WILD BILL

With more bands under his belt than we’ve eaten backstage ramen, the mighty Billy Sheehan is nothing less than a king in our world. We meet the great man as he delivers yet another sterling performance on Sons Of Apollo’s new album, MMXX

- Joel McIver

As the world of bass guitar has evolved, we’ve watched Billy Sheehan ascend to its very zenith — playing without overplaying, touring relentlessly while staying healthier than a bassist half his age, maintaining an unwavering creative output and still being a man that you’d love to sit down and have a beer with. That’s a rare combination in our experience; after a 50-year career of playing bass, something usually gets lost, be it health, playing skillm, or just personality. But not Sheehan, whose debut appearance on the cover in 1990 we’re celebrating by appointing him as Guest Editor...

Billy, it’s been 30 years since you appeared on the cover of the Premiere Issue of Bass Player magazine. Would you say you’re playing bass differently now to the way you were in 1990?

I think so. I know more about what I’m doing. A lot of times I would do things, but I wouldn’t really know what it was or how I did it, and I’d have to go back and relearn it, and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing. But now I’m much more well-versed on what’s happening and what I’m doing and how and why it worked, if it did. I’ve also been tireless in my pursuit of ‘more’ and ‘better’. Not necessarily faster or more notes, but more understanding and playing things better, so that every finger is more precise; everything is where it should be. When there’s slop, it’s good slop. It sounds like it was intended slop as opposed to accidental, unintentional slop!

Do you work hard at this process?