Nuno Bettencourt has recently revealed how Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley radically influenced the way plays guitar on stage.
On The Jay Jay French Connection podcast, Bettencourt recalls a touring story that played a crucial role in his journey to embracing the way he presents himself on stage, and, more importantly, his playing style.
“When Extreme first started doing tours, Alice in Chains [were] opening for us, with nobody in the crowd. I remember at soundcheck, seeing Alice in Chains for the first time when Layne Staley came up on stage and they did Man in the Box, and they started playing it. I was like, ‘Wow that’s soundcheck. Really interesting, cool band, great guys.’
“Then I saw the show and I came out, and there was Layne again, and there he was, standing there, with his eyes closed. And he was just singing. I remember a fan after the show came up. He goes ‘Man, I don’t get it. That Layne Staley, he just stands there. It’s like concrete shoes.’”
However, Bettencourt himself was in awe of Staley. “I could not take my eyes off this guy. I could not. Why am I in awe? I realized that day is, you don’t perform for people. You don’t prove anything to the audience. You take them with you. You take them with you on your journey.
“When I was watching Layne I thought, ‘Oh my god, everybody thinks it’s like scoring points. Like how was the performance from one to 10? Like gymnastics.’ It isn’t. That’s what makes you go home with an experience. As a fan, you go like, ‘Fuck man. I was there when I saw the show.’
“That’s what musicians, guitar players, anybody, needs to know, is just, there is only one of you. Nobody else can do what you do.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bettencourt mentions how this experience, as well as Queen’s Brian May, changed the way he sees songwriting, in particular the pressure to add guitar solos.
“One of the things that I learned early on was like, I was always disconnected with guitar players when I heard a song and then a solo came,” he says. “And I always thought, ‘Jeez, oh well, I wonder why I didn’t connect with the solo, even though the solo is great.’ But Brian May always taught me to play the solo for the song.
“Instead of like, somebody going, ‘Hey, you got eight bars, take a solo.’ It’s like no, you got eight bars to feel the song, and to respect the song and make it a full composition for years to come. What’s happening is, it will live beyond you. It’s more important than you.”
Bettencourt put these words into action when he joined Stone Temple Pilots on stage just a few days ago to perform the alt-rock icons’ Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart.
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