Drummer and singer Nick D’Virgilio is one of the voices of Fort Wayne’s Sweetwater Sound. He’s a content creator whose YouTube videos are watched by musicians everywhere. Before he settled into the day job there in 2014, he had a prodigious 20-year career working with an amazing list of stars.

This is the middle of D’Virgilio’s Big, Big, Big Year. He is touring the world with the reunited ’90s hard rock band Mr. Big and playing dates with the pan-European progressive rock band he’s been a member of since 2007, coincidentally named Big Big Train.

Mr. Big will play Honeywell Center in Wabash on Wednesday, Feb. 14, and Big Big Train will play a sold-out show at Sweetwater Performance Theatre on March 1.

‘Hired gun’

Mr. Big is an American band that features Eric Martin, Paul Gilbert, and Billy Sheehan; original drummer Pat Torpey passed away in 2018. 

They burst onto the scene in 1989, a terrifyingly technical metal supergroup. When their second album, Lean Into It, dropped in 1991, it rocketed to the top of the charts based not on instrumental pyrotechnics, but on unexpected pop ballads with gorgeous harmony vocals in songs like “To Be With You” and “Just Take My Heart.” 

However, the Seattle grunge sound took over the airwaves and Mr. Big lost the support of the U.S. record business. They found refuge in Japan, where they continued to be chart-topping stars for years. 

Always based in the U.S., they have had several reunions with new albums over the years.

Last year, guitarist Gilbert, who has traveled to Sweetwater Studios for clinics and masterclasses many times, invited D’Virgilio to be Mr. Big’s drummer for a world tour. 

When I interviewed Gilbert in June, he told me: “Besides having to fill the drum shoes, it was really important to have a strong vocal. Nick is the magic combination. Plus, he’s an impossibly cool person.”

For D’Virgilio, being a part of the group is an honor.

“I’m not in the band, I’m the hired gun, but they make me feel like I’m a band member and it’s just a great thing to go and do,” he said. 

D’Virgilio went out for The Big Finish reunion tour in July and August, where Mr. Big headlined 10,000-seat arenas and appeared in huge festivals in China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

On Jan. 12, Mr. Big began their U.S. tour. In March and April they’ll play the capitals of Europe, bounce down to a huge festival in Brazil, and follow with more U.S., U.K. and European dates through August.

Train leaves station

I spoke with D’Virgilio in his video-studio-office at Sweetwater in December, just after he worked on a new album for Mr. Big. He ran down the highlights of his prodigious career and overlapping projects going back to the early ’90s.

He’s particularly proud of his work since 2007, recording 12 albums with Big Big Train, an ensemble of 12 musicians based in England but whose members live in six different countries. March 1 in Fort Wayne will mark their first live concert in the U.S. They’ll then perform on Cruise to the Edge, the international progressive rock festival at sea, sailing from Miami, March 8-13.

“We do really well in England, and it’s spreading throughout Europe even more now,” D’Virgilio said. “When I first started with the band, we had no intention of ever playing live. We were just making music and very elaborate stuff with huge arrangements. And then after making a few records, I was trying to convince the guys, ‘Man, we should try and perform this a couple of times.’ That was 2014.

“What you do is you just do more gigs and you have to build the following the brand somehow. The only way to do it is get out there and play.

“We’re trying to get to where we could be a viable money-maker for everybody at this point. We all have to do other things while focusing as much as we can on Big Big Train.”

Keeping busy

D’Virgilio got started in his hometown of Los Angeles, formally trained in voice, songwriting, and drumming at the Dick Grove School of Music. 

His first break was playing with the late prog rock cult hero Kevin Gilbert, which brought D’Virgilio to the attention of Genesis, who hired him to play drums on their 1997 album Calling All Stations following the departure of Phil Collins. Not too bad! 

From 1995-2010, D’Virgilio toured the world with British band Tears for Fears. Next, he spent five years with Cirque du Soleil in their production Totem, playing three-month residencies in cities across North America and Europe. 

And from the beginning, circa 1992, D’Virgilio had a 26-year run with legendary L.A. progressive rock band Spock’s Beard.

And lots of other stuff in recent years including the prog trio D’Virgilio, Morse & Jennings, alongside Neal Morse and Ross Jennings. He has also toured and recorded with British guitarist Steve Hackett, who is playing Embassy Theatre on March 22, but D’Virgilio will be in England with Mr. Big. D’Virgilio was lead singer and drummer on 2008’s A Tribute to the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (a new arrangement of the 1974 Genesis concept album), which he says will be remastered and re-released this year.

It was 2014 when D’Virgilio relocated his family to Fort Wayne and took the gig at Sweetwater. The company wanted a world-renowned musician to anchor their recording studio and be its spokesperson. 

It’s his unbroken connections with all these artists that has enabled him to spend 2023 and 2024 touring more places around the world than he’s ever seen before.

“It’s amazing,” D’Virgilio said. “And I never expected it to come back at this level. That’s why I’m trying to take advantage of it while it’s here. We are in Fort Wayne, we’re not in the big cities! I’m not sitting in the middle of L.A. or New York or Nashville or wherever pursuing these kinds of things. It sort of came to me from being here at Sweetwater, which I totally appreciate and I’m thankful for. At this point of my career, I have a lot to give in that respect as an entertainer. These things don’t come around that often.”