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Faith No More's album Angel Dust found extensive critical acclaim when it was released in 1992. Here are a collection of reviews from major music publications all over the world. Q Magazine | June 1992 | Peter Kane Nobody could accuse Faith No More of having had an easy ride. Formed as long ago as 1982, the San Francisco quintet were going precisely nowhere for a good five years until the caustic, lurching attack of We Care A Lot began to attract attention, especially in Europe. Everybody agreed they sounded pretty damned heavy without quite deciding on a convenient pigeon hole. Funk metal? That'll do, even if it's now a little wide of the mark. But just when fortune seemed finally set to rise, out went charismatic vocalist Chuck Mosley, and in stepped a brattish, all Californian boy called Mike Patton. It could have been back to square one. Instead the decision was vindicated by 1989's The Real Thing, an album of unnerving power that eventually went on to sell by the million, thanks initially to word of mouth before the band's endless capacity for covering the globe and the two gargantuan singles, Epic and From Out Of Nowhere, took over. Angel Dust is just that bit bigger and better than what they've managed before. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the last three years -not least the coming of Nirvana-but as Metallica have more than proved, there's still bags of room at the top for exponents of machine drilled fusillades of bulking great noise. If that alone is the yardstick. Faith No More need have no fears. Caffeine and Smaller And Smaller offer the most obvious homage to those masters of the mega dirge and thrash, while Malpractice leans more to hardcore slaughter. Elsewhere, though they stalk a terrain that is now recognisably their own. The thunderous chords, looping bass and psychotic keyboards of land Of Sunshine, Kindergarten and Midlife Crisis have Fatten babbling away persuasively, almost against the momentum of the songs. The lyrical niceties may be buried in the sheer density of the mix but this hardly matters as the Juggernaut rolls impressively on. Patton, in fact, earns his keep throughout, whether it's the crunchy rapping of Be Aggressive, the straighter delivery required on Everything's Ruined and Small Victory or even an unlikely Tom Waits bar-stool mumble on something called RV. Of the 13 tracks on offer, only Crack Hitler fails to really gel, leaving the wistful theme from Midnight Cowboy to sign off the set in perhaps the most incongruous way imaginable, especially after the extra strengthen Jizzlobber has gone about its bludgeoning business. If Faith No More were once one of those bands to be cared for more in principle than in the cold light of day, Angel Dust finally lays that ghost to rest. This is tightly constructed noise on the grand scale that bellies its simple metal calling. It's loud, it's aggressive and, like any rock record worth its salt, it excites at the most instinctive level. Their time has surely come. Melody Maker | June 1992 | Simon Reynolds NEVER liked them, and still don't "like" them, if you know what I mean. Faith No More's dominant emotion seems to be sarcasm, a sardonic, gloating reveling in the shiny side of life. They're retards, nasty little boys probing a finger in the gooey innards of reality, driven by a sort of gynecological nihilism. Like all adolescent nihilists, they project their feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing outwards, onto the world. But "Epic" was undeniable- pop Nietzche, the latest take on the "we want the world and we want it now/ don't know what I want but I know how to get it" rock tradition of impossible demands and limitless desire. The video for "Epic", with its Darwinesque life/death struggle imagery suggested that a corrosive intelligence was at work, as did such twisted, sick-f*** statements as Patton's "Masturbation is a lot easier to do than relating to someone... With sex, no matter how great is is, there's always something missing". And "Angel Dust" is just immense. Imagine "Never Mind The Bollocks", produced by Brian May, if Steve Jones had grown up on Sabbath and King Crimson rather than The Faces. Pomp rock motored by punk disgust. Symphonic bombast, scrofulous with detail. Visionary venom, misanthropic majesty, grotesque grandeur Aesthetically and philosophically, "Angel Dust" is profoundly, putridly offensive, but I keep coming back to it, like a scab. The outstanding element here is Mike Patton's voices, which I find skin-scrawlingly repellent and endlessly mesmerising, Patton is multi-tracked into a myriad. maggoty throng, or, within songs, flits between schizoid array of idioms: baroque histrionics,"soulful", slimy croon, punk declamation, funk-metal sneer, not to mention his menagerie of hiccups, belches, yodels, mewling and poking. On "Midlife Crisis", he starts with a snide, sibilant rap, swoons upward in a jazzy, Al Jarreau-ish arc, then slugs it out in a close combat cut and thrust that's pure hardcore. The lyrics lash and lambaste some middle class, lard-ass, play-safe type who's built up a cocoon of security and comfort (key negative concepts in the FNM world view). The line "Your menstruating heart" - doubtless aimed at "wet liberals" and people who profess to care a lot- is deeply revealing. For FNM, feelings of tenderness,empathy and solidarity are threatening, female and fluid, o loathsome discharge. "R.V." is a waltz-time spoof-monologue by a redneck reactionary whose final words to his kids are "What my daddy fold me 'You ain't never gonna amount to nothin'". On "Smaller And Smaller", Patton's a funk-metal Billy Mackenzie, surfing a sturm-und-drang that abates briefly for a ghostly interlude of sampled Aboriginal chant, before Patton lets loose this amazing arc of wordless aria. "Everything's Ruined" is sort of Black Flag meets Aha, objection and uplift; FNM make a melodrama out of a (ecological?) crisis. "Malpractice" again recalls mid-period Black Flag, although Patton's singing is closer to the hardcore seat of Bad Brains' H.R.; an almost Julee Cruise interlude and maddened Balkan strings make this the most outre prog-metal since side two of "Ritual De Lo Habitual". "Kindergarten" has the most unsettling, ghastly / gorgeous chorus; the song seems to imagine the adult world as no real advance on the unbridled State Of Nature that is unsocialised infancy, still populated with bullies, sycophants, geeks and outcasts. Patton wonders " When will I graduate?" (to a higher kind of life-form). "Be Aggressive" could be a cartoon anthem for Nietzsche's will-to-power, complete with a chorus chanted by cheerleaders, but it's hard to tell: throughout the album, diction is not one of Patton's priorities, and the vocals are buried in the garish murk of FNM's sound. "Crack Hitler" jump-cuts from torrid funk to a Gary Glitter stomp- "Jizz-Lobber" is a grueling Sabbath grind, Patton's apoplectic fit of vocal fed through a fuzz unit and sounding more like a guitar than a larynx. Finally, one moment of unalloyed; sentimentality, a straight and rather stiff reading of John Barry's sublimely melancholic "Midnight Cowboy". But maybe this is a sick joke too. If 1992 is the year that punk finally happened in the US, if Nirvana are the Pistols, L7 are the Ramones and Hole are The Slits, then Faith No More are.. . The Stranglers, a bunch of fundamentally unsound, misogynist, misanthropic, crypto-muso interlopers who have profited from the perennial male teenage consumer demand for nastiness and menace. A gust of sour breath that feels strangely fragrant to me. Raw | June 1992 | Liz Evans IT TAKES a subtle touch of genius to maintain a true identity and create a new dimension at the same time. Faith No More, a band comprised of absolute oddballs, evidently possess this genius, which is no doubt also responsible for their eccentricities. 'Angel Dust', their third album, and their second with singer Mike Patton, is a step on, rather than a step away, from their 1989 release,'The Real Thing', keeping the blasts of power and the witty style, and adding a whole new range of influences, a smattering at a time. Opening with the almighty 'Land Of Sunshine', a fairly traditional (in Faith No More terms that is) energy overdose, packed with keyboard highs, it isn't until the third track, 'Midlife Crisis' that things begin to twist into a new kind of melody. The difference lies in the tunefulness, the variety of styles within the song elements we've come to know and love with this band, but not to this degree. Before they've always been overshadowed by the weight and the volume, the sheer density. Now Roddy Bottum delights in lamenting intros ('Everything's Ruined'), zappy organ bursts ('Small Victory'), and peculiar electronic dance effects ('Malpractice'), Jim Martin leaps between 70s' cop soundtrack guitar ('Crack Hitler'), and witty emotional solos, ("Everything's Ruined'), and Mike Patton exhibits his truly perverted nature on 'Be Aggressive' (which also features a bunch of chanting kids), slipping into the role of Country and Western slob on 'RV and mourning the fact of growing up on 'Kindergarten'. This album is an altogether impeccable display of character, imagination, humour, and a whole spectrum of musical genres wrapped up in the formidable power Faith No More are masters of. All you have to do is buy it. Rock power | June 1992 | Mark Day Faith No More recently declared Right Said Fred to be their favourite band - if the Freds' slaphead singer is to be believed. A timely reminder that FNM are old hands at being wilfully awkward buggers, and sarcastic with it. Any other band breaking through as convincingly as FNM did with 'The Real Thing' might have been tempted to play safe and consolidate, but these malcontents seem more interested in seeing how far they can mix and match their warring elements, goading the listener at every turn. 'RV could be one of Tom Waits' dirty-old-man ditties, while side two's 'Malpractice' is some sort of twisted death metal prog-rock confusion. Meanwhile, the bouncy 'Be Aggressive' crams in chanting cheerleaders and groovy guitar and keyboards swiped from Isacc Hayes' 'Shaft'. That, by the way, is as funky as they get - 'funk metal' tag has always been a complete misnomer as far as FNM are concerned - they're more rhythm kings than funk fetishists. Having been burned first with Chuck Mosley and then with Mike Patton's storm-in-apint-glass Mr Bungle, FNM are resolutely as much to do with Puffy's tribal poundings or Billy Gould's slabs of bass-thing as they are to do with vocals, all of which makes this as thick with bizarre textures as a particularly well stocked carpet warehouse. Faith No More were doing this kind of stuff long before pissing around with the fundamental rock recipe was a guaranteed career move Electric Sun, Liquid Jesus and Electric Love Hogs, take note! and, basically, they do it so much better than most. Angels with dirty faces in the area! NME | June 1992 | Keith Cameron THE ENGLISH may have invented cynicism but, as with everything else, America has taken the concept and blown it out of all proportion. You want proof? Look at the election campaign, where Bush and Clinton have been usurped by an anti-politician boasting that he has "no policies . Or look at Faith No More, where an ill-matched band of misfits crank out blasphemous takes on Metal, funk, disco, Country, jazz . . . you name the generic sacred cow, hell, Faith No More have used and abused it for their own dubious ends. 'We Care A Lot'? Sure they do . . . And listen to 'Angel Dust', FNM's most outrageous grubby-faced smirk at the outside world yet. It's safe to say this is not the album their bank manager must have been . gleefully anticipating after 'The Real Thing', 'Epic' and a certifiable touring schedule had broken the band on to the MTV-sponsored popcorn circuit. Short on leadweighted, riffed-up chant-alongs and bursting with manic, nay, schizophrenic musical abandon, this is that most dangerous of items - the album we always-wanted-to-make album. In other words it's self-indulgent, messy, frequently incoherent and no doubt loses a lot in translation out of FNM's private domain. It's incredible, then, that 'Angel Dust' is as very good as it very often is. Expect the unexpected and you'll breeze it The curtain-raising 'Land Of Sunshine', with its symphonic strut and Roddy Bottum's garish keyboard trills, is pomp-rock as pedalled by a bunch of scornful, snotty kids. Tellingly, evil laughter buttresses the track and, as with the bulk of what follows, it's clear that Mike Patton has cemented his place in this most unforgiving of gangs by adding an impressive repertoire of voices to his original hack Metal whine. Clapped out crooner, hillbilly rasp, the odd basso profundo . . . the freaked-out geek skatekid's become a one-man karaoke machine indeed, 'RV's cocktail slouch could almost be a cruel Tom Waits parody-and this new depth to the vox manual goes a long way in explaining 'Angel Dust's compulsive flair. As 'Caffeine' and 'Malpractice' demonstrate, Faith No More can still crunch metal on to bone as horribly as anyone who chooses to disagree. Yet this is rock with vomit stains down its front and 'Angel Dust' really buzzes when FNM marry their sharp pop nous to the good ol' kitchen sink recording technique. 'Mid-life Crisis' is an itchy toed groover, built from a sample of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Cecilia', while 'Everything's Ruined' advances on a relentless bass keyboard momentum, via Jim Martin's cool axe solo, to the song's resigned, satisfying denouement. 'Be Aggressive', though, is the hysterical masterstroke, a brilliant scratch-funk celebration of cock-sucking" You're the master and I'll take it on my knees/ Ejaculation, tribulation/I swallow, I swallow, / SWALLOW!!!" that has a bunch of school-kids rapping out the chorus. Yup, Faith No More in up front pro-gay sex statement shocker! Just to settle once and for all that these cynical bastards can apparently do the lot, 'Angel Dust' closes with a perfectly respectful rendering of John Barry's 'Midnight Cowboy'. Laugh? You've got to, really. Faith No More don't care at all. Kerrang! | May 1992 | Don Kaye I CAN'T quite figure out how I feel about the new Faith No More album. It's been driving me schizophrenic, and slowly I've realised why: the album is possessed of a personality disorder, of sorts, which undermines its potential greatness. On 'The Real Thing', FNM reached a peak of immensely infectious pop songs in Metallic, often twisted jackets of sound and attitude. The result was so refreshing that they started a whole goddamn trend. I have no doubt that now, FNM want to avoid starting or following any new trends. The problem is that 'Angel Dust' catches the band unsure of whether they want to concentrate on great songs or quirkiness. A lot of 'Angel Dust' is hjt-or-miss. 'Be Aggressive' is a punchy, anthemic groove-rocker with a kinky cheerleader chorus and chunky, bad-ass guitar work. 'Small Victory' features an absolutely beautiful melody line from gyitarist Jim Martin and wistful vocals from Mike Patton.lt's; a powerful gem of a rock song and, like 'Be Aggressive', one of the hits. The misses are painfully pointless: the Tom Waits imitation on 'RV and the ultimately mundane noisefests that drag down the last quarter of the album, 'Crack Hitler' and 'Jizzlobber'. These are tracks that go so out of their way to be weird that they lose sight of strong arrangements or texture and just wallow in their own damage. Likewise, 'Malpractice' seems like a bunch of ominous riffs thrown together for little more than shock effect. There's still plenty to recommend on 'Angel Dust', however, including Roddy Bottum's rich, trademark keyboards which add welcome depth even to the weaker songs. Patton continues to don multiple disguises and finds a wider range, although he sometimes goes too much off in the deep end for his own good. In fact, the individual musicians all deliver stand-out performances. Faith No More must be applauded for being one of the most innovative rock bands of the past decade, and for their unrelenting quest to be as diverse and unique as possible. They also deserve kudos for not taking the easy way out this time by knocking off another 'Epic'. Nevertheless, even the groundbreakers hit rough spots. This is just one that Faith No More will doubtless overcome. All Music | Ned Raggett In 1992, Warner Bros. figured that lightning could strike twice at a time when oodles of (mostly horribly bad) funk-metal acts were following in Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' footsteps. They sent the former into the studio, where they went in, recorded, and released a bizarro masterpiece. Mike Patton's work in Mr. Bungle proved just how strange and inspired he could get given the opportunity, and with that try-anything-once spirit now brought to his similarly minded colleagues in his more famous act, nothing was ignored. "Land of Sunshine" starts things off in a similar enough vein to The Real Thing, but Patton's vocal role-playing comes out as smarter and more accomplished, with the lyrics trashing a totally smug bastard with pure inspired mockery. From there, Angel Dust steps up the meta-metal of earlier days with the expected puree of other influences, further touched by an almost cinematic sense of storming atmosphere. The fact that the album ends with a cover of John Barry's "Midnight Cowboy" suits the mood perfectly, but the stretched-out, tense moments on "Caffeine" and the soaring charge of "Everything's Ruined" makes for other good examples. A Kronos Quartet sample even crops up on the frazzled sprawl of "Malpractice." Other sampling and studio treatments come to the fore throughout, not in a specifically hip-hop/techno-oriented way, but more as strange cutups and additional quirks, such as the distorted voices on "Smaller and Smaller." The band's sense of humor crops up more than once -- there's the hilarious portrayal of prepubescent angst on "Kindergarten," made all the more entertaining by the music's straightforward approach, or the beyond-stereotypical white trash cornpone narration of "RV," all while the music breezily swings along. Patton's voice is stronger and downright smooth at many points throughout, the musicians collectively still know their stuff, and the result is twisted entertainment at its finest. Rolling Stone | 1992 Does emotional music have quite an effect on you?" asks singer Mike Patton on "Land of Sunshine," the first track on Faith No More's astonishing new album. That question is the perfect tag line for Angel Dust, a roiling, musically adventurous record that represents yet another leap forward for a combo that broke through by cramming together rap's vocal cadences, metal's brute force and progressive rock's pompous keyboards on "Epic," the hit single from its 1989 album The Real Thing. One thing's certain: Success hasn't made Faith No More complacent. From the art-damaged death metal of "Malpractice" and "Jizzlobber" to the madman-with-a-megaphone vocals on "Crack Hitler," the bizarre Tin Pan Alley/country hybrid "RV" and the jarring use of offbeat samples ("Smaller and Smaller" features an aboriginal chant), Angel Dust fairly explodes with the sound of genres colliding. The group once again shared production chores with Matt Wallace, and from the sound of things, the game plan was to create a rock equivalent to the dense soundscapes pioneered by the Bomb Squad, Public Enemy's aptly named production team. Well, they succeeded. Angel Dust burns with an unholy intensity. One could quibble about the indecipherability of Patton's vocals, but he gets his point across more through attitude than literal meaning. A perusal of the lyric sheet sheds much heat and some light on matters, revealing a lot of opaque Beat poesy concerning stuff like the cyclical nature of parental failure and homosexual sadomasochism as a metaphor for God knows what, but titles like "Caffeine," "MidLife Crisis," "Everything's Ruined" and "Be Aggressive" pretty much clue you in as to where Patton's coming from. The album closes with an accordion-propelled version of John Barry's "Midnight Cowboy," its pensive melody providing a soothing contrast to the nerve-frazzling apocalyptic rock that precedes it. Angel Dust is Faith No More's most challenging effort to date. Those brave enough to sample its musical wares will be rewarded with a listening experience that's thoroughly exhilarating, absolutely mood altering and completely addictive. 1992 Musik Express - Album of the Year Sounds - Album of the Year Raw magazine - Albums of the Year #8 Vox - Albums of the Year #10 The Face - Albums of the Year #17 The Village Voice - Albums of the Year #26 Muziekkrant OOR - Albums of the Year #36 Q - Album of the Year 1995 Raw magazine - 90 Essential Albums of the 90s 1996 Visions - The Best Albums 1991-96 1999 Visions - The Most Important Albums of the 90s #22 2000 Terrorizer - The 100 Most Important Albums of the 90s 2002 Revolver United States - The 69 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time #36 2003 Kerrang! - 50 Most Influential Albums of all Time #1 2006 Metal Hammer - The 200 Greatest Albums of the 90s

