Gary Cherone’s New Hurtsmile Track Rocks at Least as Hard as Modern-Day Van Halen, if Not Harder

Listening to “Rock N’ Roll Cliche,” the new song by Hurtsmile — Extreme and ex-Van Halen vocalist Gary Cherone’s new(ish) band — my first thought was, “Man, some of these lyrics and the vocal delivery style are very Van Halen-y… no wonder the VH brothers chose this dude.” Specifically the scat section that starts in the second verse around 1:40 — total David Lee Rothisms!

So imagine my surprise/delight when I read that “Rock N’ Roll Cliche” was a song that Cherone had started working on back in his Van Halen years, for the would-be second Cherone/VH collaboration that never saw the light of day. The overall fun, party vibes of this song are quite Van Halen-y too, and that guitar solo! Of course Extreme were basically Van Halen Jr., so these similarities shouldn’t come as any surprise… but still, “Rock N’ Roll Cliche” is at least as good as anything on VH’s 2012 album A Different Kind of Truth, if not better. And it should go without saying that it smokes anything Nu-Nu has done with Rihanna.

Stream “Rock N’ Roll Cliche” over at Ultimate Classic Rock, who have the exclusive on it. Hurtsmile’s new album Retrogrenade comes out on October 7th on Cherone’s own label, Slipkid Records.