Andy Aledort talks to Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt
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MusicTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Thank you so much, Nino.
00:16 It's great to see you again,
00:19 and I can't believe you don't remember me from now.
00:21 I'm from, you know, so rude.
00:23 - Ironically enough, I remember faces though.
00:25 Names, I'm dead, but I know your face.
00:28 I know your face.
00:29 - That's cool.
00:30 Let's talk about "Rise."
00:31 The song, it's fantastic.
00:34 It's so cool.
00:35 Your solo's amazing, and there's a big hubbub,
00:38 as you may have heard, about this song and about the solos.
00:42 If you could tell me a little bit about, you know,
00:44 the genesis of the song, how it came about.
00:47 Just a little bit about what came first
00:49 or how the song came together.
00:52 - You always go in when you record an album
00:54 and, you know, when you do your guitars and do everything,
00:56 I have this thing that I don't ever wanna release anything
01:00 that doesn't mean something to me, you know what I mean?
01:04 Much to our financial detriment,
01:05 we probably had four albums worth of material
01:08 over the last 10 years,
01:10 but unless it, like, gets you to that point
01:12 where you actually wanna share it with somebody,
01:13 like you call your brother or you call your buddy up,
01:15 or you go, "Hey, can I show you something?"
01:17 You're kind of, like, giddy about it and proud about it,
01:19 whether it's the guitars or anything.
01:22 That's when you're ready to show everybody
01:24 is when you get to that point,
01:25 and that's what happened with this.
01:27 And I thought when, you know,
01:29 you kind of go for blood always, you know,
01:31 you always have this thing of, like,
01:32 my heroes, whether it's Edward and Brian May and Jimmy Page
01:36 and Randy Rhoads and so forth, you know, you never,
01:41 I've always had this kind of, like,
01:43 punky attitude to the fact that, of course,
01:46 man, imagine one day ever being like them,
01:49 but it was worse than that.
01:50 I was like, "I wanna take them down.
01:52 Like, I wanna go for blood.
01:54 I wanna make them proud and go like, 'Oh, shit.'"
01:56 You know what I mean?
01:57 So to me, it's like I never wanted to release anything
01:59 where I wasn't like, "If Edward was here,
02:01 would you play this for him?
02:03 Would you have the balls to play it?"
02:04 So that's when we get ready to release something.
02:07 And when all this started happening, I thought,
02:09 "Okay, you know, we might get, you know,
02:11 we're an older band.
02:12 We might get about, you know, 40, 50,000 views
02:15 on a day with our fans or maybe 200,000."
02:17 Man, when it hit like a million, now two million,
02:19 and you're starting to get hit up by, you know,
02:22 your peers and Brian May and Lucather and Vi,
02:25 and they're going, "Dude, man, this is what's happening here."
02:27 Part of me was like, "What is happening?
02:29 Like, what is going on here?
02:31 Like, why?"
02:32 I always analyze stuff from, I back away,
02:34 instead of going, "Oh, man, isn't it great?
02:36 They love my solo and everything else."
02:37 And I start going like, "Well, wait a second.
02:39 Why?
02:40 Why is this happening in a way?"
02:42 And I thought, because, yeah, the solo's decent.
02:46 Song's decent.
02:47 It's an extreme song.
02:48 But I've been playing solos, I think,
02:51 like this for 40 years, you know,
02:52 on previous albums and things like that.
02:54 So I was trying to consider, like,
02:55 why all the reaction now?
02:58 And it really occurred to me that over the last kind of,
03:01 like, you know, we're both old enough to remember
03:04 that when we discovered guitar players back in the day,
03:07 it was looking at that album, playing the album first,
03:10 and then when you saw them live,
03:11 you not only heard what you heard,
03:15 and you thought you heard and felt what you felt,
03:17 something from hearing it, but you had an imagination.
03:20 And then when you saw them live or on a video,
03:23 you saw the physicality of it, the emotion of it,
03:27 that you could smell the rock and roll of it in a way,
03:29 the mythology.
03:30 - Oh, yeah.
03:31 - And I was thinking, man, over the last decade,
03:34 if not more, which is great,
03:36 which is why we're on a call today in technology,
03:39 the way we discover some of the great guitar players
03:41 right now, which there are many, like younger players,
03:43 guys that I'm on Instagram, and I go like,
03:45 "Wow, fuck you.
