We really appreciate Billy's time in an exclusive interview for my radio show Rock Privado. An example of a great musician and a great guy.

RP: On Niacin nowadays.
BS: We're writing and recording a lot of music and we're happy with our productions and happy to hear that someone south of the border in México is hearing us.

RP: On Niacin line up and each one's role on the band.
BS: Well, I'm more the "rock guy" I've been making mostly rock myself but I do like a lot of fusion and jazz and many different types of music but I play mostly rock. John is more into R&B and he's like our musical expert, he knows everything about music theory and he is really smart about what he knows about music. Dennis is the most "funkyfied" amazing drummer that I have seen in my life, so when we get together it's really a mix of three different people that kind of evolve with a new sound, you know we use some loops and sounds and some modern electronics and we simply love to play, we've been doing this for many many many years and our live shows are so much fun. There's never any problem with Niacin, it's great, there's no lead singer to deal with you know (laughs) and it's easy, it's a lot of fun and always a challenge music to play so I think we'll keep making records for a long time.

RP: On Niacin live shows.
BS: Well, a lot of people come to our shows that are just curious and they don't know what to expect, I mean they generally don't like instrumental music or fusion music or jazz, but when they come to a Niacin show, and this is really the truth, they're often very surprised that they liked it, because we try to do more that simply sit and stare on the floor and play many many notes. We try to have some cool beats, some interesting melodies and make the evening enjoyable and fun to watch. We're very close to the audience, it's not like some jazz musicians who just kind of shut up for the audience, we're very much into communicating with the audience and specially when we play in small places you have the audience very close, so we can hang out and hear them and almost talk to them sometimes on the stage, so we have a lot of fun on our shows, so even though people may be a little bit affraid with the fusion or jazz idea, when they come to see Niacin, generally they spend a good time and people enjoys it. Also there's girls in our shows (laughs) Usually there's though guys in that shows, but there's a lot of young ladies that come to see our shows here in LA and enjoy the band very much. Even Cindy Crawford came to see us one time, the famous super model came to see us and it was very funny.

RP: On being serious about music against having just good time.
BS: We try to enjoy it. Music is SERIOUS business at one side and I'm very serious about music, but in the other hand I really like to enjoy it and I'm very serious about enjoying it but we like to play and reach all kinds of people since we're never just playing for musicians, we're playing to the whole crowd and sometimes in the crowd there's people that don't know anything about music and I think it's important for musicians to realize that you're playing sometimes for people that don't know music and it's OK, but you have to reach them too.

RP: On his last solo effort.
BS: Yeah I've played a baritone touchstring guitar which it's actually an electric "bajo sexto" and I love the instrument a lot and I write most of the songs on it, then I played the bass and sang and programmed most the drums, then I divided the solos on the songs and Terry Bozzio joined me to play the drums on two songs and the rest of the whole record it's all me. It was really an amazing adventure to make that record and it's getting great reviews and a great response on sales, so... life is good!! (laughs).

RP: On touring and getting time to play with Niacin along their other projects.
BS: Well, we want to play as much as we can in every place that we can, so any time we get free time and some open schedules we're gonna start booking shows. We've already played on the East Coast of the US, the West Coast, we have gone to Japan, we have played in Indonesia and we hope to get to Europe and I'd love to get down and play in México 'cause it's not too far away from me in LA and we'd just love to be there and play in your country which I think it's gonna be an amazing experience. (we'd also love to).

RP: On mixing jams with progressive structures.
BS: Well, when I first began playing we used to do a lot of jams back in the 70's, we played a Robin Trower song, an Allman Brothers song, and there were a lot of time to jam in the middle, so improvisational jam in rock has been around for a long time and it was there before the progressive scene, so I love the idea of improvising and now when I work with John and Dennis in Niacin the improvisation goes to a new level because they're so good at it and we get into amazing brand new pieces of music every night... every song is alive, every night it changes and everyone has some new "adds" to it and it's always an adventure on every show we play and on every song play, so if you really love to improvise and "let nature take its course" some nights it will go one way, some nights it will go another way and you never know, it's just how you feel and it's an amazing experience to be on stage and to be able to improvise like that.

Thanks to Billy for his time and don't forget to visit his site at