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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!

The second Faith No More record and the final to feature Chuck Mosley on vocals was released thirty seven years ago on April 23rd 1987. "....A colossal, oppressive and obsessively violent rock noise. That's intimidating and disturbing in the extreme..." - Melody Maker "A tremendous piece of work, unpredictable, explosive and unclassible." - The Real Story Voted as one of Sounds Magazine's most important albums of the year in 1987 and considered an inspiring masterpiece by many... Introduce Yourself was released thirty three years ago. Recorded over two weeks at Studio D in Sausalito California, it was produced by FNM and Matt Wallace - while Steve Berlin (of Los Lobos) was drafted in to supervise. Ahead of it's time - reinventing keyboard driven guitar music - with genre shifting complexity, the 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, raw punk and funk energy that would be polished and expanded over the band's next five albums. Fans of the album include Robert Plant, James Hetfield, members of Korn. Press Photo David Wilds Press Release FAITH NO MORE is not to be confused with faithless. This iconoclastic quintet believes in just about anything. INTRODUCE YOURSELF is a demonstration in all that is forsaken. Chaotic power is infused with an emotional undercurrent that gloriously crests and mercilessly crashes. INTRODUCE YOURSELF is a dare made with two clenched fists. FAITH NO MORE was christened in 1982 and managed to operate from a San Francisco / Los Angeles base. Singer Chuck Mosley was anchored in Los Angeles and would commute to and from San Francisco, where the other prophets resided. In December of '85, FNM recorded their first LP for Mordam records. An obligatory tour followed and they returned after spreading their cacophonous beliefs across the U.S. The hardships of travelling this expansive continent in a '66 Dodge and stolen Jartran trailer is what they endured to establish their name on college radio and dance charts. Mission accomplished. FNM converted a few folk with the tune "WE CARE A LOT". With its pounding backbeat and unforgettable chorus, "WE CARE A LOT", displays cynical naivety using haughty lyrics and edgy bump and grind playfulness. It was re-recorded for INTRODUCE YOURSELF, with updated lyrics that address today's pressing social issues. Taking their dance antics into a rapturous philosophy is "ANNE'S SONG", which holds a solid bass groove while it bobs and weaves through lacerating drum punctuations as if crossing a mined field. The songs "SPIRIT" and "DEATH MARCH" obliterate notions of naivety and cast a melancholy shadow around FNM's confrontational perseverance. INTRODUCE YOURSELF leaves no room for passivity. Credit the fact that this contemptuous posse have very different and varied histories. Keyboardist, Roddy Bottum, joined FNM after 10 years of classical piano training. Drummer, Michael Bordin preferred the tribal, primitive rhythms and was studying African drumming when he was recruited. Guitarist, Jim Martin, enlisted after a bout with Vicious Hatred, a San Francisco metal band. Singer Chuck Mosley, grew up listening to Motown and was inspired by Devo. Billy Gould had been playing in a band with Chuck and cites the Sex Pistols and Germs as his main role models. These volatile influences assail each song, affirming FNM as the sonic touchstone for each individual member. INTRODUCE YOURSELF is a record that bridges the extremes. It is the acknowledgement and unification of everything between heaven and hell. Witness the riveting alchemy FNM possesses on INTRODUCE YOURSELF. Reviews Sounds | 03.10.1987 | ★★★★★ Neil Perry FAITH NO More hail from California. Their members include a classically trained pianist, a guitarist who served time in an obscure San Francisco metal band called Vicious Hatred and a drummer who was studying African rhythms when Faith No More recruited him. The result is as powerful and as full of nuance as you could possibly hope for. 'Introduce Yourself', the band's second album, is chiefly concerned with extremes; emotional, lyrical and spiritual. It combines metal thunder and hardcore rap and dance floor polish and, believe me, it moves. Hell, even Metallica wear their t-shirts, and there's a band who appreciate the finer points of punishing musical power. From the blend of 'Chinese Arithmetic' - twangy funk and total onslaught - to the mutated hip hop of 'We Care A Lot' ("It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it") FNM make a type of music that escapes any of our beloved little boxes. Their words are mostly personal and painful, coming to terms with all sorts of situations, and are backed by some of the most vengeful guitar and drum attacks to have made it onto vinyl this year. With 'The Crab Song', FNM almost boil over ("love. It hurts, it kills, like a motherfucker. Like a sonofabitch") yet this is nothing compared to the two tracks that follow (and close the record), the freedom charge of 'Blood' and the punkish fury of 'Spirit'. Enough. Faith No More say "KICK and SCREAM!" I say buy this record. Sounds | 1987 Steffan Chirazi BITTERNESS. ALCOHOL. Skate-boarding. Anger. Jim Martin (guitar), Bill Gould (bass), Mike Bordin (drums), Chuck Mosley (vocals), Roddy Bottum (keyboards). We're Playin' a little game of 'association' here, and all the above have one common, binding link... the Faith. Oh I know that you lot don't know what the bloody hell this is all about, but believe me I ain't religious, it's obsessive and extremely caustic. Each is a vital component of one of the best oiled new cogs on the big new music wheel. Introduce yourself... Faith No More. Now I don't as a rule push my luck with employers, but when Boss Banon murmured something to me about not being too sure about his FNM pre-release tape of the spanking debut LP 'Introduce Yourself', things had to be said. "Don't be so damn stupid man," I thundered, eyes bulging down the fragile transatlantic line, "put the bloody thing back on now and listen to it loud and stop