MR. BIG : Success Came Slowly Via a Simple Ballad

Billy Sheehan, the bassist who founded the Los Angeles hard-rock band Mr. Big, says the song that pushed the group’s career into high gear was something of an afterthought--and was never intended to be a single. For one thing, “To Be With You” is a ballad, and this outfit is noted for its high-energy attack.

But Sheehan understands why the song caught on after a Lincoln, Neb., radio program director heard it on the group’s “Lean Into It” album last year and started playing it regularly. Enough interest spread to other stations that Atlantic Records finally released it as a single. Recently it climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

“It’s a very simple song with a nice melody expressing something we’ve all been through,” Sheehan says. “It’s about a guy seeing a girl being mistreated and him saying, ‘If you come with me, I’ll treat you right.’ ”

It was a good thing for the band that the song did catch on, because the first two rock singles from “Lean Into It” only caused enough of a stir for the album to sell about 400,000 copies last year--respectable but not great. “To Be With You” gave the album a second life, pushing it close to the 1-million mark.

Sheehan, a former member of David Lee Roth’s band, organized Mr. Big in Los Angeles in April, 1988, recruiting some experienced musicians--singer Eric Martin, guitarist Paul Gilbert and drummer Pat Torpey.

“The plan was to have a band like the British bands of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s-like Humble Pie and Bad Company that had a bluesy, wailing R&B; singer fronting a heavy-rock band,” Sheehan says.

He says the band’s first album, “Mr. Big,” sold a modest 400,000 worldwide, has never courted stardom. “We just wanted to sell a decent number of records so we could make some money for ourselves and enough for the record company so they’d let us keep making records,” said Sheehan, 38, the senior member of an outfit whose members range in age from their mid-20s to late 30s. “Stardom wasn’t part of the plan. It was too far-fetched and complicated.”

And now?

“Things are different,” he replies. “We’ll be playing bigger clubs and theaters. Expectations are higher. We can’t be low-key anymore. We’ve got some adjusting to do.”