Billy Sheehan’s ability to weave the needs of his playing style into the design of his instruments is uncanny. Every aspect of his signature Attitude bass has been thought out and tested over and over again on the road for years, with continuing new models coming out every so often as refinements of his original concept.
Before The Winery Dogs’ touring cycle in support of their second album “Hot Streak,” Billy asked us to build him an Attitude LTD3 that looked like a deep dark red glass of wine and for it to be infused with LED lights. And it needed to talk…ok, that’s not true, but this wasn’t going to be an easy task.
After a period of time doing some R&D and brainstorming of different building techniques materials, we decided to go with an acrylic body, but finding one in any color other than clear was proving to be difficult. With the help of Matt Haramis from Haramis Musical Hardware, we were able to mold a wooden Attitude body and found a vendor that mixed the perfect color acrylic and could hold the LED lights.
Once the body was done, the rest fell in to place rather quickly and small unique touches, like cork control knobs and wine bottle inlays, were added. To keep the weight of the bass to a minimum we used Hipshot ultralight tuning keys and a Babicz full-contact bridge.
We were able to complete the bass just in time for the last few Winery Dog shows for this cycle and Billy also brought the bass along with him to his recent US clinic run.
