“He’s the funkiest dude in the shredder family tree”: The world’s greatest guitarists explain why Nuno Bettencourt isn’t your typical guitar hero

You could walk into the GW offices, put a mic before anyone in the building, and they’d tell you just how great Nuno Bettencourt is. We could make the case for him being the best hard-rock player in the world right now, the Jedi master of electric guitar – we have, and we may well do so again.

But such accolades mean more when they come from the Extreme guitarist’s peers. And so we reached out to a bunch of working pros – some of whom you might have heard of – and asked them what makes Bettencourt the player he is.

Heck-fire, one of them even said described him as marriage material. We don’t know about that, but if you need someone to drop some string-skipping six-string fire on a track, we’d certainly give Bettencourt a ring.

Okay, enough nonsense. Here’s Brian May from Queen to get things started…

Brian May

“When it comes to Nuno’s playing, we have to start with the new single, Rise. Nuno sent it to me a few months before it was released and, Jesus, I was stunned.

“I clicked the button as I was doing other stuff, as you do, and I sort of had it in the background and I just stopped dead when he got to the solo. I thought, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ I had to go back and listen to it about 10 times. It’s awesome. It’s incredible. After all this time, he still comes up with stuff that you would never dream of.

“As for other songs, obviously Get the Funk Out is a classic song of all time. That’s an absolute tour de force. There isn’t anything that isn’t in that solo, really. It’s insane. 

There’s plenty of fast, accurate guitarists, but what he brings to it is this amazing spirit. It’s energetic and it’s lyrical

“In general, I think Nuno’s just a glorious player. He’s so colorful, and obviously his dexterity is extraordinary. There’s plenty of fast, accurate guitarists, but what he brings to it is this amazing spirit. It’s energetic and it’s lyrical, and he doesn’t lose sight of the fact that there are tunes. I don’t know where that stuff comes from. It makes my jaw drop, in a very good way.

“He’s also a great friend and the sweetest guy, and he’s always very complimentary. He says, ‘I think of you every time I do one of those things, because it has to speak, it has to be a tune that people have in their heads and it has to be relevant to the song.’ But, you know, his technique is so way above what I could imagine myself ever doing. But he’s always been very beautiful toward us, which means a lot to me.”

Steve Vai

“I have a little bit of a different perspective into Nuno and his playing because we’ve lived together on tour for quite some time with Generation Axe. You really don’t get to know somebody until you’re out at sea with them. And one of the things I discovered about Nuno is how creative he is, and how passionate he is.

“He’s a livewire. You can see why he plays the way he can play. There’s a visceral approach that’s just very different from guys that are sitting in their rooms gathering tremendous amounts of chops. Nuno’s a rockstar.

He’s a live wire. You can see why he plays the way he can play… Nuno’s a rockstar

“As far as songs, I’ve always loved Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee, which is a really nice display of the use of clean picking and digital delay. And when we were doing Generation Axe, there was a solo he would do, I think it was in [the Edgar Winter Group’s] Frankenstein, where it was a little different every night, but every time he did it, I’d wait and I’d watch and he would just deliver it. 

“The groove we set up for him was perfectly suited, I felt, for his way of playing on this expansion. He would start very minimal, and then slowly, he’d go into one of his ‘finger rumbles’ [Laughs] with the picking. And then it would just grow into this beautiful thing. 

“There’s also another piece he did in his Generation Axe set, I think it was called Mashup, [the actual title is A Side of Mash] and it was originated by a fan that had edited together his favorite pieces of solos from Nuno’s catalog with Extreme. Nuno was so impressed by it that he performed it as one of his pieces. It was like a best-of of his guitar-centric contributions. That would be my pick as my favorite, really.”

Steve Lukather

“The new record’s lead single may be Nuno’s best recorded solo, really one of the best I have ever heard. But all the solos on the new album have raised the bar in rock guitar – and I love that it is Nuno that has done that. He has always done great work. Years ago, I saw a video of his Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee live that was really amazing and unique and flawless. 

“Nuno always plays at the highest level. His articulation, time and note choices are amongst the best I have ever heard on everything he plays on. The two of us did a bit of an ‘under the radar’ Japanese tour in the early 2000s – we played two sets together every night for two weeks. 

