CREEM SHOWCASE
He’s the Baryshnikov of the bass. The da Vinci of da bottom end. As the nuclear-strength lower register of David Lee Roth’s thrills-n-spilis kamikazi, bassist Billy Sheehan cops equally from Bach, Boeing, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. The proverbial pickless wonder, he’s got the fastest fingers in the neighborhood.
CREEM SHOWCASE
GOODNESS KNOWS BILLY SHEEHAN
by
Dan Hedges
He’s the Baryshnikov of the bass. The da Vinci of da bottom end. As the nuclear-strength lower register of David Lee Roth’s thrills-n-spilis kamikazi, bassist Billy Sheehan cops equally from Bach, Boeing, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. The proverbial pickless wonder, he’s got the fastest fingers in the neighborhood. Maybe the entire Universe.
“I avoid the word ‘progressive,’” Sheehan says, revving up for a gig in Portland, Oregon. “Me and Steve Vai play a lot of notes, and both come from the same background. Bowie, Hendrix, Zappa. Even Dave is into all that. But it’s the humor of Zappa for him, and that’s the glue that holds it together for all of us: the humor factor. It gets to point of ridiculousness sometimes when you’re playing so many notes. You have to take it as a joke, otherwise you’ll go over the heads of most of the people watching. I mean, how can you be serious in a 20,000 seat hockey arena?”