EXTREME Completes Work On Seventh Studio LP: 'It's The Greatest Album We've Ever Done'

In a new interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast, EXTREME guitarist Nuno Bettencourt confirmed that the band has completed work on its seventh studio album.

The upcoming effort will be the follow-up to "Six", which was released in June 2023 via earMUSIC.

Bettencourt told  podcast host "Mistress Carrie" Sarao (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[I've been in a] creative black hole over the last — I don't know — year or so wrapping up an EXTREME album. We've got about 18, 20 new tunes, and dare I say it's the greatest album we've ever done — like every artist says."

Regarding a possible release date for the new EXTREME LP, Nuno said: "What we're trying to do is we're hoping to drop the album — it probably has to be towards the end of the year, but we're hoping to do a single per run, like maybe for the summer, for the DEF LEPPARD [European] tour, maybe in June drop our first single, maybe for the MÖTLEY [CRÜE U.S. tour] drop a second single, just to get things excited."

As for Bettencourt's expectations for the upcoming EXTREME album, the guitarist said: "It's time for the fucking Super Bowl for us for real, as a band. And this album — I told the [other] guys [in the band], 'This album is everything for us. It's everything. This is our career. The whole thing is this next fucking album.' So we have an opportunity to do something for ourselves — not for anybody else, for ourselves — and raise that fucking bar for ourselves and let everybody know that we are a rock band and let everybody know that we've always been all in, that we've been passionate, that we fucking leave it always on stage, that we don't take anything for granted, we don't take our fans for granted and we don't take rock and roll for granted... So I told the guys, I said, 'This album has to dwarf what we did.'"

He continued: "I'm telling you right now — I never get excited about anything, I don't brag about anything, I don't talk about stuff, but I cannot wait to play you [the new songs]. Honestly, I think we did something on this album that is so much better than the last album. And what I mean by that is that we cracked the fucking code. It only took 40 years, but we cracked the code. And what I mean by that is I said to myself, 'You know what? If I could go back in time to EXTREME playing clubs before they had a record deal and I said, 'Who are they? What do they play? What do they do? What separates them from everybody else? What's their differentiator?' Like, oh, they've got a funk element to it. They always had this funkiness, rock funk. People used to call this 'funky metal' back in the day. But funky is happy. So what's the heavy version of that? If I went back to '86 — it was right before we got a deal, in '86, '87 — and now it's 2026, what is that version, the back-to-the-future version but the modern bitchslap, heavy, punch-somebody-in-the-fucking-balls funk version of EXTREME, the authentic EXTREME that you've heard nobody else do it this way, that's what we're [doing on this new album]."

Nuno added: "We are so excited, like little giddy children that wrote some music. And not like, 'Man, you watch what we're gonna do.' I don't give a fuck if nobody likes it. I'm just telling you that it's the best thing that we can do that might be one of the best things we've ever done, I think, because of the passion and because of where we are in our lives going, like, who the fuck gets a chance, a second chance to have a second go-around, with all the shit that I've been blessed with over the last three years and the band's been blessed with over the last three years, just for doing it for the love of it."

This past November, EXTREME released the official music video for the song "Here's To The Losers". The clip completed the band's mission to create 12 visual interpretations of the songs from "Six".

"Six" propelled EXTREME to new heights, driven by standout singles such as "Rise" — featuring a solo by Bettencourt praised by the press as "the guitar solo of the century" — alongside "Banshee" and "Other Side Of The Rainbow", and supported by a globe-spanning tour across the U.S., Europe, India, Japan and Australia. Bettencourt also reaffirmed his stature as one of rock's most commanding players with a historic performance at Ozzy Osbourne's "Back To The Beginning" farewell concert. That milestone appearance led to his invitation to serve as music director and guitarist at the 2025 MTV VMAs, where he delivered a powerhouse tribute to Osbourne alongside Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Yungblud.

"Six" landed at position No. 10 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart with first-week sales of 12,500 copies. The set marked EXTREME's first studio album since 2008. The act was last in the Top 10 with "III Sides To Every Story", which debuted and peaked at No. 10 back in October 1992.

In 2023, Nuno told Tiago Ribeiro, that he was thrilled with how "Six" turned out. "I would put our album up against anybody's album; I feel that confident," Nuno said. "And I think the album itself — never mind me or EXTREME — if I heard that album and it wasn't us, I would think the same way I think about the album now. I think it belongs there. I think it's a well-made album. I think the songs are there. I think that the musicianship, the chemistry and the guitar playing. But I think, more importantly, what's really there and what people are connecting with is the mythology of rock and roll. I think that's really what's missing a lot in guitar-driven music, is that…

"I think when people saw a guitar player that's in a band with songs and arrangements and the videos and everything, it was almost like seeing something that… People are saying it's so fresh, but for us, it's, like, this is like going back for us," he explained. "This is more of a reminder than it is anything else that you can still be passionate and have fire and do all those things. And the people are letting us know that they're starved — they're starved for rock and roll like this, I think."

In September 2023, Nuno told American Musical Supply about the long delay in getting "Six" released: "The recording [of 'Six'], a lot of people are saying like, 'Man, [it took] 15 years,' obviously, minus a few of the handmaid's tale years, pandemic years. But the album itself probably, if you add it up, it took the same length as an album takes to record. It didn’t take 15 years to record the album. It's just that we probably had, like, three albums' worth of material. The guys kept coming out to L.A., and we would do a crop of songs, and we'd write another crop of songs or record another couple crop of songs."

Bettencourt went on to say that he and his EXTREME bandmates had "set a bar" for themselves. "You really have to be super proud and super excited to share your music with anybody, even if it's your brother or it's your family member or if it's Tom Morello that you happen to know," he explained. "Once you have that feeling of, 'Would you play these songs in front of your peers?', then you kind of know you got something there and you're ready to go."

Photo credit: Jesse Lirola (courtesy of earMUSIC)