03:46 I don't even know what you're doing.
03:47 That's amazing," right?
03:49 But there's an element of them sitting on a chair like I am
03:51 and like you are in the room you are.
03:53 And that's how we discover them, most of them.
03:56 And they're playing us, and they're playing us parts,
03:57 and they're playing us solos and things,
03:59 and we go like, "Wow, wow."
04:00 But it's more on a technical level
04:02 because they're showing us and they're playing things.
04:05 I think it's been a minute,
04:08 and I think the reason the excitement for Rise
04:10 and the solo and everything is because they're seeing
04:14 and feeling the joy and the passion and the fire
04:18 in a song with melodies, with an arrangement,
04:22 with a rock band going for it.
04:24 There's just a rock and roll aspect to it.
04:27 Now, a few people brought that up to me.
04:30 Even when Luke was there hitting me up, he's like,
04:31 "Man, yeah, there's great players,
04:33 but I haven't been blown off my chair in a while
04:36 from seeing this video."
04:37 And I'm like, "That's where it is to me."
04:39 If I played that solo like the label
04:43 and even management wanted me to do initially,
04:46 which is like, "Hey, do what everybody's doing.
04:48 Get on TikTok, do a preview of the album
04:51 while you're in the studio,
04:52 sit there and play that solo with nothing behind you,
04:55 whatever it is," it would have been okay.
04:58 And maybe they would have gone like,
04:59 "Oh, okay."
05:00 A few people would have shared and go,
05:00 "Hey, man, check out what Nuno's doing."
05:02 But I think the excitement is more
05:04 than just the guitar solo and the song.
05:06 I think it's the package, and I think it's somebody going,
05:09 like I've gotten a lot of thank yous.
05:10 I'm like, "Thank you?
05:11 What do you mean, thank you?"
05:12 The thank yous were like,
05:13 "Man, thanks for doing this in a song.
05:15 Thanks for bringing back rock and roll in this way,
05:18 in this platform from that era."
05:21 And it made me realize, man,
05:22 people are kind of starved for it.
05:24 Not just guitar playing,
05:25 but just the fucking, the angst and the fire
05:28 and the joy that an Edward brought in,
05:30 or creativity that a Brian May brought in,
05:32 or whatever it may be.
05:33 And I think that that's what was exciting.
05:35 I said to the band, I'm like,
05:37 "What are you excited about doing now?"
05:38 I'm like, "Man, I just want to contribute a rock album
05:41 and kind of bring guitar into it in a joyful
05:44 and a fiery and a passionate and emotional sort of way."
05:47 That no matter what you do,
05:49 and this goes to what we're about to talk to with the song,
05:51 is that you can pull, you can,
05:54 everybody can say, "Yeah, great solo, man.
05:56 Let's dissect that."
05:57 But for me, it's what's underneath it,
06:00 and why you play it.
06:01 It's the question that you just asked.
06:02 Why that solo?
06:04 And for me, it's always been the mission,
06:06 which I loved about an Edward Van Halen,
06:08 was like, "You know what?
06:10 You could play the most ripping solo,
06:12 and I'm the one on the first album."
06:13 And for me, the intro, everything is like,
06:15 "What is going on here?" kind of shit, right?
06:18 But then he plays for that song
06:20 because the song was fun and fiery,
06:22 and it was a party.
06:23 So he plays for that song.
06:25 That's been the biggest goal of my life,
06:28 and in "Rise," it's no different.
06:30 Because even with Edward, on the same album,
06:31 you go in talking about love,
06:32 and he's like, "Is that the same guy going,
06:35 (imitates guitar)
06:37 You know, really, is he have the balls to play for the song?
06:41 That pullback not always excites somebody.
06:44 And once you go through the album,
06:46 that's the biggest compliment I had.
06:47 I had a great little listening party
06:49 with Vi and Morello and all Vi guys.
06:52 I'm like, "Hey, can I show you guys something?
06:54 I want you to, before it comes out,
06:55 let me know if it sucks, what you think, whatever."
06:57 And that's the thing they all said
06:58 that was the biggest compliment to me,
06:59 other than like, oh, you know,
07:00 excitement about the solos was like,
07:02 "Man, no matter what the song is,
07:04 it stayed in the culture,
07:06 and it stayed in the wheelhouse
07:08 of whatever the melody's feeding you,
07:09 whatever the lyrics are feeding you tonally,
07:12 the guitar was there for it."