The Story of how the astounding and inspiring album Angel Dust was recorded. Written with the help of the band, referencing interviews with the five members and those who were involved. 1991 The Beginning As they entered 1991 Faith No More were celebrated musicians, band of the year for many including RIP and Kerrang! magazine. Promoting their acclaimed album The Real Thing had kept the band out on the road for two years and attention from the press and fans alike had left them with little room to breathe never mind write new music. However their work schedule this year was much more relaxed with only a handful of shows. This allowed the band to step back from the chaos and formulate ideas for their next album. Unlike TRT, which included ideas written as early as 1983, Angel Dust would comprise mainly of fresh material written specifically for this record. Writing began during their first South America tour, three weeks after the band returned to San Francisco Bill Gould, Roddy Bottum and Mike Bordin entered the rehearsal studio to create what would become some of the most remarkable work of their careers. Bill had been hanging out with Jello Bafra and the Mexican death metal outfit Brujeria, whilst also taking inspiration from easy listening music. Whereas Roddy found inspiration from electronic pop and techno sounds. Of course Mike Patton never rests and he had become involved with the avant guarde scene. Spending time with John Zorn, performing with Naked City and recording the Mr. Bungle debut album. Influences cited by the band included Godflesh, Ween, Young Gods, The Sugarcubes and Henry Mancini's soundtracks. As the AD demos arrived, Patton found solitude to embark on various experiments finding inspiration to pen some of his most creative lyrics ever. Jim Martin found the new ideas difficult to work with and abandoned rehearsals for some r n' r in his truck. Early versions of RV, Caffeine and The World Is Yours were added to the set list for a few shows on their return to Brazil and their first ever shows in Tokyo later in the year. "The last record kind of cleared our minds out, and then we just started playing again, just started jamming new stuff, with bass lines and melodies and rhythms, and that's how it started. Keyboards, bass and drums, definitely. Most of the stuff started there, but there's also stuff that started with Mike Patton, there's also stuff that stared with Jim, but most of the permutations are keyboard-bass, keyboards drums, drums - keyboard, you know, it happens a lot that way, because we were the ones that were here, we were the ones that came to practise a lot and were really interested and really pushing forward and really kind of challenging ourselves." - Mike Bordin 1992 With a larger budget and more freedom allowed to them by the record company FNM took residence in Coast Recorders studio, San Francisco in December 1991. Matt Wallace returned to produce his fourth album with the band. "He has a hands-off sort of thing with us and just lets us do what we want. which is really important. Since he's worked with us before he's just as much a candidate for torture as the rest of us and that's a comforting thing." - Mike Patton "He tries to get a good sound, and I think that's what he ought to do. We hopefully have it reasonably together by the time we go into the studio, you know we have a reasonable idea of what we want to do, so I think it's harder for him to monkey with it. With five guys in the band that's enough monkeying. We worked on everything with him, and it's gotten better every time, it's much closer than it ever has been to sounding the way we feel we sound, it's not easy with the keyboards and guitar and a lot of bass and a lot of drums, it's not easy balancing them." - Mike Bordin "From my perspective, as co-producer, engineer, and mixer, I was, in my own way, really distancing myself from the sonics of TRT as I felt that it was thin, over compressed, and had too much high end (although this all worked in our favor on radio and MTV). So, I endeavoured to try and create a much fuller, more natural sounding record." - Matt Wallace 2012 Matt found the recording of AD such a difficult experience that he had to take time off after the album was finished and distance himself form FNM, but he was proud of the result. "At the end of Angel Dust, because it was such a difficult record to make, there was pretty severe acrimony within the band, certainly between everyone and Jim, and there were some really heated arguments. Roddy was having his own struggles with some addiction issues, we were at a recording studio that really wasn’t supportive at all, I had to basically produce, engineer, assistant engineer and answer the phones, and it was a really stressful record to make. So at the end of it I took off for a couple of months and said, “I’m done with this music thing for a while,” and at the end of that record I said to those guys, “Listen, I think it’s time for you to find a new producer, a new guitarist or both." - Matt Wallace 2015 FNM's intention was not necessarily to compose an album that would confuse fans, but an intelligent progression that would challenge themselves and the listener. However the result would be disconcerting for many. They confessed that they "learnt how to hear what was inside our heads and play it". "I like being there every day when we record. I like being around a lot. But the bottom line is that it's a vote. The majority gets what they want in the studio or anywhere else." - Bill Gould 1992 "When it comes to writing songs, the material is something we do unconsciously. We're musicians and we're in a band and we write songs - it's not something that we analyse. It's hard to analyse what you do naturally, it's really kinda difficult. It's especially difficult to say it in an interesting way because it's a little too close. It seems natural, it's what we do naturally." - Bill Gould 1992 Alienating Your Public "There will be no middle ground for this album. It's either gonna be absolutely huge or it'll be a total fucking flop." - Bill Gould 1992 To add to their already huge fan base (and put cash in the bank), the easiest thing to do would be for the band to continue in the same vein as The Real Thing with an album of 'Epic part 2's'. But this is FNM.....five incredibly unique individuals thrown together with explosive results and they have never done things easy. FNM have always enjoyed provoking a reaction whether it be positive or negative. When the crowd would chant for them to play their cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs, they responded with a perfect rendition of The Commodores classic Easy instead, grinning down at the indigent masses. The diverse musical content of AD was an obvious departure from the album that had gained them that fan base. Which is exactly what the band intended, TRT had been forced into a pigeonhole and tagged 'funk metal' by the press who had no other way of classifying its unique sound. In some ways FNM deliberately tried to distance themselves from this and the crowd it had attracted by creating a record which was much more challenging, but for the most part it was simply the direction the music had naturally taken. "This whole Funk Metal thing is really disgusting. The last thing I ever want to be in is a Funk Metal band - we're gonna try to be anything except that!.... I would say that any band which plays Funk Metal, I hate, and would safely say that most of the band feel the same way." - Bill Gould 1992 The band knew this disposal of a tried and tested successful songwriting formula would test their fan base, in fact they were sure that people would hate the new record and joked that it should be titled 'Alienating Your Public'. "Probably this new stuff is a little weirder than our last record just to confuse our fans and alienate our public. At least that's what we've been accused of. It's not really an attempt to push any kind of point, it's just music that we wrote." - Roddy Bottum 1992 "I shouldn't say that we're happy to piss people off. It's just that we want to do what we want - and not necessarily what they expect. Anyone who expects this record to be The Real Thing Part II had better wake up! I know some fans who are already pissed off about it." - Mike Patton 1992 The band kept the music from record company execs at Slash until the mixing stage and when they finally heard AD they too were incredibly worried about the direction their investment had taken. "The record company president came in the studio and said: “I hope nobody bought houses” All the air got sucked out of the room. That was one of those great moments when reality slaps you in the face. Some of my associates (had) bought houses." - Jim Martin 2012 "The record company got really scared when they heard the finished album. That was the only way we knew we'd done something right. If they'd liked it then something would be wrong. There were a lot of worried faces before we started mixing." - Roddy Bottum 1992 "Don't you think it's great to see someone twitch? You know, they get really nervous? That happened with our record company. They tried working on each of us individually, persuading us that we didn't know what we were doing. They said it would alienate fans of 'The Real Thing' Ideally they'd like another 'Epic' on there somewhere." - Mike Patton 1992 "They left us alone for the whole recording and then when we were just about to come to mix, there was suddenly this concern that they didn't know how to market it. They didn't really understand it and who did we think we were making a record like this! Basically, it's a cheap tactic to try and get you worried and feeling insecure about your own work, to have to justify your work to them. You shouldn't have to do that but by the same token, you have to work with these people because they sell your records, so they have to understand at least a smidgeon of what you're doing." - Mike Patton 1992 This indifference did not in any way perturb FNM, they were proud of AD. "I think this record takes us a step further. It shows us as a more confident unit and [that] we're still learning and growing. This is a definite progression. This time we just wanted to make an even better record and not necessarily follow the guidelines that the press and others tried to lay on. We really tried to dig inside ourselves and bring something out that was challenging, confrontational and extremely unique. I'm very pleased with it." - Mike Bordin 1992 So what was so different? The album is more theatrical. The songs were fragmented, instead of following at traditional verse/chorus/middle eight structure each composition on the album was a journey often with several opposing sections where the music would radically change in a similar way to a classical overture. Yes there were still incredibly addictive melodies but also furious riffs, drones and schizophrenic shifts in mood. Roddy experimented with his sounds like never before and a host of samples from a varied sources. Guitar solos were limited, in some places the riffs were brutally exposed in others barely audible. The vocals were much more complex, Patton using his formidable vocal range to its full extent and his lyrics were more disturbing and contrived. The album was not a complete digression from its predecessor, it simply pushed the boundaries much further. "We're the same band making another record, and if people say it sounds a little different then obviously we're doing something right. We're doing the same thing we always do, but we're making it interesting enough that people realise it." - Bill Gould 1992 "I would say 'Surprise! You're Dead' was one of the more extreme things on the last record. There are things on this that are so extreme in the opposite direction that I think they'll freak people out: also stuff in the same direction, but pushed way further. I mean. you can't really put your finger on what's disturbing about it and I think that is what's disturbing about it. so it's a good thing." "I think we've stretched what we are to an absurd level this time, which is great. I think we would all be really happy if people took this record home and went, 'What the hell is this?!' I think that's gonna happen-- and I think that's a good thing. The record company tried to turn the screws a little tighter this time around, I have to admit. There are a lot of samples, which was one of the things that kinda freaked them out." He mimics a concerned exec: "'Gee, there's a lotta *sampling* on this! Don't you think a ROCK audience would be CONFUSED by this SAMPLING thing?'" - Mike Patton 1992 "It's just weirder. The record company said it was 'a little bit too far left-field' That means it's less rock. They also accused of us 'gratuitous sampling'". - Roddy Bottum 1992 "What was that great phrase they used? 'Too much role-playing in the vocals'? That was their fault anyway!" - Mike Patton 1992 The Metamorphosis Of Mike Patton "A singer is the is the same as an actor. People Shouldn't take what singers say so seriously." - Roddy Bottum 1992 It's no secret that during the promotional tours of The Real Thing Patton found it difficult to adjust to his new way of life. His distaste for everything was apparent. He rubbed against his fellow band members and the press, behaving like a spoilt brat and constantly suggesting he was about to leave the band at any time to concentrate on Mr. Bungle. "That was in the period I gave a lot of interviews that I shouldn't have given. I was fed up with Faith No More. Nobody bought our albums and we just kept touring. I was disillusioned. When you're touring, sometimes as a band you get the feeling you're living like rats. You're kept busy and stupid temporarily. You're treated like a pimp treats a whore. And if you don't want to be a part of that, it gets frustrating. We needed people to bang our heads against the wall. I wanted to crawl away. That's why I was delighted to record an album with Mr. Bungle. The interviews I did during that time were pretty negative. I said things like: Faith No More is like a job to me. Because I felt like that. But I don't think I portrayed myself correctly; It made me look like a spoilt son-of-a-bitch more than anything else." "In the end I got what I wanted. And that's good, because being in two bands at the same time is great. It isn't a threat. It's more like a physical need: I found I had to do more. You eat a little too much and then you have to shit some more." - Mike Patton 1992 Over the course of 1991 a transformation began. His attitude became more relaxed, it seemed he had come to terms with being a part of FNM and was comfortable in his role. His hobbies became more mature, albeit still rather twisted. "In a relationship, in the beginning, there's inhibitions. After a while, all of those things fall apart, and that's how you get comfortable with somebody. I think that's probably how it happened. You learn how to fart and cuss in front of them. That's healthy. The way the band operates, politically, is, whoever steps out of line, everyone pounces on him. So if you're constantly afraid of doing something, nothing gets done. When everybody gets a little more comfortable, you can pull out any idea, and it can be manipulated, raped, made fun of, whatever. But still ... that's OK. Because that's how shit gets created; I'm convinced of that." - Mike Patton 1993 "I never knew what kind of band it was. We became a hard rock band by default, it was an accident, but the beautiful thing was that we all knew. We could look at each other and say however bad it got, however much of a pet monkey we became, however much of a pet funk-metal rock band we were, there were 4 other guys who have to deal with it to. And each guy dealt with it in their own little way. There had never been any question of my staying in the band. We started writing the music for this album, and being a part of something so fundamental was what made sure of it for me. The Real Thing' had been like someone'else's music, someone else's band, it had felt like an obligatory thing. They hadn't needed a damn singer, it was just that they had to have a singer. That's why I was there, that's why Chuck was there, we weren't needed we were there." "Before this album I still threw ideas out, whether that be fool's courage or whatever, so I always had the courage. It was just the fact we started from the pot in the middle where everybody pees into it. We'd done our time, so it felt like we'd been in jail with someone for a while. Like a junkie, it doesn't matter whether you agree with someone's way of thought, what they do for a living or what they do in their spare time, it doesn't matter because whatever it was you were there. Proximity made it happen. And now, of course, we're kinda friends in a weird sort of way." - Mike Patton The Real Story 1994 The change in his appearance was also apparent and the first promo shots in 1992 proved that the hair metal poster boy was gone, and replaced with the look of a serious frontman. However the most noticeable development was in his voice the funk derived nasal sound that had brought him so much attention on TRT had gone so was the rapping. We would hear his natural singing voice and the extremity of what he was capable of achieving with his vocal chords. Growls, screams, squeals, heavy breathing....the list is endless. Kerrang 431 Have you noticed how much more a part of FNM Mike Patton has now become? Patton's development seems to have escaped press probings. The piss-drinking, the tampon-munching, the lurches, the screams, the insults, the jokes, the lyrics, the dark side of 1989s pin-up. He has become the definition for mischievous, curious and warped youths worldwide, a man who will try anything just for, the hell of it. But the biggest strides Patton made were in actually becoming a happy member of Faith No More. When did this penny drop? "At first, the fruit wasn't ripe," trills Patton obliquely, "but it got riper and riper, and now it tastes really good. But the actual point at which everything finally clicked is hard to pin down. One thing about this band is that there's many things we've either not had the courage or the means to do before; but we're beginning to care less how we're perceived and to just get on with things." It's probably easier for him now, looking back, to work out why he was so antagonistic when he first joined FNM. "The truth is, there were certain things I wanted to know about the band, and I also saw a lot of things I didn't wanna know, so I ignored them. Rather than confronting issues, I found it much easier to ignore them." Was becoming the Metal pin-up kid of 1989 the sort of thing we're talking about? "Definitely!" So your belligerence and antagonism were just to get you through? "That stuff was just instinct. When you enter a volatile situation, with the whole thing spiralling towards the toilet, you just stir it a little more. With this LP, we were all spiralling in the same direction at last." Were you encouraged to express your weirder, more f**ked-up ideas on the record, such as on Malpractice and RV? "It's not really aggression, it's just feeling comfortable, being able to unload everything. There was just a better forum for extremes." Did you re-invent yourself, with the new haircut, the uglier tones, the darker personae than in the smooth, white pretty boy of yore? "We'd better talk to the psychiatrist!" So there was no conscious effort to say, f**k this, I'll never be a magazine pretty boy again'? "Nothing conscious. Certain things just happen naturally. When you've toured for two years and you're trapped in a time capsule, you come back f**ked up." Was there this bitterness of 'missing your youth'? "No, it's just that you get to feel like a rat sometimes, because all you can do is run along with it, chasing the trail of cheese. In the end, you lose dignity - you really do. You end up convincing yourself that you have control when you just don't." So why is it so much easier now than before? "Explaining that would be like sitting down with your Mom and explaining why you farted at the dinner table three years ago!" Is it therapeutic dealing with characters in songs, getting your anger out? "No, because sometimes it isn't good to have that shit out in the open." He sighs deeply before smirking, "There's this myth about lyricists and singers, that they're always 'projecting their inner-most secrets', which is horse-shit. Singers are the WORST! They can't hide behind instruments..." Matt Wallace was in awe of Patton's development, from TRT to AD. "For me, the big change within Patton was that during The Real Thing, he was still not 100 percent committed to Faith No More, and this is my own reading, I could be wrong, but I think his way of protecting himself and feeling like he was still part of Bungle was that he took on almost a different persona on The Real Thing, which made it easy to say, “Yeah, I’m in this band, but I’m not really in it.” But once Angel Dust came around, Patton was much more involved in the genesis of the songs, he was there during the inception, during the writing, he was there guiding the arrangements, and I think he became much more involved and invested in that record. So at that point, I think he really came to the forefront of what he could do, which is use his voice as an instrument, sing fully and deeply and use every spectrum of his vocal range, and that was really exciting. And he was listening to a bunch of Tibetan chanting, Eskimo nose singing, all these things, and he’d bring these different ideas into the record within the context of a heavy rock, alternative, progressive band, he was bringing his ideas on how his vocals should go. And it was really forward-thinking, because a lot of bands, after that record, kind of followed in his footsteps, because Patton was unafraid to try different things, whether it was a different vocal approach or a different lyric, some of the lyrics are pretty challenging. I thought it was really stunning that he