being so .. .so.. .so measly!" The guitar. A grinding weapon, a swirling mass of six-string aggression, signs of the Sabbath creeping in, yet not without a small dash of the mighty Metallica here and there. But as if to contradict that, within those very same grooves be the most haunting, melodic and poignant keyboards. Add to it all a murderously solid rhythm and a voice that could become one of 1987's great wailing larynx's and you have here a band that are certain to interest everyone from mincing wimpos to stomping death thrashers from hell. " Washington Boulevard, East Bound....33, can I get a transfer man? 95 cents fuck you I'll skate to the beach. And I'll look better getting there." The start to the song 'Death March', complete with Martin and Bordin beating bongos behind Chuck's melancholic tale of woe in LA. Faith No More believe in themselves, they know it's tough, but they will tour the USA for three months in a hire truck to get there. That's why they are enjoying a sudden delayed surge of interest in the USA. The albums already been our for some three months there. Here in Blighty, London records have only just released the aforementioned LP. But with FNM being new to Europe, I guess you wanna understand just where the faith is coming from. Let's start in LA 1980 with Chuck Mosley and Bill Gould. Both were on the LA circuit, both in an LA band looking for the breakthrough. Chuck was always going to be in a band. He too was in LA, and having sober school days with Fishbone and played in Alice Cooper's Hollywood Vampires baseball team, t'was inevitable that he would join up with Bill and look for that magic mix. Gould had gone to catholic and grammar school with Roddy Bottum, and Bottum had trained as a classical pianist....the third member was there. Mike Bordin was plucked from Berkeley University, where he was studying the arts of African rhythms among other things. Add a guitarist to this lot, and you have the first solid incarnation of FNM, a band based in LA and SF. The guitarist at the time was not working out too well. Cliff Burton (late Metallica bassist), a long time pal of Bordin's and Jim Martin, repeatedly suggested that if they were unhappy they should try Jim. Everyone knew weirdo Jim. Jim the strange. Jim the erratic. Him the brilliant malevolence behind Bay Area punishers Vicious Hatred. And one day Cliff's advice was taken, Bordin was reunited with his old pal and the real missing ingredient joined the melting pot. The Faith as we know it today was born. The heavy gigging started in earnest, FNM finding big college radio interest throughout the USA. They were signed by SF indie Mordam Records and released a self titled debut effort done on minimal budget, which received wide acclaim from the underground. The States and it's various piss hole clubs were seen from two transit vans, while FNM's underground following grew and grew via the performances. sometimes in places akin to broom cupboards. Faith No More hit college 'God' status for life, weaseled into dance charts and hooked Metal fans with their blatant volume and crashing rhythms. "I'VE ALWAYS really been my African beats and styles for their intensity," explains Mike Bordin, "and slowly I think the other guys got to see that there's a lotta power in that style. Bill's picked it up too, and it certainly makes for a stronger song." Bordin further states the advantage of having Martin, a guitarist who could become some sort of perverse 'axe hero'. "Visually we just do our own thing, we don't ever try and rehearse. And before anyone asks us about our hair (Bordin and Bottum have big, puffy dreaded lumps of hair), it's like that 'cause we want it like that. It's just us, not a 'band look' or anything pussy like that. We do things for us, and I guess that's the bottom line." It is a recent development that has seen the bigger boys leap for the Faith. Bob Biggs, president of Slash Records (the label for Los Lobos, and a Warner Bros affiliate) took a huge liking to the death-charged, bombastic power of FNM, and signed them quickly. He gave them a budget, had Lobos' Steve Berlin co-produce, and got a video on MTV for the first US single. 'We Care A Lot'. BIGGS, the man behind much of the early LA punk scene, has openly declared his faith in Faith, and London Records snapped them up for European distribution. The latest word is that Warner Bros might very well take Faith all to themselves. The final icing? The interest of Quiet Riot manager Warren Entner, who has just undertaken officially management duties. Moreover, FNM aren't about subtlety. "Subtlety is for old people," drawls Jim, "subtlety is for people who blow their noses into handkerchiefs in the bathroom. We're not subtlety 'cause we blow our noses through OUT mouths onto the sidewalk. No way are we in with that subtlety shit. The record company mentioned that our record had to have a subtle sleeve, so that what I said back. I'm doing the next sleeve though." If you see a guy with a bottle in a brown paper bag, a pencil and sketch pad, it's Jim Martin. If you see an example of human combustion in front of you, chances are that person was listening to FNM. They tour Britain soon: the feeling live is just as painful but much more pleasurable. Introduce Yourself is the next big thing early. Classic Rock | January 2017 Rap, heavy metal, post-punk, new wave and funk. Somehow, someway, Faith No More made sense of these five tricky musical ingredients on their second album, Introduce Yourself. While quite a few alt rock bands of the same era were starting to lean - albeit cautiously - towards the 'rockier' side of things, FNM were one of the first bands of the genre to feature unapologetic Sabbath-style guitar riffing, from the great Big Sick Ugly Jim Martin. A re-recording of the title track of their debut album, We Care A Lot, earned FNM their first bit of radio/MTV play, the title track was their most explosive yet, while Martin's guitar was front and centre on The Crab Song. Add singer Chuck Mosley's on-key/off-key vocals to the mix and you had a daring sound unlike anything else circa 1987.

