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Before Tomahawk was Faith No More . Before Faith No More was Mr. Bungle . Before Mr. Bungle was... Gemini ! Eureka High is noted for its sports teams with students graduating to play for Cincinnati Bengals, San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. The faculty had great coaches including Mike Patton 's dad, Pat. The school also boasted a talented jazz band which included Trevor Dunn and Trey Spruance . Patton and his Mr. Bungle bandmates attended Eureka High, the largest high school in Humboldt County, from around 1979 to 1985. In their sophomore year Patton and Dunn formed a rock band called Gemini, which also included Kevin Lee McBride on drums, Earl McBride and Brett Davis on guitars. Footage of Gemini performing at the EHS 1984 talent show on March 6 gives an amazing view of Patton and Dunn's early musical prowess. In 1985 Gemini performed at the senior class night as described in the EHS 1985 yearbook. Gemini would go on to perform in Daly's Parking lot circa 1985 before the band broke up and Mr. Bungle was formed. Courtesy of Jardar @ Faith.noman.com

Faith No More 's version of the  Bee Gees  song  I Started A Joke  was released on October 26th 1998. The song first appeared on the B-side of the limited edition single release of  Digging The Grave  in 1995 and on a bonus CD available with the Australian version of  King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime  also in 1995.  It was recorded along with three more cover versions of other songs in  Bill Gould 's home studio and produced by Gould and  Dean Menta . These songs were the only studio recordings to feature Menta on guitar. I Started A Joke  was released by the record company as a single in 1998 from the greatest hits album  Who Cares A Lot?  released on November 24th, the year FNM split.  Most recently the song was available as part of Rhino's now-famous SIDE BY SIDE Series, pairing two artists with one classic song, pressed on mint green vinyl. The video was directed by Vito Rocco starring Martin Freeman in an early (pre Office / Hobbit) role and UK drag performer David Hoyle as the sensational karaoke singer. The video was released after FNM had split and was produced by the record company as part of the promotion for Who Care's A Lot , FNM had no input and Mike Patton does not star in the video contrary to some beliefs.  "The b-sides that we did were three cover songs that were actually recorded at my house. There's "The Joke" by the Bee Gees, there's a song by a band called The Brothers Four called "Greenfields", and "Spanish Eyes" by Al Martino! They all sound really good, I'm really into it! 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 The original Bee Gees song was from their 1968 album  Idea , which was released as a single in December of that year. According to  Robin Gibb , the melancholic melody of the song was inspired by the sounds on board an aeroplane. Bee Gees Anthology, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1991. "The melody to this one was heard aboard a British Airways Vickers Viscount about a hundred miles from Essen. It was one of those old four engine 'prop' jobs, that seemed to drone the passenger into a sort of hypnotic trance, only with this it was different. The droning, after a while, appeared to take the form of a tune, which mysteriously sounded like a church choir. So it was decided! We accosted the pilot, forced him to land in the nearest village and there; in a small pub, we finished the lyrics [with Barry]. Actually, it wasn't a village, it was the city, and it wasn't a pub, it was a hotel, and we didn't force the pilot to land in a field... but why ruin a perfectly good story?"

Faith No More 's version of the  Bee Gees  song  I Started A Joke  was released on October 26th 1998. The song first appeared on the B-side of the limited edition single release of  Digging The Grave  in 1995 and on a bonus CD available with the Australian version of  King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime  also in 1995.  It was recorded along with three more cover versions of other songs in  Bill Gould 's home studio and produced by Gould and  Dean Menta . These songs were the only studio recordings to feature Menta on guitar. I Started A Joke  was released by the record company as a single in 1998 from the greatest hits album  Who Cares A Lot?  released on November 24th, the year FNM split.  Most recently the song was available as part of Rhino's now-famous SIDE BY SIDE Series, pairing two artists with one classic song, pressed on mint green vinyl. The video was directed by Vito Rocco starring Martin Freeman in an early (pre Office / Hobbit) role and UK drag performer David Hoyle as the sensational karaoke singer. The video was released after FNM had split and was produced by the record company as part of the promotion for Who Care's A Lot , FNM had no input and Mike Patton does not star in the video contrary to some beliefs.  "The b-sides that we did were three cover songs that were actually recorded at my house. There's "The Joke" by the Bee Gees, there's a song by a band called The Brothers Four called "Greenfields", and "Spanish Eyes" by Al Martino! They all sound really good, I'm really into it! 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 The original Bee Gees song was from their 1968 album  Idea , which was released as a single in December of that year. According to  Robin Gibb , the melancholic melody of the song was inspired by the sounds on board an aeroplane. Bee Gees Anthology, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1991. "The melody to this one was heard aboard a British Airways Vickers Viscount about a hundred miles from Essen. It was one of those old four engine 'prop' jobs, that seemed to drone the passenger into a sort of hypnotic trance, only with this it was different. The droning, after a while, appeared to take the form of a tune, which mysteriously sounded like a church choir. So it was decided! We accosted the pilot, forced him to land in the nearest village and there; in a small pub, we finished the lyrics [with Barry]. Actually, it wasn't a village, it was the city, and it wasn't a pub, it was a hotel, and we didn't force the pilot to land in a field... but why ruin a perfectly good story?"

