INTERVIEW: Bassist Billy Sheehan on the collaborative spirit of the Winery Dogs
Photo: The Winery Dogs features, from left, Richie Kotzen, Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan. Photo courtesy of Travis Shinn / Provided by ABC PR with permission.
The Winery Dogs are a supergroup of master rock ‘n’ roll interpreters, and they are back in the news with their third album — appropriately named III — and an expansive tour that will take them around the world and back again. This coming week they have several dates in the New York and New Jersey region. When buying a ticket, audiences can expect the guitar work of Richie Kotzen, the bass work of Billy Sheehan and the drumming of Mike Portnoy. Kotzen provides vocals, with Sheehan and Portnoy backing him up.
This album and tour have been long in the works, but, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their reunion plans.
“We wanted to do it earlier, but with the whole pandemic thingie, it slowed everybody down, everything down,” Sheehan said in a recent phone interview. “So when we were finally free to travel, Mike Portnoy and I flew out to Richie’s house in L.A. and sat in a little room and wrote songs, and that was the organic and old-school process we followed — sitting together in room, coming up with parts and ideas. It was quite a great experience, enjoyable writing the record, and then we recorded as we wrote for the most part.”
When Sheehan and company are in a room together, it’s a comedy festival, the bassist said. He reported loving the collaboration that he builds with Kotzen and Portnoy, often using works like “excited” and “wonderful” and “great” to describe their time together. In some ways, this has to be a positive experience because the trio will be together, on and off, for the better part of 2023.
“We’ll be in a tour bus together, and it’s looking like this tour is going to be long,” Sheehan said, without a hint of remorse and hesitation. “We already have bookings up into the fall and then maybe some spillover into the next year, so it’s going to be a great run with this. We’re glad to be all together for this.”
When the Winery Dogs take the stage, they will bring songs from their three albums, but there’s an emphasis on the tunes of III, which features the new singles “Mad World” and “Xanadu.” Sheehan is an expert bassist who has played with everyone from David Lee Roth to Steve Vai to Mr. Big, which he founded. However, the songs on III are complex and have taken some time to learn.
“Some of it is pretty challenging,” he said. “There was one solo on the outro of ‘Mad World’ that I just happened to throw in as the song was reaching the end, and I didn’t think about it. I just played it, and then I had to go back and relearn that solo. I play by ear only, and I forgot what I did. And I forgot what position I was in on the bass neck, so it took me quite a while to finally refigure that out. I did get it, so I’ll be performing that live. That was one of the little pitfalls of playing improvisation and in the moment. Things aren’t thought out and documented in places where they should be, and things just happen. So in order to reproduce that later, it takes a little effort sometimes.”
For “Xanadu,” a rock ‘n’ roll song that is a superlative window into the musical offerings on III, the composition came before the lyrics. Portnoy apparently started with a riff, as the bass player remembers it, and then Kotzen and Sheehan joined in. Then Kotzen added some vocalizations — not quite words, just vocal sounds to match the beat — and then later he added the lyrics.
“That was one of the first ones we heard that was actually somewhat completed with vocals in it, and I remember us driving to lunch,” Sheehan said. “Richie put it on in his vehicle, and we were ecstatic about it because you never know until it’s done how it’s going to sound. The music was righteous. We felt good about that, but it’s not a song really until there’s vocal and lyric. And Richie did a great job on it. We were all celebratory, to say the least.”
Sheehan came to the bass guitar because of a neighbor his by the name of Joe. He apparently is a “really cool guy,” and as a boy, Sheehan looked up to him and wanted to be just like him when he grew older. What cemented that feeling was when Sheehan was listening to a rock song on the radio one day with his older brother; it must have been in the early- to mid-1960s. While listening, he heard the bass in the song, and he made the connection back to Joe.
“I’m still good friends with Joe through all these years,” Sheehan said. “He’s quite a great bass player, and I’m still learning as well. I was attracted to the instrument. Guitar players would come, and they’d have these tiny little amps like a Fender Twin Reverb or Deluxe. And then the bass amp would show up, and it’d be this giant thing. In my warped sensibilities of inexperience, I didn’t realize that the guitarists get all the glory. [laughs] We’ve got to carry the big, heavy amps and generally be in the background. I didn’t realize that at the time, not that it was a concern of mine. It’s just kind of interesting, that low sound and the way it looked, the really long neck and the giant amp, to me that was all very attractive. And I’m still at it today.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Winery Dogs — featuring Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy — recently released their new album, III. They are currently playing on tour throughout the United States. Click here for more information and tickets.
