Nuno Bettencourt revealed his top four, or what he and his guitarist buddies like to call their ‘Mount Rushmore’ guitarists of all time on The Howard Stern Show. Nuno said:
“Well, we have this, you know, we get together at the Rainbow every once in a while, myself Tom Morello, a bunch of guitar players, and we have our Mount Rushmore. We call it Mount Rushmore of guitar players or anything we do best for rock singers, but as far as guitar players go for me, it’s always been Jimmy Page and Brian May.”
The guitarist continued with his top pick and shared that the fourth spot always changes by sharing the names of his influences:
“At the top of that list for me is probably Edward Van Halen. The fourth’s always been debatable; obviously, [Jimi] Hendrix is one of the greatest of all time but didn’t influence me as much growing up; he was a generation before I was, so I could throw Randy Rhodes in that fourth spot. There are so many greats that really influenced me, so I’ll put Randy Rhodes in there as a fourth one for today.”
However, the top of Nuno’s list won’t surprise some fans as he has talked about his admiration for Eddie Van Halen on several occasions, including his recent chat with Guitar World. Nuno recalled the first time he met Eddie back when he worked on Dweezil Zappa’s 1991 album, ‘Confessions.’ Here’s what the guitarist said about meeting Eddie for the first time:
“It took me a minute, and then I said to myself, ‘He knows who I am. He reads.’ Because, at that time, an article had just come out – it may have even been in Guitar World – and the interviewer asked about ‘Get the Funk Out.’ It was like the moment when Keanu Reeves sees the matrix. I went, ‘Okay, Eddie is talking to me.'”
You can watch Nuno Bettencourt’s interview clip on The Howard Stern Show below.