came to the forefront and grabbed the flag. That was a thrill, that whole record was a thrill to make." - Matt Wallace 2015 When he had joined FNM in 1988 the music for TRT was completed and he wrote the accompanying melodies and lyrics in the space of two weeks. During the groundwork for AD Patton was involved from the outset and his approach to lyric writing had developed.The invention of characters and role-play he had experimented with in the songs Edge Of the World and Zombie Eaters was now a fully fledged art form. "I don't think we have an obligation to clarify ourselves through our lyrics. Or even take a standpoint. All five of us simply couldn't agree on any standpoint. If one of use gets a little too outspoken, he's probably lynched by the others. About the lyrics: it's almost a pity they're printed on the sleeve. Because the public expects a revelation. That the lyrics will say something about our past, our lives. And to make that kind of connection via some lyric is almost dangerous." - Mike Patton 1992 The Problem With Jim Martin "I'm not trying to do anything different, I'm just trying to play these songs the way I see 'em, the way it should go. We're not reinventing ourselves, I'll tell you that, we're just going along as we can. Anything we play will pretty much sound like us, so don't let any of that 'doing something new' bullshit creep in because that's a load of f**king crap!" - Jim Martin 1992 FNM have always thrived from their conflicting personalities and ideas of what their music should sound like, this unlikely union has always produced wonderful results. During the making of IY tensions ran high between Chuck Mosley and the other band members, whilst on tour promoting TRT Mike B fell victim to the other members poking fun. Jim's attitude towards AD was strained from the beginning and he seemed disagreeable with everything from the songs, to the recording, to the album title. The fracture between him and the other four members began during the writing of AD. His father had died in the weeks before rehearsals started, the band moved their studio space from San Francisco to Oakland to accommodate him however Jim still decided not to attend. "It was frustrating, the bottom line was that Jim’s dad had died three weeks before we started making that record, and the guys in the band and myself were saying, “Why don’t we take a pause on this thing, let’s regroup in a few months, give you some time to grieve your dad and let that settle,” but he comes from a more macho approach to life and said, “No, don’t talk about my personal shit, we’re going to make this record.” So the band had a rehearsal place in Oakland, which was a trek for them because they were in San Francisco, and Jim just wasn’t available in a lot of ways." - Matt Wallace 2015 He would therefore work on his guitar parts in at home. "It makes for a weird tension. He's working on stuff at home but you visualise everything, including the guitar, when you write the song. And then it comes back different to your perception - but if the person isn't there from day one they can't be expected to read your mind." - Bill Gould 1992 "Jim and I are absolute extremes. To enable the scales to keep balanced, the further I go in my direction, the further he has to go in his. If he stays where he is and I continue to go further, then things will go off-kilter. On the last album, he kinda stayed where he was: it wasn't only that he didn't produce a whole lot of material. So as things stand now, we're a little off-kilter but we'll work it out that. " - Roddy Bottum 1993 Due to his absence during the song writing Jim found it difficult to understand what direction the others were taking, he felt the music was "very contrived and I thought that the band was trying too hard. It took me a while to figure out where I was going to fit in". So much that Bill contributed guitar to some of the album. "The only real struggle that we had was with the guitar parts. We sort of panicked because Jim wasn't really understanding some of the things that we were doing, so we did them ourselves. Some of the guitar parts, our bass player Bill played." - Mike Patton 1992 "The guitar parts are mine; that’s me playing guitar on all the tracks. I contributed much to the songwriting and arrangements. Bill added some fluff to 'Midlife Crisis' and 'Midnite Cowboy'." "There was a lot of weird pressure to follow up The Real Thing, and as a consequence, the album AD was more contrived musically than I thought was necessary. I wanted more of the record to happen in the studio and Bill wanted every last tack nailed down before we went in. I wanted to spend time with it, management and the record company wanted to rush it out the door. " - Jim Martin 2012 "He kept calling the record “Gay Disco” - every time they’d play something, he’d say, [dismissively] “Eh, this is a bunch of gay disco.” And I’d say, [agitated:] “Dude if you put your fuckn’ big guitar in it, it won’t be quote-unquote ‘gay disco.’ I need you to jump onboard and do this.” So it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy for Jim, because he didn’t invest the way I was hoping he would. He’d do these guitar parts, and the band would come in the next day and they’d listen and the parts would be serious, but they wanted him to be Jim Martin and do his thing. So there were a lot of yelling matches and people disagreeing with each other. It was pretty ugly." - Matt Wallace 2015 The recording process was even more torturous, the rift between him and the band had escalated and tempers ran high. "It's been an unpleasant experience from the very beginning! It's been very unpleasant, but not really much different to my experiences in making records with Faith No More before. It's always been a very unpleasant experience - a lot of people scrambling to get henchmen on their side to play silly games, to blow smoke on a situation." - Jim Martin 1992 "This album has taken so long to record... God, it's been almost eighteen months - you can't believe the torment I've been through man. It's not supposed to be like that, not supposed to be that hard. Took too damn long... I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen again. I'm gonna take some recording gear out on the road with me soon as possible, and start working on new songs straightaway. See if I can come up with some real sick single again." - Jim Martin 1992 Not everything on AD offended Jim, he was very complimentary of Patton's vocals and lyrics. And even though the guitar is much less prominent than on previous FNM records it suits the overall flavour. When the guitar fights it way into the limelight it is in places extraordinarily ferocious and in others delightfully melodic. AD has very few solos, but the riffs are tremendous. "When I'm involved in the writing of a song, I write for the guitar. I wish we always did it that way, but on this album a lot of keyboard parts were written first, so I "was actually trying to write my guitar lines to match—to "toughen" them, as you said. It's definitely challenging—and, after much noodling around, I usually end up using the simplest possible thing." - Jim Martin 1992 A Beautiful Name For A Hideous Drug The title Angel Dust was Roddy's idea and was decided upon early on in the recording. There are no connections to the drug itself only that it is "just a really beautiful name for a really hideous drug." The album cover is a photograph of a snowy egret in pre flight by Werner Krutein and the reverse a cows head and meat hanging in an abattoir by Mark Burnstein. The title and these images illustrated the extremes of beauty and the grotesque mirrored in their music. "It has more to do with: the band itself, the sound of the band, the sound of the record, the songs on the record, the title, and the cover, going from wide to narrow. The band I think has many elements, some heavy, some beautiful. The record is balanced I think between some things that are really aggressive and disturbing and then really soothing. The title of the record is something that if you didn't know what it was--if you didn't know about any drugs--it would sound beautiful. It's just something that seems beautiful but is horrible. The front cover is something beautiful, put it with the back cover and you've got something disturbing. That's what we wanted. The record cover and layout was designed by us and put together by us." - Mike Bordin 1992 At the time Jim was opposed to the title of the record but he explained further in 2012, also how he was responsible for the photo of the band's heads superimposed on Russian soldiers in Red Square. "The idea was Roddy’s, and nobody else had anything to do with it either. He came in with a basic concept of a bird front, meat locker back, and Angel Dust for the title. The question was: “How do we get it (Roddy’s idea) to the record cover?” We lost control of the sleeve art on the last 2 releases. The Real Thing and Introduce Yourself were conceived and designed by “the record company” and we simply paid the bill. This was an opportunity of artistic expression and finally one of us had an idea everyone would go along with. I got in contact with Mark Leialoha to discuss the idea, he got Werner “Vern” Krutein involved because Werner ran a stock agency and was able to produce the necessary photographs allowing us to realize Roddy’s idea. I had the idea of the Russian army in the sleeve, inspired by The Pogues album “Rum Sodomy and The Lash” which I was really into at the time. I rode hard on that and made sure it happened the way WE wanted it to happen. There was a lot of squealing when it came time to pay the bill, but at the end of the day, we retained control of our resources, we were able to use our people, and we maintained creative control." - Jim Martin 2012 "It was just pure 'we don't want to sit for busts', you know? It's bullshit, man. That was a thing the record company really tried to foist on us. They really tried to fuck with our layout, and sent us these fucking pictures of us, just our heads. It was like this, they wanted us to have a poster inside the record consisted of our five heads on a black background, everything was black, the whole inside, and it's like, 'Fuck you.' We're going to make our cover, we made our record, we produced it our way, we wrote our songs, we played them our way, it sounds like us. We got our cover FINALLY, we got our artwork FINALLY, fuck you. If you let them do it, they'll do it. That's why they pay people in the art department, that's why they pay graphics people. And in some ways it can be really helpful, in some ways it can be really good. Ultimately, what I see I really like. We told them what we wanted, we actually got to the point where we had to sketch it out, but they made it real for us and I really appreciate that. We have five people, that's enough opinions, I said it about the producer, I'll say it about he record company, that's enough. We co-produced it, more so tone-wise than balance-wise, proportion-wise. We were all really concerned about the actual sound of the record., and that's really where you can make a difference. To me that Russian picture's like a Monty Python where you see a guy's head, a monster comes by and picks it up and Ptock! puts it somewhere. It's not 'We're the most important people in the world.'" - Mike Bordin 1992 Land Of Sunshine Working Title | The Funk Song "I love it, it's really uplifting. Almost angelic." - Roddy Bottum 1992 The opening track from AD follows the FNM tradition for introducing their record with an upbeat and riotous burst of energy. The familiar funky repetitive bass line and off kilter drums are not dissimilar from previous albums.The keyboard riffs provide light relief from the harsh guitar tones putting us in mind of a carnival, which of course draws comparisons to Mr. Bungle. Patton describes the song as a "totally disgusting, grotesquely positive song" and even though the lyrics are joyful enough the vocal delivery is in sarcastic tones. The theme of the song sets the scene for the rest of the album which seems to be with growing old ungracefully. Patton has been quite open on how the lyrics for this song were written. It was conceived during a sleep deprivation experiment, in which Patton stayed awake for three days drinking coffee and immersing himself in late night TV shows and "bought bags and bags of fortune cookies". "There's these late night TV programmes that you can watch in America, they're like seminars where they teach you how to think positively and strive for your goals. It's a huge scam, it's great. I tried really hard at that and I'm still working on it." - Mike Patton 1992 When asked if he was particularly proud of any lyrics on AD he said, "Maybe Land Of Sunshine because it talks about some of my favourite late-night TV heroes, guys like Anthony Robbins, the motivational speaker who does those half-hour commercials where he wants you to buy his whole seminar package, and of course, my real hero, Robert Tilton, the preacher. Nothing and no one can touch Robert Tilton! 20/20 did an expose on him, and he just blew 'em off. That's a very positive song." - Mike Patton 1992 "He's quite a guy. You may have seen the Dallas-based preacher: He asks you to put your hand on the television set and he'll heal you through the power of TV. using the demon spirit of television to cut off the devil's head . . . We're going to visit his church when we go to Dallas.!" - Mike Patton Several lines from are lifted straight from aphorisms found in fortune cookies. Life to you is a dashing bold adventure Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling upon you You have a winning way so keep it You are an angel heading for a land of sunshine Pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake And committed to the overall idea of positive thinking some lines are taken from personality tests written by founder of the Church of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard. Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it? Does life seem worthwhile? Does emotional music have quite an effect on you? Do you sometimes feel that your age is against you? Caffeine Working Title | Triplet "He actually sings, crooning style, on 'Caffeine,' sounding a bit like Sly Stone trapped in a little one-man submarine." - Music express 1992 A rather menacing sample from the animal pound of dogs howling introduces this complex song. The guitar is brutal, the keys atmospheric and dream-like, the drums roll effortlessly across the waltz time signature. Patton switches between snarls and blasts of .... with a harsh whisper here and there. The lyrics were again written during Patton's sleep deprivation experiment somewhere during day three he began to hallucinate and pay homage to the only stimulant he has admitted to using, "In Eureka you drink so much coffee, you try and make believe there's something to do." In fact in 1992 one rarely saw the singer without a coffee in his hand! Midlife Crisis Working Title | Madonna 'On 'Midlife Crisis' Patton starts with a snide, sibilant rap, swoons upward in a jazzy, Al Jarreau-ish arc, then slugs it out in a close combat cut and thrust that's pure hardcore. The lyrics lash and lambaste some middle-class, lard ass, play-safe type who's built up a cocoon of security and comfort. The line 'Your menstruating heart' - doubtless aimed at 'wet liberals' and people who profess to care a lot - is deeply revealing. For FNM, feelings of tenderness, empathy and solidarity are threatening, female and fluid, a loathsome discharge.' - Melody Maker Bill spoke about the writing process of the song in 1998. "Everybody's responsible for this one. It was a keyboard part that started it....it was a period of time when everyone was waiting for us to come up with another record and promising us the world. All we had to do is what we do, but the way they saw we were a little defiant, which I think the lyrics reflect in a way. From my position I wanted to do a song that had only one note to the whole thing, but would still be a song. So I wanted it to have one bass part that never changed. It wasn't until we recorded it that our producer saw where I was trying to go, but at the time it seemed like shooting yourself in the foot y'know." - Bill Gould 1998 Patton gave us a little insight into the lyrics. "The song is based on a lot of observation and a lot of speculation. But in sort of a pointed way its kind of about Madonna...I think it was a particular time where I was being bombarded with her image on TV and in magazines and her whole schtick kind of speaks to me in that way...like she's going through some sort of problem. It seems she's getting a bit desperate." - Mike Patton 1992 Full MIDLIFE CRISIS 25 YEARS article HERE. RV Working Title | Country And Western One of the most curious songs on the album, and one of the first to be written. A perfect country and western ditty twisted hideously to fit the FNM manner. "It started out as a piano thing I was doing, then Billy and I just started playing around with it and we finished it when we were on tour in Brazil and started playing it live." - Roddy Bottum 1992 The most obvious example of Patton inhabiting a character to deliver his lyrics, in this case disgusting, middle-aged and heavy-set trailer trash. "The words are really messed up, it's the white trash saga: You wake up. you do nothing and you talk a lot of shit .. . and that's what the song does. A lot of the tunes are like character sketches. I don't see anything wrong with that. A lot of people maybe will want to give me shit for that." - Mike Patton 1992 "R.V. means recreational vehicle. A typical part of American culture: people live in holiday caravans. We call them white trash. In America, everyone knows someone who lives in an R.V. These people are looked down upon, while everyone knows they're part of society. These people are usually fat, watch TV all day, and eat TV dinners. The song R.V. is almost a mark of honour to those pigs. My family's like that. The kind of people who stay inside these caravans all day and complain: nobody speaks English anymore. No one listens to them, they're only talking to themselves. The song is a profile of the average redneck mentality." - Mike Patton 1992 Smaller And Smaller Working Title | Arabian Song All the incomparable and familiar FNM ingredients are present; catchy keyboard melodies and atmospheric strings, palpitating no-nonsense rhythms, grinding guitars and vocals that shift between singing and squeals. "I didn't really know what I was doing. The whole song sounded Middle Eastern to me, so I just noodled up and down the fretboard until I found the sound which I heard in my head. That's what I always do. I'm not a very schooled player." - Jim Martin 1992 There is a middle section loaded with samples, in particular wonderfully placed native Indian chanting. "....shameless culture rape. We decided to take an Indian chant and fuck it up, sort of a Dances With Wolves aesthetic." - Mike Patton 1992 Bill addressed the question as to why FNM were not particularly attached to this song and have never played the track live. "Well, to us, FNM is like two different bands; one exists to write and record music, the other is a live band that tries to make a 70-90 min set as powerful as possible. For some reason or another, we tend to gravitate towards what is called 'mid-tempo' in our writing...in other words, songs that are not fast, but not exactly ballads either. This is all great to listen to, but when it comes to playing live, too many mid-tempo songs make the set really boring, for us, and for the crowd. Believe, when it happens, it sucks!! Our worst nightmare is being in the middle of a set and losing momentum...at that point it becomes hard work and little fun. "Smaller and Smaller" while pretty grandiose in concept, always felt too long and too...plodding...to even consider doing live. And truth be told, we were never quite as attached to that one as some of the others...." - Bill Gould 2012 Everything's Ruined Working Title | The Carpenters Song A wonderful song of contrasting moods, euphoric choruses and melancholy verse. Also one of the only songs on the record to feature a full length guitar solo. "There are some very strange songs on this record. A lot of them have a lot of despair in them, they're very disturbing. Everything's Ruined is a good example of that. It's one of the more straight-forward rockers we have on this album. Compare it to something like Surprise You're Dead from the last album. I think you'll see how we've changed. You can't put your finger on it, but it's there. We're getting better at playing what we're visualising." - Mike Patton 1992 Patton explained the working title's reference to easy-listening music. "One thing I've been doing is listening to a lot of mood music, easy listening. And I've taken a lot from that. The chorus of 'Everything's Ruined' reminds me of Sinatra, Jackie Gleason." - Mike Patton 1992 Malpractice Working Title | Patton's Song "It kinda sounds like death metal movie music." - Mike Patton A terrifying and cinematic composition written solely by Patton. His unusual songwriting technique of complex sections mixes chugging industrial metal riffs and an eerie music box. A perfect musical nightmare. In 1992 Patton spoke about about his songwriting style working with FNM. "It was strange for me because I had spent every musical moment with the Bungle guys, and we have our own thing - we're Nintendo kids, so we get into a studio and there are all these little knobs,!and we've just gotta play with the dials and push the buttons. [Mr.Bungle] basically doesn't