07:14 And I think "Rise" is one of those reasons
07:18 why it's exciting to people.
07:19 It's like, fucking song is fun.
07:21 It's got some, you know, and the riff, like you said,
07:24 the riff is pretty basic, it's straightforward.
07:25 As a matter of fact, I got to give props to Jordan Ferreira.
07:29 I don't write a lot with other people,
07:31 but I wrote this with him.
07:32 And he's a guitar player, and we write together.
07:34 He's an artist that I work with,
07:36 even on my label and stuff like that.
07:38 And he was just like, "Fuck, that's super cool.
07:39 Let's fucking explore that."
07:41 And, you know, I had some harmonies,
07:42 I had some what, whatnot.
07:43 And even sometimes you don't know, man,
07:46 is this for extreme?
07:47 You know, and until I was hitting it and going with him,
07:50 we were like, "No, man, this feels like some,
07:52 this could be some fiery stuff for the band," you know?
07:54 And that's what really ignited,
07:56 that's this song ignited the album for me.
07:59 - Yeah, wow, cool.
08:00 - Because the other songs that we were doing,
08:02 we had 40 or so songs for the album.
08:04 I wasn't getting that feeling yet of like,
08:06 "Where's the foundation of this house we're building
08:08 so we can build the rest on it?"
08:10 And it was "Rise" and a few more songs like "Rise"
08:12 that really went, "Okay, we're onto something here."
08:14 So "Rise" is the first song on the album.
08:16 We wanted it to be the first single
08:17 because it is the first song on the album.
08:19 We probably wouldn't have worked with it
08:20 because of the tonality and the fire of it.
08:22 And that's why it ended up being the first single.
08:24 And I had no idea that people were gonna respond like this
08:28 in those reaction videos that everybody do,
08:29 that everybody's sending me.
08:30 I don't ever watch that stuff,
08:31 but they're going like, you know,
08:33 people listening to it the first time
08:34 and they do the reactions.
08:35 And then when it gets to the soul, they're like,
08:37 "Okay, wait, what?"
08:38 And then they go back.
08:40 And it's really a weird out-of-body experience
08:42 to see that happening and to feel that joy
08:45 of people going, "Oh man, this is fun.
08:48 Like, this makes me wanna like pick up my guitar.
08:52 Let me figure out what's going on here."
08:53 And I think what's good about "Rise" itself
08:56 and the era of guitar players that I came from
08:59 is like as almost sonically difficult things may sound,
09:05 even when you heard Edward or some of Page's stuff
09:08 and some of like chords and what Brian May was doing,
09:10 it was just, I have a word I made up called,
09:14 I didn't know how to describe it,
09:15 so I was like, "Simplexity."
09:16 It's not a real word.
09:17 I quit high school so I can say it.
09:18 - That's a great word though.
09:20 - Rock and roll and arrangements and pop and rock
09:22 have always been pretty basic.
09:23 You know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge.
09:25 It's simple, right?
09:26 We get a hook, we sing it.
09:27 But if it's cool enough and some artist queen and Page
09:32 and people know how to do this,
09:33 they make it complex enough
09:34 if you're willing to pull back the layers.
09:36 So there's complexity, but there's simplicity.
09:38 So I think a great song like "Rise"
09:41 is the pity me for me of what I go for,
09:43 which is simplexity.
09:45 Can we make the guitar playing fun
09:48 and even sometimes sound complex,
09:50 but it's still attainable and reachable.
09:53 And you could, you know, when Edward was just enough like,
09:55 "Fuck, I think I can do it.
09:57 "I'm not on my mind, but let me try."
09:59 You know, try to go there.
10:00 And that's what I love about creating
10:02 whatever I do on a song.
10:04 I will always want to make it in that pentatonic world
10:06 where it's like, I'm telling you,
10:07 there's guys right now that are playing shit online
10:10 that I'm like, "That's not attainable for me."
10:12 I would have to relearn a technique where they're picking
10:15 and then adding fingers and doing all that stuff.
10:17 And there's-
10:18 - And you mean actually adding fingers.
10:20 - I mean, actually adding, adding like, you know, morphing.
