Extreme Interview

INTERVIEW WITH EXTREME FROM TheCelebrityCafe.com ARCHIVES

DM) Mike, how did you come to be the new drummer for Extreme?

MM) Well, I met the guys... Nuno... about 8 years ago, here in Boston. I used to rehearse in the same building Extreme did, and Pat (the old drummer) wasn't in the band at that point. I put a lot of hours in every day, and I would be down there rehearsing the Frank Zappa material or something. Nuno used to hear me through the walls, and I heard him through the walls, because we were 50 feet from each other. We got to know each other there and started writing some things together, and started developing a friendship.
A few years later, after Pat got in the band, they asked me to join to re-do a few tracks on their first record. Paul had agreed to step out of the band, and then he changed his mind after a week, so that didn't happen.
This latest time, we kept in touch, here and there, but when the stuff went down with Paul this time, I got the call in February.
So, I've known Nuno the longest, but I've been friendly with the guys for 5 or 6 years, anyway.

DM) Do you ever have any problems filling the shoes of the old drummer?

MM) No, not at all. The transition hasn't really been much for them or for me, because it has been a long time coming. I've enjoyed their music for a long while. Although I'm a different drummer than Paul, I still play the same main parts; I just add things and accent things, and change fills here and there, but basically I play the way the songs go, because I enjoy the music.

DM) Do you ever get a hassle from the fans, like when Ringo replaced Pete Best, for example?

MM) Not in any way, shape or form, not at all. It's funny how it's just a natural thing. Both of us, on both ends. You know, you never know how things are going to happen, but after the first rehearsals I had with them, everything went so smoothly...and that, by the way, was last April in preparation for the tour we did with Aerosmith in Europe. Those rehearsals went so smoothly. I don't think in a two-week rehearsal period that we went through the set more than two full times. We had done things in little pieces here and there. And we had written "Leave Me Alone." That was written around a drum groove that I had, and Nuno put a guitar to it, and Gary had lyrics down.

DM) A friend of mine always wondered, after hearing the song "More Than Words", if Extreme would be labeled a "One Hit Wonder", even though they've had good material both before and after...

MM) Well, I think, maybe, it's because that song and "Hole-Hearted" crossed over. So I think when things cross over to mainstream, the audience gets multiplied by ten, so that's why. You get a lot more people noticing. The objective of this band has always been and definitely is more clear now, because we talk about it. The objective of the band is to be a rock band and to have a long career. Now, bands like Rush, they have what - over 20 records. But they don't have one that was as big as "Pornograffiti." They have ones that sell a little less than "Three Sides" or close to where Extreme's first album sold. That's the kind of career we want. We just want to have a long career, making music we want to play. And ballads are a part of that music. You know, Nuno and Gary aren't the only ones who write them; I write songs like that, too. It's music. For whatever reason, songs like that happen to cross over, and if they're good enough, they happen to get requested quite a bit. People made that happen. If people didn't do it, then we'd have a problem with it, because it's what people requested.

DM) When people cross over into mainstream, there are sometimes two separate schools of thought. One is that it's a benefit to the band, and the other is that the band is selling out. What's Extreme's take on this?

MM) Well, because the ballad is part of Extreme's writing, it crossed over. They didn't make it cross over. It was a surprise to them. They were in Europe. I remember the week, the very week Extreme returned to the United States from Europe and "More Than Words" just went, "BOOM!" on American radio. I remember talking to Pat, and he looked at me and said, "Can you believe what's going on? This is fun!" They didn't plan it. They didn't even realize it. I'll never forget it!
It's definitely not intentional, and there will be ballads in the future.

DM) And how does the new record sound in that respect?

MM) When you give the record a few passes -- what sorta happens, well, with me anyway -- that record sort of reestablishes Rock, a real Rock kind of thing. And there still is a ballad called "Unconditionally" on it. There was another one written for the record as well, called "When Will It Rain?" We didn't put those two on because when I joined the band, they had already finished that record. And because WE were so excited to be together, we wrote three new songs, and we had to remove three songs to put these three new ones on. And the three new ones are "Hip Today", which is the single out now. "Leave Me Alone'' is the first one we wrote together in rehearsal, and a song called "No Respect", which is very similar in beat to the song "Cupid's Dead" from the third record. But the lyrics are screaming -- Gary's screaming the veins out of his neck at the end of the song. It's fun, it's got a little bit of a thrashy type of an end to it...

You know, I play on all types of records; I'm on every record. I did a speed metal album with Annihilator, and I'm on a lot of jazz and classical things from when I was a teenager. That's what I like about the band -- that it isn't just exactly one sound. Just one kind of song, where you hear the same beat and the same melodies. There's so many influences there. There's your answer to "More Than Words" and a song like "He-Man Woman Hater." It's just that there are many influences there. Nuno's one of the few guys I ever met that's like me. We practice. Just studying music, learning music and just shedding on the instrument. We both did that at a certain age, where we both engulfed it.

DM) You've played with a number of groups, you said. Do you think Extreme is the type of group you're going to stick with?

MM) Oh yeah, I've had a really rough time... I've really only been trying to "make it", so they say, to get with the band who at least is going to have some income for me, to have a roof over my head, and to be able to pay rent and eat. You know, there's a wall between starving to death and doing okay, and then there's another wall between there and "mega-see ya!." There are three very distinct music categories that I've seen.