Faith No More 's version of the  Bee Gees  song  I Started A Joke  was released on October 26th 1998. The song first appeared on the B-side of the limited edition single release of  Digging The Grave  in 1995 and on a bonus CD available with the Australian version of  King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime  also in 1995.  It was recorded along with three more cover versions of other songs in  Bill Gould 's home studio and produced by Gould and  Dean Menta . These songs were the only studio recordings to feature Menta on guitar. I Started A Joke  was released by the record company as a single in 1998 from the greatest hits album  Who Cares A Lot?  released on November 24th, the year FNM split.  Most recently the song was available as part of Rhino's now-famous SIDE BY SIDE Series, pairing two artists with one classic song, pressed on mint green vinyl. The video was directed by Vito Rocco starring Martin Freeman in an early (pre Office / Hobbit) role and UK drag performer David Hoyle as the sensational karaoke singer. The video was released after FNM had split and was produced by the record company as part of the promotion for Who Care's A Lot , FNM had no input and Mike Patton does not star in the video contrary to some beliefs.  "The b-sides that we did were three cover songs that were actually recorded at my house. There's "The Joke" by the Bee Gees, there's a song by a band called The Brothers Four called "Greenfields", and "Spanish Eyes" by Al Martino! They all sound really good, I'm really into it! 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 The original Bee Gees song was from their 1968 album  Idea , which was released as a single in December of that year. According to  Robin Gibb , the melancholic melody of the song was inspired by the sounds on board an aeroplane. Bee Gees Anthology, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1991. "The melody to this one was heard aboard a British Airways Vickers Viscount about a hundred miles from Essen. It was one of those old four engine 'prop' jobs, that seemed to drone the passenger into a sort of hypnotic trance, only with this it was different. The droning, after a while, appeared to take the form of a tune, which mysteriously sounded like a church choir. So it was decided! We accosted the pilot, forced him to land in the nearest village and there; in a small pub, we finished the lyrics [with Barry]. Actually, it wasn't a village, it was the city, and it wasn't a pub, it was a hotel, and we didn't force the pilot to land in a field... but why ruin a perfectly good story?"

Royal Flush Mike Peake EVERY BAND goes through a crisis. Someone leaves, someone f**ks up, someone dies. Something happens to make the rest of the band wonder if it's worth carrying on. Faith No More thought about splitting up in 1993. They'd just finished a rock-till-ya-drop, not entirely pleasant world tour supporting their 'Angel Dust' LP. Four of the band were, to put bluntly, pig sick of the fifth man - Jim Martin - and keyboard player Roddy Bottum was going through his own private hell with a bunch of personal problems. So, band frontman Mike Patton, bassist Bill Gould and drummer Mike 'Puffy' Bordin talked about calling it a day. Those words - 'splitting' - were actually mentioned. After all, what lay ahead for the increasingly malcontent San Franciscan five-piece? Another f**king album. More touring, touring, touring. All this and the band were - to coin a phrase falling to pieces. What would have been easier than saying, 'f**k it. We've made some money, we've had some fun, let's lay this f**ker to rest'. Anything would have been easier. So Faith No More came close, very close, to splitting up back in 1993. What happened instead has been well documented. They ganged up on Jim Martin and kicked the beardy-weirdo axe god the hell out of the band. They insist it was the best thing that they've ever done. But since that fateful December '93 day when Jim was given the boot. Faith No More have been pretty cagey about his dismissal. They've never really opened up. Not until now... FAITH NO More formed in San Francisco in 1980 and fooled around with several singers (including, amazingly enough, Courtney Love) before settling on Chuck Mosley in 1983. Mosley left in 1988 and, after a brief stint with Reggae punksters Bad Brains, formed his own band, Cement. Mr Bungle Singer Mike Patton then joined Faith No More and the ensuing album, 'The Real Thing', turned the band into a household name. In December 1993, Jim Martin was sacked, and was replaced by Mr Bungle axeman Trey Spruance, who worked with the band on one album - the imminent 'King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime'. Spruance left during Christmas 1994 and was replaced by Dean Menta - a former FNM roadie. Which brings us right up to date. Faith No More, minus Menta, are in Venice in a hotel that overlooks one of the city's main waterways. St Mark's Square is about 400 yards west, and there are plenty of tourists despite the miserable weather. Things are pretty relaxed in the FNM camp, as Patton, Bordin, Bottum and Gould spend a few days touring the city and talking to journalists about their new album. But talk of Jim Martin is unavoidable. 'King For A Lifetime...' is a rebirth. An awakening. And it wouldn't have been possible if everything had stayed as it was. MIKE PATTON looks comically like a kid as he sits on a low chair behind a high table in the hotel lounge. Any writer will tell you he's not much fun to interview - by his own admission he's "not very good at it" - but he offers his full attention. He orders some espresso coffees. "After the 'Angel Dust' tour we didn't know if we were gonna be a band any more," he reveals. "We didn't want to do split up, and I think now that it would have been a stupid thing to do. "But for a coupla years we didn't confront any of the things that were wrong in our band. When you leave things to fester like that, it doesn't do any good." Adds Bill Gould, who's swapped his long locks for a goatee beard since he was last under the spotlight: "If we'd have kept on with Jim we would have broken up. In the end, Jim actually got the message that he was out of the band via a fax machine! None of us even wanted to talk to him." Drummer Mike Bordin: "This time in the studio, it was 100 per cent better. And it wasn't just because Jim wasn't there. It was Billy, Mike and Roddy and me. Let's get to work!" For God's sake -what was so bad about Jim?! "Well, that's a tough one," shrugs Bordin. "Why do people get divorced? Is it one thing? You just know. "We all felt that we could be better. We could feel it in our hearts. Yeah, maybe we were driving along at 90mph, but we knew there were a couple more gears up there somewhere so we could really f**kin' push it up. And I feel that we have. "Jim's a character, he's endearing, but I'm just over it. We were lucky to get 'Angel Dust' to turnout as well as it did. It was f**kin' difficult. It was f**kin' painful! There were two camps working at cross purposes, and that ain't good." It's been said that you had it in for Jim for years. "Whatever anyone says, we actually wanted to hear what Jim could contribute to these new songs and we really suspended judgement until then. We told him to bring some songs in and gave him some of ours to deal with." Did he do it? "Yeah, but it just didn't feel right. It felt like more of the same. Now, instead of one f**king difficult, strange, schizo-type record, maybe two really good records will come out of this. I really think that we made a record that's great, and when Jim gets full steam ahead he will make the picture out of his own vision." "Jim was a very vocal, very visual person," reckons Gould. "He was an image - but that's where it stopped, so when Jim left nothing really changed. Jim wasn't involved with the music nearly as much as people think. "He's the kind of person who takes well to the media. If I was his manager, I know I could sell him like a cartoon character. The rest of us are less likely to market our personalities and are more inclined to sell the music." Is there anything at all that you missed about Jim in the studio? Bordin:"No, nothing at all." Gould: "Nothing, man. It's over, We'd tried for years to sort things out and we were f**kin' exhausted." Patton: "Maybe his cigar smoke." TRENDS COME, fads go. FNM have been missing-in-action for what seems like forever. "I didn't mind that," says Bordin. "I was just desperate to get the album done right." "It's hard to take a break," Gould counters. "The big thing was wondering if we were gonna put a record out at all. "A lot of people were advising us that Jim has a very public image and that we shouldn't jeopardise everything by making changes. 