EXTREME released the Rock Album of the year „Six“ on 09.06.23
Time for an Interview with the guys for it
Why did it take so long for the new album?
Nuno: “We, as a band, always want to release something that we’re super proud of, and not just put albums out for the sake of touring or to make money, even though that would be nice. But we wanted to make sure that the album was done, and that it was bulletproof from front to back and we’re proud of it – the whole thing.”
Pat: “Rome wasn’t built in a day!”
Nuno: “Yeah, I like that!”
What is it that brings the four of you together?
Nuno: “We are definitely a dysfunctional family, but I think the late and great Freddy Mercury says that he believes that some of the best music the band ever made was when they were on the verge of breaking up, because it is just such a push and pull and it gets emotional. And I think this album probably is a good representation of that. Gary coined it right, no matter what we do, whether it’s me going to play with Rihanna or Pat doing his Eagles thing and his solo records, Fig’s got his projects, Gary’s got his – this is the mothership. We can never escape it because it’s responsible for us doing all the other things. It was the catalyst, the foundation, you know?”
Pat: “And like he said, we’ve been together for so long, it just feels like home when we get back together again. We can always do other things, but then, like he says, it’s a feeling of coming back to the mothership.”
Nuno: “And like home, brothers fight, that’s part of the beauty.”
Gary: “And also, we have to rehearse”
Nuno: “And we have to rehearse, ”
What is the deal with the gorilla on the cover?
Nuno: “We were leaning into some heavier stuff as you hear, especially on the first opening tracks, and in the studio, we were thinking, ‘yeah, this sounds like a 900-pound gorilla’ and that stayed in my head. And then, when we found this image and what was cool about it-, because you can’t just put a gorilla on the cover and that’s like ‘oh, there’s a gorilla and the feel’. It was more- If you look at this face, I saw Extreme, all of the different emotions Extreme has. You got this gorilla that’s a little bit weathered. We’re not younglings anymore, we’re seasoned veterans, but we also are confident about what we do. When we get on stage, we’ve always believed that we’re fierce and that gorillas are fierce. But, when you look at him, there’s a little smirk. A lot of our lyrics and a lot of our stuff is playful, like tongue-in-cheek. So, it had all of these different expressions where he was powerful, fierce, but ‘don’t fuck with us, we will take you down’ – we have that kind of confidence.”
How does your songwriting process work?
Gary: “We always wrote for ourselves.”
Nuno: “We all wrote for ourselves. We didn’t repeat like in ‘More Than Words’ on purpose. We just kept writing and whatever it was, it was. We’ve always been honest to ourselves.”
Gary: “We took our cues from our heroes. Zep III is almost, basically, acoustic, right? Of course, Queen and The Beatles, they were selfish, or even The Who and Townshend they just wrote. They were in their own little bubble.”
Nuno: “I think we always believed that we are a band, and we go on stage, and we entertain people. And we make albums to entertain people. I think we learned really quickly that, no, we take them with us. They want to use us as an escape. They come to the shows to escape work, escape their lives, and have a release for the night. And the album is a soundtrack to escape. We’re not just entertainers. I think the fans count on us to take them with us – on our journey, into our bubble, into our world. I think to be authentic you have to really be like a true artist and selfish that way.”
More Than Words – What your relationship with the song?
Nuno: “More Than Words, was it a blessing or a curse? More Than Words is a hit like it was. We got to keep doing what we’re doing, play for tens of thousands of fans, tour the world, get recognition, and then get to do more albums and people discovered us.”
Gary: “Not a hit.”
Nuno: “Not a hit and I’m working at Burger King. That’s the story. We’re proud of it, absolutely.”
Pics by: Jesse_Lirola
