Extreme are on their way to Australia after far too many years away. We caught up with Nuno to talk all about the Extreme and Mr Big Tour.He also updates us on new music from the band as well as revealing he’s literally just out of the studio with Steven Tyler. We also get time to checkout his Top albums by Aerosmith, Queen, Van Halen and Led zeppelin, oh and ‘the meaning of life’ of course.
Mark: Hi, Nuno, how are you?
Nuno: Hey, great man, how are you?
Mark: I’m great thank you and thank you so much for talking to The Rockpit today, we met last, it must be about 12 years ago, when you were over in Perth with Population 1.
Nuno: Wow, I remember that, it was fun!
Mark: It was, and great to see you singing those songs in what was a little club in those days! It’s been a while since Extreme has been over, I think it was 1993, but both you and Gary have been over since, so it’s wonderful to see you back. Hopefully this means there’s a new record on the way as well?
Nuno: Yeah, I mean two things to be excited about but two things to apologise for! How long it’s taken us to get back there and how long it’s taken to get this album done!! They’re both happening now, and we can’t be more excited, I’m very embarrassed and apologetic of the fact that it’s my fault that I have not been back there, and it’s upsetting because when we were there we were doing so well. It’s a combination of managers and promoters and things, it’s not through lack of trying, we’ve been trying for a long time, we were about to start playing people’s backyards, weddings, Bar Mitzvah’s, barbecues, anything just to get back there!! And we’ve been way overdue on an album, we’ve had three albums worth of stuff written in the last ten years, and we keep reinventing ourselves every two years, and so we finally got to the point where we knew we had to put something out. So, we will be finishing something by the end of the fall, by the end of the year, I don’t care how it comes out!!
Mark: That’s fantastic; I remember reading an interview with you last year, where you said you had about 17 new songs at that stage, is that something you revisited again? Did you go back and do some new stuff after that?
Nuno: No, what we actually did, it was kind of my fault, I started playing some harder, edgier stuff, I liked how a bit more aggressive everything was sounding, and so we kind of leaned more towards that way, so that’s what I’m excited about.
Mark: Ok, so we can expect a harder edged version of Extreme in 2018?
Nuno: I would say with Extreme you always get everything! We always put the kitchen sink in there and there’s always acoustic and piano, there’s always fun stuff to listen to, but overall I think it’s definitely going to be a bit more intense!
Mark: As far as the set goes, you mentioned there’s been a lot of music written over the last few years, but also since you last came to see us we’ve had a couple of fantastic albums, and I think probably my favourite Extreme album was “Waiting for the Punchline”, I loved the mix of that album, and I loved the tone of your guitar also, but there were of course some great songs as well. Are you going to be drawing from your entire catalogue on the tour?
Nuno: Yeah, I think this is a like seeing a bunch of old friends that we haven’t seen in like 20 years, and when you catch up and when you show up, you don’t just show them a bunch of new stuff, you reminisce, you’ve got to catch up slowly, and go on a bit of a journey. This is a re-acquaintance of a band and our friendship there, so we are going to chuck in everything that they want to hear, and sort of 4 to 5 tracks per album, we’ll have a little bit of history up there!
Mark: That’s fantastic! We saw you on the Monsters of Rock cruise back in 2015 and I thought you played a fantastic set out there on the pool stage! It must be great to play live!
Nuno: Yeah, we’ve always prided ourselves, whether we like it or not, that we’ve done that well, let’s just say we’re each passionate about it. I think the one thing that hasn’t changed for us since we were 17 years old until right now, until being what 23 right now (laughs) is that we’ve never lost that passion and we always leave it all up there on the stage.
Mark: Take it all the way back for us, Nuno, when did you first pick up the guitar?
Nuno: You know it was a little bit late for me, as I played drums first and then keys, but I was probably around 11-12 years old.
Mark: And what was it that made you do that? Did you hear something?
Nuno: It was a combination of all things; my family members, everyone was musical or musicians in my house regardless of what I had heard or not, so I got in to it very early on by all the music my older brothers and sisters were listening to, it started with The Beatles, all that early stuff, Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, later on early Aerosmith, Van Halen, Queen, they were all that top tier stuff.
Mark: Some great influences there. What are you doing outside of Extreme these days? I always imagined we’d see some solo stuff from you; I was talking to a guitarist friend of mine who said he’d always wanted to hear an instrumental album from you! Any plans?
Nuno: Err, no!! I’m not that guy, I just did the Generation Axe tour, and it was fine, the reason I did it was because we get to be us, whoever we are, we all gel together and it’s all guitar driven and so I keep my solo stuff for that. I love playing guitar, and I love playing solos, but I love being part of a band and part of a song and I love the challenge of a solo, one minute, thirty seconds as opposed to a whole album worth, I don’t think I have that much to say, for that long you’d really have to be that guy!! I think I’ve always been too involved in songs and melody, and lyrics to allow myself to be just completely instrumental.
Mark: So, what is it that makes a great song for you? When you hear it what do you look for, the melody, a catchy riff?
Nuno: It’s everything! You want a great lyric, a great melody, you want great riffs and great production, but the most important thing, is how authentic it is, how much you mean it, if it touches you, it’s got something behind it that reaches you and touches you, and that’s really a great song. A great song for one person could be a shitty song for another! That’s the beauty of it, it touches individuals, like the song that we latch on to and we don’t know why. Sometimes the whole world might like it and it becomes a massive hit, and sometimes only 10,000 of us might like it, and that’s ok too, but if it touches somebody, then you’ve done your job.
