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Boston’s most eclectic hard rock band is back: Extreme celebrates a new album at Roadrunner Aug. 5
'Our audience has been starving for new material': Frontman Gary Cherone talks about the band's new music.
Since the Boston-based band Extreme got together in 1985, they’ve, at the same time, gone through lots of changes and also stayed the course. Members of the lineup have left, been replaced and, in the case of frontman Gary Cherone — who took an unexpected detour as the third lead singer for Van Halen back in 1996 — returned.
They’ve toured the world as headliners, and garnered a reputation for a crack rhythm section, fiery guitar work, and powerful, adventurous vocals, and for maintaining a wildly diverse sweep across musical genres.
Extreme is and always has been a hard rock band. Yet all of their albums and live sets have also featured tastes of pop, funk, and balladry. Their biggest hit — “More Than Words” — is a laid-back acoustic number propelled by gorgeous close harmonies.
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As they head out on their first tour since Covid brought things to a halt — stopping at Roadrunner on Aug. 5 — they’ll be spotlighting tunes from “Six,” their first studio album since 2008’s “Saudades de Rock.” No surprise, the variety of sounds and styles on it is astounding.
Malden native Gary Cherone recently spoke to Boston.com about what’s going on in Extreme world.
Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.
Boston.com: Extreme hasn’t visited the recording studio a whole lot over your career. Only six albums in four decades. What got you to do it now?
Gary Cherone: That’s a regret. It’s been 15 years since our last record. We’ve been together, and playing. Whenever [guitarist] Nuno [Bettencourt] and I are together, we write. So, we have a catalog of demos from throughout the years. Our fans were calling for new material, we had it, and we were ready to put the record out. But we didn’t want to release it during Covid because we couldn’t support it.
You guys have made a creative habit of keeping your albums jumping around in style and substance. “Six” kicks off with the hard rock of “Rise,” later moves into the constantly shifting moods of “The Mask,” and takes a really surprising turn with “Beautiful Girls,” which might be the happiest song you’ve ever done.
You picked pretty much the spectrum of the music on the record. “Rise” is more down the strike zone of Extreme. You expect a ballistic guitar solo and some harmonies in the choruses. That’s probably why we put it up front. “The Mask” has got a really good groove, and the lyrical content is maybe a little heavier. As far as “Beautiful Girls” … We did an eclectic song on “Pornograffitti” called “When I First Kissed You,” which was a little nod to Sinatra. Extreme has always wanted to throw curveballs on our records. That really came from the philosophy of Queen. We would listen to their records, and they would have “Death on Two Legs” and “Love of My Life” or some eclectic, crazy track where you’d think, is this the same band? That’s always inspired us. And you may be right. “Beautiful Girls” may be the happiest song we’ve ever done. It just kind of cleans the palate on the record. It’s roll down your window, you’re at the beach, the radio’s on but you’re not really listening to it, but you’re grooving to it.
All of your albums tend to rock out, then calm down, then rock out again. What has the process been of programming them, of deciding the order of the songs?
We spend a lot of time on that. I’m hearing reviews of this record, and there’s been some fair criticism of the roller coaster ride on it. Which is fine. But we spent a lot of time trying to figure out the sequence because there was so much eclecticism on the record.
It’s been a couple of years since Extreme has been on a stage regularly as a headliner. [Although the band opened for Aerosmith at Fenway Park last September.] Do you expect any rust?
A: I think this band is always ready to play. We’d been doing the catalog for a few years, and our audience has been starving for new material. So having five or six new songs — and that’s a lot to put in a set — is great, and that should infuse new energy into the band. But we’re gonna try to dip into some deep tracks from some of the older records.
One question from left field, if you don’t mind. Back in 1992, “Weird Al” Yankovic released the video for his song “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” which was a shot-for-shot satire on the video of “More Than Words.” Any idea how that came about?
[Laughs] He came to us. It’s not that he would need permission, but he came to us. I think we were in the studio, doing our third record, and he wanted our blessing. We were a little bummed that he didn’t do “More Than Words,” and that it was one of his original songs to our video. But we were fans. And we were just thrilled about it.
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Extreme plays Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Boston, on Aug. 5. Living Colour opens. Showtime is 8 p.m. General admission tickets: $39.50. Info: https://roadrunnerboston.com/
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