The Teenage Roots and Adult Triumph of “To Be with You” by Mr. Big

Mr. Big was an unusual hard-rock entity amid the late ‘80s hair band explosion. Countless imitators of Led Zeppelin, Bon Jovi, and the Sunset Strip acts of the day emerged to try to claim their spot on the hard-rock throne of the times. It also led to a lot of cookie cutter bands with a general appeal to that paradigm. But Mr. Big truly stood out as a swaggering, melodic band with solid songs and a potent lineup—soulful singer Eric Martin, former Racer X shredder Paul Gilbert, former Talas and David Lee Roth bass maestro Billy Sheehan, and stalwart drummer Pat Torpey.

Combining their musical talents and penchant for dulcet vocal harmonies, they summoned the classic rock vibes that influenced them and captured the spirit of virtuoso rock like Van Halen. They may have possessed the long manes common to the time, but they were more accomplished than other bands and incorporated a variety of different musical styles into their work. This was very evident on their second album Lean Into It, which came out in March 1991. The follow-up to their self-titled 1989 debut album, it was filled with energized anthems and rockers, and also contained the hit ballad “To Be with You” that garnered them international attention.

Play It for the Ladies

The first three singles from Lean Into It encompassed very different styles. “Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy (The Electric Drill Song)” had a fast-paced stomp to it, while the nostalgic heartache of “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind” was a retro-inspired throwback to that era featuring some elegant axework from Gilbert. Then there was “To Be with You,” the entirely acoustic ballad that became the calling card that they didn’t expect.

It’s easy to see why the song appealed to so many people. It is one of those tunes that one can imagine Martin and the band serenading the ladies with. The video was a simple performance in a room, with the long-haired rockers looking into the camera as they harmonized with their baby-faced singer.

“We all loved the song ‘To Be with You,’ but we were a little scared of it,” Gilbert confessed to this writer in the liner notes for Mr. Big’s Greatest Hits in 2004. “We were supposed to be a thunderous hard rock band! But we all loved the song, so we snuck it on the album as the last track.”

Funnily enough, Martin wrote the song when he was 16, and he later took it to co-songwriter David Grahame. “He added his Beatles influence to a folk song that I had written,” Martin told me. “It was a song that I tried to get over on my sister’s girlfriends.”

Mission accomplished, except a few years later and with a broader demographic.

An Accidental Hit

“To Be with You” was not a planned release. It was the third of what would be four singles off the album, but it only blew up into hit status because Jon Terry, a rock DJ on KFMQ in Lincoln, Nebraska, started playing the ballad in late 1991. Once it took off there and then in nearby Omaha, other radio stations around the country caught on. But that was not Atlantic Records’ intention. 

“The label actually fought it,” Sheehan revealed to me. “They were more interested in getting Phil Collins played, and were upset when a station added Mr. Big instead. After it was a hit, the label claimed full responsibility for it, of course.”

Martin recalled the group were on the last planned leg of the Lean Into It tour. They were playing a gig in Daytona Beach, Florida, and were setting up their gear when MTV News announced that they had the No. 1 song in America.

“Truthfully, I wasn’t aware of that kind of stuff,” Martin admitted. “I was popping champagne when it was No. 100. That was one really happy band, actually. It’s your last leg of the album, [after] a year-long tour, and all of a sudden all it takes is one song to make it. Billy always used you say it was our passport to travel. He’d say that a lot, and I always liked that.”

And Travel They Did

“To Be with You” was not only Mr. Big’s first chart success but also their highest, riding up to No. 1 in 14 countries including America, Australia, Japan, Canada, and Germany. The single sold 500,000 copies domestically and reportedly 700,000 more worldwide. The song has amassed 116 million YouTube views and 349 million Spotify listens. Lean Into It would become their lone Platinum album in America, but their career would flourish in Japan. They also played a concert to about 100,000 people on Santo Beach in San Paolo, Brazil, in 1992.

Mr. Big followed up the success of “To Be with You” with another Lean Into It ballad, “Just Take My Heart,” which got to No. 16 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. The lead single from their next album Bump Ahead, an acoustic cover of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” reached No. 27 on the Hot 100. So even though the band has the perception of being a one-hit wonder in the States, they actually had three hits here.

Big in Japan

Mr. Big also became big in Japan. It sounds like a cliché for Western rock bands of the time, but each of their first six albums went Gold (100,000 units sold) or Platinum (200,000 units) there. They ascended to selling out arena shows. In 1999, the group did a 20-date tour of Japan, and they also played a New Year’s Eve show with Aerosmith at the Osaka Dome, which has a concert capacity of 55,000 people. Even as their profile tapered off in America given the shift in mainstream rock tastes by the mid-1990s, they could prosper overseas.

However, amid rising band tensions, Gilbert left in 1999 and was replaced by ex-Poison and future Winery Dogs guitarist Richie Kotzen for two albums. After the group’s breakup in 2002 and subsequent original lineup reunion in 2010, the quartet returned to Japan and Asia and played venues like Japan’s Budokan (14,500 capacity) and Araneta Coliseum (16,500) in Manila, the Philippines.

Sadly, drummer Pat Torpey passed away from Parkinson’s disease in February 2018, seven months after Mr. Big released their last album, Defying Gravity. After a memorial concert for Torpey in May 2018, the band went on hiatus. They reunited last year and have been on an epic farewell tour with former Spock’s Beard drummer Nicholas D’Virgilio that runs through August. Martin has said that there are plans to record new music.

Longtime fans know about Mr. Big’s wealth of good songs, and for people who remember them for one or two or are newer to their music, there is plenty to dive into in their nine-album catalog. There’s “Addicted to that Rush,” “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind,” “Take Cover,” “Shine,” “Undertow,” and many more. Start listening.

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Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images for NAMM