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Pretty popular tune. Extreme was a really interesting band put together in the late 80s, mostly by Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt. Now they’ve had a lot of other rotating members. And like a lot of bands, they’ve been pretty voluble sometimes in their getting along with each other and some things like that. But they were mostly popular in the late 80s and early 90s. They cite their influences as a couple of really big bands from little earlier, Van Halen and Queen. And as a matter of fact, they played together in 1992 at the Freddy Mercury Tribute Concert. And shortly after that, Gary Cherone even joined Van Halen for one album. I believe he was only on “Van Halen III”.

They describe their music as funk metal or funky metal. And most of it is influenced by, again, those early metal bands, Queen and Van Halen. There are some other bands that they’re very similar to. “Drama Gods”, “Morning Widows”, “Tribe of Judah”, “Satellite Party”, “Twisted Sister”, even “Dweezil Zappa” would be considered a similar band.

Extreme has sole countless albums over the years. Five of these are highly notable and need credit, as well as a few EPS that had been sold exclusively in Japan. There have also been a few single releases. In the early 1990’s, sales had exceeded 10 million, which is a huge accomplishment. The largest selling album was named “Porngraphitti”, which was the second release. This is the album which contained the infamous song “More than Words”.

Many of the members from Extreme came from Malden, MA. During the late 80’s a band called Dream had split, and some of these members came together with Nuno Bettencourt, who had been part of a band named Sinful. Pat Badger from In the pin became the bass player. This group of players began working together, and their relationship grew until they started arguing at small things. Eventually they named their band Dream, which changed to Ex-Dream. Ultimately, the permanent name was changed to Extreme. One of their biggest hits came from the infamous movie, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, even though the real claim to fame for this group is the song More Than Words. This song, which is known for the guitar as well as the percussive guitar playing Nuno is known for. This method is difficult to master, but is a great way to teach method. The best way to do this, but still difficult, is to break it down to specific methods.

The song reached the Billboard’s Top 100 during 1991, as soon as it was recorded. IT became a huge hit, and continues today to be popular on different Medias such as YouTube. There are many versions of this video, including the promotional one. At the beginning, you see dials getting turned down from amplifiers. The bass player and drummer pack up get and have a seat on the couch. Ultimately, it focuses on Gary and Nuno simply playing. The others are sitting on the couches, reading a newspaper, while holding up lighters symbolizing giving the song the attention it deserves.

The band enjoyed a moderate amount of success during those few years, until around 1993. Then their popularity got a little dicey. Later, they brought new members into the band during 1994-1996, but ultimately they split up and headed into their own pursuits. Since then, they have put out two more albums, in 2008 and 2010. The first was named simply “Extreme”, and the second was “Extreme II: Pornoggraffiti”. This was during the mid 90’s, and the most recent albums were released more recently.

These guys appeared on the “Metal Mania” show on VH1, where they were praised and defied by the hosts. There have also been videos of Nuno trying to provide guitar lessons with the song “More Than Words”, where he was a little recalcitrant. It obviously wasn’t his cup of tea, but he did allow the cameras to get close up shots of his hands while he was playing. The video seemed to give the feeling that he didn’t really want to share the information.

There are some people who aren’t eager or interested in sharing their knowledge when teaching the guitar. This can be upsetting for some students, since there is an abundance of information and creativity to pass around.

Extreme has a new album being released this May, 2010, that was recorded in Boston. Many of the big hits, such as “More Than Words”, “Comfortably Dumb” and Decadence Dance” are included on this new album.

There are also other songs included, such as “Rest In Peace, “It’s a Monster”, Midnight Express”, and “Star”. The song “War and Peace taken from Mikolai Korsakov called flight of the Bumblebee also have contributed to the success.

Oh, they are coming back. That was not “Flight of the Bumble Bee” but…and of course, couple of other big hits, “Get The Funk Out” and “Hole Hearted”. Now, there is a DVD that comes along with it that includes some other really interesting stuff but we are not going to talk about that anymore. We’ll just talk a little bit more about “More Than Words” because it is of course your typical Howard ballad, maybe. Oh, White Snake, that was the band I was trying to think of earlier that had a lot of these kind of things. They had the Girl Crawling On the Car sort of stuff and then meant for that…that real powerful look and screaming ballad type of thing. So, White Snake, another 80’s band and part of the Hair band stories that happened back in then.

More than Words is addressing the listener to use more than words to show love, but the appeal quickly became universal. Parodies of this song were made by many bands, including Weird Al Yankovic. His version was called “You Don’t Love Me Anymore”. Amateur bands also created a variety of spinoffs, such as Northern Birds” from the Amateur Transplants band in 2006.

But there are also parody videos of it by Jason Seagull and the cast of “How I Met Your Mother”. So, anyway, “More Than Words” again hit the billboard top 200, hot 100 in 1991. And eventually, was number one. It was number two in the UK on a singles chart. So, it really had a lot going for it and put them on the map as far as a band that more people had heard of than other bands from this genre. Again, when I listed the other bands earlier that they were like…you probably haven’t heard of, most of them.

Also, a heavily covered tune. Hard to believe but it is. There are bunch of bands that did their own versions of it and of course, the Amateur Transplants I mentioned but D.B. Mac, West Life, David Cassidy…now, there is somebody who has had a very up and down career but in 2003, he put an album out called A Touch of Blue. Now, most of us know David Cassidy from his work with the Partridge Family and always struggling with his identity. Was he Keith Partridge at who is a TV rock singer or was he David Cassidy who want to be a real life rock and roll guitar player?

It’s hard to differentiate who his genuine character is. He is the son of Jack Cassidy, and the stepson to Shirley McClain, who knew him on the set with the Partridge Family as well. His dad had an action history, going back to multiple shows, such as Colombo episodes and a mystery movie series.

Peter Falk, Colombo, Jack Cassidy and Dick Van Dyke, were all famous villains. They were also all tied to David Cassidy. He is part of the story because he covered the song “More Than Words”. A last few observations on this song are the drippy sentiment this song conveys is a weak attempt to replicate great writers, such as Gershwin, or Cole Porter. The adolescent ramblings have been compared to John Meyers.

But, the band still is trying to make a living happening. Actually, they are making very good livings because Nuno Bettencourt again, is really a phenomenal guitar player and he is just been sort of pigeon holding to this style, this funky metal style. But we can always hope that they will be doing a little bit more stuff like this because frankly I love the song “More Than Words” and it is really worth having all my students work on it. So, they can come up with a little bit more stuff like that. Also, then we would have a lot more Extreme available as instructional stuff for folks.

Now, most of the other stuff can be found in various places on the Internet. All kinds of places around. I forgot to talk about one more thing and I was there as another great speaking of parodies. There is a great parody video, also at YouTube that would be worth checking out that talks… that shows…It looks at of…from the angle of what the other two guys were really doing or what they were really thinking or talking about while the video was going on. Now, this was not the real guys doing it but it’s still…somebody put together a great edited video that…

Do, if you’ve got a chance, track that one down but in any case “More Than Words” is well worth its weight in gold in terms of instructional stuff for guitar and entertainment value and everything else. So, I really encourage you to check out “More Than Words” and a few of the other things by Extreme.

I am really enjoy rock and roll history and EXtreme is a very interesting band. For free guitar lessons or to learn More Than Words guitar lesson or other songs check out TotallyGuitars.com.