Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
July 19, 1991
Anyone who buys Extreme’s album solely on the strength of the Boston-based group’s No. 1 hit ballad “More Than Words” is going to be in for a big, loud surprise. The majority of the songs on “Extreme II Pornograffitti” are fast, raucous and hard-rocking.
Virtually all of today’s hard-rock bands have released ballads to capture the female market, but none has released a song as sweet, or as beautiful, as Extreme’s “More Than Words.” When Guns N’ Roses found MTV acceptance with “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” the group slightly neutered its angry, guitar-oriented sound, but no one would have mistaken the harmonizing on that song for the Everly Brothers. On “More than Words,” the harmonies between vocalist Gary Cherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt are a throwback to the ’50s and ’60s, accompanied only by Bettencourt’s acoustic guitar playing.
Touring with Cinderella and David Lee Roth, Extreme will perform in the Chicago area twice this weekend.
The quartet will play at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Alpine Valley, County Roads D and G, East Troy, Wis., (312-899-7469 or 414-271-2000). Extreme also will rock out at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at the World Music Theatre, Interstate 80 and Harlem, Tinley Park (559-1212). Alpine tickets are $19.25 to $32.25; World tickets are $12.25.
“When we recorded (`More Than Words’), I think we all knew it was going to be the one that broke us,” drummer Paul Geary said. “It just stood out. A lot of people have told us they thought the song was misrepresentative of how we really sound, but I don’t think that’s true.
“We are a hard-rock band, but I don’t think all the songs on `Pornograffitti’ are just hard rock. Some have a little bit of blues, some are almost balladlike – we all like different kinds of music and grew up being influenced by all kinds of bands, and that shows in our music, I think.”
Extreme’s “overnight success” has been almost six years in the making. Back in Beantown, the band had done everything from opening for Aerosmith to playing on the same bill at local music awards shows as the New Kids on the Block. The New Kids on the Block?
“They actually are very nice,” Geary said, laughing. “I don’t think we have a whole lot in common musically or anything, but they weren’t the stupid little kids everyone would have you believe.”
Extreme’s lineup of Geary, Cherone, Bettencourt and bassist Pat Badger has remained the same since the band’s inception, so it’s understandable the musicians are irked that much of the media’s current infatuation has been with Bettencourt.
While Bettencourt’s guitar-hero playing has been well-documented in serious music journals for the past couple years, it’s his Portuguese good looks that Rolling Stone magazine singled out when it put him, sans band, on the cover of the New Faces issue, along with Chris Isaak, Charlatans UK and De La Soul.
The band doesn’t want Bettencourt to become to Extreme what, well, Jordan Knight is to the New Kids: the really, really cute one.
“We all think Nuno is handsome, but it’s his guitar playing that is so vital to the band,” Geary said. “I think he actually was more upset about the Rolling Stone thing than the rest of us because it just made the group seem unnecessary.
“It’s not Nuno and Extreme, or Gary and Extreme. It’s just Extreme. When you single anyone out for his looks, it’s almost a slap in the face, like, `Oh yeah, you’re really cute. And I guess you can play, too.’ “
