Mr. Big

Among the scant number of pop-metal acts specializing in shredding techniques, Mr. Big stood apart for valuing meticulous songwriting on equal footing with instrumental mastery. Bassist Billy Sheehan, widely hailed as the Eddie Van Halen of bass, departed David Lee Roth’s solo group in 1988 and promptly assembled the band by recruiting ex-Racer X guitarist Paul Gilbert, drummer Pat Torpey, and vocalist Eric Martin, who had previously issued two little-known solo albums during the mid-1980s. The newly formed quartet secured a deal with Atlantic and delivered its self-titled debut in 1989. While the record earned admiration from fellow musicians, it never connected with mainstream American rock listeners, yet it achieved instant popularity in Japan.

On the follow-up, 1991’s Lean into It, the group expanded its sonic range by featuring the melodic psychedelic rocker “Green Tinted Sixties Mind” alongside two ballad singles that achieved major chart success: the chart-topping “To Be with You” and the Top 20 single “Just Take My Heart.” Subsequent albums Bump Ahead in 1993 and Hey Man in 1996 failed to replicate that domestic commercial momentum, though the band’s appeal in Japan continued to intensify, fueling repeated sold-out tours and a series of Japan-exclusive live releases such as Raw Like Sushi, Raw Like Sushi 2, Japandemonium, and Mr. Big in Japan. In the late 1990s Paul Gilbert exited to launch a solo career and was succeeded by former Poison guitarist Richie Kotzen; the revised lineup produced Get Over It and Actual Size before staging a farewell tour of Japan that ended with an amicable split in 2002.

With the twentieth anniversary of the debut approaching, the original members gathered for a Japanese radio appearance in early 2009 to confirm their reunion. A subsequent tour yielded the double-disc live set Back to Budokan later that year, after which the band convened in Los Angeles during September 2010 to record fresh material. The resulting What If surfaced in Japan three months afterward and reached the United States in early 2011. Pat Regan produced the 2014 release …The Stories We Could Tell, and in 2017 Mr. Big delivered Defying Gravity—their third studio album since reuniting in 2010 and ninth overall.