Nuno Bettencourt Says Rock And Roll Is Not Complicated

Nuno Bettencourt (Instagram @generationaxe)

JAKARTA - In an interview with May The Rock Be With You from Australia, guitarist Nuno Bettencourt discussed his positive response to the latest album Extreme, Six.

More specifically, Nuno commented on the song Rise, which featured guitar solos that Total Guitar magazine recognized as "one of the best of the 21st century".

"I think we learned a lot with this album, especially its release. The response, for me, was not as usual, 'Oh, a great album' or 'a great solo' for me. I think it's deeper than that," the guitarist opened up.

"It makes me realize how much I think we all really want rock and roll. And when I say that, I don't mean that there are no great bands out there right now. I mean, even from our generation, more than an ancient approach to making albums, not making playlists, like albums from top to bottom that you can wear headphones and, take travel, or take a drive," he explained.

I think rock and roll mythology is gone, continued Nuno. "Not only the music; it's all. It's what these bands use. It's how excited [they are]. Watching guitar players play solo in videos you hear, but you feel it too and you see the passion."

"Talking about the genres we follow, not much has happened to people like me who are like the last people to play in a creative world without... There are so many guitar players I'm watching right now and I don't even know what they're playing with."

"Half of that, their electoral style, mixing genres, mixing these, and it's very complicated, compared to those without ba bi bu like Zeppelin, Queen Van Halen, Aerosmith which is just... Hey, sometimes we play bar chords, my wife. And solo is in that solo realm. And I think to be creative there, if you do it right, in a small rock and roll world that isn't too complicated... The word I use is'simplicity'."

"I always believe that rock and roll is not complicated," added Nuno. Rock, pop, reggae, all the arrangements have been the same since I remember. It's a verse, it's a chorus, another verse, a chorus, a bridge, we do solo and then we go home, and there's an out chorus."

"But what distinguishes all artists from each other is that even though the arrangement is simple, the songs are quite simple, the melody is quite simple, but when you come back and listen to it, there's a complicated layer there that determines a Queen from Zeppelin that you can peel."

"Even in simplicity, there are complicated lyrics, some complicated harmony, guitar solos, rhythm players who... But they all do it in one kind of pop place. And I think it's very difficult. I think it's easier to write pop songs, but to make a complicated version so you can stay for decades and people can come back and find the voices and find things they missed the first time, that's the art, in my opinion, which is a little missing, in my sense, might actually touch people's hearts. "

Six were released on June 9 via earMUSIC. The album landed at No. 10 on the Billboard Sales Top Album chart with sales for the first week of 12,500 copies.

Six marks the band's first studio album since 2008. Extreme was last at Top 10 with III Sides To Every Story, which made its debut and peaked at No. 10 in October 1992.