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Last summer the Boston boys played on most of the famous European open-air festivals. Their new album was planned to be out last fall. Through delays it came out early 1995 - Waiting For The Punchline. Now Extreme are in Europe to play a few shows. I had the chance to talk to Pat Badger, the four-stringer. "Last year on the festi;vals our new drummer Michael Mangini even played with us. We had to change 'cause Paul become more interested in the business than in the music. It wasn't a surprise for us. He told us long before and it wasn't an overnight decision, it develops. He always was interested in the business side and now that is his priority. He would have played the festivals with us, but we asked Michael for helping us out. Even Paul recorded a few songs with us for the current album. This songs were written while he was a member of the band." the new one... "Michael was the one we wanted for the job. He is God given. We know him for a few years now and he is a part of the Boston music scene. The change wasn't a problem, no big deal." But last year he just was a guest musician. "On tour you find out if you can live together and work together in harmony." The songs on the new album are about 1 ½ year old. "For us it's not new. We already have written most of the material for the next album. Theoretically we could start recording next month and the album could be out in fall." The current album is harder, but even has a lot variety. For many music fans Extreme is equal with More Than Words. "The song gives us many chances we wouldn't have without, but it limits us to a ballad band. We have to live with the success of this song. I still love the song, but it's just one side of us. That's why we played the festivals last summer to show people that we are more than More Than Words. To reach people who wouldn't listen to us normally. By the way we don't like playing festivals. It's a short set, bad sound and the circumstances are not very well. We prefer to play club shows and small concert halls." Your fans have to be open-minded musically. "This time we have more midtempo tracks and just one ballad on the album." His influences.... "Good pop music and more. Especially musicians / bands like Sting, The Police and The Beatles influenced me." The musical variety is obvious if you listen to their music. The band themselves wants to be just a rock band. What will happen next .... "Most songs are written, but we still continue writing. Then we start the pre-production. The new one should be out in the beginning of 1996 without delays. then we'll go on an extended tour." What can we expect.... "No extremely changes, just developing ourselves. There will be rock tunes and surely a ballad. Perhaps slightly changes and definitely it will be Extreme!"
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