To Be With You

Todd plays "To Be With You" on the piano

Todd: Are you ready for some monster ballads?!


 * Commercial for Monster Ballads 
 * Warrant: Heaven isn't too far away
 * Announcer: It's time for the ultimate experience!

Todd: Welcome to One Hit Wonderland, where we look at the careers of bands and artists known for only one song, and today we're gonna prove that every bad boy has a sensitive side.


 * Cinderella: Don't know what you got 'til it's gone

Todd (VO): Yes, this episode, we're going way back to look at one of the biggest power ballads from the era where the boys of glam rock ruled the world by living up to the dream of the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll! That's right, we're going back...

Todd: ...to the 90s.


 * Video for "To Be With You"
 * Mr. Big: I'm the one who wants to be with you

Todd (VO): These guys were known by the laughably ambitious title of Mr. Big. They...broke late, let's say. But make no mistake, had they been introduced earlier on, they could very well have lived up to their name, but little did they know that by the time they broke out, they were already relics of a bygone era.


 * Mr. Big: Yeah, just to be the next to be with you

Todd (VO): Their acoustic ballad "To Be With You" was a humungous #1 smash at the beginning of 1992, but if you weren't around at the time, I can't say it would surprise me if you never heard of this song ever. Even when Mr. Big was at their Mr. Biggest, their brand of hairsprayed cock-rock was already...

Todd: ...tragically behind the times.


 * Eric Martin: Build up your confidence

Todd (VO): So how did a rock band riding a definitively 80s brand of coolness notch a giant hit in the era of Pearl Jam? Well, we're gonna find out.

Todd: Behold, hair metal's final hurrah, tonight on One Hit Wonderland.

The big hit

Todd: The story of Mr. Big, as does the story of all hair metal, begins with Van Halen.


 * Clip of Van Halen - "Unchained"

Todd (VO): Bass player Billy Sheehan got the break of a lifetime when his small local band from Buffalo [promo pic of...] Talas got to open for Van Halen on their "Party 'til You Die Tour" tour in 1980. Talas never got big, but Sheehan must've made a big impression, because when David Lee Roth finally got fired in 1984, Sheehan was the first person to get invited to Roth's backing band for his solo projects.

Todd: Sheehan quit Talas that day and never looked back.


 * Video for David Lee Roth - "Goin' Crazy"

Todd (VO): Sheehan played with the David Lee Roth band alongside guitar legend Steve Vai for two albums before getting sick of the [brief clip of "Just Like Paradise"] slicked-up direction rock was heading. Also, anyone who has to spend more than a week with David Lee Roth...

Todd: ...wants to murder him; I have to imagine that was a factor. Anyway, Sheehan started recruiting a new band.


 * Clip of Eric Martin Band - "Sucker for a Pretty Face"

Todd (VO): He found a singer in Eric Martin, who led the Eric Martin Band in the early 80s without much success. You can see him here looking all of fifteen years old. [Clip of Racer X - "Scarified"] Sheehan also recruited Paul Gilbert, an Yngwie Malmsteen-style neo-classical metal guitarist from the highly respected underground band Racer X. [Clip of drum solo by...] And they were rounded out by drummer Pat Torpey, who, at the time, was the latest drummer for the Knack.

Todd: So Mr. Big was like a supergroup of people that weren't famous. A less-than-supergroup.


 * Clip of Paul Gilbert guitar solo

Todd (VO): Now I want to make clear that this new band had serious chops. Hair metal bands, despite...

Todd: ...technically still being metal bands, couldn't always say that. I think, like, [picture of...] 3/4s of Poison was hired from a modeling agency or something. But Mr. Big knew their stuff.

Todd (VO): Sheehan was Guitar Magazine's "Bass Player of the Year" for, like, five years in a row; they called him the "Eddie Van Halen of bass." [Clip of "Addicted to That Rush"] But despite being a highly skilled band that could form, like, 900 different varieties of shred, they didn't just want to do guitar wankery, they wanted to actually write songs.


 * Mr. Big: Whoa!
 * Eric: Somethin' snaps inside my mind

Todd (VO): So their debut self-titled album from 1989 wasn't just guitar solos, it...

Todd: Honestly, maybe it should've been.


 * Clip of "Wind Me Up"

Todd (VO): Because this album did nothing. It did absolutely nothing. I can't honestly say that Mr. Big, despite their extreme metal superpowers, were particularly good songwriters. Plus, naming your band Mr. Big is just tempting fate anyway. (Mr. Big Hair, more like) Also, 1989 did not need more hair metal.

Todd: There were so many other new bands coming out that year they had to compete against, including [pictures of...] Skid Row, Warrant, Enuff Z'Nuff, Faster Pussycat, Vain, Shotgun Messiah, Dangerous Toys, Danger Danger, Bang Tango...oh my God, are these all real bands? I had to have made one of those up. Bang Tango.


 * Live performance

Todd (VO): Undeterred, Mr. Big recorded a second album in 19...

Todd: Hold on a second, I'm missing bands here. [More pictures...] Pretty Boy Floyd, Junkyard, Shark Island, Cats in Boots. The 80s, everybody.

Transcript in progress