know how to write songs - they're like A-B-C-X! - so it was weird for me to try and put something over a song that was really linear, and very verse/chorus/verse/chorus. So I think I did what was really...obvious. That's fine, but since then, I've definitely vowed to spend a lot more time and put a lot more into anything I do." - Mike Patton 1992 The lyrics are some Gothic horror story of surgery played out by yet another of Patton's twisted characters. "Alright, there's this one song I wrote about a lady who goes to a surgeon and she's getting operated on and she realizes she likes the surgeon's hand inside of her. She doesn't even care about being cured, she just wants someone's hands inside of her - she gets addicted to that." - Mike Patton 1992 "I feel like I'm basically an actor in a play on that song, because Mike wrote it and I essentially had no input; I'm just playing his part. I usually write my own guitar parts, and I don't think I would have come up with anything quite like that." - Jim Martin Kindergarten Working Title | F Sharp A great example of FNM's songwriting twists by placing unexpected major to minor chords. The song has a wonderful bass solo in which we hear Bill twistings sounds into strange shapes. Following the reoccurring theme of age on this album, the lyrics take one back to the school playground. Be Aggressive Working Title | I Swallow Described by Bill as 'homoerotic Steppenwolf', with hallelujah Hammond organ, thumping bass lines and wah wah guitar. The chorus borrows lines from Sugarhill Gang's 1983 song Winner Is and quite perversely includes cheerleaders (girl friends of the band) chanting the now immortal lines 'B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E'. "What I like about 'Be Aggressive' is that even though it's macho in a homosexual way, lots of FNM listeners probably imagine that it is a woman who is getting down on her knees and swallowing rather than a man. I guess it's easier for people to understand and deal with it that way." - Roddy Bottum 1992 The words were written by Roddy prior to him confirming his sexually publicly. And describe a graphic sexual encounter of fellatio. "I think we both kind of hated the song to the point where lyrics were needed and he didn't want to write them. So I gave it a go." - Roddy Bottum 1992 "Did you hear the lyrics on 'Be Aggressive'? What'd you think? Pretty fuckin' extreme, isn't it? Did you think it was a homoerotic song or something? That's what's gonna be good about it. I think certain people are gonna be really vocal about it, like 'What the hell is that?!' And others'll be so weirded out by it they won't say anything." - Roddy Bottum 1992 "Yeah! I mean, HELLO, WAKE UP! When we wrote that song we were all very aware of the lyrics, we had it all in check and then the issue has never come up. It's so funny, no-one ever even asked us about it. It's the same thing, we just expect a lot more from people." - Roddy Bottum 1993 Matt Wallace commented on his respect for Patton's delivery of these lyrics. "They would go in any direction, they weren’t a heavy rock or metal band, they did have that element to what they were doing, but then you go to “Be Aggressive,” there’s no heavy rock band I know that would sing that song in a million years because it’s a song about being gay, basically, and Patton would boldly go in those directions." - Matt Wallace 2015 A Small Victory Working Title | Japanese "Seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers." - Trouser Press An ambitious and dramatic song the oriental keyboard and guitar duet sweeping in melodic spirals.The main vocal line is the closest to Patton TRT voice on AD. In the song there are several sections where the band's experimental genius stands out. These sections include an array of samples taken from many sources (including Right Said Fred, Diamanda Galás and The Wizard of Oz) that would be at home in any pop dance number. "The break in 'A Small Victory' is very typical of using sound sources and being a more rhythmic keyboard player. In that particular song, the sound sources were things as opposed to programs, strings or pianos. Most of that stuff was recorded with a DAT player, just whilst wandering out and about, and then I put them into the keyboard itself." - Roddy Bottum Patton revealed the song was about his relationship with his father, "My Dad's a coach right, so I guess about the first 16 years of my life all I thought about was winning." Crack Hitler Working Title | Action Adventure The closest to a movie theme tune FNM ever got! Patton's compressed, distorted megaphone effect would be imitated by every nu metal band to follow. The sample in the intro is famous Brazilian actress Iris Lettieri reading a flight announcement at the Rio de Janeiro-Galeão International Airport, with who's voice Patton fell in love with. She unsuccessfully attempted to sue the band after hearing the song. "we sampled the voice of this woman who's pretty famous in Brazil. She announced flights for Varig Airlines, we all really liked the voice and she pretty much summed up our whole Brazilian experiences. So we taped her, used the voice and now she's suing us us for using her voice without permission." - Roddy Bottum 1992 The lyrics in this song are played out by another of Patton's characters, "It's about a crack dealer who became like Hitler who's actually black so that confuses the whole thing," describing how the drug effected him and it made him feel like Hitler may have! The song is example of how the band would develop the idea of song by visualising a scenario. "We kind of all lived with the ideas - the genesis of the songs. So it was a lot easier for us to see where each song was going.For example, sometimes we'd think of a visual image for a song beforehand. Like we'd see, say, a crack dealer with a Hitler moustache wearing a Superman cap, running through an alley shooting policemen. You'd kind of come up with a musical Interpretation of the visual Image. That's kind of the way the band writes songs sometimes." - Mike Patton 1992 "There are a few songs on here that are like genre songs - they're cool because they're a certain thing. 'Crack Hitler' is like a sleazy version of the Emergency theme, like a '70s TV action show. It's got like a Shaft guitar line and siren samples. You picture five cops with guns chasin' a guy through an alley! It's like bad, bad disco - bad! Horrible!" - Mike Patton 1992 Jizzlobber Working Title | Jim's song "It's a great song. A tortured-soul type of thing." - Mike Patton 1992 Jim Martin's bloodthirsty metal song is introduced with sounds of the swamp, the anthemic pound of drums and 'psycho' keyboard riff before Patton spits out words over one of Jim's most brutal guitar crunches ever recorded. The song ends with an epic church organ epilogue composed by Bill. Jim explains the origin of the peculiar title. "I just wanted to have a song of mine on the album, and I wanted to write something really horrible and ugly. The title is my idea of a joke, because I'm not really a fan of true guitar-jizz music. Of course, I can't play like Satriani or Vai any how. I feel like those guys are playing another instrument altogether." - Jim Martin 1992 The lyrics deal with Patton's recurring nightmare of being incarcerated. "Well, it's about this fear I have of going to gaol. I know it's gonna happen someday... I've been there once, but I have a feeling I'm gonna go some day for a very long time." - Mike Patton 1992 Midnight Cowboy "It was pretty much Billy's idea he's into easy listening, I like it too. It's again a really hyper beautiful piece that's a real challenge to put down. I think in a way some of softest music you hear in like elevators is also some of the heaviest. It's really profound and powerful in a way that loud rock can't be." - Roddy Bottum 1992 The last track on AD is an intoxicating cover version of John Barry's theme from the 1969 movie of the same name. Another departure from digital sounds, Roddy used an accordion to play the lead melody. Bill and Roddy often commented at the time that their next album would be elevator music in a similar style to this song. "I'm really pleased with the cover we did of 'Midnight Cowboy', because that's taken us into one direction that we've never gone before. That's the way of the future, easy listening is where it's at. We're going to come out real soon with an EP of music for elevators." - Roddy Bottum 1992 "Midnight Cowboy to me, a friend told me this and I think it's appropriate. She sat down and heard the whole record, the first song she said was a pretty great opening track, it's energetic. And at the end when MC came on she said this was exactly like taking a really great roller coaster. The first song your starting off and zooming off, the end of the ride when you've been upside down and thrown up, comes back down and you're slowing down." - Mike Bordin 1992

The Story of how Album Of The Year was recorded. Written with the help of the band, referencing interviews with the five members and those who were involved. Album of the Year, an end and a beginning. Faith No More toured their fifth album King For A Day for only seven months, no time at all compared to the two years plus they were on the road promoting The Real Thing. This tour was cut short so that the band could get back into the studio and work on their next record. "Usually we put out a record every three years, and then we tour it to death for a year or so until we're sick of each other. The last thing we want to do after a tour is go right back into the studio, so on the last tour we decided to cut it short, stop while we were ahead, and get back into the studio and crank out another album while we had some momentum." - Bill Gould 1997 However as per usual with FNM, things did not go to plan. The core members, Bill Gould, Roddy Bottum and Mike Bordin went into the rehearsal room with ideas and soon found that was no creative connection with guitarist Dean Menta. "We rehearsed, but we weren't coming up with anything that any of us liked. It was a drag because Dean, our guitar player at the time was really good live, but you never know if the chemistry is right until you start writing together. We tried to write for six months, but it was just a frustrating thing." - Bill Gould 1997 Mike Patton showed little enthusiasm for the songs that had been written, finding them a little too 'poppy'. "I was really pissed off about it. He's more inclined to not do something that's a little poppier. The first songs that we wrote, I was really happy with because they were really simple, sort of, effortless. in like that; I don't like temp changes and time changes. It's just confusing and it doesn't speak to me in any pure way. At the time he kind of wasn't into doing it. I imagine if I really pushed it, I could have got him to do something to those songs. But at the same time, if it isn't effortless for him, then I would really rather he didn't anyway." - Roddy Bottum 1997 "We wrote something like 12 songs, and of those 12, we probably axed eight of 'em. They're still around, they're good, but they were leaning a certain way that we didn't want things to lean towards. They were...they were just a little bit too nice. They were pop songs, but there wasn't enough feeling, enough balls." - Bill Gould 1997 And after months with no satisfactory results the band became dispirited and for the first time in their history each individual pursued artistic endeavours outside of FNM's ranks. Patton returned to the road with Mr. Bungle to promote their 1995 album Disco Volante, a tour that would extend into most of 1996. Mike B was asked to join his childhood musical idol, Ozzy Osbourne for the Retirement Sucks tour. Roddy co-founded the band Star 69, who would of course become Imperial Teen and release their debut album Seasick in May 1996. Bill took a sabbatical spending a few months travelling in Europe, he alone was left to work on the album and keep FNM from an untimely end. Guitarists Stink "We have another guitarist. I really wish I could say that "this is the MAN!" and that everything's beautiful, but we've said that three fucking times already. I don't know any longer - it's either us or the guitarists. What I do know is that guitarists stink."-Mike Patton 1997 Mike Morris, Jim Martin, Trey Spruance..... FNM have struggled to maintain the position of guitar player since their inception. Due to artistic differences in 1996 Dean returned to his band DUH and FNM were again looking to fill the post. Jon Hudson played guitar for Oakland based industrial / keyboard band Systems Collapse a band who (by his own admission) hadn't achieved much success and only recorded demos. "I was in a band in San Francisco called Systems Collapse, and the keyboard player knew Bill and the other guys, so I met Bill when Faith No More was out touring The Real Thing. It was becoming apparent that things weren't working out with Jim after the Angel Dust tours, so I wasn't surprised when they agreed to part ways. Later, Bill sent me some of the demo stuff for King For A Day. I recorded some ideas and sent them in. They were auditioning different guitar players at the time, and they obviously decided to work with Trey, which I think was a good call; he was perfect for that record. "I was pretty familiar with the band and Bill's sense of direction in terms of song writing and his approach with guitars. So, by the time he called me in early 1996, and said, 'We're in the middle of coming up with material for this next record - we were wondering if you'd give it another shot?', that was the perfect opportunity for me. "You have to be in the right place at the right time - you have to consider yourself very fortunate when an opportunity comes up. People can say, 'You have to have talent.' Sure, that's important, but there's no shortage of very talented people. You have to remember that if you do have these opportunities, you're lucky." - Jon Hudson 2015 Jon found the band disjointed and he could sense finality in the air with this album. "I viewed everything as an opportunity. I could see the pressure of trying to deliver another great record was wearing on some of the guys because they were putting their energies into other areas or projects. I felt like this might be their last record, so I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it as much as I could." - Jon Hudson 2015 Although at this time the guitar parts in FNM's music had become a function rather than an integral part of their sound, Jon did contribute to the songwriting on this record. "We wrote some songs after he joined and he brought some of his own songs that he worked on for himself and then we started to to work on them together. That was really cool." - Bill Gould 1997 Five Become One So with the line-up complete in early 1997 the band finally got the chance to reconvene and they began to refine a sound that pleased all five members. They found direction and embarked on creating a more consistent album than KFAD, an album that was more natural to them as a unit. "We did try to keep a little more consistency because we did realize that not only are we writing it, but people have to listen to it, too. But I think the quality is right up there with anything we've done." - Bill Gould 1997 "It's got more feelings and balance than our previous albums. Possibly it's darker too. I don't think we developed too much from album to album before. But now it's easy to trace [a development]." - Mike Patton 1997 They were inspired by the current musical trends in trip hop and computer aided compositions. "I think the intention for Album was to get back to what we started as. Plus, we were listening to a lot of Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead, DJ Shadow at the time. We loved that shit." - Roddy Bottum 2016 The songwriting process this time around came much easier than it had in years. Using Ashes to Ashes as an example. "The bulk of that song was written the first week. We arranged it here, and then we sent Patton a tape. He was in Italy, but he came up with the lyrics and the singing right away. It was one of those songs that just clicked - one of those songs that we do most naturally. That's our sound." - Bill Gould 1997 When Patton returned from his home in Italy he brought with him two complete songs to add to the album. "He wrote them in about a day. He was really inspired. I remember him coming over here one day, we did some stuff, and then he went home, wrote the songs, recorded them, and gave them to me the next day. He'd written everything: the drums, guitar, bass, and the lyrics." - Bill Gould 1997 Naked In Front Of The Computer Faith No More decided this time that they would handle the production of the album themselves . Basic tracks for the first dozen songs were recorded at Brilliant Studios in San Francisco, the band kept this from the record company to avoid any complications. "If you tell a record company you're going to produce your own record, they usually don't like it. So we told them we were going to make 'demos' of these songs, but we knew all along that we wanted to keep them as final tracks." - Bill Gould 1997 "It just turned out to be that way. We didn't need a producer. We haven't been into the studio very long and then Roddy had to go on tour with imperial teen again. During that time we recorded other stuff and when everyone was back again the record was nearly finished so we could start mixing. I'm the one who was always there, I knew the recordings in all steps...so I became the producer." - Bill Gould 1997 "And then we started back from square one, repeating the same [songwriting and recording] process. After the second time, we had something like 20 songs to choose from, and we started to realize, 'Hey, we're pretty much there.' So, in a stealth-like way, recorded our album without anybody really knowing we were doing it ourselves."- Bill Gould 1997 After all the material was recorded the band then retreated to Bill's basement for editing and decided they needed a fresh pair of ears to help achieve the final sound of the album. They enlisted the talents of the Swans drummer turned producer Roli Mosimann. Bill essentially recorded and produced the album while Roli processed and edited the songs using computer technology. "Roli is the guy who did the Young Gods stuff, and he really added an interesting dimension. He's coming from an angle that we haven't explored before, which is a little bit more on the technology side. There's a little bit of programming, but the songs are still really heavy. The programming just puts the sound in a new light." - Bill Gould 1997 "Until now we everytime we did an album...we recorded that on tape and mixed it then..roli changed our point of view. he copied all the stuff to the computer and we started to edit it then. we didn't do to much of that...we just really fucked up one song in the computer. most we did were little things that really improved much. and roli also mixed the album and his extreme mixing style was really good for us." - Bill Gould 1997 "A good example of Roli's editing was the song 'Mouth to Mouth.' It wasn't sounding right to us at all. It was almost a throwaway song. But Roli really liked that one, so he ended up taking the [acoustic] drums in the choruses and moving them to the verses in Pro Tools. It gave the song a whole new life." - Bill Gould 1997 Collision "A lot of the really cool sounds in this song that sound like guitar are actually keyboard string sounds running through a [Tech 21] SansAmp. You can really mangle keyboard sounds with a SansAmp; you can get some amazing dark, ugly textures." "The odd rhythmic element in the verses. was written by our new guitar player. The verses are built around a 4+6/10 riff, and the choruses are a straight 4/4. The Spanish-speaking voices you hear later in the song are from a short-wave radio. That was Patton's idea. He has a short-wave he takes on tour. I've got one too, and you can get some really cool, eerie stuff. I noticed on the Nine inch Nails record they used a little bit of that too." - Bill Gould 1997 Stripsearch "The kernel of that song came from John Hudson, our guitar player on the last album. Writing wise, we just weren't speaking the same language as Dean, the guitarist we were touring with, I had known John for years, and he said he could provide what were looking for... so he produced this midi file of an idea he'd had and it was pretty good. We changed it just a little bit, but it was his song. The most amazing thing was he wrote a song which worked with us and we didn't have to teach him to do it! Musically we connected. I think he was the first guitar player we had where that happened." - Bill Gould 1998 "The loop in the beginning made such a difference. Before we put it in, the song sounded more like Queensryche. But after the loop, it sounded more like Portishead or something. It gave it a darker, different slant. It didn't sound like a rock band anymore. This song was also a study in layers. Getting keyboard layers to really fit can be hard. You can have five different modules, each with its own piano or string sound, but for a certain song there's always one that fits in like a glove. So we did a lot of searching for the fight kinds of electronic sounds." - Bill Gould 1997 "The percussive noise effect in the intro is Patton making noises with his mouth. My favorite part on the whole record, is the simplest thing...and that's the bleeps [in the intro of this song]. It was just a simple tone that we tapered down so it sounded like an SOS, or Morse code." - Roddy Bottum 1997 Last Cup of Sorrow "This came