On April 18th 1988 Faith No More released their second single Anne's Song . The song featured on their second album Introduce Yourself . 'A dancing 12 inches of pure abnormality that rips around the room accompanied by one of the finest voices ever to come out of a broken vocal pipe. It just bludgeons its way along hitting everything form its path and grinning inanely while doing so. One day all absurdities will be made this way. Single of the week. Brilliant.' Sounds 1988 The lyrics to Anne's Song stand out on Introduce Yourself due to their first person setting and autobiographical content. Written by Chuck Mosley with a little help from Roddy Bottum they tell the story of Anne ......' Anne, dagnabbit, island princess...' But who is Anne? We asked this question before and Chuck enlightened us. "Anne's song was quite simply, a pep talk that i got from my friend Anne, when I was down in the dumps about not getting along, or seeing eye to eye with my band mates at the time. It's also an introduction to all of our friends and family in New York, an epiphany about making the best of any situation, and appreciating what you have. I could be wrong, but I think that if I had applied the advice to my situation better at the time, things might have turned out different, but, no regrets..." Who better to discuss the lyrics to this song with than the subject, Chuck's dear friend Anne D'Agnillo . How far back do you and Chuck go? How did you meet? Chuck and I go back to 1979..We met while working together at the NUART Theater, a revival house type of movie theater. Did Chuck tell you he was writing a song about you? No, Chuck never told me he was writing a song about me. I heard it first after it was done and dusted. It was an incredible and surreal experience hearing it the first time, on a car tape deck.... trying to catch the lyrics that sounded already so familiar.... Like "....do whatever the hell you want to do. Now is the time when you can do anything. Everything you do, anything, it will still turn out great. You've got the world at your feet." Did he use artistic licence or are these words of advice you uttered to Chuck? Hahaha - Chuck did not use artistic license with those lyrics! That is the advice I give most often, to this day, to anyone who will listen. How did Johnny, Vinnie, Lucy, her boyfriend and Jamilia feel about being made famous by FNM? Everyone in the song basically just jumped into it for Chuck! If it worked for Chuck, we were in. We were thinking of keeping Chuck famous..... Did you have the hots for Ricky? I still have the hots for Ricky- that’s my husband’s name! You are of course in the video, where was the party shot? Only half the video was shot in my apt. Only Chuck from the band was in the part filmed here. There is also Vinny, Jon E Edwards, Clara Pollini, Leo Klein, Toots and Stan, Judy and Jimmy, Lucia ( Lucy), and Subee..... The song was rarely (if ever) performed by Mike Patton, it is Chuck's song as well as Anne's. How did it feel seeing him perform it with FNM in 2016? I really wish I had been there in 2016. I love the version. It was an honor to hear it and feel the glow.... We all miss him. What do miss most about Chuck? What I miss the most is his unconditional love.... he was a very loyal friend for almost 40 years. And I miss the inside jokes, the nicknames we would assign people, the mean girls moments. Hehehe.....

WADE WORTHINGTON Founder and original keyboard player/backing vocalist with Faith No Man, who became Faith No More, 1979-1983 Metal Hammer | 5 Mar 2026 “My first band was The Spectators, but that fell apart and then there was Sharp Young Men, which then became Faith No Man. I had this ad up in the local record store in Berkeley [in the Bay Area], and the first person to answer was [bassist] Bill Gould. We’d been at a frat party and seen [drummer] Mike Bordin play. We ended up at his family home. In the hallway there was a picture of him with this huge afro, and I think that’s why he got nicknamed Puffy at some later date. “Bill got us a show at a club called Frenchy’s in the adjacent town of Hayward. I couldn’t hold a tune but I would sort of scream. We recorded a demo [as Sharp Young Men] at [future FNM producer] Matt Wallace’s garage at his parents’ house. That led to more gigs – I remember one show that was like an art gallery with a trapdoor and a ladder that was a deathtrap to get your gear down. We were standing outside, and these kids jumped out of a low-riding car and started attacking Mike. We jumped in the van and ran a red light and drove to Bill and Roddy’s [Bottum, future FNM keyboardist] apartment, which might have been Courtney Love’s place as well at that time. “I was hoping to hide my shyness in my performances, but I didn’t like what I saw and I didn’t like my singing. I was trying to graduate and I wanted to do this trip with my sister, riding round Ireland on bikes, so I apologised and told them I was leaving. I let them use my garage while I was away and even let Roddy, who didn’t have a keyboard at that time, use mine. “We did this show at this club called The Sound Of Music in San Francisco, and I played half the set then passed the baton to Roddy. I really thought they were going nowhere. I remember seeing Bill some time later and he took me to his rooms. There’s a dead rat hanging in my face, a guy in a loincloth and turban playing a flute in the corner and this lady, belly dancing topless. “In the 90s I totally tuned out. I was working at a frame shop and talking about bands I’d been in, and mentioned Faith No Man. They said, ‘You mean Faith No More?’ I had no idea that they were popular. That was a big shock. I probably had regrets. Everybody wants to be famous but I’m very grateful to have had those experiences and I’m really happy for them.”

The Mike Patton and Avett Brothers collaboration kicked off their eighteen date North American Tour yesterday (April 10) in Lousiville, Kentucky. The setlist included original songs from the AVTT/PTTN album but also some covers. The group played a great rendition of the classic Commodores song Easy (of course made extra special by Faith No More ), a version of Mr. Bungle 's Retrovertigo , a full band cover of Digging The Grave and Patton dueted with piano on Ashes To Ashes.