10:24 So yeah, "Rise," it started from, you know,
10:27 Jordan coming up with a great riff
10:29 and me jumping onto that and adding some melody
10:33 and some harmonies and arrangements and things like that.
10:36 And it was a collaboration.
10:37 And then once it was in my head that this is for "Extreme,"
10:42 then you start arranging it that way and coming up,
10:45 you know, coming up with what we all thrive for,
10:48 which is at the end of the day
10:49 is nursery rhymes for adults, right?
10:51 You know what I mean?
10:53 It's just like, that's what choruses are.
10:54 That's what refrains are.
10:55 And whether it's-
10:56 - Well, yeah, the hook.
10:57 You make sure you stay on that plan of like,
11:00 this piece of music needs to do these things for me.
11:04 - Yes.
11:05 - Because you said, I wouldn't play it for Eddie
11:06 if it wasn't doing it for me.
11:08 And then I can pretend like, "Hey man, isn't this great?"
11:11 - Isn't this great because the lick is fast
11:12 or whatever it is?
11:13 No, it's got to emotionally connect with me first.
11:16 - And that's like the greatest thing when you know it.
11:20 There's something, you know, to use a fancy word,
11:23 you know, altruistic about the thing itself
11:27 because of how it hits you.
11:29 If it works for you, then you at least will say,
11:33 well, now I know it has a chance.
11:35 Like, this is going to connect.
11:37 It's not just going to connect with me.
11:38 - Yeah.
11:39 - Like, I know it connects with me.
11:41 - Yeah.
11:42 And it's important to do that, you know why?
11:44 For another reason too.
11:45 As you get older, as you just live life,
11:49 the last thing you want to do
11:50 is put your head on the pillow at night,
11:52 say nobody connects with it.
11:53 And you're like, "Fuck, I didn't even do what I wanted to do."
11:57 - Yeah.
11:58 - Something because I tried,
11:58 I thought this hook might connect with this audience.
12:01 Or I almost started marketing in my head that,
12:03 oh, I can do this because,
12:05 like even when people said, "Oh my God, you know,
12:07 great job, Rise is modern sounding
12:09 and it's going to go on."
12:11 I'm like, "It is?"
12:12 Like, and in my head, I was like,
12:14 I just, it was just written
12:15 because of the love of just rock and roll.
12:17 And yeah, it's like, I joke,
12:19 maybe Metallica and Aerosmith had a baby on this one.
12:22 You're right, it's a little on the heavier side for extreme,
12:24 but it's still got the rock and roll there.
12:26 And all I want to do is put my head on the pillow at night
12:29 and go like, "You know what?
12:30 I did everything I could, man.
12:32 I gave, I left everything on there and emotionally.
12:35 And you know what?
12:35 If people connect, it's a beautiful thing.
12:38 But if they don't connect, I'm still okay with that.
12:41 I'm still okay with it because music isn't for everybody.
12:43 Every song isn't for everybody.
12:45 You're always going to get,
12:46 the hope is you get 70 to 80% of people like,
12:48 "Man, this really connected with me."
12:49 And you're going to get the people
12:50 that are going to come on and go, you know, like,
12:52 "I don't like this.
12:53 I don't like that hook.
12:54 It's too pop."
12:55 Or the solo's too this or whatever.
12:57 It's not for everybody.
12:58 But at the very least, you want them,
13:00 the fact that they're engaging,
13:02 something's got to be good enough and emotional
13:03 for you to love or hate it.
13:05 - Yeah.
13:06 - If it does nothing to you,
13:07 then you're just going to walk away and say like,
13:08 "That's just garbage.
13:09 It's not even worth my time to even listen."
13:12 But if it conjures up even, like for instance,
13:15 if I'm a fan of a band and their album comes out,
13:18 I would, you go, "Okay, I'm going to go listen to it."
13:21 But there were times where I'd hear that album
13:23 and I'd be like, "Whoa, I'm not sure if I like it.
13:26 I don't even know if I'll first listen.
13:28 I'm not sure."
13:29 But I believe you have to have an affair
13:32 with an album that comes out.
13:34 You have to date it almost,
13:35 especially if you liked the girl beforehand.
13:38 If Queen comes out and Queen,
13:39 the way they shifted from album to album,
13:41 you're like, "Holy shit, they went from, you know,
13:43 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to jazz to this or whatever."
