{"id":5318,"date":"2026-09-07T11:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/?p=5318"},"modified":"2026-09-14T12:15:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:15:05","slug":"extremes-nuno-bettencourt-the-story-behind-the-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/2026\/09\/07\/extremes-nuno-bettencourt-the-story-behind-the-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme\u2019s Nuno Bettencourt | The Story Behind the Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> By Josie Mannon, Music Staff<\/h4>\n

Sep. 7, 2026<\/h4>\n

HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 Welcome to the first edition of The Story Behind the Sound! I\u2019m Josie Mannon, a freshman at Marshall University and a new volunteer at WMUL-FM. I have an interest in \u201cold\u201d music, including the artists\/bands behind the sound and songs themselves. Here we will deep dive twice a month into an artist, band, or song, looking at their history, upbringing, vision, and standing in our society today. Now, we will be covering 1980 rock band Extreme\u2019s very own guitarist Nuno Bettencourt.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Sept. 20, 1966, in the Portuguese Azores Nuno Bettencourt was born. Before relocating a couple years later to Boston, when he was four. At the beginning of his life, Bettencourt showed interest in sports like hockey and soccer, but as he reached his teenage years, he gained an interest in more musical hobbies like the keyboard and drumming. It wasn\u2019t until his brother, Lu\u00eds, taught him how to play the guitar did he start showing an interest in it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After giving up sports,\u00a0Bettencourt\u00a0had officially committed his life to music.\u00a0He was \u201cpracticing over seven hours a day,\u201d said biographs.org,\u00a0and ended up dropping out of school.\u00a0Finally, in 1985,\u00a0he joined\u00a0the\u00a0rock band\u00a0Extreme.\u00a0Extreme started to become popular in Boston, signing with\u00a0A&M Records\u00a0and\u00a0releasing\u00a0their debut album,\u00a0Extreme,\u00a0in 1989.\u00a0This\u00a0was just the beginning of\u00a0giving\u00a0Bettencourt the audience he needed,\u00a0later\u00a0becoming the\u00a0\u201cmost influential rock guitarists of his generation,\u201d\u00a0according to biographs.org.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of songs from Extreme Bettencourt is recognized for are \u201cMore Than Words\u201d (Pornograffitti), \u201cHole Hearted\u201d (Pornograffitti), and \u201cGet the Funk Out\u201d (Pornograffitti). \u201cGet the Funk Out\u201d was especially a hit for Bettencourt since he got so much positive recognition for his guitar solo in that song. Brian May, guitarist for the band Queen, even stated when referring to Bettencourt\u2019s solo, \u201cit\u2019s a landmark there\u2019s a landmark in rock history and I think should have its own little medal struck and awarded to Nuno Bettencourt and Extreme,\u201d according to a YouTube video uploaded by EuCheq.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other than being a member of Extreme, Bettencourt is known for many other impressive qualities. He\u00a0has a songwriting career,\u00a0writing music for\u00a0various\u00a0artists\/bands like Baby\u00a0Animals,\u00a0Tantric, Suze DeMarchi,\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Jonas, and\u00a0a song for the soundtrack in the Super Mario Bros.\u00a0movie.\u00a0Furthermore,\u00a0he has his own\u00a0solo\u00a0album,\u00a0Schizophonic,\u00a0that was\u00a0released in 1997.\u00a0Bettencourt\u00a0was\u00a0also a guitarist for\u00a0Rihanna\u00a0beginning in 2009.\u00a0All\u00a0these accomplishments show\u00a0how\u00a0versatile of an artist and guitarist he is.\u00a0Having the ability to\u00a0play\u00a0and write\u00a0a variety of different styles of music.\u00a0According to\u00a0a\u00a01997\u00a0interview done with Bettencourt\u00a0published in\u00a0Music Connection, he states, \u201cMusicians, as a whole, should not be afraid to\u00a0express their many different sides. It allows you to grow and it\u00a0challenges your audience.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0clear Bettencourt\u00a0has many musical accomplishments, but what\u00a0is a fun\u00a0fact that\u00a0makes\u00a0him who he is?\u00a0Bettencourt\u2019s first guitar was\u00a0a red Kramer Pacer. He bought it because\u00a0Eddie Van Halen, guitarist in\u00a0the\u00a0rock band Van Halen, played\u00a0a\u00a0Kramer\u00a0guitar.\u00a0After the Kramer was\u00a0eventually destroyed, he got a black Jackson,\u00a0which was later stolen\u00a0during\u00a0a gig. Since Bettencourt had no\u00a0guitar at this point\u00a0and not a lot of finances,\u00a0he\u00a0bought individual pieces of\u00a0a guitar\u00a0and built\u00a0one\u00a0himself. Now, this guitar is something\u00a0Bettencourt\u00a0is famously known for, being called the Washburn N4\u00a0after a collab with him and Washburn.\u00a0Representing a heavily unfinished guitar, just like the one Bettencourt used.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In our society today, Bettencourt\u00a0still has a huge presence in\u00a0the\u00a0music\u00a0industry.\u00a0With Extreme, he is still making music,\u00a0finishing up recording for their seventh studio album, stating, \u201cBut as far as the songs, we got a great crop of, like, 20 songs to choose from. And we\u2019re pumped,\u201d\u00a0according to\u00a0BlabberMouth.net.\u00a0Showing how passionate he still is about what he is creating.\u00a0Furthermore, the band is still performing,\u00a0including dates with famous\u00a0heavy metal band M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce and\u00a0rock band\u00a0Def Leppard.\u00a0Outside of Extreme,\u00a0Bettencourt\u00a0is featured in various recent releases\u00a0by artists such as Billy Morrison, Sully Erna, Yungblud, and many others.\u00a0Also\u00a0winning a 2026 Grammy for Best Rock Performance,\u00a0making it clear his talent continues to be recognized decades later from when he started his career.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuno Bettencourt couldn\u2019t have been a better start to The Story Behind the Sound!\u00a0Being an inspiration to\u00a0many generations\u00a0and a perfect example of\u00a0making music your own way.\u00a0If readers are interested in streaming Extreme or\u00a0Bettencourt\u2019s\u00a0solo album,\u00a0they are both available on any\u00a0major\u00a0streaming platform.\u00a0Look out for the\u00a0next addition to this column at the end of Sept.\u00a0and remember,\u00a0behind every sound is a story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Josie Mannon, Music Staff Sep. 7, 2026 HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 Welcome to the first edition of The Story Behind the Sound! I\u2019m Josie Mannon, a freshman at Marshall University and a new volunteer at WMUL-FM. I have an interest in \u201cold\u201d music, including the artists\/bands behind the sound and songs themselves. Here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,71,1901],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-music-posts","category-the-story-behind-the-sound"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5318"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5354,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5318\/revisions\/5354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}