"WITHOUT CHUCK FAITH NO MORE'S BLUEPRINT WOULD HAVE BEEN INCOMPLETE..."
ON NOVEMBER 9, FORMER FAITH NO MORE SINGER CHUCK MOSLEY PASSED AWAY AGED 57. HERE, DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN FRONTMAN GREG PUCIATO PAYS HOMAGE TO HIS UNIQUE STYLE
IT WAS early 1990 and I was about to turn 10 when I first heard what I now know to be Chuck Mosley's unmistakable vocal delivery. I was going through a really rapid musical evolution, away from thrash and into weirder alternative groups. Faith No More's The Real Thing [1989] and Primus' Frizzle Fry [1990] were huge to me, as was Bad Brains' I Against I [1986]. I related strongly to singers with a lot of character, regardless of whether they were considered good or not. At that point, good singers, to me, were people like Jon Bon Jovi, hair metal stuff which, at that time of my life, I was really hard-lined against. I related more to [Bad Brains singer] H.R. or [Primus singer/bassist] Les Claypool, the weirdos, than some operatic metal guy.
"I was once in a mall in Baltimore with my mother, and went into a music store. I, like a lot of people, thought The Real Thing was the first Faith No More album. I went to the 'F' section anyway, and to my bewilderment found We Care A Lot [1985]. I couldn't believe it, and thankfully convinced my mum that I had to have it. I got home, opened it, and put it on. What was this? Who was this singing? The music is definitely the same band, but this wasn't [current Faith No More vocalist Mike] Patton. I wasn't into it.
"However, back then, in a world without the internet or streaming, you listened to what you had, over and over, whether you liked it or not. You had to be really cautious with your purchases. So I kept listening, on a Walkman while I walked around outside, and at home while playing Nintendo. All those weird vocal inflections and the completely distinct tonality started to soak in.
I soon became a fan. "One night, watching MTV, I saw the video for Anne's Song. There
was another album l had somehow missed: Introduce Yourself [1987]. I connected with it instantly. Anne's Song is still one of my favourite songs of theirs to this day, along with Chinese Arithmetic and R n' R. I lived off of a street called Washington Boulevard at the time, and when Chuck says *Washington Boulevard at the beginning of Death March, I thought just maybe he was talking about that street. Turns out he wasn't!
"It's interesting how changing one ingredient in a band can drastically alter the whole thing. Mike had the precision, the virtuosity, and the ADHD. But with Chuck, there was a looseness, and it gave the whole band this carefree, beach bum, skate/surf friends-making-art-punk vibe. There was a romantic visual attached to it, it felt more identified with a far away place - some mythical hybrid of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and Venice in Los Angeles. I wanted to be there.
"When a lyric or a delivery comes out, you go, Where the fuck did that come from?' and trace it back to find the root. I realised that my oddball vocal delivery on a few lines in our song Manufacturing Discontent came from Chuck's influence.
"I consider Introduce Yourself, along with The Real Thing and Angel Dust [1992], to be the main three Faith No More records. There's a magic and unmistakable uniqueness. On We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself, there's the foundation for what Faith No More would become - and without Chuck, that blueprint would have been incomplete."
