Mr. Big

Mr. Big came together in Los Angeles in 1988 as a hard rock band stacked with firepower: Eric Martin singing lead, Paul Gilbert on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass and Pat Torpey on drums, all of them chipping in on the big, bright vocal harmonies that became their calling card. They took their name from a Free song, which they later covered on 1993's Bump Ahead.

The self-titled debut came out in 1989. "Addicted to That Rush" shows off the shred: Gilbert and Sheehan racing each other up and down the fretboard like it's a drag strip. Lean into It followed in 1991, and then the curveball: "To Be with You", an unplugged, campfire-simple singalong, went to number one in 15 countries in 1992. Hey Man arrived in 1996.

Gilbert eventually left and Richie Kotzen came in on guitar and vocals for Get Over It in 1999 and Actual Size in 2001, before the band broke up in 2002. Japan always loved them out of all proportion, and the original four got back together in 2009, playing their first reunion tour there. What If... came in 2010, but Torpey was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease while they were making ...The Stories We Could Tell, and Defying Gravity, in 2017, was his last record with them. After his death in 2018 they went quiet, then made a farewell tour in 2023 with Nick D'Virgilio on drums and signed off with one last album, Ten, in 2024.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.