1985. For many of us, just thinking of that distant year conjures up images of flamboyantly attired metal bands, musical extravagances – and time-travelling DeLoreans. For bassist Billy Sheehan, it was a pivotal year, one in which he bade farewell to his bandmates in Talas and took up his position as a sideman to David Lee Roth, one of the greatest performers of his generation. Now, 37 years later, Billy has reunited with his old Talas bandmates to release 1985, a newly recorded album consisting largely of material that was written back in the mid-Eighties. Let’s ask the man himself how much fun it can be to go back in time...
“Five years ago, I played a show with that version of Talas – and I say that because through the years there’s been eight or nine different versions of the band,” recalls Sheehan. “The two that most people knew were the trio that did the Sink Your Teeth Into That album in 1982, and another version after that with the line-up of this new album. We’d always wanted to do something since I left in 1985. Back then the band was in great shape, we were doing great business everywhere, and we scored a major record deal just at the point that I left. So, five years ago we played a free show at an outdoor festival in Rochester, New York. We had a riot rehearsing and performing the show, just a real blast. We didn’t have Mitch Perry or Johnny Angel on guitar, but Phil [Naro, vocals] suggested a friend of his named Kire Najdovski who came in and did a great job.”