from me a little bit... I would say it's a little more dub like, the bass line was very dub-ish. I think I heard something like this - just a very heavy, slow song, probably like a cross between some old dub records and something like Basement Five and a band like Chrome. They were an old San Francisco band, kind of like punk that was very heavy metal, but dark and foreboding... very cinematic. Ifs depressing, but beautiful at the same time. As an album, it was our death record and it was something to feel, something we were going through. The words are from Patton, but I think we were all on the same page with this one." - Bill Gould 1998 "The toy piano idea basically started as a loop in Studio Vision, where I was playing bass and guitar. The piano was added as a rhythm element. That's all it was: rhythm. Pitchbends with a little bit of delay can be great for giving that certain unsettling feeling.Mike can do a lot of wild things with his voice, for one. But, yeah, he sang through an old Telefunken tube mic and we compressed the living shit out of it." - Bill Gould 1997 Naked in Front of the Computer "Actually, this song is about email. Patton is kind of obsessed with the idea of how people can communicate and have relationships over the computer without talking or ever meeting. So this is an extreme version of that concept. Funny thing is...the image of someone sitting naked in front of a computer might not have made sense to people a few years ago, but now everybody knows what it means. It's become part of our culture." - Bill Gould 1997 "Its about my frustrations while surfing the Internet. I won't tell you more. I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often i just choose the words because of the rhythm not because of the meaning. It was important for me that the album has a general mood that can be found in all songs and that it doesn't go in too many directions like we did in the past." - Mike Patton 1997 Helpless "The organ you hear in the verses "isn't a real organ. It's a JV-1080 patch called '50s Organ. The one thing I've noticed about the Roland modules...they might sound kind of slick on their own, but when you put 'em in with the band, they tend to sit really well in the mix. I think the guys who do the sound design at Roland are very aware of how things fit with other instruments. Anyway, that organ blended so well with the other instruments. You know it's there - it really adds, but it doesn't stand out. It's not harsh. It doesn't strike your attention that it's organ, but it really compliments the melody." - Bill Gould 1997 Mouth to Mouth "This song has an interesting story. Last year I went to Albania. I got an old car, and I drove through the country - a country that's been isolated from the world for like 30 years. So I went in there, and one thing I noticed were a lot of thug-type guys running around in leather jackets with ghetto blasters, but they weren't listening to heavy metal music: it was this loud Arabic music, and it was really inspiring." - Bill Gould 1997 She Loves Me Not "This song almost didn't make it on the record. We almost didn't even record vocals for it because it's so different from all of the other songs. I wrote this song, and I was almost embarrassed to play it for anybody in the band because it's so soft - but at the same time it's a good song. It's like a Boyz II Men song of something. I didn't play it for anybody for, like, a half a year, and then finally I played it for Puffy. He thought we should give it a try, so I gave it to Patton, and he said, 'I wrote words, but they're pretty over-the-top.' But we went forward with it, and he really sang his ass off." - Bill Gould 1997 Got That Feeling "This is a Mike Patton 100-percent original. Basically it's a song about a guy who's a compulsive gambler. I think it would make an amazing video." - Bill Gould 1997 Paths of Glory "This song is all about a mood. It's not: 'Entertain me.' It's a vibe." - Bill Gould 1997 Pristina "This song took quite a bit of work in the studio because there are so many big open chords of distorted guitar, which doesn't leave much room for anything else. You've got room for drums, vocals, and maybe a deep bass, but trying to get the strings to cut through was a challenge. We spent a lot of time EQing and working with them to get hem placed just right." - Bill Gould 1997 Truth Prevails The album cover was down to Bill who had become intrigued with European history on his travels. The front cover is a photograph of the first president of independent Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. "Actually the man was an old president of Czechoslovakia who died in the '30's, but his significance is more symbolic than political. He was a very aristocratic president at a time when Czechoslovakia was one of the richest countries in the world. His funeral was HUGE (they are the shots on the album artwork) and his death took place on the eve of WW2. If there is any symbolic importance, it is the depiction of the death of a 'golden age.'" - Bill Gould 2002 As the principal founding father of Czechoslovakia, Masaryk was regarded in a way similar to the way George Washington is regarded in the United States.Even to this day, Czechs and Slovaks alike regard him as a symbol of democracy. The liner notes for the album depict a funeral with the words pravda vítězí (truth prevails) adorning the coffin. The statement is the motto of the Czech Republic and is seen as a symbol of democracy. Roddy Bottum On Album Of The Year Going into Album of the Year felt like a changing of the guard. In a technological sense, and in an ownership sense. We'd been doing what we'd been doing for a long time - recording five records, touring for more than a decade. The production had gotten bigger, the stakes had gotten higher and the playing field was changing. Suddenly, making a record on our own was completely and realistically doable. Billy was kind of the first in our camp to get savvy with the Pro Tools setup, and as a result, a good part of AOTY was made in Billy's basement. We did all the tracking at Brilliant Studios and Razor's Edge in SF, but the editing and production were done on our own. It was our first step in taking back what was ours in a technical sense. Kind of ironic that it was our final record....at the time, anyway. We all knew where it was going, the writing was most definitely on the wall - we were all branching out, everyone had a side project, and it felt like FNM was becoming harder and harder just to schedule. Collectively, unconsciously, individually and as a group, we were acting out. Dressing in black suits for the tour, referencing a funeral, the death of the band, the audacious titling of the record, we were fucking with our own destiny. We were definitely referencing our musical roots as well, going back to the melancholy, the sombre, the monotonous loops, the brooding keyboards. Last Cup Of Sorrow, Ashes To Ashes, Jon's involvement and writing in songs like Stripsearch and Collision; in retrospect it feels really strong and an undeniably prolific chapter in what we ultimately set out to do. It might have been a hard pill to swallow for our fans and critics who kept looking to us for a radical change, which of course was understandable... we'd changed so many times. Maybe the change this time around was more of a 'behind the scenes' change. The way we recorded, Billy and the basement, bringing in Roli Mossiman, writing with Jon. Internally, to us it was radical. Roli had worked with Young Gods, a band we loved. He worked a lot with computers. He came in to help track and record, but stuck around to help mix. A testament to his work, we all liked him a lot and appreciated what he brought. Looking back, it seems like a good album to the world with, because it was almost a full circle return to the core of what FNM was. Of course, we had no idea at the time that we'd revisit it, it was the last thing on anybodies mind. We all needed to leave it and walk away, and not look back for a long time. The amount of angst we'd shared as a group of friends was devastating. I don't know how we survived as young people doing what we did. Friends writing together, creating together, making business decisions together, living together, 24/7 for the most part. Looking back on it, they were truly special days of our lives, particularly at the end, when the seams were busting, and the glass had overflowed. The spillage was Album of the Year, and it was an end and a beginning.

The eponymous album by Mike Patton and various collaborators was released via Ipecac Recordings on May 30th 2006. In the early 2000's, after both Faith No More and Mr. Bungle had parted ways, Patton spread his musical wings and delivered various very different projects. His focus was on the disturbing, complex, brutal music of Fantômas. Yet it would seem that there was a need for the man of a thousand voices to manipulate the whole music spectrum and satisfy his lighter side - Peeping Tom was the avant-guarde pop music result. "In a way, this is an exercise for me: taking all these things I've learned over the years and putting them into a pop format. I've worked with many people who have said to me, 'Oh you have a pop record in you, eventually you'll find it,' and I always laughed at them. I guess I owe them an apology." "I don't listen to the radio, but if I did, this is what I'd want it to sound like. This is my version of pop music. In way, this is an exercise for me: taking all these things I've learned over the years and putting them into a pop format." - Patton 2006 Patton is a cinephile without a doubt, so much so that many of his projects are named after some of his favourite movies: Peeping Tom is a 1960 British horror by Michael Powell. Peeping Tom demos floated around the bootleg circuit as early as 2000, but the final record was delayed six years due to Patton's commitments with Fantômas, Tomahawk, Lovage and more. "I’m overjoyed to finally have this out of my hair.It’s almost cathartic for me — more than any other project I’ve had. These projects, they’re almost like problems. You have them on your work table and they’re really fun for a minute, and then you get sick of ’em and you finish ’em off and move on to something else. This one has lingered for a lot of different reasons.” - Patton 2006 In a similar way to his other projects Patton wrote the music and sought out collaborators who he hoped would contribute to the finished tracks. The album featured performances by Norah Jones, Kool Keith, Doseone, Dub Trio, Kid Koala, Massive Attack, Dan the Automator and more. The songs were pieced together by music files sent back and forth over the internet. "If there's one thing I learned from Peeping Tom, it's that working with so many collaborators takes a hell of a long time. It was challenging to be a whip-cracker and a composer and be sympathetic at the same time. I didn't even meet a lot of these people until years later. Doing everything via email or an FTP site is certainly a more impersonal way of making music, but in other ways it can be more direct because you're getting unfiltered ideas. If I do another one, I'd change some things. But it was definitely a worthwhile experience." - Patton 2013 Patton put together a live band which at various points featured Imani Coppola and Butterscotch on vocals. The band toured the UK, Europe and the USA throughout 2006 and 2007 beginning on July 14th in Belgium and ending almost a year later on April 27th at Coachella Festival in California. The album spawned two singles Mojo and We're Not Alone. The first of which was accompanied by a video featuring Danny DeVito. "I don't really limit my influences. Everything in my life influences me, from my morning coffee to each meal. Really hard to nail down. Danny Devito influences me!" - Patton 2006

Thirty four years ago Faith No More released their first single from Angel Dust. The worldwide release of Midlife Crisis was Tuesday 26 May 1992. In an article on Consequence Of Sound ranking all Faith No More songs from worst to best, Midlife Crisis took the number one spot. The quintessential question of what is Faith No More’s single best song has, far and away, the easiest answer imaginable. By 1992, Angel Dust had done a complete 180 away from the sound generally synonymous with Chuck Mosley to what FNM is known for now: triumphant Mike Patton vocals that shine in every register, every pitch; the fluid harmonization of Martin and Bottum’s guitar/keyboard combos; perfect drum and bass coordination; blends of dark tones and obscure subject matter that leave the listener desperate for resolution. “Midlife Crisis” is allegedly about Madonna’s grasping at straws in her ’90s career, and that may be true, but this song has metal, pop, avant-garde, a musically united front with more facets than a diamond. It’s addictive and throbbing, your head on cocaine, your heaven and hell. It’s the Faith No More song. Angel dust, indeed. When released MC was received by most critics and fans with great enthusiasm. It charted highest in Austria at number 9, number 10 in the UK charts and number 1 in US modern rock chart. 'Midlife Crisis twists into a new kind of melody. The difference lies in the tunefulness, the variety of styles within the song - elements we've come to know and love with this band, but not to this degree.' - Raw Magazine 'Musically and lyrically, Faith No More aim for an oxymoronic mix of beauty and brutality with this single' - The Observer 'Lead vocalist Mike Patton growls, screeches, and roars his way through song making not-so-subtle commentary on greed, complacency, and selfishness, It's easy to laugh at the skewering of a thirty-something character in the mid tempo funk-rocker 'Midlife Crisis'. But not all of Faith No More's targets are the rich and powerful.' - Time 'On 'Midlife Crisis' Patton starts with a snide, sibilant rap, swoons upward in a jazzy, Al Jarreau-ish arc, then slugs it out in a close combat cut and thrust that's pure hardcore. The lyrics lash and lambaste some middle-class, lard ass, play-safe type who's built up a cocoon of security and comfort. The line 'Your menstruating heart' - doubtless aimed at 'wet liberals' and people who profess to care a lot - is deeply revealing. For FNM, feelings of tenderness, empathy and solidarity are threatening, female and fluid, a loathsome discharge.' - Melody Maker The mood of MC shifts between eerie verses and brilliantly euphoric choruses. Mike Bordin's perfectly timed rhythm introduces the song. This percussive snap is one of those signature drum parts that Puffy does so well, instantly recognisable like We Care A Lot and The Real Thing. The beat includes a sample taken from Simon and Garfunkel's song Cecilia. "It was one of the first songs I heard when I was a kid and I think I sampled it cause I had a funny relationship with it. the song was kind of built around the rhythm of that sample." - Roddy Bottum Bill Gould described his bass line on MTV's Post Modern in 1992 as "a lesson in discipline, I literally play one note throughout the song", this one note is the systematic backbone of the song. The haunting string sound of Roddy's keys add colour, however shadowy. While Mike Patton's hoarse whispered vocal rolls in synchronisation with the percussion. Patton chooses words that are sharp and clear, and like a snake spiting venom at its prey he seems to over pronounce each syllable. His harmonies throughout the song are clever and precise, much more adventurous than those on the previous album. Jim Martin's guitar crunch leads the chorus and brings the first light of a major key which lifts the melancholy feel. During which a familiar Patton voice gives us the most inspiring yet twisted lyrics on the album, sung with such vigoUr you can taste the sarcasm. The middle section is flooded with samples, there are noises whirring from left to right, taken from Beastie Boys song Car Thief. A screech drops us into the breakdown, which is a glorious melodic outburst that makes the listener want to stand up and thank the stars for stereo, volume and Faith No more! MC fades out with perfectly with multiple layers of Patton's chorus lines. "Everybody's responsible for this one. It was a keyboard part that started it....it was a period of time when everyone was waiting for us to come up with another record and promising us the world. All we had to do is what we do, but the way they saw we were a little defiant, which I think the lyrics reflect in a way. From my position I wanted to do a song that had only one note to the whole thing, but would still be a song. So I wanted it to have one bass part that never changed. It wasn't until we recorded it that our producer saw where I was trying to go, but at the time it seemed like shooting yourself in the foot y'know." - Bill Gould FNM have always thrived from the inner tensions caused by the different personalities of the members, it's always been a part of the process. Most of all during the writing of Angel Dust the relationship between Jim and rest of the band is documented to be highly strained. This can be heard literally within the song itself, Roddy's electronic pop sounds versus Jim's earthy rock guitar chords. The turmoil between light and dark. Like a stormy sea raging while clouds roll gracefully along high above. The band have described the track as their attempt to make a slick pop song and were surprised to find it described as dark and heavy by critics. In testament to this the song actually had the working title of Madonna which was continued be used on set-lists. "The song is based on a lot of observation and a lot of speculation. But in sort of a pointed way its kind of about Madonna...I think it was a particular time where I was being bombarded with her image on TV and in magazines and her whole schtick kind of speaks to me in that way...like she's going through some sort of problem. It seems she's getting a bit desperate." - Mike Patton 'You're perfect yes it's true, but without me you're only you.' This unforgettable line of prose surely stands out as some of the most powerful and poetic of all Faith No More's lyrics. MC doesn't obviously play out a story with characters as is the case with several songs on Angel Dust, it rather creates a mood which intensifies and shifts like Patton's schizophrenic vocals. As with most of his lyrics Patton has never really elaborated on the meaning but he has said that its not so much about a midlife crisis, as he couldn't empathise in what it would feel like, but ''it's more about creating false emotion, being emotional, dwelling on your emotions and in a sense inventing them.'' His references to Madonna we would guess are to deceive and mock the press. However Patton's preference to using a word due to it's sound rather than it's meaning seems to be the case here. As fans and critics ourselves, and from a need to gain better understanding of Patton and a song of we will analyse to attribute meaning. It's easy to recognise the theme of age or more precisely different stages of life regularly occur on Angel Dust. MC can be interpreted in many ways, one popular theory is that song is a story of child abuse and violence passed on inherently from father to son. This behaviour resulting in self loathing and an uncertainty of ones self control. The video for MC is arguably the best FNM videos of all time. Directed by Kevin Kerslake it is dark, dramatic and cinematic abstract, a perfect visualisation of the song's temperament. In the video each member of the band is dressed in a random outfit, Bill sports a 50s gangster style fedora and Patton welds a shovel like some movie serial killer. Religious icons, choirboys and images of horses quartering a torso are all in the mix of onscreen drama. The use of soft focus close ups, overexposure and time lapse filmed sequences produces a polished artistic video that can't be likened to any for the rock genre previously. The styling of this video sets the precedent for many to follow, A Small Victory, Digging The Grave, Another Body Murdered and Ashes to Ashes in particular have similar direction. Even though it seems America didn't embrace this in the same way they did Epic, European and Australian MTV played MC on heavy rotation. “Oddly enough, I grew up with Billy Gould and Roddy Bottum. We were neighbours and our parents actually went to school together, so I had a life long relationship with those guys. I was also a big fan of Faith No More. We never talked about the root or the theme of this song, so I have no idea what it’s about, but the overall flavour of the video is torture. There are some lyrics in the song about somebody who’s lost all four limbs, so that’s where the idea of having somebody being quartered came from. When we started putting the shoot together, one of the things we quickly learned about horses is that they’re pack animals, so when you face four horses in opposite directions their instinct is not to go forward. Typically, there’s a lead horse and all of the other horses follow him. So we had this guy attached to all four horses and one of the horses reared up as another horse started charging forward. The effect of that was that one horse was actually pulling the other horse on its back, and the stuntman was right below him. Thankfully, he was very agile and he got out of the way in time, but it was pretty hairy for a minute there." - Kevin Kerslake 2016 Midlife Crisis has been a permanent fixture on FNM's setlist ever since 1992 and transfers perfectly to the stage. It's always eagerly awaited by the crowd who join in the chorus along with Patton with a sense of joy and pride.