On April 3rd 1993 Faith No More released their four track EP Songs To Make Love To . The maxi-single includes the cooler version remix of Easy which adds a horn section (Roddy Bottum sample patch), Das Schutzenfest , Midnight Cowboy and the band's cover of the Dead Kennedy's classic Let's Lynch The Landlord . Metal Hammer | April 1993 Faith No More have always been an odd bunch and this EP confirms that! They have already released their smooth version of the Commodores classic Easy on single yet here it again accompanied by a couple of strange covers. Midnight Cowboy movie theme (taken from their truly bonkers but brilliant album Angel Dust) and the Dead Kennedys punk out song Let's Lynch The Landlord. The most zany track is a oompah ditty called Das Schutzenfest complete with Mike Patton singing in German! If you like your music with a little madness go buy it, but if you are still clinging on the metal version of FNM, don't.

It's been thirty one years since Faith No More released their fifth studio album King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime . We are celebrating this momentous anniversary with an A to Z . A is for Alphaville Some of the lyrics from the fifth track on the record, Star AD , also appear in dialogue from the 1965 French film Alphaville directed by Jean-Luc Godard . 'When you die...You'll become something worse than dead.....You'll be become a Legend'. A wonderful critique on the trappings of fame and the narcissistic behaviour of particular rock stars . B is for Bearsville Faith No More chose a change of scenery to record King For A Day... The band retreated to Bearsville studios, an isolated live-in facility near Woodstock in upstate New York. Some former residents were: Meatloaf, The Isley Brothers, REM, Fear Factory and Jeff Buckley. "Oh my God, kids, there's not much to do out there in Bearsville, nothing with a capital 'N'! It'd be Saturday night and we'd hear the crickets chirping in the woods. The most entertaining thing that happened to me was I caught pneumonia, which kept me from being stir-crazy for about a week. The sickness debilitated me to the point where I lost my cabin fever!” – Bill 1995 | Kerrang! C is for Caca Volante Windows 95 and Internet Explorer were introduced in 1995 revolutionising the art of web surfing - however slowly compared to today's technology. Faith No More’s first online fan page was launched in the same year by Andy Couch who to this day is still involved with FNM’s online content. Fan friendly tech nerd Bill Gould embraced Caca Volante ’s content of facts, photos and screensavers which brought fans together in the first community. "The precursor for CV was “The UnOfficial Faith No More Page.” and I put it up in Nov. 1994. Around the same time Hal Turner and Marc Schoenen created a mailing list, which they called “Caca Volante.” They emailed me through my website to tell me about the mailing list. In early 1995, with their blessing, I renamed my site. The name itself was coined by Jai Young Kim." - Andy Couch 2025 D is for Dean Menta Dean replaced Trey Spruance after only four months as FNM's guitar player. Dean had been Roddy Bottum 's keyboard tech in 1992 and was enlisted by the band to tour KFAD/FFAL . Dean had previously been in the San Francisco-based alternative rock band DUH which also featured vocalist Greg Werckman - who would later co-found Ipecac Recordings with Mike Patton . "I initially started working with Faith No More on the crew during the Angel Dust tour. I was doing computer consultancy with regards to music software programs. What I basically did, and still do, are all sorts of sequencing and hard disk recording stuff. Roddy got my name and number from somewhere, so I started hooking up with him every so often trying to teach him more about computers and then I went on tour with him. I guess he'd never had a roadie before, he and Billy used to share the same guy, but on the Guns N' Roses tour they wanted a separate person for each job. I'd never done keyboards before, never been on the road, had no prior experience of bands at that level." - Dean 1995 | Hot Metal E is for Eric Drooker New York artist Eric Drooker provided the album and singles cover art. The image of a subway police officer desperately hanging onto a snarling dog first appeared in the graphic novel Flood! | A novel in pictures released in 1992. "The subway, to me, represents the unconscious state of the masses, who race through underground tunnels, speeding backward and forward in time." - Drooker 2013 "We were all thinking about album design and this photo really stood out to us as something that paired well with what we were trying to achieve with our music." - Bill 2016 | fnmfollowers Eric Drooker 1992 F is for Full Metal Jacket 'First to go last to know - We will defend to the death your right to be misinformed' . The title of track 13 appears on a banner in the Stanley Kubrick movie Full Metal Jacket. Although we have no evidence that Patton lifted the song title from the movie, we do know that he is a Kubrick fan and film buff so it's highly likely. G is for Guitarists... At the end 0f 1993 after eleven years Jim Martin and FNM parted ways and the hunt was on for a new guitar player. Justin Broadrick from Godflesh and Ralph Spight from Victims Family were both considered. As was Killing Joke 's Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker. "He’s a great guitar player. One of the best I’ve ever seen. He would have been amazing, but he is so distinctive. I think he would have rendered us into a Killing Joke cover band." – Bill 2015 | Small Victories by Adrian Harte Although more obviously known for the Album Of The Year  era in FNM history, Jon Hudso n was also considered to replace Big Jim in 1994. His own band Systems Collapse  was no more so Jon and Bill worked on some ideas together. Ultimately the band opted for Trey Spruance .  "I wasn’t surprised when they picked Trey. He and Patton had played together since they were kids, so he was a known quantity, and he was obviously very talented. It seemed like the perfect match to me."  - Jon 2015 | Small Victories by Adrian Harte H is for Hey Hey It's Saturday! Faith No More’s TV appearances are the best - great quality footage and sound but with the passion of a live show. During the KFAD/FFAL tour FNM appeared on MTV, The Word, The Jon Stewart Show, Conan and Top of the pops… twice! In Australia the band performed Evidence live on Hey Hey It’s Saturday - Patton’s pitch perfect falsetto, Roddy’s painted nails and Bill’s double bass made for unmissable watching. I is for I Started A Joke FNM have always picked some rather eccentric songs to cover and the b-sides from King For A Day... were recorded sometime after the sessions at Bearsville in Bill's home studio featuring Dean on guitar. The band's cover of the Bee Gees classic I Started A Joke was released after FNM split by the record company as a single in 1998, to promote the greatest hits album Who Cares A Lot? . "We were in this bar in Gwaum, god, it was so twisted! You see, Gwaum is like a rock in the middle of the ocean; they have like two million snakes per mile -- they have so many snakes that they have killed all the birds, they have no more birds in all of Gwaum. So, we're sitting in this bar and they have posters of hard-core porn videos all over the wall. It was a regular bar, and they had animal porn on the wall! And we're like, 'What the hell is this?!', and in the corner of the room they had this karaoke machine and they were all singing the words "I started a joke ..." and there was this bouncing ball so they could follow the words. The lyrics were so pathetic and depressing that we just said 'We have to do this song!' It's the most miserable song I ever heard in my life!' " - Bill 1995 | Livewire J is for Jai Young Kim Multi instrumentalist and producer found himself in Brilliant Studios SF during the mixing of KFAD/FFAL . He conducted the most revealing interview with members of the band, getting some real information on the songs and lyrics. Jai Kim would go on to produce the second Secret Chiefs 3 album and eventually join the band on keyboards and organ. JK: All right. "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies." RB: Angst-ridden. Good punctuation. Good definition and instruments for me. No keyboards. JK: So what'd you do on this song? RB: Just danced around. Moral support. TS: He wrote choreography for the rest of us as well. K is for 'Kill the body and the head will die...' The What A Day lyric 'Kill the body and the head will die', is a phrase that appears in Hunter S. Thompson 's 1971 novel Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas . Before he was Patton's manager Greg Werckman worked for an agency in NY representing lecturers, Thompson was one. ''He was an overrated asshole, in my opinion. Treated people very poorly and was out of his mind. He lost his creative talent many many years before his death. A sad man. I have many stories, but would rather not add to his myth.'' - Werckman 2019 | fnmfollowers L is for Loris Holland The spectacular song Just A Man featured real orchestral strings and a choir, it was Guyanese born composer Loris Holland who was behind the orchestration of these amazing accompaniments. Holland had previously worked on Jeff Buckley ’s album Grace . Onita Boone was one of the vocalists in the choir. "They were awesome! Nice guys. easy on the eyes and quite personable! I enjoyed them. They explained to us what they wanted and we did it. I don't remember the session being long. In fact, it was short and easy. We had a nice time. Everyone was happy and we had no idea who they were until much later. They were humble, down to earth guys!" - Onita 2013 | fnmfollowers M is for Marcus Raboy Faith No More first worked with music video director Marcus Raboy during the filming of Another Body Murdered . Raboy returned to direct the video clip for Digging The Grave a year later. The dark and mysterious scenes captured are reminiscent of a 1950s film noir crime thriller. The video showcased the band's fresh new look and sound. FNM stand out in his catalogue of film making credits as the only non rnb/pop act. N is for Nirvana It is often discussed whether the lyrics of Ricochet refer to the death of Kurt Cobain – the working title for the song was Nirvana and the words could certainly be compared to the circumstances of Cobain's suicide. Roddy was close to the singer and his wife Courtney Love and spent time with Kurt before his tragic passing. "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." O is for The Old Trout Following in tradition FNM began their album tour in the UK. On February 28th, the day Digging The Grave was released as a single, the band played a low-key date at The Old Trout in Windsor. Billing themselves as NEW FAT BASTARDS they performed to 200 people and introduced fans to new guitarist Dean Menta. This gig appeared at number 63 on Kerrang! Greatest Show of All Time in 1997. P is for Portishead Faith No More have added adlibs into there own songs during live performances since the days of Chuck Mosley , not to mention a huge catalogue of cover songs. Each era seems to have a different preferred song - during the KFAD/FFAL era the band opted for two! Firstly a slick rendition of Glorybox by UK trip-hoppers Portishead and the other was Zombie by Irish rockers The Cranberries . Q is for Quotes The band often say the most weird and wonderful things in the music press. Sometimes they can be poetic or even prophetic, mostly they are just puerile and sharp-witted. In February 1995 there was less talk of masturbation, turds and murder and more cynical discussion on the state of the business they were in. Patton spoke with NME and made a comment which sums up his approach to lyric writing perfectly. “I can’t actually write words before music. The words are the last thing, before the words I hear sounds. Sometimes the words have no connection to anything, they just have to fit the sound.” R is for Rent-a-car The narrow dirt roads which lead from civilization to Bearsville studios would be responsible for several car accidents involving members of the band. '...the two Mikes—Patton, who was driving, and Bordin—were involved in a serious smash in which their car flipped over. The driver of the other car was seriously injured. ‘I know it freaked Mike out a lot,’ says Bordin. ‘I feel bad for the guy who was in the car, and I feel bad for Mike for being behind the wheel.’ The band were subsequently banned from hiring cars from the only car hire company around.' - Small Victories by Adrian Harte S is for Spit! Faith No More ended their 1995 tour in South America, returning like heroes to Chile. On 8 September the band shared the stage with Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Megadeth at Monsters Of Rock Festival . The most amazing and unsanitary scenes were captured on film when the front rows of 50,000 strong crowd spat at Patton to show their appreciation. Instead of being repulsed Patton opened his mouth! "I remember all of us were really into the spit. That was a high energy show we gave them. It was September 11, so it was the anniversary of the coup. People were really jacked up, and we fed off of that. People liked to spit. We were totally fine with that. He [Patton] had no problem with that. He did what he had to do." - Bill 2014 | Small Victories by Adrian Harte T is for Trey Spruance The Mr Bungle guitarist joined the ranks of FNM and began writing with them 1994. His unique style and knowledge of different genres helped to create some truly remarkable music. Trey would also add keyboards and helped with string and vocal arrangements. Trey left the band after KFAD... was recorded and didn’t play the songs live until 2011 at the Maquinaria Festival in Chile - when the band treated the crowd by playing the album from beginning to end. "We knew we had songs that worked. We tried out a lot of guitarists and Trey definitely understands our language. He had his own very capable language and is able to lock into what we're thinking too. It's exciting to be able to finally get in and do the album we've been waiting to do all this time." “If anything, we did everything possible to convince ourselves that he wasn't the right guy. Patton had said that Trey was going to be our man, but he didn't even want to deal with the idea. He's known him for years and the last thing he wanted was to be in another band with him, but in the end we were hurting ourselves by avoiding him so hard. For a long time it was too obvious, and we were fighting the obvious - but there comes a time where you have to realise who the right guy for the job is." – Bill 1994 | Kerrang! U is for Ugly In The Morning Patton’s lyrics on KFAD/FFAL were often charged with menace and self loathing, and even in songs which suggest joy and elation it’s easy to find the undertone of despair . Patton’s technique of creating tragic characters to inhabit whilst telling his stories of banal themes is a work of genius. Whilst his contemporaries bleat on about love he continues to explore the darker side of the human condition - a hangover, narcissism, toilets! Doesn't matter how much you think Or the number of hairs in the sink I did it to myself again I know how piggy feels He starves without missing a meal V is for Velvet Hammer Mike Patton has had a romance with foreign languages for some time. It was during 1994 that he married an Italian and relocated to Bologna - his inspiration for an album of Italian pop music later called Mondo Cane . KFAD... saw Patton's first genuine bilingual flirtations, he recorded the song Evidence in both Spanish and Portuguese. The Latin flavoured song Caralho Voador , working title of Velvet Hammer , translates from Portuguese as 'Flying Dick' . During the middle section Patton sings in Portuguese which is roughly translated as:  'I can't drive... With my index finger... up my nose.' W is for Two Wallaces Matt Wallace , often considered as the George Martin of FNM, recorded and produced the first four Faith no more albums. His skills added to their distinctive sound, his touch on songs like We Care A Lot , Epic and Midlife Crisis helped in their success. However for KFAD/FFAL the band turned to producer Andy Wallace to take their music in a different direction. Andy had worked with some of the biggest names in rock and his style certainly suited the change in direction FNM had taken. "Everything that happened regarding the making of that album is part of the story. Working with Trey was very stimulating, things came together much more easily we were used to. Andy Wallace was the first producer we worked with outside of Matt, and his approach was definitely different, and we learned a lot from it. Then there’s Bearsville Studios — when I hear that album I still get mental images from recording at that place." - Bill 2016 | fnmfollowers “After Angel Dust, I felt like I had taken the band as far as I could. Maybe with a different producer, maybe they could go further. It was an act of love, for lack of a better phrase, where I just thought I wanted to let them run free.” – Matt Wallace 2015 | Small Victories X is for eXcrement lives forever... Track 6 on King For A Day... is the most metal the band get on the record, not too dissimilar from the repetitive beats of the We Care A Lot [1985] album. Cuckoo For Caca is a hideous masterpiece, on the surface the lyrics describe Patton's Angel Dust era shit eating hobby perfectly. However, poke a little deeper and it could be perceived as a metaphor for drug abuse. In 1995 Patton addressed the meaning while talking to NME in Venice: NME: "Would you call it a shit-eating manifesto?" Patton: "I really don't remember. If I could sit here and write the words out I might be able to remember." NME: A lyric sheet is laid before him. Patton: "it's just....shit. Shit is...shitty people, garbage, everything. What do you think it's about?" Y is for Yamaha In 1995 HM Magazine published an interview with Mike Bordin 's drum tech Feely . Feely had some cool stuff to say, and we all know being good gets you… "All the toms are birch, even the kick drum is birch. This creates a really dark sound, it's like swamp water. The snare is maple though, which has a clear, sharp sound, and when you put the two together, it's crystal clear, the sound cuts right through." "We took all the toms to a drum doctor to get the bearing edges made sharper. When they leave the factory, the edges are sometimes a little rounded. "Sharpening the edges creates less resonance. Mike hits them so hard and you don't want them ringing out for ages and ages. We try to create a sound that is deep enough to boom out heavily, but not one so low that it just gets lots in the mix." Z is for Absolute Zero Unbelievably this song did not make the album however it was available to fans on the b-side of Digging The Grave . It has to date only been played live once at Maquinaria festival in 2011.