“That was a lot of fun and he was amazing every night. I’ve always loved his playing and I love Extreme as a band. He has always been a great friend to me as well.” 

Tom Morello

“I don’t know if people know this, but I was a fan of Nuno Bettencourt years before Extreme signed a record deal. They were a club band in Boston when I was attending Harvard, and I would go see them religiously and was blown away by this 16-, 17-year-old guitar phenomenon who I would stand in front of with my jaw, like, on the floor. 

“The first song of his that I would say I love is one that probably no one reading this has heard, which was the Nuno Bettencourt a cappella guitar solo that he would play as a teenager, sort of his version of Eruption. Which was basically all of the kind of pyrotechnics that he still has today, but woven through a series of, like, cartoon themes and game-show themes and sort of clever, playful melodies, intermixed with his overwhelming technique.

“Then I would also point to Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee, of course, which is on my Guitars Rule the World playlist. That is a standalone sort of exercise in awesomeness that really sets him head and shoulders above the pack. Then let’s cut to the present with Rise, and the guitar solo that everyone’s talking about. 

“It’s been a long time since people have been talking about a guitar solo, frankly. And this particular guitar solo is just absolutely mind-blowing. The back half of that thing? That’s new, you know what I mean? I had the good fortune to have him play me the record a few months ago, and I made him stop after the first song. It was like, ‘So I guess you still have it then!’

He’s the funkiest dude in the shredder family tree

“The thing about Nuno is that, from day one, he had the chops of all those folks in the upper echelon of that gunslinging era. But there’s also a playfulness. There’s an emotional content. There’s his gorgeous acoustic work. There’s his ability to understand the genius of the band Queen and tastefully incorporate those influences.

“There’s the fact that he can sing his ass off. And on top of that, he’s the funkiest dude in the shredder family tree. So he’s not just tethered to his outstanding technique, and not just solely reliant on his ability to move his fingers fast to create historic guitar moments. He is truly a singular talent.”

Mateus Asato

“I can’t even imagine how it was being a rock guitar player in the ’80s, hearing tons and tons of riffs at every single corner and then coming back home thinking, ‘All right, how can I still make it sound authentic?’ Somehow Nuno was one of the few who were able to find the missing piece of that puzzle. 

“Forty years later, the rise of the phoenix comes up with finesse – and better than ever. Besides Rise, which I’m sure everybody has already talked about, two other songs from Extreme’s new album grabbed my attention: Banshee and Save Me. 

“There are strong riffs, catchy melodies and flawless solos in both songs. And hearing Nuno messing around with lower tunings and seven-string guitars in Save Me made me smile. Besides all that, I have to mention his impeccable guitar tone. A perfect match to highlight his performance at its best. Nuno is one of a kind. What a special player. Nobody can replicate that right-hand mojo!”

Zakk Wylde

“I always joke that Nuno, he’s perfect marriage material. Because he does it all. He writes. He produces. He rips on the guitar. He sings. He plays piano… You know, he’ll do your taxes! He’ll walk your dog! There’s nothing he can’t do. He’s an unstoppable machine. And he’s the sweetest guy on the planet. 

Nuno sent me the new stuff a little while back while I was on tour with Pantera, and as soon as I heard the single, I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve gotta be on Mel Bay Volume 3 by now!’

“Being on Generation Axe and seeing him shred every night, I think what separates him is, obviously there’s his love for King Edward and all that stuff, but he’s just got the perfect blend of technique and feel. And he’s got balls in his playing. And muscle. And then he can do the melodic thing. He can do the acoustic thing. 

“My favorite was to watch him play Midnight Express [from 1995’s Waiting for the Punchline]. It’s a solo acoustic piece and it’s phenomenal. And then he had his medley [A Side of Mash], which was like ‘Nuno’s Greatest Hits of Shred-ocity.’ You couldn’t help but be inspired.

“Nuno sent me the new stuff a little while back while I was on tour with Pantera, and as soon as I heard the single, I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve gotta be on Mel Bay Volume 3 by now!’ [Laughs] ‘Obviously, you’ve been putting in the time!’ And then it’s a great song, too. It’s just insane. If Nuno was a wrestler, he’d be Lex Luger – he’s the total package!”

• Six is out now via earMusic.