Rihanna’s live guitarist Nuno Bettencourt has addressed a long-standing rumour that the pop star previously wanted to record a heavy metal album but the idea was shot down by her then label Def Jam.
A rumour that mainly began with remarks made by Bettencourt himself.“That’s complete lies”, he tells Classic Rock magazine about said rumour and the quotes from him that got it started. “That’s fabricated.
It’s so incorrect. I promise you on the life of my children that those words never came out of my mouth. It’s a good story, which is why it got written I guess, but it’s absolutely not true”.The rumour dates back fourteen years, when Bettencourt first joined Rihanna’s live band.
He was then quoted by The Daily Star as saying: “I’ve been asked to play with pop artists in the past but turned them down because they didn’t really get the vibe”.“But when I spoke to Rihanna she was totally into transforming herself into a heavy rock chick”, that quote went on. “She was listening to Led Zeppelin and new acts like Paramore and said that was the direction she wanted to go, so I said yes”.Asked why this sound did not feature on the album she was touring at the time, ‘Rated R’, he reportedly added: “I think the label had a seizure, so they went down another route”.But now he claims that he said absolutely none of that back in the day.
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