Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy tried working with guitarist John Sykes prior to The Winery Dogs

Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy tried working with guitarist John Sykes prior to The Winery Dogs

Mr. Big and The Winery Dogs bassist Billy Sheehan was recently interviewed by All That Shreds.

In terms of Eddie Trunk‘s role in getting the band together, Sheehan stated: “Eddie was certainly impetuous for us to find Richie because of Mike and me, we wanted to do a band, and we talked with John Sykes. We did a couple of meetings, and there were a few demos, and I knew right away from the beginning that the chemistry just was not there. John’s a lovely guy and a fantastic player, but we weren’t all on the same page. So we bid him a friendly farewell, all good, and then Mike said to me ‘do you know any singing guitar players?’ And I said ‘well, Jeez, let me think about it.’ And I don’t know why I didn’t think of Richie because I go up and jam with him when he plays here locally and we’ve worked together a lot. I did a tour with him in Japan in 2000 something, opening for the Stones, five shows in Japan, so I’ve played with him a lot, I know him a lot, he’s a dear friend. And I don’t know why it just blanked out on that and so Eddie Trunk said ‘you guys should get Richie Kotzen.’ Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? So sure enough, we got in touch with him, went over and had a little meeting, and here we are The Winery Dogs. So yes, Eddie certainly was instrumental in helping the band get together and also on top of it, as he does with so many bands, he’s such a great supporter of music and bands and players. He’s enriched musicians and the musical community significantly, with support and help and promotion and he’s a dear, a dear friend of ours, and we love him completely.

With respect to possibly juggling The Winery Dogs and Mr. Big, Sheehan advised: “We did that on a ship one time. We did it on one of the Monster Rock Cruises. I did the Winery Dogs and Mr. Big, I did double duty, and it was cool, so I managed to pull it off. But no, right now we’re going to finish off this year with Mr. Big, and then we’ll decide what our schedule will be for Winery Dogs, how, when, where, what, and probably start writing at the end of the year.

For Winery Dogs, I think we’re doing something smart up front, in my humble opinion anyway, not to be self-aggrandizing, but we’re not going just to do album tour, album tour and album tour. After Hot Streak, we traveled all over the world, we had a great run. We said you know what? Let’s take some time and get inspired so that we come back; it will be fresh and new again. Pretty much like those first two records, because we were still learning each other and learned things about each other and coming up with ideas that were fresh. So when you spend 4 years together, 3 or 4 years together, it’s great to back off and then when you come in again it’s all fresh and new, we’ve all lived lives, Richie is off doing his thing now, Mike’s off doing his thing and I’m doing Mr. Big and a bunch of other stuff.

When we get back together again, we’ll have a whole big vocabulary of stories to tell as well as musical ideas that mean something to us rather than just forcing it out because the schedule says it’s time for a record and I think that’s a wise thing that we’re doing in the Winery Dogs, approaching it in that fashion. So I believe that we’re going to wait until the end of this year to start writing and I’m always writing anyway. So I’ve always got a couple of pieces of music that I’m working on that ‘this might work for Winery Dogs or ‘this might be a Mr. Big thingy’ or whatever. So we’re always at it.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Sheehan at All That Shreds.