'Find a way to work with him, don't do anything stupid...' So we had to deal with all this shit. Then Roddy's Dad dies and some of his friends died too. He was a good friend of Kurt Cobain, so that shook him up." But you were at least able to take stock of what you've achieved in the past five years. Your initial success came from out of nowhere. "We were falling to pieces!" Bordin laughs. "We were too busy to even notice when 'The Real Thing' broke. It was exciting, but we were busy being on tour when things really started hitting. I'm glad we didn't get to see MTV! "Having success thrust upon you is weird. You say, 'Hang on, I'm only doing what I do'. People then think you're ungrateful. "Look at Eddie Vedder What's wrong with that guy? He's the voice of a generation and he doesn't wanna do it! He doesn't wanna lead me out of the wilderness or make my life better or get me laid more often or fix my car!" Patton: "I don't remember if I enjoyed that time. To me, that period probably won't make sense for a while. It was almost like a big joke. There really wasn't any pressure, it was just like. 'Huh?' A lot of question marks. You don't learn until you start giving to people who want a piece of you, and then, suddenly, there's nothing left." What about all the, er... girls? "Yeah. Once again, you learn the hard way. You make a million f**king mistakes. But you learn. If you don't, you're a casualty. One more casualty. "People always expect you to complain about your success. To feel guilty for it. That's probably the worst thing about it. "If it was that bad, why didn't we all kill ourselves? This poo-pooing of success is very over-rated. We could have come back and made a noise album, and then we'd have been all happy, right?" Gould: "Back then we were perceived as a gimmick: a mixture of Metal and Funk and we had this pretty-boy singer We found it really repulsive. We started getting tapes from bands who were Heavy Metal Funk bands and they were saying we were their main influence! It was horrible! " 'Angel Dust' was a way for us to stretch our arms out and hold on to our identity. When Patton cut his hair and changed how he looked, it was seen as very negative. What he was actually doing was a positive thing keeping his own identity in control and not becoming like a piece of McDonalds hamburger People thought we had a bad attitude." But it must have been good when the money started rolling in? Patton: "I was very young back then, so it was strange. It didn't really seem real. I didn't do the usual Rock star thing and blow it left, right and centre - I put it in a f**kin' bank! Put it in a f**kin' bank and still lived with my parents to save rent! I did buy a car" A flashy one? "No, just a normal car." Very sensible. "Not so sensible -I wrecked it!" "The money didn't start till the 'Real Thing' tour was over," adds Gould. "It takes a year or so. We had a Platinum record, we were touring everywhere for two years and everyone was acting as if we were all millionaires. All this when you haven't even got your first pay cheque yet! It was very frustrating." How much was your first big cheque? "It was for $20,000 each - and that was an amazing day. But it's not all that much considering what we'd achieved. "If I knew then what I know now, I think I'd think twice about going into the music business. It's a very hard way to make a living, even at our level. For what we make and what we do, we're middle class Americans, really. "I'm sure all your readers think we're multi-millionaires. It's hard. It really isn't you think." FIVE YEARS after 'The Real Thing', Faith No Mo re are happier than ever. And they are almost embarrassingly enthusiastic about their new LP, which merges hook-happy, super-heavy FNM classics-to-be with a bunch of adventurous off the wall compositions.. Patton: "I can tell right now that we're gonna have a good time touring these songs live. In the past that wasn't always the case." "The new record is like being hit with a f**kin fist, with one finger sticking out!" beams Bordin. "I think this is a really f**kin' special record. I'm honestly, sincerely, really proud of it. "This is the best record we've ever done. But it doesn't just come outta your button a plate. The songs, the performance, the recording process, the tones, the mix, the mastering. It's a whole bunch of shit that makes a good album." Gould: "It's heavier, it's more direct and it's the first record where we had the guitar the way we wanted it. We always knew the potential we had, but everything was always a fight. Now it feels like we're a dog who's been let off the leash." Considering all that's been said about Jim, Trey Spruance must have seemed like an angel? Patton: "He was great. And it was a convenient thing to do. I know how he works, he knows how I work. Once we'd settled in with Trey, the writing process went really quick." But he didn't last long... "Yeah, but I wanted to give it every possibility for the situation to grow. I wasn't surprised when Trey made up his mind to leave, because it would have happened sooner or later-and if it had happened later it would have been ugly. Now we're separated it's definitely for the better, and it's not affected my relationship with him on a personal level either. I gotta record with him again soon for the new Mr Bungle record." Is there any concern that because of all the turmoil surrounding 'King For A Day...' - which features an axe man who won't be seen on tour - that it won't be perceived as a bona fide FNM LP? Patton: "Maybe but I don't think the majority of people will give a shit. I mean, the guitar's gonna sound good and it'll stop there. I mean, I've had people mistake me for Chuck Mosley! So that's the end of that!" Bordin: "The fact that he won't play these songs live doesn't matter, I because these are our songs." Gould: "I look forward to the day where we can write an album with a guitarist who can contribute as much as ; we can. A guitar player we don't have to fight with." ' What would new kid Dean Menta have to do to be out of the band? Patton: "Stop being Dean! Right now, I we've rehearsed for a month and recorded a few B-sides and that's it. It's very hard to guess how it will develop. But in terms of the band I feel more i comfortable than I have for a while. "Now I don't have to worry about turning my head this way so I don't see that guy, or feel forced to ignore something because I don't wanna fight anybody." Bordin: "The 'Angel Dust' tour was indispensable because we met Dean. He saw what we went through and respected that. He took two years of his life to hang out with us so we would know him, because he wanted to be in this band. "He said he's been been waiting for three years for this opportunity and he sure as hell isn't gonna f**k it up. I respect that."

