"I have a little history. I met Stone Temple Pilots, and their guitar player was a huge Extreme fan. Somewhere down the road, Extreme made its statement"
About this Quote
Gary Cherone is doing something deceptively smart here: he’s narrating validation without sounding like he’s begging for it. “I have a little history” sets the scale on purpose. Not a grand manifesto, not a victory lap - just a chain of moments in the rock ecosystem that adds up to a quiet win. The anecdote about meeting Stone Temple Pilots lands because STP are often filed under “real” 90s rock credibility, while Extreme, for plenty of listeners, got trapped in the cultural amber of virtuoso gloss and the unavoidable shadow of “More Than Words.” By choosing STP as the reference point, Cherone smuggles Extreme back into a lineage that skeptics respect.
The key move is the guitar player being “a huge Extreme fan.” It’s peer-to-peer legitimacy, the kind that matters more than sales figures or critics because it implies influence, not popularity. Cherone’s subtext is: you may have mocked us, but the musicians you love were listening. It’s also a gentle correction to the story rock culture tells about the early 90s - that grunge erased what came before. He’s suggesting continuity instead of rupture: scenes cross-pollinate, admiration travels backstage, and taste is more porous than genre wars make it seem.
“Somewhere down the road, Extreme made its statement” is both modest and defiant. He won’t name the “statement,” because naming it invites an argument. Leaving it vague turns it into a fact of legacy: not a comeback, not a rebrand - just the slow arrival of respect.
The key move is the guitar player being “a huge Extreme fan.” It’s peer-to-peer legitimacy, the kind that matters more than sales figures or critics because it implies influence, not popularity. Cherone’s subtext is: you may have mocked us, but the musicians you love were listening. It’s also a gentle correction to the story rock culture tells about the early 90s - that grunge erased what came before. He’s suggesting continuity instead of rupture: scenes cross-pollinate, admiration travels backstage, and taste is more porous than genre wars make it seem.
“Somewhere down the road, Extreme made its statement” is both modest and defiant. He won’t name the “statement,” because naming it invites an argument. Leaving it vague turns it into a fact of legacy: not a comeback, not a rebrand - just the slow arrival of respect.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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