Extreme and Living Colour both broke out about the same time Taylor Swift entered the world in 1989, a period wherein hard rock and hair metal ruled the airwaves, Ronald Reagan wrapped up his “morning in America” reign as president and the first commercial internet service providers surfaced. Each is a four-piece East Coast-based outfit driven by flashy, often-inventive guitar players and powerful, uncommonly expressive singers who aren’t afraid to preen — qualities that would help each gain notice during MTV’s influential late ‘80s/early ‘90s apex.
Each band released a handful of albums during their initial runs, and each would reform off and on in the 2000s and thereafter to tour and occasionally drop new recorded efforts. (Extreme’s most recent album, last year’s Six, drew notice through the ‘80s-esque guitar heroics of the eternally youthful Nuno Bettencourt, who’s made it a point to dedicate his dexterous axe work to his late idol, Eddie Van Halen.)
Extreme’s breakout was 1991’s “More Than Words,” an acoustic ballad that represents the stylistic antithesis to the band’s heavier, funk-metal leanings. The song’s tasteful black-and-white video featuring singer Gary Cherone and Bettencourt was in heavy rotation on MTV for months, propelling similar success on rock and even pop radio.
Living Colour’s enduring anthem “Cult of Personality,” from their debut album Vivid, broke through a few years earlier via a music video that crosscuts clips of the band playing live with images of the various political leaders whose names — and, in some cases, actual audio-recorded voices — appear in the song. Living Colour founder and guitarist Vernon Reid and singer Corey Glover both admit the importance of “Cult of Personality,” which Reid says they largely wrote in one rehearsal session, in the band’s initial breakthrough and enduring legacy.
“I think if it weren’t for that song, I’d be working for UPS,” Glover said in a recent interview with the YouTube channel The Logan Show. “How about that? If it weren’t for that song and the evergreen nature of that song, because it seems like every so often it pops up in very interesting places — with (wrestler) CM Punk or the video games or Guitar Hero or even within the political discourse, where people use it and quote it on newscasts. It has a weird sort of continuing life that I am very happy and grateful that it exists.”
That “continuing life” extends to each band’s ability to draw fans to live shows that are more than just vehicles for nostalgia.
Extreme and Living Colour play Taft Theatre on Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. More info: tafttheatre.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Sept. 18 print edition.
