![]() ![]() ![]() Joe Veillette has some of the most beautiful and incredible instruments. The neck is unfinished wood, so it has a great feel, and it’s all birdseye. The guy who made it made one for himself and one for me – they’re the only two that exist. One of my most cherished possessions is an odd-shaped semi-hollow from Yamaha. I started doing solo stuff because I got one. Playing and singing with baritone six- and 12-strings has always been a big inspiration. Were certain instruments an inspiration for writing songs? An early Yamaha Sheehan signature Attitude. Sheehan calls this Yamaha signature Attitude “9/11.” It has a Sims LED fretboard. I wanted to not have that happen I wanted to have them hear my voice and the songwriting. Sometimes there’s a huge cringe factor, where I don’t know if I want to play this for anyone else. So for me, the greatest challenge was to write songs I really like. Cosmic Troubadour was kind of a way for me to just say, “This is just me and a drummer.” But now that I’ve done that, it’s time to have guests. I usually don’t like it when a guy does a solo record and has so many guests you’re not sure whose record it is. I liked it, but I also like to have more people in the stew. I learned alot making Cosmic Troubadour because it was really just me, the drummer, and the two guys I use in the studio. I still go back and listen to that album, and I still like it because it was just completely by chance. Compression was a total roll of the dice. Well, it becomes less of a challenge as I become more experienced. How did the writing and recording compare to making your previous solo albums? The wear is all natural, and he adds that the bass is, “.actually salty from soaking in my brine sweat”! Wife Bass) Sheehan bought this this circa-’70 Fender Precision Bass he calls “The Wife” new. So when I’m doing this, I allow each instrument to sit properly in the mix and create a nice, heavy sonic wall, not just a blast of noise. A guy with a low voice wouldn’t have worked at all for AC/DC. On AC/DC Back In Black, you’ve got the super-deep, heavy bass and drums – heavy as all creation – and the perfectly punctuated upper-mid guitar stabs, and then a voice way over the top of everything. So the rest of the track has all kinds of room to sit in. It’s kind of midrangey, bright, and beautiful. But later, when they were trying to figure out how those records were made, we realized that Hendrix’s guitar doesn’t have a lot of low-end. It’s a very important thing that inadvertently happened on a lot of great records before they were really paying attention to it. You have to either EQ them out of each other’s way or record them out of each other’s way to start with. ![]() An instrument in one frequency should not be stepping on an instrument of a similar frequency. People who dismiss really heavy bands don’t understand that does not come easily it’s coordination of disparate factors, because mixing by frequency is a lost art. But to get that heaviness – the “heavy-osity,” as Woody Allen would put it – requires a bit of fine-tuning. Holy Cow! has a heavier sound and feel than material you’ve written in the past.Ībsolutely. Sheehan also harbors a special love for baritone instruments, which have become the musical foundation for his solo work. Also eager to show off some eye candy, Sheehan invited VG to check out his favorite instruments, including the Fender Precision Bass which had been his main squeeze through his tenure with Talas and later served as the springboard for his signature Yamaha Attitude. Having recently completed his third solo disc, Holy Cow!, Sheehan sat with Vintage Guitar to discuss the album and how collaborating with Paul Gilbert sparked a Mr. Big in the ’90s, his name has always been right there with the elite. Whether with Talas in the ’70s, tapping toe-to-toe with Steve Vai in the ’80s incarnation of David Lee Roth’s band, or forming the chart-topping Mr. All photos by Neil Zlozower.Īmong rock bassists, Billy Sheehan has been a standout in four decades. ![]()
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