Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
May 19, 1989
Hard rock singer Gary Cherone has a dream, but it’s not about winning Grammy awards or platinum albums. The lead vocalist for Extreme wants to play rock ‘n’ roll until he makes enough money to have an operation to stretch his 5-foot-11 frame by another 12 inches and then join the Boston Celtics.
“I love music and it’s the main thing in my life, but that little boy in me still wants to be a big sports hero,” Cherone said, laughing. “I’m such a sports nut, especially when it comes to basketball. I’m athletic, but no where near people like Michael Jordan. He’s extraordinary. Me, I’m just a singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band.”
Extreme is on a two-month tour to promote its self-titled debut album. The four-man band will make its Chicago debut at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield. Tickets, $13, are available through Ticketmaster (559-1212).
“This tour is great because I’m getting to see a lot of cities,” he said in a phone conversation from New York. “I’m kind of bizarre because when I think of towns, I think of sports. For instance, the only time I was in Chicago was for a brief stop at O’Hare. But I feel like I know Chicago because I know so much about the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan.”
Cherone, 25, likened his band to a winning team. They rehearse constantly and work on their music. Fortunately, they don’t have to work on their friendship. Without the camaraderie, Extreme would not be a success, he said. Other band members are drummer Paul Geary, 25; bassist Pat Badger, 21, and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, 22.
Heavy metal fans already are familiar with the four-year-old Boston-based group. Extreme has opened for Poison and Aerosmith. While Cherone is as raucous and raunchy as his peers on stage, he’s every mother’s dream offstage. Good-natured and polite, Cherone’s quick to give credit for his success to his biggest fan: his mother.
“I know this is going to sound funny coming from a mean rock ‘n’ roll guy with a bad image, but my mom makes me tick,” he said. “Me and two of the other guys in the band are the product of divorced parents. My mom was both my mom and dad to me. She was very supportive in most everything I did.”
The one major thing that mother and son disagreed on is chronicled in Extreme’s song “Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go To School Today).”
“People may relate that song to high school, but in my case it was college,” Cherone said. “I was going to college studying art and I wanted to quit to get more into music. And my mother really wanted me to stay in school. She’d say to me, `You have a talent, Gary. Stay in art school.’ I stayed about a year to please my mother, but I didn’t enjoy it. And that’s how the song came out.”
While the band is enjoying popularity with its first single, “Kid Ego,” Cherone said he and his band mates aren’t about to let impending fame alter their attitude about life or music. He has seen too many MTV-generated bands flop on the road.
“There are so many overnight successes who, because of the technology of their videos, look like supergroups on TV. Makeup artists can make fat people look thin, and choreographers can make stiff people appear as agile as Mick Jagger for a short video. But when you’re onstage, the kids can see right through all the garbage. And when they see us, they know we’re just like them.”
Cherone said that like his fans, he gets star-struck, too. He has a crush on model Cindy Crawford. When told Crawford is dating Richard Gere, Cherone joked, “That’s OK. When I get taller and am on the Celtics, she’ll dump him for me. I’ll just have to wait.”
