Bettencourt

Guitar virtuoso Nuno Bettencourt made his name with the eclectic pop-metal outfit Extreme during the height of the guitar-shredder era, and embarked on a solo career after the band's breakup. As a soloist, Bettencourt's most immediately recognizable influence was Eddie Van Halen, but as a songwriter, he might draw from Queen, the Beatles, Prince, and anything in between. The youngest of ten children in a musical family, Bettencourt was born Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt in the town of Praia da Vitoria, on the island of Terceira in the Azores (an archipelago governed by Portugal) on September 20, 1966. His family moved to Boston when he was four and he began playing music as a teenager, trying out drums, bass, and keyboards, but settling on guitar.

Mourning Widows was a musical project led by former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt. The band was formed in 1997, and they released two albums during their career. Despite not being widely released in the United States, both albums were successful in Japan. Bettencourt formed the band after the moderate success of his 1996 solo album, Schizophonic. The band's sound went back to a funkier guitar-driven rock reminiscent of Extreme, while still having post-grunge and alternative influences. After the end of the Furnished Souls For Rent tour, in 2001, Nuno decided to dismiss the band and released a record as Population 1, mostly recorded by himself. That became the name of his new band too, which would later become DramaGods.

A live recording from the Generation Axe tour, featuring Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Zakk Wylde, Nuno Bettencourt and Tosin Abasi, will be released on June 28. Titled Generation Axe—The Guitars That Destroyed the World: Live In China, the collection culls performances from the tour’s 11-city run in Asia in 2017. The album will be released via earMUSIC as a CD digipak, limited colored 2LP+download and digital.

Extreme's music was never easy to classify, since it rarely confined itself to heavy metal, hard rock, or pop. The Massachusetts-based band formed in 1985; guitarist Nuno Bettencourt had already played in a local band with bassist Pat Badger, while singer Gary Cherone fronted his own group with drummer Paul Geary. The two bands eventually merged, and Cherone and Bettencourt formed a songwriting partnership that would soon place Extreme atop the Billboard charts, if only for a short period…