Mark: Is there a song like that for you? Is there a song you can hang your hat on and say this is perfection for me, one of the reasons I’m a musician?
Nuno: That’s a good question! I’m not sure about that, I started to put a little i-tunes playlist in my I-pad, it’s a kind of egotistical playlist that I called ‘Proud’ it was a combination of things that I’d written whether it was Extreme or my solo stuff, or Population 1 I’d just grab a track and I’d put it in this list, I think there’s only two or three in there right now (laughs) I don’t know if there’s any more than that, but I had heaps of stuff, it’s one of those things I don’t have it in front of me right now. I remember a song like, Population 1 – a song called “Spaceman”, I listened to it as an outsider and I thought wow! I think there’s something there! (laughs) I think it has to feel no like me to put it n there! It has to be not like looking in a mirror, I think you know what if I heard that on the radio and I didn’t know it was me I think I might connect with that. (laughs) There were a few, not many!
Mark: (laughs) You sound like you’re someone who’s constantly writing, is that an obsession for you? You mentioned that you had this album done over a few times in the past too. Are you a perfectionist?
Nuno: Yeah, I think happiness probably happens but it’s kinda fleeting, I think you’ve just got to let it go before it’s too late, that’s why if you wait too long you over think it but I’m pretty fine when I’ve finished something and I’m excited about it, just because I want it to be the best that I can do, and it’s the best that it can be, and a lot of that is keeping the imperfections of it, I get afraid of things being really perfect and being cleaned up especially when I write with people and I record with them. I just did a track with Steven Tyler in Muscle shoals, we’re doing for a Muscle Shoals album I don’t know if you’re familiar with that documentary, well they’re doing an album with a bunch of artists who recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alicia Keyes is on, Chris Stapleton, a bunch of other people, and me and Steven Tyler did a track together for it and I probably just finished mixing it about 10 minutes before I took this call! It’s pretty exciting, we don’t know how it’s gonna turn out yet but that’s the way it is. We had horns on there, we had big beats, we had the Swampers, everything but the kitchen sink in there, it’s very hard to do all that and make it perfect you have to sacrifice some things for others, I was sat there with this mix and I had to decide how to get it all in there, but the idea is to make sure everybody gets everything, and gets certain things featured here and there, so that’s a perfectionist, you’re never really happy until you’ve finished the mix, if you don’t finish it, you just abandon it!
Mark: That sounds amazing; to get opportunities like that must feel great.
Nuno: You’ll always be a fan, no matter how much success you have or don’t have. When you’re with these bands and you’re rehearsing with people like Paul McCartney for the Grammy’s and you see the talent in the Shoals, you look out from the control room and you see who is in the room and you always feel like that kid in the bedroom, you never get over that. Never. There was something that Rob Zombie told me the other day, he was ay Paul McCartney’s house, he had a big party, I think it was a birthday and he said that everybody in there was in awe. Oprah Winfrey, Woody Harleson, Dave Grohl were all there, if a bomb went off some of the greatest artists ever would disappear, but everybody is still a fan even Paul McCartney is still a fan, they’re like children everybody still remembers why they did it in the first place.
Mark: And I think that is the wonderful thing about music, it can take you anywhere and you never lose that love, it’s fantastic.
Nuno: Absolutely.
Mark: Taking that thought a little further, If you could have been a fly on the wall in the studio for the creation of any great album just to see how it all came together and how the magic happened, what would that album be for you? What would you have loved to have seen come together?
Nuno: That’s a great question (pauses) Wow! I don’t know about one single album but probably in my top three or four or bands that I love, Beatles, Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith, Van Halen, I think each one of them would have an album that I think would have been great to have been there for. I think with Queen it would have been really interesting to have been there for Queen II. It’s not everybody’s favourite of their albums but I think it was the one for me that I’ve always loved. And probably Van Halen II, wow Queen II, Van Halen II (laughs) Zep II probably (laughs)
Mark: So going by that then it would be ‘Get Your Wings’ by Aerosmith?
Nuno: Yeah, I think ’Get Your Wings’ probably would be the one! I talk to Steven endlessly about ‘Get Your Wings’ and that it was the album that really made me want to be a rock and roller- ‘Get Your Wings.’
Mark: Wow! That really is cool I think that is also the album that really did it for me, It’s one of the real greats. I think we’ve just got time for one quick question Nuno, and we always end with an easy one – ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Nuno: (laughs) Ah! The easiest question of all! You know the answer I give would probably have changed every ten years of my life but as I’m sat here in the studio right now the answer for me is I don’t know. I sit here sometimes and I think I have it figured out but whether I’m here in Muscle shoals or where I’m at home with my family and my kids there are times when I sit back and I think that’s the reason and then it’s not, there’s another reason so for me I think the meaning is to keep searching. I think the meaning for me is that there is none it really is your journey and it’s for you to figure out your own meaning. I think it’s different for everyone. There are beautiful people on this planet and there are bad people on this planet but everyone believes that their meaning and their way is right. It is what it is.
Mark: I think you’re absolutely right, it’s all about that search. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today Nuno, I can’t wait to see you later in the year, be safe, see you soon.
Nuno: It’ll be fun man, thank you so much Mark.
