Extremes

This article covers the band. For the British car manufacturer, see Extreme Sportscars .

Extremes
Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt performing live in Madrid , October 31, 2008.
General information
Genre (s)	Funk rock , hard rock
founding	1985, 2008
resolution	1995
Website	extreme-band.com
Current occupation
singing	Gary Cherone (since 1985)
Guitar , piano , keyboard	Nuno Bettencourt (since 1985)
bass	Pat Badger (until 1994, since 2008)
Drums , percussion	Kevin Figueiredo (since 2008)
former members
guitar	Peter Hunt (1985)
bass	Paul Mangone (1985-1986)
bass	Carl Restivo (2004)
Drums	Mike Mangini (1994-1996)
Drums	Paul Geary (until 1994, 2004)

Extreme is an American funk metal - band , which was founded in 1985, the center of the guitarist Nuno Bettencourt and the singer Gary Cherone form, which also created the most compositions the group and celebrated its greatest success in the early 1990s.

history

Extreme emerged from the band The Dream, founded in 1981, which recorded and released a six-song album in 1983. In 1985 the group won a competition organized by the music broadcaster MTV with their song Mutha (Don't Want to Go to School Today) , in the same year the musicians renamed themselves Extreme and brought in Nuno Bettencourt, a second guitarist in the band. After only three rehearsals with Nuno, the band split from the original guitarist Peter Hunt, who could not compete with Bettencourt's technical skills. In 1986 bassist Pat Badger joined the group to replace Paul Mangone. With this new line-up, Extreme quickly gained a good reputation in the area around her hometown of Boston . The group played in Europe for the first time in 1986 and took part in festivals in Portugal , Bettencourt's homeland. In 1987 the band won the Boston Music Award and signed a recording deal with A&M . The song Play with Me appeared as part of the soundtrack for the film Bill & Ted's Crazy Journey through Time .

The group released their debut album the following year, but for the time being it did not succeed in becoming known beyond their state. Only with the second album Pornograffitti , which was released in 1990, did this situation change: The single More Than Words , accompanied only by acoustic guitar , reached number 1 in the US charts and became an international hit. Hole Hearted and Get the Funk Out also made it into the charts as other hit singles . Extremes occupied their own niche with their funk rock; the guitarist Nuno Bettencourt became a sought-after guest musician for numerous recordings by other artists. He played with Janet Jackson on her song Black Cat and also recorded several tracks with TM Stevens .

With the third, extremely ambitious album III Sides to Every Story , the band could not build on the commercial success of its predecessor due to the lack of a radio-friendly single. Many critics considered the record to be overambitious. Extreme took in 1992 at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in honor of the late Queen - singer part. For this performance, the band rehearsed a specially compiled queen medley three weeks before the concert in their hometown of Boston. Except for the hits More Than Words and Get the Funk Out , the band had no songs that would have filled the allotted duration of a good 20 minutes. Since all Extreme musicians were big Queen fans, they agreed on the medley and finally More Than Words as an encore . According to a survey by Rolling Stone Magazine from 2008 (5), the appearance is still considered one of the ten best live appearances of all time (1st place: Queens Live Aid appearance 1985).

Geary left the band in 1994. Former Annihilator drummer Mike Mangini replaced the Monsters of Rock Festival in Castle Donington. The fourth album Waiting for the Punchline had clear grunge influences and flopped commercially. Then the band broke up.

The singer Gary Cherone was signed to replace Sammy Hagar at Van Halen . The album Van Halen III released with the group was not commercially successful, which led to the separation from Cherone. Bettencourt meanwhile started a solo career and published u. a. the album Schizophonic . In 2004 the Extreme musicians performed together again for the first time on the occasion of the 20th Maré de Agosto Internacional Music Festival on the Portuguese island of Santa Maria in the Azores , the birthplace of Bettencourt. Instead of Pat Badger, Carl Restivo played bass at this concert. On the occasion of WAAF's Hillmann 15th Anniversary Concert , the group performed on September 18, 2004 at City Hall Plaza in Boston alongside Puddle of Mudd and the Dropkick Murphys . Further appearances followed in 2006, in December 2007 the band played at the Boston Music Awards and announced on the occasion that they would release a new album.

On August 12, 2008, the album entitled Saudades de Rock was released, and in 2010 the group released the live album and DVD Take Us Alive , both of which were recorded at a concert in Boston.

In June / July 2014 Extreme will return to Germany for the first time in six years with the line-up of Gary Cherone, Nuno Bettencourt, Pat Badger and Kevin Figueiredo for three concerts (Mannheim - Alte Seilerei, Cologne - Live Music Hall and Nürnberg - Rockfabrik) .