On May 24th 2011 Bill Gould released the album The Talking Book via Koolarrow Records. 'The atmosphere that haunts the world of The Talking Book is as palpable as the dust that clogs the grooves of the grainy, crackling vinyl that Bill Gould & Jared Blum have mined for this, their first collaborative work. The Talking Book has the melancholy, sepia-toned feel of a faded old photograph found in a strangers house, full of old ghosts, almost-forgotten memories and a real sense of encroaching decay.' Bearded Magazine | 2011 The original project is the combined vision of Bill and conceptual artist Jared Blum, of the SF based mid-fi sound collage label Gigante Sound. The pair met in 2005 standing in line on Hamburger Tuesday in the Lower Haight San Francisco. They began to discuss music and eventually Bill was drafted in to help Jared with mixing and mastering on various projects. Inevitably the two musicians moved from production to creation and The Talking Book was born. The Talking book is essentially a collection of abstract expressionistic recordings which play like the soundtrack to a movie. It is dark and atmospheric yet still retains an underlying warmth with rich sonic textures and distinctive melodies. 'If you're familiar with musique concrete, or experimental or ambient-ish music, you can hear it in there, so that's probably an easy way to describe it. But it has differences here and there; Jared's pretty proficient at it. I've listened to experimental music for a long time, maybe thirty years, but never really applied myself to it. So I wanted, as a novice in this experience, to bring some of my own aesthetic into something that somebody else does ... and it was a real and true collaboration.To describe Talking Book to somebody else, I guess I'd say: if you listen to a soundtrack with some of my own creative aesthetic, I guess' Bill Gould | SF Weekly | 2011 The duo developed a unique way to present the soundscapes to a live audience - 'blending real visuals and human spontaneity with the rich textures and deep sonic fabric that characterized the album.' However to complete their vision and bring their noise to the stage they required a third like-minded member, Dominic Cramp (AKA Lord Tang!). A visual accompaniment was projected behind the working musicians created by Roland Quelvin. In 2015, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of this wonderful recording we had a chat with Jared Blum about the album production and working with Bill. Jared Blum Interview It's been five years since 'Talking Book' was released. When was the last time you listened to the album? Hmm. Not in a while! I tend not to listen to my older records that much usually because I hear stuff I would’ve done differently and it’s distracting…but I have listened to some of the live shows we’ve played over the past few years. Actually, just the other day we (Dom, Bill and I) just listened to some sections of a live show we did in Araraquara, Brazil in 2013… Three quarters of the show was all new stuff we wrote for that tour. So we went back and picked out the ones we are going to attempt to re create for the next project. Would you agree there is a timeless quality to soundscapes such as these? Absolutely…that record and most of my soundscapey- avant stuff tends to be less “modern” sounding. I like the sound of old and dusty. Tape is your friend. Would you say the album is more artistic expression or mechanical experiment? A bit of both I guess. The mechanical stuff is just the turntable playing the records super slow…the artistic side is finding those little bits to work with. Using slow records can be tricky because a lot of it can sound like mud, but there might be one little riff or loop off on entire record that can be gold. Then you can build a song off of one sample. Back to mechanical, you can then take some of those slow sounds and sample them and turning them into drones, which are what gives the sounds texture. You can’t get that from a synth or a preset. Can you explain how you went about creating the various sounds on 'Talking Book’? Well, the focus of the record at first was to utilize this old turntable I have (The Talking Book Record Player for the Blind) that plays records at 8 1/3 and 16 1/3 RPMs. I had been doing a project called Beaks Plinth which was basically a collage of these sounds from it. It basically turns any record into instant doom! But we weren’t going for a doom thing necessarily. We sampled old exotica, easy listening, world records from Japan, Africa, Aboriganial, Korea, Cambodia, some Brazilian percussion stuff and just crap i found at the SF library, thrift stores and Amoeba music for a $1. Then cut that stuff up, collage and overdub. We then added layers of guitars, synths, pianos and drum machines to fill out the sound. The album is distinctly melancholy in feel and yet still radiates an underlying warmth. Did you draw on any particular influences to create the mood? I think that’s because it’s not just a doom/drone record. It’s got a lot of subtle melodies and shifts parts a lot and progresses. There’s movement to it, so you kind of go down this sink hole with us…Sometimes you come up for air until the next wave comes and drags you back down. In terms of influences, compositionally; no one in particular. It's more cinematic collage or a radio play soundtrack.. Actually for this one I kept thinking about Tarkovsky films, Russia in general. Desolate spaces, Chernobyl type places. I tend to write long flowing sessions pretty freeform, going into a lot of directions. I then go back and split things up and work on them separately. In terms of influences sonically, I guess at that time...Tim Hecker, Osaka Bondage, Philip Jeck, Edward Artmiev, Focus Group and Vladimir Ussachevsky were what I was listening to when we did this. The sounds themselves tend to be the influences really. I think the “warmth” also has to do with it not being a synth album where things are quantized and tightened.. It has a looseness to it, a very human quality. The sounds are jangled and a bit fucked which informed us on how we wrote parts around them. How did Bill adapt to a radically different way of working than he was used to? He always seemed really comfortable with it. I basically had a lot of the sections worked out, and then he came in and thew a guitar part on top or a synth thing and it changed the whole feel of it. Then we’d remix stuff and it would be transformed. We also started a couple of tracks from scratch. On “The Morass” he over dubbed 5 Ebow guitar harmonies into this amazing cluster of drones. Sort of a Frippotronics thing. I don’t think he was used to improvising as much and just letting go as much. Certainly live in front of an audience. Since then he’s gotten more into mutating old samples and making amazing melodic pads and textures out of them, which adds a lot to our sound. The tour we did in ’13 had a lot of that going on as well as his guitar parts throughout. How do think Bill's previous musical experience lent itself to the album? A couple ways actually. Obviously he’s a great songwriter and instrumentalist, as a well as being able to mix records pretty damn well. FNM always did stuff in their own way never really conforming much to the radio crap and MTV. Especially when using synths and samples. But for me just having that second set of ears, opinions, and compositional ideas was really big. Also, he plays with a lot of feeling in a way I don’t, so all of that combined is huge. He’s also a big fan of older industrial/ experimental stuff ie. Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, Einstürzende Neubauten so it wasn’t that much of a stretch to go there with me. Did working with Bill change the way you worked on projects thereafter? Yes. Definitely in terms of mixing and then learning that less is more. No matter how many times you hear that it always helps if someone else tells you that as you’re working. Learning to build stuff up and strip things back has way more impact. I would say that FNM's recent album 'Sol Invictus' has cinematic moments. Do you think Bill's experience with 'Talking Book' has developed his song writing techniques? That’s a question for him I guess…I think a lot of those demo songs were actually written before Talking Book actually. I’m not sure though. I think cinematic music has always been with him and the group. This was just an extreme form of that. Were you surprised with the positive reaction the album received from FNM fans? I was never quite aware of the FNM fanbase reaction actually. They liked it? Ha. I read some descent reviews from critics, so I was happy about that. I guess the real test was doing it live and the reaction we got from the shows. I think most were all really positive because it was a different then what some FNM fans may have seen live I imagine, and we pulled off a pretty heavy set. The fact that Patton or Trey have been doing experimental music for years probably warmed up some people’s ears to this world I think. What kind of challenges did you overcome to bring the music to the stage? We never really thought of it as being a live thing. It happened because Patton heard the record, liked it, and asked if we wanted to do a show with him and Pivixki at the Great American Music Hall in SF. We had no idea how to do it live. I knew we’d need to do play some of it live and improvise or stretch out the stuff. I didn’t want to stand there and “DJ”. So we got Dom whom I was already playing with for years to help out. We had to figure out what was going to be played live and what would be triggered. So we basically did that. Went in and stripped out the sessions and rehearsed. It was pretty good actually and quite heavier than the record! We have the soundboard of that show, one day we’ll release it. Then as we went on it got a lot easier and by the time we got down to South America in ’12 we were improvising a lot and by and ’13 we were doing a lot of new stuff we created in the rehearsal space...so it was all very natural. It's interesting to watch the group interaction during those live shows after seeing Bill's energy in rock bands. You almost seem like a conductor. Even though the sounds are mostly digital there is a orchestral (if that's the right term) feel to it. Would you agree with that comparison? Ha. Yeah. I’d love to get to that point of the energy FNM get in their shows or even 1/8 th of it. And actually that has been a big topic in our talks about making new stuff and doing it live. Its tough when you don’t have a live drummer. The energy is so different. Locking bass and guitars with electro drums just doesn’t have that same power. Also there’s no human interaction. Anyway, a lot of the samples or sounds that fuel the songs were in my control so I kinda have to make sure we all hit the changes together. Plus, I tend to be quite animated live. Do you think the accompanying visuals were essential to the live experience? Oh yeah. The videos we used for the 2 tours were both pretty weird and visually exciting. They fit the music perfectly. Unless you want look at 3 schlubs standing in front of their laptops and a couple of synths, it’s integral. Bill described the album as 'a soundtrack with his own creative aesthetic'. How would describe it? Have you as a group considered scoring movies? For sure, it’s total soundtrack stuff, it just goes a bit further where soundtracks don’t usually go. I mean basically music that’s slower, instrumental, moody often get grouped in the “soundtrack” genre. In my case pretty much all my music, even my recent 80’s pop stuff is soundtrack inspired. Both Bill and I have done soundtrack stuff separately over the years, and we’ve been contacted to do some scoring stuff in the near future. Would Dominic Cramp be involved in the writing process for future projects? Yes sir.

Detroit Punk Collective The Armed invited Patton perform four songs at their Regency Ballroom gig on Sunday in San Francisco. Mike joined the band for The Music Becomes A Skull, All Futures, An Iteration and Liar. Check out some footage below. Photos By Raymond Ahner

Faith No More's seventh studio album was released eleven years ago, on 19 May 2015. To celebrate the anniversary of this astounding comeback record we have put together an A to Z for everything need to know about Sol Invictus. A IS FOR Amoeba In November 2014 Faith No More surprised fans with an intimate show at Amoeba Records, San Francisco, to celebrate Record Store Day Black Friday and the release of Motherfucker on 7" vinyl. The set consisted of five songs including two from Sol Invictus. 'Most of the band’s Bay Area family — including their teenaged nieces and nephews — crowded along the side of the stage. Said nieces and nephews mercifully did not roll their eyes when others in attendance explained they had been following the band since they were “their age.” ' - SF Weekly B IS FOR Brothers Johnson & Boz Scaggs Each era in FNM’s history seems to include its own particular ad-libs featured in the breakdown of various songs. A favourite of Chuck Mosley's was Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven, whereas Mike Patton famously dropped in Pump Up The Jam by Technotronic and Vogue by Madonna. During the Sol Invictus tour as the band halted Midlife Crisis mid song, Patton crooned the 1971 song Strawberry Letter 23 by Shuggie Otis (made popular by Brothers Johnson in 1977). In the same spot FNM would also break out into the 1976 song Lowdown by Boz Scaggs. C IS FOR Cone Of Shame In November 2015 Faith No More released the fourth single from Sol Invictus. Cone of Shame was accompanied by a gritty video directed by Macedonian Goce Cvetanovski, who had worked with Bill Gould previously, and produced by Lynx Animation Studios with Faith No More. “This is one of those tracks that had to be a video, really, because it lends itself so much to visual imagery. Given the song’s sense of Americana, it would have been easy to shoot this in Arizona or New Mexico, but having been to Macedonia several times, there’s a vibe there that I felt wouldn’t be out of place as a backdrop to this song. Goce Cvetanovski, as a director, understood this immediately; he knew exactly what to do with it, and along with an amazing cast, has managed to create something very dark, and beautifully cinematic.” - Bill Gould 2015 "My first impressions were more horror-like. Lyrics like “I like to peel your skin off, strip the bones off,” etc, gave me images of some cannibalistic druid kind of ceremony. But after talking with Bill, he explained me that the song is more about a love gone wrong, wrong decisions and jealousy. We also discussed the spaghetti western ambient of the music, if you listen carefully you’ll find a bit of Ennio Morricone influence in the guitar. The story developed from there and I was listening the track in loop for days, while working on the script." - Goce Cvetanovski | FNMFollowers 2015 D IS FOR Dementia Faith No More also shared a video for the track Separation Anxiety. A compilation of footage from the 1955 American black-and-white experimental horror film Dementia (Daughter of Horror) directed by John Parker. The video was edited by Finch Lynch. E IS FOR Estudio Koolarrow Sol Invictus was the FNM first album to be fully self recorded at the group’s rehearsal space and Bill’s studio, Estudios Koolarrow, in California. "Everyone said, ‘Well, why don’t we just produce it ourselves? Why don’t you produce it?’ and I was just like, ‘Oh god, man, that’s a responsibility! I mean, my stuff’s going to get stacked up next to Andy Wallace’s stuff and Matt Wallace’s stuff!" - Bill 2015 “You have to understand, it was recorded by us… written, arranged and performed obviously. Mixed by us, in our place. I mean, this is really about as self-contained an effort as you’re gonna get and I’m super proud of every guy that did it. To me, the result… I couldn’t make it any better. And I want people to hear it for themselves.” - Bordin | Drum Magazine 2015 To realise their vision the band called on their old friend Matt Wallace to help with the mixing and production. "We didn't even have an engineer when we recorded it. It was just us. There was only one other person who came in, and that was Matt Wallace, who finished the mixing. Having an extra perspective and an extra set of ears was really important at that point, and Matt goes back with us back to 1982—he's like a family member" - Bill Gould | Revolver 201 F IS FOR Followers The News of Faith No More's first album in eighteen years and subsequent tour prompted a group of super fans to establish the ultimate FNM fan club. Faithnomorefollowers.com was created as a non-profit hub for all things Faith No More related, reporting news and chronicling past events with accuracy. In 2020 we upgraded to the webpage you see now. Over the past ten years our group has been supported by the band and their management. The team includes members from Europe, Australia, South America, Mexico and the USA, all who have been active participators in the online fan community since the 90s. In 2018 members of FNMFollowers joined Podcast Croissant the only dedicated Faith No More podcast. G IS FOR Gimp In February 2015 Faith No More revealed to the world the title and release date of their seventh studio album accompanied with a photo of the band dressed in black gowns heavily shadowed by candle light. Dustin Rabin's cult-like photographic vision for FNM would be included on the sleeve for Sol Invictus. 'In some early discussions about ideas they said they wanted something dark and almost horror-like, so I suggested doing some Film Noir lighting.' - Dustin Rabin | FNMFollowers 2015 Some of Dustin Rabin's album promo photos revealed FNM’s dominant nature with the addition of a gimp! Straight out of Pulp Fiction the leather clad character accompanied FNM on their first run of shows. At The Wiltern in LA the gimp suit was worn in secret by none other than GnR bassist Duff Mckagan! “Their ‘Gimp’ guy got stuck in traffic or something — something like that — and Patton asked if I’d be the ‘Gimp.’ And I’d just gotten to the gig, me and another friend. I’m wearing all black, and everybody else was wearing white. ‘Cause they play in white, and everybody backstage, their crew, they all have white on. The guy I came with, Jerry Cantrell [Alice in Chains], he wore white, because he had gone to the show the night before. I picked him up, [and I said], ‘What are you doing wearing all white?’ He’s, like, ‘Faith No More white, dude.’ [I was, like], ‘Oh, yeah, I blew it.’ But being the only guy dressed in black, I was the instant ‘Gimp.'” - Duff H IS FOR Hyde Park The band made a return to the live stage after a full year's break at British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park, London. The set included the premiere of Superhero and Motherfucker. “We knew that we were making a record at that time, for sure. That was the first time we played those songs though, so it was kinda high stakes. The decision to wear the priest outfits and play Motherfucker right then felt pretty bold. We had been working on this stuff behind the scenes but we weren’t ready to tell anybody. Then again, anyone who saw us play that day with Sabbath would’ve figured out what we were up to.” - Roddy Bottum | The Skinny Dec 2015 I IS FOR Ice Hockey New York Rangers defenseman and Faith No More fan Dan Boyle joined FNM as a roadie during the East Coast swing of the tour. Much to the approval of Mike P and Mike Bordin who are both huge hockey fans. “It was an amazing experience. I didn’t do too much the first night; I was pretty much just watching. But by the fourth show, I was helping out every which way I could – dispensing VIP tickets, decorating the stage, bringing guitars and basses out.” - Dan Boyle | Rolling Stone J IS FOR Joe Lynch The band hired American film and music video director Joe Lynch to create a film for the third single release of Sunny Side Up. The video is a hallucinogenic tribute to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest featuring a cast of geriatric mischief makers in the roles of the band members. ‘Funny enough, I’ve been trying to make a Faith No More music video since I fell in love with the 'Angel Dust' album back in 1992. I wrote a video treatment for every single track on that album and sent them to Slash Records, I never heard back…’ - Joe Lynch | FNMFollowers 2015 K IS FOR Kimmel Live! During tour Sol Invictus Faith No More performed on radio and TV to promote the album. Their first TV appearance in twenty years was was on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show in May. In June FNM recorded a set of six songs live at BBC's Maida Vale studios. On September 3rd Faith No More performed five songs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! dressed in tuxedos. L IS FOR Lump Straight after the performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! FNM took to the stage for a secret show at The Troubadour in Hollywood under the pseudonym Lump. The gig stood out in the 2015 run as the band took a more casual approach ditching the white outfits and the gimp. ‘No gimp! Whaaaa? Just a lot of instruments, sneakers and sweat. The entire band was in good spirits. It was weird for everyone. It was glorious madness. Patton crowd surfed many times and ended up on the bar in the back with, unfortunately, a shot of Jack Daniels. Almost the entire Sol Invictus album was played along with highlight “Be Aggressive” and after a band meeting, ending with “As The Worm Turns.”' - LA Record M IS FOR Mystery Song The seeds for Sol Invictus were sown as early as 2011 when FNM premiered Matador their first original composition in fourteen years - known then to fans as Mystery Song. "I was like, This is great that we’ve all connected, but I need to do creative stuff. I was always hands-on where this band is concerned. I’m just that guy, and if I’m putting all this energy and effort into it, I need something. I need some oxygen. It was one of those things like, Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t bring up new music. Don’t talk about it. Finally I thought, Fuck it, man, I’m just going to fucking say it: I got a song. Do you guys want to hear it? Stop talking about fucking covers all the time and think of doing some fucking music? And everybody was like, Yeah, sure, great." - Bill Gould | Small Victories Mystery Song, became the subject of much discussion between fans who at the time labelled it an unheard leftover from a previous album. The band performed the song in Buenos Aires and it became a regular fixture in the set for the next few years. "Honestly, 'Matador' felt so obvious. Not in a bad way, but like a comfortable shoe. It felt like somewhere we go typically as a band. We have this language among the four of us that's sort of unique and inherent to people who sort of grow up together; we have a go-to language that we all relate to really well. So hearing it was like, 'Oh yeah, that. I get it!'" - Roddy Bottum | Revolver April 2015 "Bill brought in a new tune that he wrote, and said: 'Shall we try this? And when we heard it, yep, we knew what to do exactly, boom boom boom. It's like a secret society when you're in a band, with your handshakes and your lingo, and even after all that time, you still understand it. It's part of you. We started playing that one song live, and it felt good. So okay, let's proceed." - Mike Patton | Classic Rock July 2015 N IS FOR New New Song Fans brimmed with excitement as our friends at fan page FNM 2.0 revealed Faith No More's new new song on May 12th 2015. The song turned out to be a spectacular parody created by St Sanders. The FNM shred was arranged by Bill who had previously met Sanders at a show. O IS FOR Ossian Brown The images used throughout the sleeve of Sol Invictus are taken from a collection of anonymous Halloween photographs from c.1875-1955 curated by English musician and artist Ossian Brown in the book Haunted Air. The eerie vintage photos used compliment the dark tones of the music. Martin Kvamme’s distinctive graphic design on the album cover sits perfectly amongst FNM’s catalogue. P IS FOR Periscope For the first time Faith No More utilised the power of social media, opening up to fans a glimpse of life on the road. FNM launched their official Twitter account in mid 2014 with the exciting news - ‘Hey! Stay tuned for more Tweets from Twats!!! The reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative.’ Facebook and Instagram followed as did Periscope on which Roddy Bottum presented his post gig show called Tour Talk! During these 30 minute live chats Roddy spoke with his band mates and various people close the band. A highlight was when Roddy and Bill recounted the story of them taking revenge on a Safeway by calling in a bogus bomb threat, at the age of 12! Q IS FOR Quality Time Faith No More releasing their first album in eighteen was a huge deal for fans, music press and for the band themselves. FNM had no idea whether they would release a new album so rehearsals were conducted in secret, the band didn't even tell their wives they were working on new material. “We kept it in-house and behind closed doors. And we were fortunate to be able to keep it as insular as we did because we had no expectations or deadlines. Really, it’s a chicken shit way to do it. But at the same time it allowed us freedom.” - Roddy | Billboard May 2015 Faith No More recognised that fans would be concerned about the music living up to the legacy they had created. "A lot of people are afraid of us making a new record, and I get that. There's a template to this, I think: You were a good band, you break up, you get back together and you put out a shitty album. But we tried really, really hard to resist that template. We kept our minds sharp and we still have a lot to offer. But people like the stuff we did in the past. We're older now and they're afraid of what we might put out as an older band. They're worried that the music we might make today might not hold up. But even if this new record fails, I'm still a lot happier doing something creative and productive than I am just going to work and playing the old songs." - Bill Gould | Kerrang! April 2015 R IS FOR Reclamation Records In keeping with their DIY attitude Sol Invictus was released via Patton’s label Ipecac Records with the aid of Bill’s label Koolarrow. FNM created their own imprint called Reclamation Records. S IS FOR Sonarworks Sonarworks revolutionised audio mixing with new software to make headphone listening much clearer. FNM worked with the software on various songs from Sol Invictus. 'In a nutshell, the idea behind their software was to compensate for imperfections in mixing rooms in order to provide a more accurate listening environment. As a band we try to take chances and explore new concepts all the time, and realized in this FNM tradition, that it might be cool to include some of our fans in on the experiment—as far as I know, no one has done anything like this before.' - Bill Gould 2016 T IS FOR Trollfoot Patton’s unlikely friendship with Hollywood actor Danny DeVito began when DeVito’s son took his pop to a Fantômas show in 2005. Danny soon became a huge Patton fan and even starred in a Peeping Tom video. DeVito was first spotted at Coachella in 2010 watching Faith No More. In 2012 he made an onstage appearance at Hammersmith in London. We most recently saw DeVito's famous social media alter ego Trollfoot appear side stage at The Wiltern in 2015. U IS FOR Unconquered Sun Sol Invictus takes its title from a Latin phrase meaning "unconquered sun," which was also the name of a Roman religious cult. "We just won't go away! And when you think about where we are, and what we've accomplished over the course of so many years, there's a timeless, regal, etched-in-stone quality of that title that really works for us." - Roddy Bottum 2015 V IS FOR Vulcan Studios Although Patton has never discussed the name of his home recording studio Vulcan can be traced as far back as 1999 - 'electronics, voice, additional overdubs on She by Maldoror at Vulcan Studios'. Mike has recorded or engineered vocals for many of his projects in the San Franciscan hold-up including albums such as Tētēma, his collaboration with Jean Claude Vannier and more. Patton recorded is vocals for Sol Invictus at Vulcan. “I hate to be unromantic here, but the lyrics to me are just another instrument. I see them as such, and there's a reason we don't really print them on our records. I don't think we ever have. Maybe we did once or twice and that was just under duress. I feel that the words are really up to you. I'm giving them to the public, and I think that, you know, whoever's listening should be able to interpret them the way they want. From word to word and sentence to sentence, if there's a grand meaning, you come up with it, because I certainly can't. I don't have one. I'll tell you. I don't have a grand plan. I write lyrics based on music, on a musical flow, and what sounds good at the time. If I can fit a them into that, then hey, I'm lucky. If not? I don't care. They're just words. If they're political, if they're antisocial or god knows what — if they were, then that's not my problem. I just write them, and it's up to the world to decide what they are. That's my position.” - Patton | NPR May 2015 W IS FOR Wiltern LA Faith No More toured Sol Invictus for eight months, they played sixty nine gigs in twenty five different countries. During this run of shows many of the band's sets were professionally captured on film including Download in the UK, Pinkpop in Holland, France's Hellfest and many more. Pro footage from The Wiltern in LA was shared on the Carson Daly show. X IS FOR X-Rated Motherfucker was released on November 28th 2014 on 7" vinyl limited to 5000 copies. In typical FNM fashion their first single in 17 years was unplayable on the airwaves because of its x-rated lyrical content. Between them Roddy Bottum and Mike Patton chant the phrase 'mother fucker' approximately twenty five times. "It felt like a really nice statement to put out into the public, to let people know we’re not playing any games. We don’t really care if it’s on the radio. It’s sort of offensive and playful and bold and maybe a little bit antagonistic. Just the word itself was a fun thing to put out there. But yeah, it’s totally different than the rest of the record. It’s me singing on it, which is a little bit different, and it’s really simple and stripped down. Something called “Motherfucker” just felt like a nice place for us to kick off a new chapter for Faith No More." - Roddy Bottum | Noisey | March 2015 Y IS FOR Yahoo! What needs to be said other than - Faith No More live at The Fillmore full set via Yahoo! Z IS FOR Zombie Yeti Alan Forbes, Junko Mizuno, Tara McPherson and Zombie Yeti are just some of the artists responsible for the amazing graphic poster designs from tour Sol Invictus. Many of them were available signed by the five members at concerts and are still for sale in the Secret Serpents store.

Faith No More released the first single from Album Of The Year on May 19th 1997. "It's kind of like when you eat something and all the ingredients fit together. You can't really say why you like it but it's just you know you like it. To me that song has size, it has the scope and it has the melody and it has the impact. It gives me all those things I need that make me feel good." - Bill Gould 2016 1997 was a bit of a dull year for rock and metal music, it was the beginning of a nu metal era with bands trying to re imagine the early nineties movements. Elsewhere electro dance music was interesting, the happy hippy techno beats had been replaced with more brutal and funkier bands like The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and music to do heroin to whilst watching trains. It was the first time since the 60's where being British was cool, Brit pop and The Spice Girls took over the world. There was certainly change in the air. Faith No More had changed. After a brief tour supporting King For A Day... the band had gone separate ways, Mike Patton focusing on Mr. Bungle, Roddy Bottum starting up Imperial Teen and Mike Bordin drumming with Ozzy Osbourne. "I guess the point is try to find new reasons to keep making music. We could have broken up. But when you get to that point you ask yourself, 'Is it worth it or not?'. If the music's still getting you hard, it's worth it." - Mike Patton 1997 Yet, amidst rumours that the band had split up, in 1997 FNM surprised fans by returning with a new guitarist and attitude to producing music. After only around seven years of commercial success FNM were now considered as innovators, fathers of a new breed of metal music and were back to prove they still had one more album of great songs to give. "It takes a lot of work, but the bottom line is that if we weren't totally committed to making music as FNM, we wouldn't still be here today....It's not like we don't have anything else to do." - Bill Gould 1997 Ashes To Ashes was the premier single released from their sixth studio record Album Of The Year. The song performed well in the charts, number 8 in Australia, 7 in Finland, 15 in the U.K. and 23 in the U.S. ATA is less punchy and chaotic than music from KFAD, more polished and refined, whilst retaining the full bodied sound that only FNM can achieve. 'While the Bungle-like experimental-ism of the King For A Day album alienated a lot of the band's fans, new and old, the first taste of next month's album (drolly titled Album Of The Year) returns to the musical ethic that won them all those lovely fans in the first place. Expansive, dramatic and swathed in Roddy Bottum's widescreen keyboards, it delivers a killer tune with bite, storming rhythms and the best vocal of Mike Patton's career. Truly, err, epic.' - InPress magazine Jon Hudson's guitar brings the metal riff of Jim Martin's days back to FNM after an album of Trey Spruance's eccentric brand of six string magic. It sets us up for a track we know will fall into the unmistakably FNM category. The sweeping waves of Roddy's keyboard are reminiscent of those found on Angel Dust, and they add colour to Bill and Mike B's ever dependable rhythm section. There is hardly a trace of antagonism in Patton's voice as he croons like Sinatra. The composure of all five musicians make for sophisticated sound to match their pressed tuxedos. The song was written, like most of AOTY, by the band sharing music in the post. In fact no more than two members of FNM were in the studio at the same time. "The bulk of that song was written the first week. We arranged it here, and then we sent Patton a tape. He was in Italy, but he came up with the lyrics and the singing right away. It was one of those songs that just clicked -- one of those songs that we do most naturally. That's our sound." - Bill Gould 1997 The main difference with this music compared to earlier songs was that it was entirely produced by FNM with Bill on engineering duties. Roli Mosimann brought in for advice. "This record took a year and a half to make -serious hard work. I mean, the reason I'm the producer is because I've been living with this thing every step of the way. I couldn't rest until this record was finished. Angel Dust was like a hurricane coming - a big, ugly storm. King for a Day was like when the storm was hitting you, with all this stuff flying all over the place. And this record...this record is kind of like digging through the wreckage and pulling out bodies afterwards." - Bill Gould 1997 The video was directed by the late Tim Royes. It retains the dark themes of FNM's previous film clips but introduces the new suited and booted look that they paraded during this era. Ashes To Ashes remains a fan favourite and it is still a regular song within FNM's set lists.

Primus’ second studio album Sailing The Seas of Cheese was released on 14 May 1991. Primus and Faith No More’s history has been intertwined throughout the years so we have detailed some of their connections. Apart from Mike Patton sporting a Frizzle Fry shirt for most of the FNM tour of Brazil in 91, the bands have played together on at least four occasions, the most recent in 2010. Mr Bungle have also shared the bill with Primus also. 'We’ve known those guys for many, many years. Mike Bordin is one of my oldest friends. And Mike Patton, he’s an incredible talent. All those guys are great guys. We started playing with them around San Francisco in the ’80s.' - Les Claypool | AV Club | 2010 Mike Bordin and Les Claypool have been friends since the 80's and Bordin appears in the credits on many of Primus' releases. On the first Primus album Frizzle Fry, the following credits appear: ‘Special thanx to Susan and Howard for letting us spill bong water into their console (the Exxon/Puffy conspiracy)’. Faith No More are thanked on the 1989 live album Suck On This, ‘Hugs and Kisses to Faith No More’. In the liner notes on Primus’ 1991 album Sailing The Seas Of Cheese Bordin is credited as playing the Two-Skinned Foreskin Drum on track 13, Los Bastardos. He is also listed as one of the Bastardos under drums and vocals as 'Puffster. In the 1995 song Over the Electric Grapevine Primus mention Introduce Yourself: Then 'Introduce Yourself' came on as they barreled through the fog." Also FNM ex axe man Jim Martin plays guitar on Eclectic Electric, a track on Primus' 1999 album " Antipop. Bordin is also famously the subject of the Primus song Mr Krinkle. ‘Mr. Krinkle is basically about conversations I used to have with Mike Bordin. Mike Bordin, his hotel room name was "Mr. Krinkle." If you read the lyrics or listen to the song, it's basically about conversations with Mike. He's a huge San Francisco Giants fan, and there was all this talk that the Giants were goingto move from San Francisco. So, "Hey there, Mr. Krinkle, how are youtoday? Seems the rumors are abound your team might move away." And he was really pissed off about this! "Hey there, Mr. Krinkle, let's cruise the bastard boat"— we used to go out on my boat. The thing about Mike, he is one of these guys like Mike Watt — he has a very interesting perspective on things, and he's really good at tossing out these colorful little quips, on how he perceives things. So we would have these great conversations on the phone." - Les Claypool | 2012 In a Rolling Stone article from 1991, it states that Les sang on the song Epic! ‘With Faith No More leading the way, San Francisco is the epicenter of the thrash-funk scene. And everybody there seems to know one another. Claypool's good friend Mike Bordin, drummer for Faith No More, was a guest on "Seas of Cheese"; Claypool sang on Faith No More's hit "Epic." And Primus shares a sensibility, show bills and side projects with such up-and-coming Bay Area bands as the Limbomaniacs, Fungo Mungo and Psychefunkapus; Primus has also befriended stylistic compatriots, such as Jane's Addiction, Living Colour and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.’ This is a claim the presenters of Podcast Croissant put to members of FNM. Bill Gould replied. ‘You know...he might have. There was a big back ground vocal party singing 'It's It"' Mike Bordin had similar hazy recollections. ‘My first impulse is that we did "gang vocals", Matt's words, for Surprise, and also Epic. I do know that Les and also Larry were around at that time, so I don't think it too far fetched that one or both gathered around the mic with us and yelled. I lean towards a yes, but maybe just not 100% sure of it.’

