Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt has responded to Joe Satriani’s recent attempt to play Van Halen’s Mean Street on Howard Stern’s show.
Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham recently appeared on Howard Stern’s show ahead of their upcoming “Best Of All Worlds” tour, which will see the four legendary musicians cover a number of Van’s “Halen” hits.
During the show, the cast was asked what they thought was Eddie Van Halen’s hardest riff to play, to which Satriani launched into an impromptu rendition of Mean Street. Although the attempt was laudable, Satch himself said it “failed royally.”
In a new interview with Jeremy White, Bettencourt expressed his opinion on the matter: “What I learned recently from watching Joe – but this goes for everyone – if you take the risk of playing something by Eddie Van Halen, especially with Howard Stern or.” in a live show… good luck! That’s all I have to say: good luck. These are sacred pieces.”
He later adds: “You have to give Joe credit for that, because it’s Joe who plays Edward. I want more from Sammy [Hagar] for letting him do that. Because Sammy says, “Dude, that’s why I hired Joe.” Nobody can play that. And he’s right on that point… But he embarrasses him by asking him to play something like that. It’s really difficult. Joe is untouchable as Joe Satriani. He is the largest of his kind… No one can attack him on his territory…”
He concludes: “Sam said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I took Joe. He will blow your mind. And even Joe was like, “No, man.” This thing is impossible to play. Normally when you say that you don’t play anymore. You put down your guitar. But he did it and even apologized afterwards because he knew it would be destroyed.”
Extreme released their latest album Six via earMUSIC in June. The record peaked at number ten on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, selling 12,500 copies in its first week of sales.
Additionally, Extreme will play a sold-out show at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on December 7th.
The passage from the Howard Stern Show where Satriani plays the Mean Street riff:
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