Trivia

• Mike Mangini was named as a band member on the album Waiting for the Punchline , but actually only recorded three songs with the group. Paul Geary played the drums on the remaining tracks.
• In the early 1990s, Nuno Bettencourt had a cameo appearance when he himself appeared in the video clip of Stuttering John for I'll Talk My Way Out of It (alongside Gene Simmons and Sting ).
• Extreme contributed a title to the tribute album Kiss My Ass in 1994 with the cover version of the Kiss song Strutter .
• The album Pornograffitti was promoted with the song More than Words .
• Mike Mangini and Pat Badger played on Gary Cherone's project Tribe of Judah and on their CD Exit Elvis .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1989	Extremes	-	-	-	-	US80 (32 weeks) US
1990	Extreme II Pornograffitti - A Funked Up Fairytale	DE15 (39 weeks) DE	AT17 (12 weeks) AT	CH10 gold (17 weeks)CH	UK12 platinum (61 weeks)UK	US10 × 2 Double platinum (75 weeks)US
1992	III Sides to Every Story - Yours, Mine and the Truth	DE20 (13 weeks) DE	AT27 (4 weeks) AT	CH14 (9 weeks) CH	UK2 gold (11 weeks)UK	US10 gold (23 weeks)US
1995	Waiting for the punchline	DE46 (9 weeks) DE	AT37 (2 weeks) AT	CH24 (7 weeks) CH	UK10 (3 weeks) UK	US40 (5 weeks) US
2008	Saudades de Rock	-	-	-	-	US78 (1 week) US

More albums

• 1998: Running gag
• 2010: Take Us Alive - Boston 2009 (live album)

Compilations

• 1990: Extra Graffitti (EP, Japan)
• 1992: Remixes & B-Sides
• 1998: The Best of Extreme: An Accidental Collication of Atoms?
• 2002: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Extreme
• 2002: Hole Hearted
• 2002: The Collection
• 2004: 20th Century Masters - The DVD Collection: The Best of Extreme
• 2007: Best of Extreme
• 2012: Tragic Comic

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1991	More Than Words Extreme II: Pornography graffiti	DE8 (23 weeks) DE	AT13 (12 weeks) AT	CH3 (21 weeks) CH	UK2 gold (11 weeks)UK	US1 gold (24 weeks)US	First published: 1990
	Get the Funk Out Extreme II: Pornography graffiti	-	-	-	UK19 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1990
	Hole Hearted Extreme II: Pornography graffiti	DE48 (13 weeks) DE	-	-	UK12 (7 weeks) UK	US4 (20 weeks) US	First published: 1990
	Decadence Dance Extreme II: pornography graffiti	-	-	-	UK36 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1990
1992	Song for Love Extreme II: Pornography graffiti	-	-	-	UK12 (6 weeks) UK	-
	Rest in Peace III Sides to Every Story	-	-	CH20 (3 weeks) CH	UK13 (5 weeks) UK	US96 (3 weeks) US
	Stop the World III Sides to Every Story	-	-	-	UK22 (2 weeks) UK	US95 (3 weeks) US
1993	Tragic Comic III Sides to Every Story	-	-	-	UK15 (4 weeks) UK	-	First publication: 1992
1995	Hip Today Waiting for the Punchline	-	-	-	UK44 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: 1994

More singles

• 1989: Little Girls
• 1989: Kid Ego
• 1989: Mutha (Don't Wanna Go to School Today)
• 1994: There Is No God
• 1995: Cynical
• 1996: Running Gag (EP)

Video albums

• 1991: Photograffitti (VHS) (US:gold)
• 2005: Classic Extreme (DVD)
• 2006: Videograffiti: The Definitive (DVD)
• 2007: Essential Videos
• 2010: Take Us Alive

Awards for music sales

Golden record

•  Netherlands
  • 1991: for the single More Than Words
  • 1992: for the album Extreme II Pornograffitti - A Funked Up Fairytale

Platinum record

•  Canada
  • 1991: for the single More Than Words
  • 1992: for the album III Sides to Every Story - Yours, Mine and the Truth

3 × platinum record

•  Canada
  • 1991: for the album Extreme II Pornograffitti - A Funked Up Fairytale

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Canada (MC)	-	5 × platinum5	500,000	musiccanada.com
Netherlands (NVPI)	2 × gold2	-	125,000	nvpi.nl
Switzerland (IFPI)	gold1	-	25,000	hitparade.ch
United States (RIAA)	3 × gold3	2 × platinum2	3,050,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	2 × gold2	platinum1	800,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	8 × gold8th	8 × platinum8th

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Singles Albums UK US

Web links

• Official website
• Extreme at Allmusic (English)
• Extreme at Discogs (English)
• Detailed biography in English