the last 3 or 4 weeks trying to find out a way to get in touch with him myself. So ironically that’s how it went down.” Drummer Pat Torpey (Tore -pee) would enter the picture when Sheehan met him during as they sang backup vocals for David Lee Roth’s planned tour for Skyscraper and the plan was for the backup vocals to be sampled. Pat also did background vocals on the last motley crue record as well. Torpey, had already amassed an impressive resume touring with Robert Plant, Belinda Carlisle, The Knack and Ted Nugent rounded out the lineup. Within 16 months they got a record deal and released their first album.

It was in April of 1988 of that Sheehan began assembling the components of another band telling the LA Times “The plan was to have a band like the British bands of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s-like Humble Pie and Bad Company that had a bluesy, wailing R&B; singer fronting a heavy-rock band,” Calling themselves Mr. Big, the band would take their name of a song by british group free. The band soon had a big time manager herbie herbert who had managed Journey.

The word that’s continually brought up in Mr. Big’s early days was