Over a decade ago on March 23rd 2015 Faith No More released Superhero as the second single from Sol Invictus on 7” vinyl. 'Superhero chucks machine-gun drums, tightly coiled basslines, pianos and a widdling guitar into the crusty San Francisco quintet's arenas cement mixer. The pick of 47-year-old singer Mike Patton's growled lines is "Ain't no grave gonna keep this body down".' NME As American fireworks lit up the sky in celebration of Independence Day across the pond the UK lit up the sky with a different kind of firework for fans of FNM - two brand new songs! July 4th 2014, at British Summer Time festival in Hyde Park London, FNM were back after two year’s absence from the stage. Dressed as priests they walked out to Mike Oldfield ’s Exorcist Theme . The set compromised of a short greatest hits selection after which Mike Patton became possessed by the persona of Father Karras and threw holy water at the feverish crowd… ‘Power of Christ compels you! Power of Christ compels you! That's all I got. Your mother sucks cocks in hell!’ Faith No More then launched into the deep groove of Superhero for the very first time. 'On Super Hero, there are a lot more layers. It has a lot of energy; it's driving and forceful. To me, that's what Faith No More should sound like.' - Roddy Bottum | Oc Weekly | 2015 It wasn’t long before it was clear that FNM were in the studio and a new album was in the works. Four months later and FNM released Motherfucker , their first single in sixteen years, with a surprise close quarter performance at Amoeba Records in their own neighbourhood of San Francisco. One of the five songs played was Superhero . In January 2015 camp Faith No More announced Superhero would be their follow-up single, and in May their long-awaited seventh studio album Sol Invictus would be released. The studio version of Superhero was revealed on March 2nd via Marvel and the Radio 1 Rock Show . Bill Gould , spokesman for FNM, was interviewed by both. “‘Superhero’ actually just started from the sound of the song, where it has these pounding drums and… throbbing kind of pulse, and we just called it the ‘Superhero’ song. Because, a lot of the ways we write we visualize things,” Gould, a lifelong Silver Surfer fan, said. “While we write music we’re talking about chord changes and different things like that. What we do is we describe scenes together, and we can visualize the scene and the music kind of comes. “We kind of make movie scenes for movies that don’t exist,” added Gould. “‘Superhero’ was one of those where it was definitely a superhero comic. That was just the vibe of the song, and when [Faith No More singer] Mike [Patton] came to me writing words about it, we were already calling it ‘Superhero.’ So it’s kind of like in the DNA; it’s a comic strip.” The vinyl was scheduled for release on March 17th, however adverse weather meant production was postponed and the single was instead released on 23rd March, 2015. "It seems that crazy weather that hit the East coast the past few weeks, closed down the production plants for several days and delayed the Faith No More Superhero seven-inch just a bit. It will now be in stores on Monday March 23rd. We truly appreciate your support and understanding!" - Ipecac Recordings The song was mixed by Bill and Matt Wallace and mastered by Maor Applebaum . The B-side was the Battaglia remix by Alexander Hacke , also available as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of Sol Invictus. An unofficial SouthPark styled video was endorsed by FNM, directed by Rafael Barros.

New Improved Song was originally released on 7 inch vinyl which was free with issue 1574 of Sounds magazine on March 12 1988. The record also included songs by Jesus And Mary Chain, Head of David and The Godfathers. The song had appeared in set lists as early as 1986. The song was recorded at Studio D in Sausalito, California circa July 1986 during the Introduce Yourself sessions and produced by Matt Wallace. Chuck Mosley commented on the lyrics saying, 'Actions speak louder than words...that's what it means.' The music was later re-recorded with Mike Patton on vocals for The Real Thing with new lyrics and titled The Morning After . New Improved Song was included on the compilation CD The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection in 2009.

For Fans, Faith No More ’s live performance at the Brixton Academy stands as a landmark moment in the band's history. Released 35 years ago, the live album captured FNM at a the height of their commercial success. There are three occasions to celebrate this momentous show - the original show date of April 28th 1990, the release date of the You Fat Bastards VHS on August 2oth 1990, and on February 4th 1991 when Slash Records released the audio version. Brixton is a district of South London and place of significance in British history. It has seen much unrest over the years with several riots, in 1979 The Clash told us 'You can crush us. You can bruise us. But you'd have to answer to... the guns of Brixton' , it is the birthplace of David Bowie , and it is the spiritual home of Faith No More. "We’ve made fucked-up decisions our whole career. I think that’s why the English embraced us. It feels to me that the English love to champion fucked-up Americans." - Roddy 2015 In 1988 FNM first toured outside of the US with frontman Chuck Mosley . We Care A Lot had become an underground hit on UK college radio, so the band travelled to London to expose their unique brand of hippy rock on the Brits. The first venue the band played of their fourteen show tour was at Dingwalls in Camden on January 22nd. FNM's tour received such praise from the music press and adoration from the fans that they returned to the UK four months later. This was the beginning of a mutual bond which has lasted through their entire career. In 1989 Faith No More again graced the shores of England and Scotland for fourteen dates across the two countries. However it wasn't until 1990 that the UK became truly encapsulated with the band's music. The Epic Tour was possibly FNM's most hectic tour schedule ever with dates that lasted through January, February and April due to the unexpected success of The Real Thing . The Epic tour consisted of thirteen dates in Ireland, Scotland and England including a hysterical performance on Top of the Pops during which Mike Patton refused to mime the lyrics to From Out Of Nowhere . The band played Hammersmith Odeon on April 27th and Brixton Academy on April 28th, the second of which would be preserved for posterity on the You Fat Bastards live video and album. "Brixton was an afterthought in lots of ways," Faith No More's booking