Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt talked to Music Radar, about how the passing of late guitarist Eddie Van Halen gave him a “sense of responsibility and fire” to keep the old school of hard rock guitar virtuosity alive.
Here’s what Bettencourt said:
I think we hit a period on this album where I was like, ‘We’re good’. Doing the Generation Axe Tour inspired me a little bit, too, I have to say. Playing with all these amazing guitar players and heroes lit my fire a little bit again.
”Even as I was doing the album and Edward (Van Halen) coming to my house and almost listening to the album.
“He was outside at one point and I was like, ‘Oh my god I want to play him it back.’ And then he passed away and never had the chance. All those things. Even him passing away.
“It gave me this sense of responsibility and fire, like, ‘F*ck, man! There’s not a lot of people left in this generation of people who I work with.’
“There are a lot of great guitar players but not so much that we are in a band and write songs, and play the solo within a song, and got creative within the tone of a song, and I almost felt this responsibility to f**king carry that torch.
“I told the guys, ‘I wanna go for blood on this album, in the sense of I want to make it fun, and I want to make it fun with the guitar so that there are things within the rhythm playing.
”To bring joy into it, to bring passion into it, is what I have always done in the past, and it comes from that Edward Van Halen school, and Brian May and Jimmy Page.”