Nuno Bettencourt recently spoke with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. During their conversation, Nuno discusses how Extreme’s new song “Beautiful Girls” is all about celebrating women and shares how amazing the response to the new album Six has been. Nuno also recalls when Eddie Van Halen came over to his house and claims that no one will be the heir to Van Halen’s throne.
SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, hosted by SiriusXM's Eddie Trunk, airs daily at 3 PM ET on SiriusXM’s Faction Talk.
On the response to Six:
“Listen, amazing is a word you used when you're on tour and you're 25 and it's, you know, one of your albums. But 15 years later, at the age of 56, turning 57 in a couple of months, it's insane. It’s shocking. It's exciting. It's amazing. It's shocking. It's surreal. It's surreal. It feels like, I don't even know how to explain it sometimes. I mean, even with Guitar World, I hadn't been on, I mean, I've done some covers through the years here and there, but I haven't done Guitar World since ‘93, 30 years ago. And then not only to be on nine covers this month was like, what? And a lot of it was based on the excitement of just “Rise” alone, which is really bizarre. But they all get sent the album, and I'm just humbled. I'm freaking out. I'm just, you know, it's really strange.
“But the article, it was 32 pages, 32 pages. I'm like, ‘What?’ It's, dude, I don't even know how to, I know most of the time I'm, you know, I'm always a bit of a humble person, but I'm actually completely honest with you when I don't remember ever seeing anything in any guitar magazine that one guitar player took for 32 pages, and I'm just dumbfounded and I'm so blessed and so excited. None. But, look, the main thing is the album. Like you said, guitar playing is great, but I just can't believe the reaction of the album, and I'm super excited.”
On Eddie Van Halen coming over to his house:
“He was playing songs from Wolfie through the car window. He was showing Gary some stuff, but then he was playing, I could hear it through the window. You know, my only regret is like, hey, so he says, ‘So what are you up to? Are you doing an album?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I'm up there recording.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I gotta come up in here.’ And I'm like, ‘Yeah, I wanted to wait till it was done.’ You know, typical, I wanted to wait. It’s Eddie Van Halen, you don't go and play and half finish stuff without solos and things. And of course I regretted a bit because for obvious reasons, he never got to come back. He said he would come back and listen and he passed away. But, you know, I feel like him showing up that day. I don't know, man, I think life, I felt like it was like a weird message. I don't know.
“It was almost, you know, somebody when you were talking about when ‘Rise’ came out and I was doing all these interviews and kept saying, ‘Hey man, you're the heir. You're the heir.’ They were saying ‘You're the heir to the Van Halen throne.’ And I said, ‘Hell no. No one will be the heir to Van Halen’s throne. Nobody can take that throne. Not me, not anybody else is gonna take that because it's so powerful.’ His throne is sitting there like Game of Thrones with guitar instead of swords and, and his music and what he did. And I would not be playing the way I am. So I had to say something on the album because I felt like once he passed, I felt like, well, I'm not, nobody's gonna take the throne. But I felt this little bit of responsibility, almost like, ‘Man, I wanna keep this torch going though.’
“I wanna keep, you know, and all I can hope is that he's looking down, you know, smiling down. Like he's always had that big smile and say, ‘Hey, you know what kid, you've done good. You know, keep going. Keep it happen. Keep it alive.’ And that's all I would ever ask. I have to say something on the album with how much you affected my life as a person. When a guitar player is that iconic, they don't just affect your playing, they affect your DNA, they raise you. You're a child, you're a child listening to this. They're raising you and music and guitar. They're the soundtrack to your life. And you feel like you know them. They speak to you through their music. I'm sure that's what fans feel like. I'm a fan. And the blessing to actually get to be around a hero like that and an influence like that, I'm the luckiest man on the fucking planet. I'm almost in tears telling you this because me meeting him that day for him coming by that day. It was just what a gift, you know? Incredible.”
Order Six here.
(Audio clips credit – SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation)