Thirty oje years ago we were awaiting the arrival of the new Faith No More record King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime - several nervous ideas were pulsating around our brain boxes. Would it measure up against it's masterpiece of a predecessor Angel Dust ? How would it work out without the grinding axe work of big sick and ugly guitarist Jim Martin ? And how would it sound without Matt Wallace behind the mixing desk? At 9 am on February 28th 1995 the very first single release ahead of the album DIGGING THE GRAVE the hit record stores, and shortly after that the CD, Cassette and record players of the skeptics. We were three years in waiting for new FNM material, yeah it's true we were blessed with Another Body Murdered but this single was the appetiser to a whole new album, a renaissance, with additional mysterious guitar sounds and new fucking haircuts! "Digging The Grave is what Faith No More fans crave, adding a hint of melody to the usual primal ferocity." - Raw Magazine 1995 First impressions - where the hell are Roddy Bottum's keys? Is this really Trey Spruance from MR. BUNGLE on guitar? Have FNM finally given up trying NOT to be a rock band? A few more spins - damn this song is raw and it's hard, three minutes of jump around the room brutality. In true Faith No More tradition it's different, unexpected and spectacular. Digging The Grave continues the legacy of FNM's ability to progress their sound further with every single from each album. If you compare this song to From Out Of Nowhere or Midlife Crisis , though the characteristic FNM elements are present the songs are so diverse it's like listening to a different band. Even though the band lost their heaviest metal element (Big Jim) the song is bursting with brutal guitar riffs from the eccentric hand of Trey Spruance. A whole circus tour away from Mr. Bungle yet it carves a short-lived smile on the face of FNM. We might at first think he was trying too hard to 'fit into' the band but we were proved wrong by the following album. Mike Patton's vocals still have the schizophrenic shifts between ferocious growling and powerful operatic trills that we are used to from Angel Dust , but he is angrier, his statement is sharper, and his delivery is more maniacal than ever. The noises that man can produce are astounding, like a human guitar on overdrive he screams the living shit out of the middle eight. His harmonies on the chorus are also tighter than ever. The rhythm section revisits the early days of FNM like Introduce Yourself with an adrenaline shot! Bill Gould feverishly pounding on his strings and we can only imagine how many cymbals, drum skins and sticks Mike Bordin went though to create that untamed monster beat. "On that track I wanted to get that sound we had on our first records but tighter, faster and harder. The middle section of that track came from the beat me and Bill came up with before we started trying out guitarists." - Mike Bordin 1995 The lack of keyboards was explained when the band began interviews around KFAD . Roddy faced a few personal demons and wasn't as involved with the writing and recording of the song. He appears in the video playing guitar and also took up a six string onstage throughout the consequent touring. "Yeah, I understand how that album is revered but it's not my favourite. I wasn't that present in the song writing and i was going through some tough stuff at the time" - Roddy 2013 The most notable difference to previous FNM material is the production. The band decided to use Andy Wallace who produced bands such as Slayer, Nirvana, L7, Sepultura, Rage Against The Machine, Helmet - the good shit. This was a shift from long time producer Matt Wallace . He disconnected the band from outside influence and hauled up in the isolation of Bearsville studios in New York where, according to band, they developed 'controlled cabin fever' . Andy W's skills deliver a more disciplined and compressed overall mix which changes the feel of the band's music radically from what we had heard before. "It seemed ultimately self defeating to continue to do records with the same producer. Matt did some great stuff with us but over the course if your career why limit yourself to one person? We're the kind of band that prides itself on our diversity, versatility, change." - Roddy 1995 Patton has never really elaborated on the lyrics to DTG , but finding a final resting place in death or looking for a place to hide are an obvious interpretation. "I can't actually write words before music. Words are the last thing: before the words, I hear sounds. Sometimes the words have no connection to anything; they just have to fit into the sound. I'm sure a lot of what was going into the words on the new record were things we all were going through at the time. Kind of subtle ways of getting revenge on those people. People you see everyday, situations your in everyday that maybe it's better if you don't confront them. Everyone will know what its about but no one will talk about it. It's a beautiful thing" - Mike Patton 1995 The video which accompanied the single release followed in FNM tradition - dramatic, dark and mysterious. Director Marcus Raboy, famous for hip hop videos, was enlisted after his handling of the Another Body Murdered promo clip. The single was released on 12" coloured vinyl and a double CD pack with artwork by illustrator Eric Drooker . The full illustration was revealed when the album was released - taken from Drooker's 1992 book 'Flood! A Novel in Pictures' . The snarling police dog is a perfect accompaniment to the suggested violence of the song itself. "Radio will say the our song 'Digging The Grave' is too hard for them, too metal. If we do a song like 'Evidence', then none of the metal stations will want it!" - Gould 1995 King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime was a very important and personal record for the band and they were very positive about it. "The new album was a catharsis for us. We made a record that was very liberating. I think we really learned how to use our power as a unit. I mean, I have a total submarine view of it, but I see it as more if a release type thing. There is a great amount of stress let off on this album" - Bill 1995 "The new record is like being hit with a fucking fist, with one finger sticking out. This is the best record we've ever done. But it doesn't just come out of your butt on a plate. The songs, the performance, the recording process, the tones, the mix, the mastering. It's a whole bunch of shit that makes a good album". - Mike Bordin 1995 The importance of this song in FNM's history is that it illustrates how the departure of Jim Martin affected the band's image and sound. Could the band still have that edge without the tension between members that played such an important part in the creation of previous albums, and could a happy FNM camp produce the same results? When Bill was asked on how the writing process differed without Jim he had this to say: "We've never written stuff with Jim, as a band. Usually we'd give him a tape and he'd put stuff to it because he didn't like practicing with us much" - Bill 1996 According to Puffy in an interview with an Australian radio station the departure of Jim helped them focus on the new material more. "Very to the point, very straight forward and very strong". But it wasn't entirely plain sailing and the process still was fraught with difficulties; Roddy's personal problems, Trey's departure and a nasty car accident. Patton wasn't happy with appointment of his Mr. Bungle co-member in the first place. "Trey didn't come highly recommended by the only guy in the band that knew him. Patton said, 'he's a great guitarist, he'll do the job, but he's not dependable and he'll fuck us up ultimately due to his lack of any sense of responsibly' " - Bill 1995 Although Bill also says how happy they were with the end result. "It's heavier, it's more direct and it's the first record where we had the guitar the way we wanted it. Now it feels we're a dog who's been let of the leash" - Bill 1995 A lot of fans miss Jim but there is no denying Trey is a outstanding guitarist and his input created a new phase in FNM's history. And they pull it off, DTG is an awesome tune it is all out barefaced aggressive rock! Like the bark of Drooker’s police dog there’s no fucking about. The five best ways to relieve stress: light a candle, drink less caffeine, spend time with a pet, exercise, or put on Digging The Grave - turn up the volume and bang your head for three minutes!!

