As rock stars go, Nuno Bettencourt could easily hold court with the greatest guitarists of all time.
Between the many bands that he founded – such as Mourning Widows, DramaGods and Satellite Party – and his solo phase, he has proven to the world that he can switch easily from funk to jazz, and keep pace not just with the Rock royality Queen, but also pop queen Rihanna.
In India, though, we will get to see him go back to his roots and his fast and funky riffs that he made popular as the lead guitarist of Extreme, an American rock band formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1985, which reached the height of their popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Along with Avenged Sevenfold, another iconic American rock band from the late 1990s, Extreme will also be headlining at the second edition of Bandland scheduled for November 23 and 24 in Bengaluru.
In a Zoom interview to PTI, Bettencourt said he is excited to play in India, the country that has 'great music, great art and great films'.
"It’ll be exciting to share with India what we do and we are curious to know how they hear it because every culture is different and how they react to music, how they hear it is different. But what's cool about it is that music is universal that way, where you can connect with so many different people. It breaks language and cultural barriers," said Bettencourt.
But he said the band is not changing much of its setlist format to specifically cater to India.
"We will be doing what we have always been doing. When we get on the stage, we never know who’s going to be there, we never know if it’s going to be new fans. So we try to always give a bit of each album. It’s a lot of the same no matter where we are really and it depends on how long they let us play. We like to play usually two hours to fit everything in, but I think in India they’re letting us play about 90 minutes," added Bettencourt.
Extreme has six studio albums to its credit, and the last two albums were brought out after long pauses, in which the band members got busy with other musical engagements. Extreme did not release anything new in 1995, when their fourth studio album, ‘Waiting for the Punchline’ was released, and 2008, when they brought out ‘Saudades de Rock’.
Another lull followed post 2008 and it was only last year that the band cut their sixth studio album, titled ‘Six’.
But despite the long gap between albums, in the lead-up to the album release, when Extreme released a video for its first single ‘Rise’ on March 1, 2023 – featuring a guitar solo from Bettencourt – it crossed 1 million views in its first week.
Bettencourt said they fell right back into their groove after the 15-year gap, because they stayed ‘authentic’ to themselves and not worry about if the fans were going to like it or not.
"We don’t really care about what’s going on, we just do absolutely what we want to do and I think that’s the only way rock and roll can be. I think there is no point in worrying about what people want or what the market wants. Do it for yourself, it’s enough," said Bettencourt.
He also believes that India will resonate with this authentic spirit of Extreme.
"What I know of India is from friends of mine that live there. But it seems like a great spirit, if that makes any sense. There seems to be love and passion for music, for films and dance and everything else. Because of that, I’m really excited to perform for everybody there because I think they will relate to what we do on stage,” added Bettencourt.
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