EXTREME’s GARY CHERONE On Still Releasing Full-Length Albums: ‘We Live In An Age Where There’s Nothing Tangible’

In a new interview with Jordi Pinyol, EXTREME singer Gary Cherone was asked about the band’s decision to still release full-length albums in an age of the access-over-ownership business model of streaming music. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We live in an age where there’s nothing tangible, there’s nothing hard. Kids, they’ll focus on a song, maybe not even the artist. They’re just fans of music — ‘Oh, I’ve got that on my playlist’ — where we grew up in an age of buying a record and following an artist development, whether it’s AEROSMITH or QUEEN, and you’d wait for that record, and you’d read every liner note. I come from a day before MTV.

“But I think there are still bands out there that love and enjoy the album format,” he continued. “EXTREME certainly does. We like to put out a piece of music, a piece of art. If there’s a single that’s successful, that’s great. It brings more attention to the record.

“Again, we live in an age where — we’re almost a return to maybe the Elvis [Presley] days where it was just singles, before THE BEATLES came along,” Gary added. “So there we are.”

EXTREME‘s latest album, “Six”, came out in June via earMUSIC. The LP landed at position No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart with first-week sales of 12,500 copies. The set marked the band’s first studio album since 2008. The act was last in the Top 10 with “III Sides To Every Story”, which debuted and peaked at No. 10 back in October 1992.

Four months ago, EXTREME guitarist Nuno Bettencourt told Tiago Ribeiro, that he was thrilled with how “Six” turned out. “I would put our album up against anybody’s album; I feel that confident,” Nuno said. “And I think the album itself — never mind me or EXTREME — if I heard that album and it wasn’t us, I would think the same way I think about the album now. I think it belongs there. I think it’s a well-made album. I think the songs are there. I think that the musicianship, the chemistry and the guitar playing. But I think, more importantly, what’s really there and what people are connecting with is the mythology of rock and roll. I think that’s really what’s missing a lot in guitar-driven music, is that…

“I think when people saw a guitar player that’s in a band with songs and arrangements and the videos and everything, it was almost like seeing something that… People are saying it’s so fresh, but for us, it’s, like, this is like going back for us,” he explained. “This is more of a reminder than it is anything else that you can still be passionate and have fire and do all those things. And the people are letting us know that they’re starved — they’re starved for rock and roll like this, I think.”