On February 24th 1994 Castle Communications released the The Real Story , a detailed history of Faith No More up until the end of 1993 written by Steffan Chirazi . The Real Story was Steffan’s first published book and the first official chronicle of FNM. It stands today as one of only two books written with the help of the band - Small Victories by Adrian Harte is the second. Steffan’s career in journalism began at age 15 when he interviewed the legendary Motorhead frontman Lemmy in 1983. Originally from London Steffan moved to San Francisco and was introduced to Faith No More by his friend Metallica bassist Cliff Burton . Steffan began writing articles championing the Chuck Mosley fronted band in magazines including Sounds, Kerrang!, and RIP. He was the first to report on FNM and was present for most of the major events in Faith No More’s career including Mike Patton 's first show, Rock In Rio II, Jim Martin 's sacking. Steffan and Jim’s friendship endured and the ex Faith No More guitarist was ordained and married Steffan and his wife in a beach ceremony. Steffan is currently the editor of So What! Magazine, Metallica’s official in-house publication. He also co-hosts The Metallica Report , a weekly podcast providing official updates and deep dives into the band's activities. For those who weren't lucky enough to bag a copy of The Real Story three decades ago, here is the introduction. FAITH NO MORE  'From The Author' This book gives you the first true and genuine account of everything that Faith No More have been through in their 11 year career.  It is incomplete in the respect that the band are nowhere near the end of their career. Doubtless there will be a whole lot more to document in the years to come.‘The Real Story' is made up of original quotes from the five current band members, ex-singer Chuck Mosley and producer Matt Wallace. All were interviewed between February and September of 1993 exclusively for this book. Warren Entner and John Vasillou at WEM Management felt it best not to make any comments, as they still work with the band. There are also two transcripts in the 'Onward' section from which some material was used for magazine features, the reason for their inclusions are explained within. Faith No More agreed to help me tell 'The Real Story', despite the fact they will receive no money from its sales. Each band member donated some of his free time to talk about their life, and the band's history, The copy has since been checked for accuracy, but in no way has anyone from Faith No More tampered with the flavour of any portion of the text. It was a dream situation. I whole-heartedly thank Bill Gould, Mike Patton, Jim Martin, Mike Bordin and Roddy Bottum for their unflinching honesty and their ability to leave me alone once they had given me their input. I also thank them for being the most interesting band to emerge in the last decade. I thank Matt Wallace for his unique insight and vision of the band. And I thank Chuck Mosley for talking about what must be a very difficult subject for him to deal with. I hope he has good luck with his latest project, Cement. I must also thank Warren and John for their total support of my endeavours over the years, their trust, and the fact that they never once interfered with this project.I would also like to say a big 'thank you' to Phil Scott for starting this whole ball rolling, to Laurie Pryor for wanting and believing in this book, to Sonia Bailey for helping the paperwork shuffle along, to Eugene Manzi for his help through the years, to Mary, Ann and Neil for just being, to Steve Stolder for helping me learn a little more about Grammar, to Lonn Friend for consistently supporting my work and to Geoff Barton for taking me in during the Summer of 1983 and sticking with me ever since. Oh, and thank you Deanna for the title!Thanks also to Cliff Burton (RIP) for introducing me to Faith No More way back when. He may be gone but he isn't forgotten. This is a book for people who like truth. There is no fabrication, and there are no lies in these pages. 'The Real Story' is for fans, both of Faith No More and rock music.  Kerrang! | January 1993 | KKKK THIS BOOK has big pictures. This is so the little girls can wank over Mike Patton. Every biog worth its salt must have the Stain Factor; no stain - no gain. Journeyman hack Chirazi is a close personal friend of Faith No More, so his book is minutely detailed. He describes these five knobheads as  "the most beautiful time-bomb in the history of modern music", so you can presume that such a close friendship might just have affected the author's perspective. Nowhere in ‘The Real Story' does he say that FNM are yesterday's news. Several major typographic fuck-ups excepted, it's also a relatively entertaining and incisive project. Written with passion and real on the spot interviews included.

Tony Alves Faith No More performed with Metallica and Soundgarden at A Day On The Green on October 12th 1991. MTV were at the festival and aired a round up of the day featuring the full pro footage performance of From Out Of Nowhere and an interview with Karyn Bryant. Thanks to a YouTuber markit aneight we now have pro footage of four more songs from the set! Death March , The Real Thing , Introduce Yourself and The World Is Yours ! Check this amazing footage out below.