agent at the time Derek Kemp explains. "We had sold out the Astoria on the previous tour, so the next logical step was to play Hammersmith Odeon. I put the Odeon on sale, and it sold very quickly. I tried to get a second night there, couldn’t get the dates, so found out Brixton Academy was available, so put the band into there. At that time, the capacity for Hammersmith Odeon, because it was all seated then, was about 3,500, maybe just a little bit less, and the capacity of Brixton Academy was around about 5,000. In two nights, the band played to over 8,000 people in London alone. " - Small Victories : The True Story of Faith No More | Adrian Harte The music press spoke highly of the show: Whether or not you appreciate the vinyl, there's no denying Faith No More are one of the most compelling bands to hit the live circuit recently. Their ingenious hybrid of rock, rap, funk and the odd classical break is transformed into something magical on stage, while the crazy showmanship of singer Mike Patton — as unpredictable a character as former vocalist Chuck Mosley — makes the show visually as well as aurally exciting. Brixton was packed and heaving, but its all starting to look a little bit too easy. The 10-legged music monsters songs — including hits 'We Care A Lot', 'Epic' and 'From Out Of Nowhere' — are so strong that the band scarcely had to try and there was the sense of a mere run through. It was only the more offbeat moments — snatches of 'Pump Up The Jam' and 'Street Tuff', the reflective cabaret of 'Edge Of The World', and the stonking encore of Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' — that they really lit up. Faith No More need a break from touring before they become victims of their own success. Especially as, even on half power,they still blow the rest out of the water. - RIP Magazine EVER since "Walk This Way" blasted the divisions between rap and rock, many have sought to mix aggressive preaching with power chords. Much of the success of FNM's attempt at rap 'n' roll is down to the schizophrenic talents of Michael Patton. One minute, he's a black-sounding rapper, the next the bastard son of Axl Rose. The rest of the band look like cardboard cut-outs from a Seventies TV movie, and have one mission - to get as many Black Sabbath riffs into the show as possible. "We Care A Lot" teases the pogo hungry revellers with its stuttered rhythm and speed shifts. Patton flails around, adding new meaning to the phrase New Kids On The Block as he breaks into "The Right Stuff", leaving his Zappa clones bemused. The one song that sums up all that is special is "Epic". It fizzes and buzzes in rapturous splendour before blossoming into a killer chorus. It would be fair to say Faith No More are seriously demented. The twisted lyric of “Zombie Eaters” (a touching tale of a baby from hell) seems to fill them with glee, and they deliver a breathtaking performance that demands movement and sweat, at the very least. Curiously commercial, they seem to know how to lead you up the garden path, switching from blistering rock to soulful sensitivity with consummate ease. With "From Out Of Nowhere" snapping at the charts, FNM have crossed over from being backward Beastie Boys to mainstream rock gods. It's all the more weird then, to hear them give a lifelike rendition of 'The Commodores' "Easy", proving that they can turn their hands to any groove they choose. Very soon they could have the world at their feet. Expect them to stamp on it. - NME Slash Records began to pester FNM for a follow up record to The Real Thing in late 1990. But instead, to satisfy fans hunger for more, they released the You Fat Bastards VHS. And, due to its success Slash opted to release an audio version of the performance on February 4, 1991. The album was recorded by William Shapland and mixed by Matt Wallace but there were strange record company decisions made to restructure the set order and to leave out various songs. The addition of two tracks previously only available as b-sides, The Grade and The Cowboy Song , both recorded during the sessions for The Real Thing made it album a must have for fans. Last year Faith No More were practically a permanent feature on the U.K. live scene. At times it seemed that as soon as the lights went down on one show there wasn't even time to catch a quick pint before you were screaming for 'War Pigs' at their next. Their audiences were growing at an alarming rate-a couple of years ago their glory was to achieve to consecutive sell-out nights at the marquee. That would have been enough to keep a Cheshire Cat type grin upon their faces for a good month! But a year later that achievement paled before a list of dates that included The Astoria, Brixton Academy, Hammersmith Odeon and the Reading Festival. Popping back and forth across the Atlantic with alarming regularity, they journeyed much over the surface of Britain-wearing out a considerable amount of rubber In the process! And so it was deemed that the rest of '91 will be a Faith No More no more year. Too much touring of Britain. Well we suppose they deserve a break. But don't despair! To satisfy our hunger London have put out a mini live album. Recorded at Brixton Academy in April of last year it features eight live monsters. The CD version includes two extra tracks -'The Cowboy Song' and 'The Grade' which have never before been widely available. Of course no live album from FNM would be complete without their habitual encore and Black Sabbath original 'War Pigs'.It's here, planted firmly at the end of side one, bathing in all its glory. In fact the LP includes most of FNM's finest - 'The Real Thing', 'Epic', 'From Out Of Nowhere' and 'We Care A Lot'. Capturing their essential live sound to a tee, so very well that you just want to throw your body about with the sheer pleasure of it all. We're gonna place our ears between the speakers of two very powerful amps and blast ourselves 'till our heads explode! Then we're off to Faith No More heaven. See ya there! - Metal Hammer | February 1991 Faith No More’s live release from the Brixton Academy is more than a historical artifact. It’s a celebration of a band that pushed boundaries and connected deeply with their audience. The album’s enduring appeal lies in its authenticity and the raw power of the performance. As music fans continue to explore the roots of alternative and experimental rock, this live recording offers a clear example of how Faith No More helped shape the sound of a generation.

Watch the new video release from French musician and frontwoman of Savages Jehnny Beth . Look At Me features Mike Patton on vocals written and produced by Beth’s partner, Johnny Hostile .