13:46 And you're like playing, they're playing 1920s
13:48 and then they're doing, "I don't know if I like it."
13:50 But then when you have an affair with it for a minute
13:52 and you give it a shot because you respect that artist,
13:55 it's now stuck in your CD player, your cassette player
13:58 or on your turntable for like a year.
14:00 And you couldn't believe for a minute that you were like,
14:02 "Oh shit, I hated this thing for a minute."
14:04 Like, you got to give it a second
14:06 and you got to give it a minute
14:07 'cause true artists, real artists, they explore
14:10 and they go for different stuff.
14:11 And somebody said to me, "Man, I don't know if, you know,
14:13 when it, before the album's gone,
14:14 I don't think Extreme Fans are going to like this, dude.
14:16 It's a little bit heavier, it's a little bit harder."
14:17 And I'm like, "Great, let's run into the burning building.
14:21 That's perfect."
14:22 Because to me, an extreme album is expect the unexpected.
14:26 Not on purpose, but just because if I feel like going
14:29 and sitting on the piano and writing a Sinatra type track
14:32 that we did on "Pornography"
14:33 which is "When I First Kissed You,"
14:34 then I'm going to write it.
14:35 And if it's turning us on and me and Gary are like,
14:38 "Man, this is fucking cool and we want to play it for people
14:41 and we love it," it's going to go on the album.
14:44 - So Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles,
14:47 they went into a recording studio and they didn't say,
14:51 "Well, we have this little song and turn on your tape machine
14:54 and we'll see you later.
14:55 And then we're going to go get a hammer."
14:57 - Yeah.
14:58 - Like I love Jimi Hendrix said,
15:00 he didn't even want singles pulled off
15:02 of "Electric Ladyland."
15:04 'Cause he was like, "It's stupid.
15:05 Like, why would you even listen
15:07 to "Crosstown Traffic" by itself?"
15:09 - Yeah.
15:10 - Like it doesn't, he goes, "This isn't some game."
15:12 Like the way he said it was very funny.
15:15 He's like, "We're not playing around.
15:17 This isn't some game here."
15:19 You know, like you're supposed to listen
15:21 to "Electric Ladyland" from beginning to end.
15:23 - Exactly.
15:24 You want it to be a soundtrack of your life,
15:26 of somebody's life that they can escape
15:28 just for a little while, for 50 minutes, 45 minutes,
15:31 one hour, put on some headphones
15:32 and get away from all the issues and stuff.
15:35 That's the goal.
15:36 Like to what Hendrix said, that's what Hendrix meant.
15:38 It's like, "Come on, man.
15:39 We're trying to just, we're trying to,
15:41 we're trying to give you something here.
15:42 Yeah, you can listen to your favorite songs,
15:43 but man, those albums that we listened to,
15:46 you didn't never want it to stop
15:48 because you wanted it to go like,
15:49 "What do you got next?"
15:50 You always knew in your head,
15:51 you got so good at listening to these albums
15:53 and they became such DNA and the fiber of your being
15:56 that you already knew the key
15:58 and what was coming next on the next riff
16:00 and you could hear it before it even started.
16:02 Because it blew up.
16:03 - Or the space, the space between the song
16:06 and the next song and the anticipation
16:08 when it's an album you know so well.
16:10 - Oh my Lord, that excitement.
16:12 Your heart starts racing.
16:13 It's coming.
16:14 - Now I'm getting chills.
16:15 I'm getting chills thinking about physical graffiti.
16:17 You know, and you've got custard pie
16:20 and then you're waiting for the rover to start.
16:23 - Oh my God.
16:24 - And it's like.
16:25 - It's literally your heart starts pounding in a way
16:27 that you like, you can already hear it,
16:29 but like, "Come on, let's go."
16:31 - You hear it.
16:32 Yeah, you hear it before it even starts.
16:33 - And it's like an old friend that you're waiting to see.
16:37 You're like, "Come on, man, come in the room."
16:38 You know, it's like somebody that you wanna hang out with.
16:41 It's exciting and I think that's what,
16:44 that was the best compliment I've received so far
16:46 throughout all the press and all the interviews I'm doing
16:49 is like, "Thank you for the album."
16:52 (upbeat music)
16:55 (upbeat music)
16:57 (upbeat music)