In February 2009 Faith No More announced they would reunite for shows in the summer of that year. The announcement in February 2009 that Faith No More was coming back together surprised many. It was not just a nostalgic reunion but a chance to see if the band could recapture the energy and creativity that made them stand out in the 1980s and 1990s music scenes. Several factors contributed to Faith No More’s decision to reunite. The members had become distant since their break up in 1998 but reconnected at Roddy's wedding. Offers were made including to headline Download festival. On February 19th 2009 various music press websites reported that a FNM reunion was imminent but without Jim Martin on guitar. Four days later in a press release concerning Crank: High Voltage soundtrack the last sentence read, 'and the highly anticipated reunion tour with Faith No More in Europe this summer.' However it wasn't until February 24th that the band issued the following official statement. During the entire 10 years that have passed since our decision to break up we’ve experienced constant rumors and requests from fans and promoters alike. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, none of us kept in regular touch, much less to discuss any possibilities of getting together. What’s changed is that this year, for the first time, we’ve all decided to sit down together and talk about it. And what we’ve discovered is that time has afforded us enough distance to look back on our years together through a clearer lens and made us realize that through all the hard work, the music still sounds good, and we are beginning to appreciate the fact that we might have actually done something right…and so with this we’ve decided to hold our collective breaths and jump off this cliff…. BACK, GOD FORBID, INTO THE MONKEY CAGE!!! We can only hope that the experience of playing together again will yield results erratic and unpredictable enough to live up to the legacy of FNM. Who know where this will end or what it will bring up…only the future knows. But we are about to find out! FAITH NO MORE are: Mike Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Bill Gould, Jon Hudson and Mike Patto n.

Ross Halfin In February 2015 Faith No More began their tour of Sol Invictus in Tokyo before moving swiftly to Australia for four dates on the Soundwave XV tour. Saturday 21 | Bonython Park | Adelaide Across The Ocean - Andrew Stace Sunday 22 | Royal Melbourne Showgrounds | Melbourne Australian Musician A flower arrangement adorned the front of the Faith No More’s stage. On stage, white curtains flowed in the breeze as Patton and co casually strolled onto a scene resembling an exotic day spa. The crowd was quickly removed from any meditative state as the band tore into ‘Motherfucker’. The first thing which smacks you in the face with Mike Patton … he with eternally mischievous look in his eyes … is that voice. The man has lost none of his power, particularly evident on the iconic ‘Epic’. The warped mind of Patton had great joy in instigating the ‘wimmoway’ backing from the crowd for a verse of the ultra-daggy ‘Lion Sleeps Tonight’ before more FNM hits came. They were all there too; Midlife Crisis, Easy, Evidence, We Care A Lot, Ashes to Ashes, Matador etc. Whatever project Mike Patton is involved in is worthy of investigation, this one however is closest to most fans’ hearts. The less-nostalgic in the crowd had the option of finishing their day up with Lamb of God, New Found Glory or The Devil Wears Prada. As The Worm Turns completed FNM’s triumphant night out as the exhausted crowd headed for the exit. While the format of Soundwave 2016 is under review, the school of 2015 got what they came for and more. Louder Classic Rock | March 2015 General Patton leads the charge in a 336 degree heat knees up Alexander Milas It's a heat that'll straighten your pubes and make you wonder at the sanity of the settlers who, nearly 200 years ago looked around, dropped their bags, and went, 'this'll do'. But if today's furnace-like, 36-degree heat is currently roasting the sweaty throng that's rolled into the Melbourne Showgrounds for the first day of Soundwave 2015, then it stands to reason that it's nothing less than Hell on Earth for the leatherclad men of Priest up on stage right now. The real feat, though, is in belting out newer entries like Hall Of Valhalla and Redeemer Of Souls with the same conviction as cast-iron classics like Metal Gods, Jawbreaker and a spine-tingling Beyond The Realms Of Death. Given KK Downing's curious departure for presumably more aromatic pastures, new guy Richie Faulkner's ability to throw shapes and resonate with crowd and bandmates alike is undeniable, and the man can play. An inspiring opening salvo then for what is effectively Australia's biggest and baddest rock and metal festival of the year. More a travelling circus than a classic festival, it's become the go-to event for those of a heavier inclination, and that it hits multiple cities - this year it's Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and ending in Sydney and with a heap of so-called Sidewaves clubshows scattered in between - means it's as much a feat of logistical genius as it is a snapshot of rock and metal's State Of The Union. From Stash, to Marilyn Manson, to Steel Panther, pretty much every base is covered here, but this year there's a peculiarly early alt.rock bent in the billing as a Soundgarden-Faith No More double-header on the second day of Soundwave Melbourne that's probably to blame for the amount of frayed, Seattleite T-shirts amassed around the main stages. It begins with a screech - tone-king Kim Thayil's heavily distorted command of that classic, down-tuned crunch that would sweep the world sounds every bit as potent as it was the day it busted speakers the world over. Spoonman, Outshined - it's more a growl than anything, and spearheaded by Chris Cornell's inimitable banshee operatics, Soundgarden's set is a roll-call of classics that only suffers from blowy sound and that plodding, mid-tempo gait that'll do nothing to win you over if you're not already a fan. And as the bluesy melancholy of Fell On Black Days and the timeless, bittersweet charms of Black Hole Sun washes over the crowd in the waning light, why wouldn't you be? It's the perfect segue for headliners Faith No More to take the stage and own it. News of their impending album Sof Invictus - their first in 18 years and precisely about fucking time given this is their sixth year since the re-formation - has electrified the capacity crowd. The cadence of new song Motherfucker kicks it all off. Resplendent in all-white regalia on a stage bedecked with floral arrangements and white curtains they are, immediately, head and shoulders above anything that's been seen here all weekend. Mike Patton - all pitch-perfect delivery and hyper-animated stageplay - is an eye-magnet who peppers Ricochet with a few lines of Meghan Trainor's pop-hit All About The Bass before, a few songs later, stopping Midlife Crisis dead in its tracks for an a cappella The Lion Sleeps Tonight that kicks off a few field-wide choruses of 'a-wimoweh a-wimoweh' before dropping right back into where they left off. It's fun, it's silly, but more importantly it's proof-positive that one of the greatest bands of our time isn't just back, but - as evidenced by the stomp of new song Superhero - they're vital once again. You get the sense that this is really