The second single from Faith No More's fifth album King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime was released on May 1st 1995. Unbelievably this song almost didn’t make the cut, but was included at the insistence of Mike Bordin. "That's my favourite song. I was sort of a fuckin' weasel, and... that wasn't gonna be on the record, but that song turned out so great that it pushed another song off the record. I think it sounds great, I love that song. I really love the choruses, where it gets really big, and it really takes off... I love that song. And that was the last song we wrote, as well. That was the 20th song that we wrote for this record. So I think it's really fitting that the first song that we wrote for the record and the last song that we wrote are both on it." – Bordin 1995 | Kerrang! The noticeable lyric ‘running twice as fast to stay in the same place’ resembles a line from Lewis Carol’s Alice Through The Looking Glass. It is often discussed whether the lyrics refer to the death of Kurt Cobain – the working title for Ricochet was Nirvana and the words could certainly be compared to the circumstances of Cobain's suicide. "It was written the day that Kurt died. That's just why it was called "Nirvana." (Pause.) I like that one. The vocal harmonies are really great. And those are my favourite lyrics on the record." – Roddy 1995 In February 1995 Mike Patton addressed the meaning of his lyrics with NME. Several lyrics on 'King' seem to snarl against the trap of celebrity, entrapment and the ageing process. But Patton dismisses any suggestion that the Kurt Cobain saga had any effect on him ("I didn't know him or anything"). As a singer in a rock n roll band who may have gone through some of the same things that he did, you had no thoughts or feeling about the whole business? "What can I say? (Laughs). What can I say? I'm sorry? Bad things happen, y'know? I'm sure it wasn't as great as everyone thinks it was." What wasn't? "His suicide, I'm sure wasn't such a glamorous event." The video to accompany the single release was directed by Alex Hemming and featured footage filmed during the band's show at Paris’s Élysée Montmartre. #faithnomore #ricochet #kfad25

Faith No More's bass player, CEO of Koolarrow Records, and importer of Balkan rakija Billy Gould birthday is today. We are celebrating with an alphabetical run through of some of his coolest endeavors. Photo Ryan Tuttle A IS FOR THE AUDACITY OF HYPE Jello Biafra, the legendary lead singer of The Dead Kennedys, and Bill first worked together in the Mexican metal band Brujeria during the early nineties. Biafra then asked Faith No More to contribute a cover of Let's Lynch The Landlord to Alternative Tentacles 100th album release. For Biafra's 50th birthday celebrations he collaborated with guitarist Ralph Spight, drummer Jon Weiss and bassist Bill in the band Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School of Medicine. The band recorded the record The Audacity of Hype before Bill left to rejoin Faith No More. "I was a major Dead Kennedys fan in my high school years, and I first met Jello when I was 16 years old at The Whisky [a Go Go] in Los Angeles. We told the people guarding the backstage that we were guests, and he saw us and said,‘yeah, they’re okay, come on in.’ He hung out with us, even though we were kids. But also, in playing in his band, I was just a bass player and I had to do my job.at the time, that was perfect for me: liberating in a different way.” - Bill B IS FOR BUMBLE BEE Bill is not afraid to dress for the occasion - from dresses to diner suits. However his most famous ensemble is surely the bumble bee costume worn during Faith No More‘s performance of Everything’s Ruined on the UK TV show The Word in 1992. C IS FOR CASTRO SINATRA In April 1998 Faith No More announced they were no longer a band. The five members pursued different projects but two years later Bill, Mike Bordin and Jon Hudson reunited to write new music under the name Castro Sinatra. Unfortunately the band only lasted eighteen months and none of the music was released. "We got into a little bit of a whirlpool or a wormhole with that one. It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t good enough." - Bill D IS FOR DAVID BOWIE At the age of ten Bill attended his first rock concert accompanied by his father - that show was David Bowie at the Long Beach Arena in 1973. Bowie became a major influence on Bill as a young musician and after Bowie's death in 2016 Bill shared his favourite Bowie songs with us. E IS FOR EASTENDERS Bill has always been fascinated with different cultures from around the world and has found sanctuary in foreign countries such as Chile, the Balkans and the UK. Bill first crossed the North Atlantic Ocean at the age of eighteen to promote his first band and then returned again to England with FNM in 1988 for his first overseas tour. Bill's preoccupation with Eastenders, a British TV soap opera set in London's East End, was revealed in 2009 when FNM covered the theme tune during their sets at Leeds and Reading Festivals. In 2012 FNM were back on tour and Bill was photographed on-set visiting the Queen Victoria pub in the fictional borough of Walford. He has since shared social media status' referring to plot twists and characters. F IS FOR FEAR AND NERVOUS SYSTEM Fear and the Nervous System is a project set up by Korn guitarist James 'Munky' Shaffer in 2008. The band recorded one album which was released in 2012. Bill featured on bass. "My guitar tech for 15 years used to tech for Faith No More. He was Jim Martin’s guitar tech back when Jim Martin was back in Faith No More. Him and Billy had a relationship and I was saying, “Man, I gotta get someone to play bass on this thing,” and he said, “Do you want me to ask Billy?” and I said, “Well, yeah! I’m a huge Faith No More fan!” Ever since they had Chuck Mosley in the band and the first record, I’ve been a fan. So, that goes way back. And Korn and myself and everyone that has anything to do with this band have been Faith No More fans. And Billy said, “Let me come down and I’ll fly down.” He came down and I picked him up from the airport. He liked a lot of the tracks and started working on them later that night. So that came together." - Munky G IS GUERO SIN FE A Spanish phrase translated as 'white man with faith' ... aka Bill Gould. This is the pseudonym Bill adopted whilst amongst the ranks of Mexican extreme metal band Brujeria. Founded in 1989 by Bill and Brujeria's singer John Lepe, alias Juan Brujo, the group also featured members of Fear Factory, Carcass and Napalm Death. Bill left the band in 2002 and had this to say: "I was involved from the beginning, and it's just a different band now. I left around the same time that Ray did. What I really liked in the beginning was that nobody really said who was in the band, it was something done purely out of fun, and it didn't take itself too seriously. It ruffled a lot of people's feathers too, so it was all really positive. At that time, Mexico didn't really have death metal bands, and it was great to be involved in something that was interesting on so many levels. I think the way the band turned — I can't stop other band members from giving their names and saying who they are — it changes the focus of the whole thing, and it becomes just a typical rock band that really doesn't have any meaning that interests me." H IS FOR JON HUDSON In 1993 Bill produced a demo for Jon Hudson’s band Systems Collapse. A year later Bill sent Jon the King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime demos and Jon recorded some ideas. After FNM chose to work with Trey Spruance Jon landed a job as head guitar tech for Monster Magnet. In 1996 when FNM were again in need of a guitarist, Bill approached Jon for a second time. There was no audition and Jon started to work with Bill straight away. Jon contributed a lot of ideas that made it onto Album Of The Year, including Stripsearch and Ashes To Ashes. I IS FOR INTRODUCE YOURSELF Faith No More released their second album on April 23rd 1987. Ahead of it's time and reinventing keyboard driven guitar music with genre shifting complexity. This record forced the music industry and press to think up a completely new class to describe it - coining the phrase 'funk metal'. For fans it is the foundation of FNM's sound - a raw punk and funk energy that would be polished and expanded over the band's next five albums. The album has all the musical ingredients which create that familiar FNM noise however it is Bill that shines above the rest. The song's are driven by his trademark bass grunts and grooves. J IS FOR EPSEN J JORGENSEN Espen J. Jörgensen is a Norwegian filmmaker and musician who has collaborated with Bill on several projects. Bill was mixing a Kultur Shock record in Oslo when the two met and Jörgensen went on the direct videos for other Koolarrow artists including German metal band Harmful's Elaine (featuring Bill on guitar). Bill composed the soundtrack to Jörgensen's comic book documentary film The Sequential Art released in 2012. A year later the two released an EP of experimental hip hop sounds called Fugly. K IS FOR KOOLARROW After FNM had parted ways in 1998 Bill became disillusioned with being part of a band, he concentrated on music production and in 1999 founded his own label Koolarrow Records. Koolarrow specialises in international non English speaking music. Bill himself has recorded and produced many of the records released also occasionally lends his bass playing skills. Not only are many international cultures represented on KA but also varied genres, for example: the Chilean hip hop of Como Asesinar a Felipes, Bosnian pop outfit Dubioza kolektiv and the hardcore metal of US based Flattbush. L IS FOR LOYOLA HIGH Bill and Roddy Bottum met in 1972 when they were both aged nine. The pair were classmates at St Brendan Elementary School, and were in the same Boy Scout troop. Their Catholic education continued at Jesuit Loyola High School where they were taught together by nuns. "Everything else was extremely conservative about them, except they wouldn’t wear the habits. They might as well have. They were sadistic; they were particularly intense and would create in our class a jailhouse mentality where we were the inmates and we stuck together. We learned to do things clandestinely. We had these little acts of rebellion." - Bill M IS FOR MAUSOLEUM OF IMPERFECTION Mausoleum of Imperfection is a collection of picturesque and satirical portraits by the Balkan artist Slavko Krunić. Bill contributes to the book with accompanying stories inspired by Krunić’s work. "This is something I’ve never done before, or even considered, but decided to do my best and channel some of what his paintings were telling me. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that I even did it." - Bill N IS FOR NAKED IN FRONT OF MY COMPUTER Bill recognised the advantages of using computer technology in music during the mixing of Album Of The Year. "Until now we every time we did an album...we recorded that on tape and mixed it then..roli changed our point of view. he copied all the stuff to the computer and we started to edit it then. we didn't do to much of that...we just really fucked up one song in the computer. most we did were little things that really improved much. and Roli also mixed the album and his extreme mixing style was really good for us." - Bill "I've done a lot of interviews where they'll ask how I wrote a song, and I'll say on a computer. 'No way!' They just can't believe that our band would do stuff on a computer." - Bill O IS FOR DIRTY O’KEEFFE Dirty O’Keeffe is a band featuring: Christian Martucci from Stone Sour (Guitar, vocals), Lagwagon’s Dave Raun (drums), Steve Shepard from Trash n Privilege (guitar) and Bill on bass. The collaboration was the brainchild of Raun to help out of work stage crews impacted by covid-19. The first song Brick or Bullet was released in February 2021. P IS FOR PRODUCER Bill first received production credits on Brujeria's 1990 EP ¡Demoniaco!, and then went on to produce other music for Alternative Tentacles. He practiced his production skills on a selection of B-sides from King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime which were recorded in his basement. In the same basement Bill produced Faith No More's sixth record Album Of The Year with guidance from Young God’s Roli Mosimann. He returned to the mixing desk in 2015, this time with a little help from Matt Wallace to co-produce Faith No More's comeback album Sol Invictus. Since then Bill has handled the production of many records for his own label including bands such as Talking Book, Kultur Shock, La Plebe, Como Asesinar a Felipes, Flattbush, Naive and more. Other bands he has worked with are CMX, Beatsteaks, Harmful and Elvis Jackson. Q IS FOR CITY OF QUARTZ In 2012 the Danish/American composer, producer and musician Mads Heldtberg released an instrumental album called City Of Quartz under the name House Of Hayduk. This abstract soundscape featured Bill, experimental drummer Charles Hayward, BJ Miller, Dean Hurley (musical producer of David Lynch), Timba Harris (Estradasphere), Anders Trentemøller and Peter Peter. Heldtberg was the guitarist with Danish metal outfit Düreforsög who released two albums on Koolarrow Records. R IS FOR ROCKABUL RocKabul is a documentary film which follows the story of District Unknown, Afghanistan’s first and only heavy metal band against the backdrop of war and Islamic terror. Produced between 2009 and 2016 by Australian filmmaker Travis Beard and Executive Producer Bill Gould. “Well, to me they’re a band that’s very naive, very innocent and very rough. But, if you consider that when they started out they didn’t even know they had to tune a guitar, I give them a pass, they get an A+ for effort. There’s kind of a fearlessness to their music-making, and that coupled with the innocence really appealed to me.” - Bill S IS FOR SHANDI'S ADDICTION Shandi's Addiction was a short lived supergroup who recorded a cover version of Calling Dr. Love for a Kiss My Ass tribute album. Bill played and produced the song with Tom Morello and Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine) on guitar and drums, and Maynard James Keenan (Tool) on vocals. T IS FOR TALKING BOOK Talking Book is an instrumental soundscape project featuring Bill, conceptual artist Jared Blum and Dominic Cramp of Gigante Sound. They have released two records, the first is dark and atmospheric yet still has an underlying warmth with rich textures and distinctive melodies. The second explores abstract foreboding sounds deeper, giving the listener an otherworldly experience. U IS FOR UNDERGROUND EMPIRE During the early nineties Faith No More’s preferred technique for evading the music press was to talk about anything except the music. This led to interesting and sometimes troublesome conversations involving Milli Vanilli, Bjork, Guns N Roses and more. Whereas Mike Patton would confuse journalists with talk of masturbation, Bill would often discuss murderers and the criminal underworld. Here are a few quotes from a 1989 Kerrang! interview with Steffan Chirazi. "I like to read a lot actually, that's correct, and my main obsession right now is with organised crime, arms trading and drug smuggling. I've read several books on these topics, one James Mills called 'The Underground Empire' which is the best of the lot. There's another called 'The Cocaine Wars' about the Triads in Hong Kong, and it talks about getting into heroin smuggling techniques, bribery at a government level. Also there's a book called 'Manhunt' which I'm really into, it's about an ex-CIA guy who sold stuff to the Libyans. Those kinda books really get me off." "I'm very interested in murderers, but I'm more interested in organised crime. The murderer is fascinating because he's irrational but there's really no monetary value in becoming a mass murderer and many of them don't have much money— so there's very little chance of elaborate means of escape through political channels. I'm much more interested in guys like this dealer in Mexico known as 'Choci-loco' which means 'crazy pig'. This guy has millions of dollars and is a mass murderer too. Once he got a guy, cut him up little by little so he wouldn't die too fast and fed, pieces of his fat to this pack of dogs to show he was slowly killing the guy whilst he was alive. Cochi-Loco is still alive and has not been arrested. Those type of murders fascinate me more." V IS FOR V V is the fifth (v) album by Chilean hip hop outfit Como Asesinar a Felipes. This and the band's seventh album Elipse were produced and mixed by Bill and were recorded at Bill's own Estudios Koolarrow in Oakland. Bill went on the mix the next two CAF records and in 2018 joined them on tour. W IS FOR WAYNE KRAMER In May 2018 Wayne Kramer, the original guitarist from Michigan rockers MC5, announced the MC50 tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kick Out the Jams. The all-star line-up included Soundgarden's Kim Thayil on guitar, Fugazi's Brendan Canty on drums and Bill on bass. The band toured the world for two years. X IS XTC When Bill is asked to list his early influences he often refers to his discovery of punk at the age of 15. The Sex Pistols, The Germs and English new wave post-punkers XTC are often mentioned when describing Bill’s first band The Animated. This featured his Boy Scout group friends, Mark Stewart (guitar), Paul Wimms (vocals/guitar) and Kevin Morgan (drums). Chuck Mosley also lived in the same neighbourhood and would often play keyboards with them. The Animated released a four track EP in 1981, recorded in Silver Lake. "I also learned about bands like The Fall, Pop Group, XTC, Joy Division from them [The Animated] ; to look back on it now, they probably saved my (musical) life! Meanwhile, I got into more aggressive punk stuff too, maybe a bit more than them, but it created an interesting dynamic that made the music part Buzzcocks, part XTC, part "I don't know what". - Bill Y IS FOR YEBIGA "Not a lot of people know this, but from decades of touring and travelling the Balkans I have become very attached to a popular spirit called rakija. It's been made for centuries in the area but it seems that not many people in the US know what it is; and if they do, they seem to only be familiar with the nasty stuff." - Bill Yebiga is a fruit brandy or rakija created by Bill, brewed in Serbia and imported to the U.S. Rakija is an important part of Southeast European culture. Drunk during religious ceremonies, weddings and funerals. When drinking "for the soul" of the deceased, one spills some rakija on the ground, saying "For the peaceful rest of the soul", before drinking the rest. Z IS FOR ZON Bill has been playing the same Zon Sonus bass since 1992 and it is partly this make and model of instrument that gives him his distinctive sound. In 2015 Zon released the Sonus BG4 Billy Gould Signature Bass which was designed in collaboration with Bill. "...the most distinguishing feature of the BG4 is the on-board, touch-sensitive, distortion circuit, designed for this bass by Roy Zichri of Greenhouse Effects. When engaged, this circuit gives a grit and edge to the tone of the bass providing Bill’s distinctive sound. The BG4 is the first bass on the market to incorporate this feature." You can pick up a Bill Gould guitar for around $35oo!! Happy birthday Bill!