Inside Nuno Bettencourt's charmingly weird first meeting with Eddie Van Halen: "other than Elton John, he’s the only musician that kissed me on the lips"

Nuno Bettencourt at a press event and Eddie Van Halen on stage

Attempting to describe Eddie Van Halen’s influence on modern music is like describing the round part of a football. Technically, melodically and compositionally, Van Halen advanced the art of guitar playing to unthinkable new levels; indeed, it’s impossible to imagine rock or metal today without his enduring influence.

While his band went on to sell records by the bazillions, Eddie inspired a new generation of shredders to rethink their entire approach to playing. Among those early disciples was Nuno Bettencourt, of Boston metallers Extreme, whose chart-busting second album, Extreme II: Pornograffitti, delivered some of the most incendiary guitar work of the 90s. Brian May once described Bettencourt’s playing on Get The Funk Out as “a landmark in rock history that I think should have its own little medal struck and awarded to Nuno Bettencourt and Extreme.”