just the beginning. Welcome back, boys. Kerrang! | March 2015 THEY'RE BACK! REUNITED LEGENDS PROVIDE THE SHOW OF THE DAY DESPITE THE 30-degree heat, you'd be forgiven for thinking a snowstorm had hit Faith No More. Clad completely in white - the backdrop, the amps, even the roadies - the only splash of colour comes from the flowers that line the stage. At a festival where the predominant colour is black, trust Faith No More - who have gleefully gone against the grain for three decades - to do the opposite. That they open their set with a new song, Motherfucker, rather than an old favourite further proves the band's disdain for playing it safe. There's plenty of subversive hits to be had, however. From Epic to closer We Care A Lot, the only thing more staggering than FNM's songs is the vigour with which they perform. While some acts reform and are clearly just a shadow of their former selves, Faith No More have picked up exactly where they left off when they split in 1998. This much is evident in the other new song they play this evening, Superhero, a track bubbling with malevolence and a promise of magic from their forthcoming Sol Invictus album. Set of the day, hands down. Saturday 28 | Olympic Park | Sydney May The RocK Be With You But now it’s time for Faith. No. More. Flower pots all over the stage and the members all dressed in white, Faith No More bring us ‘Motherfucker’ the brand new single from the band as the opener and man, they really want to talk to this guy on the phone. What an interesting way to start the set, I always wonder why bands do stuff like that and open with a new one, is it to make sure the sound is right? Is it to say ‘hey we’re back and here’s what we’re doing now?’ or is it just that they are Faith No More and can do whatever the fuck they want? I think it’s the later. Ahhh that’s better, this is the FNM I know, ‘Caffeine’ is instantly rockin’ as every member in this band is a consummate professional, and are so damn tight. ‘Ricochet’ is up and if this set stays up like this we are about to get absolutely destroyed. Oh shit ‘From Out Of Nowhere’ takes me straight back to 1989 in about three seconds and it slays. Wow. As quick as that intensity was there it left us to turn the cool motherfuckers into extra smoothly cool motherfuckers with ‘Evidence’ and it just shows how versatile the band is with their music… straight up they have just started ‘Epic’ and holy shit the place just went nuts. What is it? Indeed!! I for one wasn’t expecting this one maybe at all let alone this early, but everyone here shouting the lyrics back was a moment indeed! ‘Get Out’ takes its place and then oh my god ‘Midlife Crisis’ and I’m in heaven, this is my favourite of theirs and still sounds amazing. Yeah now I’ve seen it all, FNM just lead the arena in a group sing along of ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ ha ha wow, that wins, Mike Patton is a genius, no doubt about that. Back to ‘The Real Thing’ with a big ballad ‘Zombie Eaters’ that builds and man, Billy Gould’s bass is tight, it’s almost a signature sound, actually scrap that, not almost. It is. ‘The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies’ flips the set again and this balance of what the band does in their set and on stage is outstanding, that was more like the gentle art of being awesome! I have to laugh as it’s time for ‘Easy’ and it still amazes me how good this goes over with everyone as I look up to see much swaying, which is a necessity for this one. Boom. Crazy again with ‘Cukoo For Caca’ and absolutely on point and tight as you want. The megaphone comes out for ‘King For A Day’ and turns atmospheric before ‘Ashes To Ashes’ gets the crowd on their feet and the pit going crazy for this one. This is heavy!! Telling us that there’s only one song to go is just mean… It’s ‘Superhero’ big, loud, technical and awesome. The band leaves the stage for about two minutes and they’re back. “Thanks ya cunts” is the perfect welcome back response for us all and ‘Digging The Grave’ is just what we needed as Mike Patton continually uses his new favourite C word as a chant throughout trying his best to not laugh as he does it. Then something from our culture as they throw in the cover of ‘I Started A Joke’ ha ha only FNM could get away with this, really, and this late in the set, bravo. ‘We Care A Lot’ is such a big, big song, that rhythm it hits, the lyrics are out of this world and it really is the only way this set and show could’ve closed tonight. Thunderous applause from those here, and a gracious Faith No More bid us adieu… So that was our day one, so many bands, so much fun, we’ll be back tomorrow, because as Faith No More say, “It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it…”

Faith No More 's smash single from ' The Real Thing' was released thirty six years ago on January 29th 1990 "Mean, Vicious, chunky and Funky, Faith No More continue to break barriers with their brain-scrambling amalgamation of seemingly counteracting styles. Rap with Metal? No problem mate. Funk with Hardcore overtones? Faith No More have it in hand. Hell, there's even a classical piano break at the end! FNM are the band to take Hard Rock into the '90s." - RIP Magazine 1990 Faith No More have over the years spoken openly about their dislike for the song Epic . Not about the music or lyrics but more the boredom of playing it relentlessly for such a long time. “It seems sometimes kids turn up just to hear that one song, we’re like stick around we’ve written all these other great songs, you just might like ‘em” - Bill Gould 1992 But as fans, we would have to concede that we can't help but love this song, but why?What is it that, even after all the amazing music that followed, brings us back to this point in FNM history? That's the eternal question, What is it ? For many fans Epic is THE song that began a their love affair with Faith No More's music. There is no denying that it is a work of genius, loaded with killer riffs, unforgettable hooks and some funky shit thrown in for good measure. With all these correct parts present and in order, it makes for a perfectly popular song. It is a certainty that FNM will always play it - you would be hard pushed to find a set list that didn't have Epic in it, strategically placed towards the end of the night to keep the fans happy and make sure they stick around. Despite the band’s unwillingness to admit the importance of Epic to their body of work, they understand that their fans want to hear it again and again. "Of course I knew straight away it would be a fucking hit! I already had a down payment on the Bentley and the bachelor pad in Paso Robles! However, I realised it wasn't an international smash when my speed dealer wouldn't even let me score on credit. Did 'Epic' spawn rap metal? Even it if it did, I wouldn't tell you. The again, the rest of the world seems to feel that way, so I suppose apologies are in order. OK, I'M SORRY!" - Mike Patton 2010 It is without doubt the song that propelled a group of misfits onto another level of musical stardom, From Out Of Nowhere had turned a few heads but Epic sent them spinning. The band themselves had chosen to release Epic in the U.S in mid 1989 as the second single from The Real Thing , but it wasn't until the single was released in the UK and Europe on January 29th 1990 that it found real success. In fact the record company Slash were it seems ready to give up on promoting the album until