Nuno Bettencourt

Nuno Bettencourt was born on September 20, 1966 in Praia da Vitória, Terceira, Azores, Portugal, to Ezequiel Mendes Bettencourt and wife Aureolina da Cunha Gil de Ávila. Bettencourt's family, parents and two brothers Luís and Roberto Carlos, along with a sister Helena, moved to Hudson, Massachusetts when he was four. Bettencourt lived on Main Street in Hudson for 21 years. Initially, Bettencourt had little interest in music, preferring to spend his time playing hockey and soccer. His first instrument was the drums and he played them exclusively until his brother, Luis, began to teach him how to play guitar.

While Bettencourt was slow to adopt the instrument under his brother's tutelage, his skills quickly developed when he began teaching himself, and he has mentioned in many interviews that he would skip many school days to practice upwards of 7 hours a day. In his sophomore and junior years of high school, Bettencourt dropped out of sports so he could focus on playing guitar. He would eventually drop out of high school for the same reason. As a guitarist, one of Bettencourt's earliest influences was Eddie Van Halen. However, as he developed his craft as a guitarist and songwriter, his influences expanded to embrace The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Prince, Queen, Pat Travers, Paco de Lucía, Al Di Meola. On August 27, 1994, Bettencourt married singer Suze DeMarchi. They have two children together: Bebe Orleans (b. February 2, 1996) and Lorenzo Aureolino (b. August 12, 2002). They have recently moved to Sydney from Los Angeles.Bettencourt cites Italian food as his favorite cuisine. His guilty pleasures include Sushi and Butterfinger bars (Music Choice).

Unable to make a dent in the music world with his Boston-based hair-metal act Sinful, Bettencourt rose to international prominence as a guitar player after he joined the Boston-area group Extreme in 1985. Signed to A&M Records shortly after Bettencourt joined the group, the band released its debut record, Extreme, in 1989. In 1990, Extreme released their most critically acclaimed album, Pornograffitti, which included the hits "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted". The album also has one of the most impressive guitar solos to date, The "Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee" an interpretation of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee", which is the intro guitar solo to the Track "He-Man Woman Hater".

The band followed up with III Sides to Every Story in 1992. Nuno composed and arranged the brass and string sections for this album and the full orchestra on III Sides to Every Story. In 1993, Bettencourt co-wrote and produced "Where Are You Going" for the Super Mario Bros. movie. He also joined Robert Palmer in the studio to record Palmer's album Honey.

In 1995, Extreme released the album, Waiting for the Punchline, but the band broke up in 1996 when Bettencourt expressed his desire to follow a solo career. Shortly after, singer Gary Cherone went on to become the lead singer of Van Halen. In 2007, the band reformed with the original line up (with the exception of Paul Geary) to begin work on a new album, Saudades de Rock, released on August 12, 2008, and subsequent tour.