this point. Epic peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 (the band's only Top Ten hit in the United States), and was their first Number One single on the Australian charts. It is true that other 80s bands had experimented with mixing genres. Hip hop / rap outfit meets metal band crossovers existed before Epic . FNM did not set out to do this, instead they successfully wrote a great song which fed off their combined influences of metal, funk, hip hop and rap and fused them all together. The music itself has all the unmistakable elements of FNM we love. Mike Bordin and Bill’s balanced, thunderous but impeccably timed rhythms. Jim's powerhouse riff’s and ripping solo. Roddy’s graceful keyboard sounds and Patton's aggressive chants and melodic anthemic chorus. The mood of the song shifts depending on the listener, it can be the radio friendly bright and uplifting song labelled by the media or a dark and brooding experience. Bill had this to say about the inspiration for the song. "That was when we were writing ‘The Real Thing’- we’d just fired our singer and it was a song that was pretty spontaneous. Actually, it was like the release that came with loosing Chuck! I think with a lot our albums, most of the inspiration comes with the relief of loosing a member that’s too painful to keep! It’s like a sore that finally breaks, a storm that finally comes in.” - Bill 1997 Chapter 22 in Adrian Harte's biography Small Victories: The True Story Of Faith No More is titled 'The Making of Epic' in which members of the band describe in detail how the song developed. Here is a taste: ‘Epic’ started life when the trio of Bordin, Gould, and Bottum were working together in Los Angeles in the immediate post-Mosley interregnum. The rhythm section quickly worked up the groove of the song, and Bottum was also involved in the genesis, playing around with a horns patch on his keyboard. ‘I remember us wanting it to sound like 2001: A Space Odyssey,’ he recalls. ‘The horns were a reference to that. The song was all about space and not playing, as opposed to playing.’ ‘Quickly, Bill and I wrote the groove, the rhythm for “Epic”,’ Bordin remembers. ‘We knew it was cool, and it was good, and it was fun, and it was natural. We’d played it and said, wow, that’s just so massive—it’s just this huge broad, wide, open powerful thing, it’s epic.’ The name was one of the band’s few working titles that survived to become an actual title. Gould: ‘The name has to do with how it felt to play. It was epic because of the horns. The parting of the Red Sea. That was the visual imagery.’ Building on that groove, Gould wrote the rest of the song almost single-handedly. Matt Wallace remembers Gould’s demo as ‘a terrific piece of music. Before I even heard Patton sing on it. We probably spent two or three days on it. Tracking the drums, getting Bill’s bass, and then getting guitars even before the vocals.’ The meaning of Patton's lyrics have been interpreted by curious fans to be about sex, fellatio, masturbation, drugs, religion and more. They do seem to suggest an unattainable something, be it power, love or faith. The genius of the lyrics is that 'it' could be anything good or bad depending on the listener’s point of view. Mike is inviting us to guess the meaning and telling us 'it' is whatever we want it to be. Even though the singer has told us that his lyrics are more concerned with rhythm than meaning, which is very apparent in Epic , we can't help but attribute meaning to dig deeper into the singer’s mind and understand him better. “A lot of our songs start music first, lyrics later, and it was called ‘Epic’ as a kind of code word, because before the words came along, it was kind of like the parting of the Red Sea! It was a preposterous grandiose thing! Y’know, we’ve always had a sort of campy, semi-serious approach to writing, with these big cinematic sounds. Patton wrote the words to it about a week after he joined the band. I remember him explaining it to me and I didn’t know him very well, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it.” - Bill 1997 "It was about sexual frustration. Sex and lack of sex. [masturbation] Most people just don't like to admit it, I'm here to tell ya, I love it. That's kinda of what Epic is really about." - Patton 1990 "Epic is sort of a warped sexual state of mind. It deals with more material and physical things like sex. The song kind of teases you. but it's frustrated at the same time because the song want's it too. But at the same time it knows that it can't have it." - Patton 1989 "Believe it or not, 'Epic' was my best attempt at impersonating Blondie's 'Rapture'. Lyrically, I was more concerned with the rhyme scheme than any other constant train of thought. The lyrics mean whatever you want them to mean. They don't belong to me anymore, they are your responsibility now." - Patton 2000 It was the video for Epic which lent a hand in the success of the single release. A video which was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the Grammies, and Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video at the MTV awards in 1991. It's still amazing that one song can have such a tremendous effect on the music industry and on the fate of the band in question. As fans we would like to believe that FNM would've enjoyed success without Epic, but it is a fact that within the music industry the media plays a part in the availability of music and the airplay it gets. The newly established MTV generation of 1990 helped channel FNM into ears and hearts of the world - Epic was played on MTV up to five times a day! The video was edited by MTV and FNM let them without realising the impact it would have. The video is bursting with striking visuals - an exploding piano, terrific lightening, that 'Master' t-shirt, that Mr. Bungle t-shirt and Jim Martin 's nod to the late Cliff Burton . The imagery is reminiscent of a Salvador Dali landscape with surreal dreamlike shots of floating hands with eyeballs peering from within, dark skies, and waves of liquid colour. The whole scene is set in a torrential thunderstorm that drenches the band to the skin. The direction of the video, by Ralph Ziman , is an accurate setting for the song without giving anything away towards the meaning. All that can be understood is that it is five men against the forces of nature - a reflection FNM's musical blend of crazy and calm. The video ends with an astonishing scene - A fish out of water which is flapping to the classical sounds of Roddy Bottum 's piano. This would again highlight the schizophrenic tendencies of the music - the grace of nature with a bizarre and cruel twist. The fish had no meaning beyond its visceral effect, which is both oddly beautiful and incredibly creepy. There are stories that the fish was stolen from Bjork at a party (started by the band) but it was simply bought from a pet store round the corner from the studio. Both Gould and Ziman claim the fishy idea was their own. "The floundering goldfish was my idea. It was that kinda (cult director) John Waters thing where you try to get maximum attention for minimum money! The piano exploding was pretty cool, too." - Bill 1997 "I remember, the band had one day off from touring and they were in London. The record company had phoned us on very short notice and asked us to do a music video. The y made it sound like a really low priority. I think it was being done for Warner Bros. at the time. I just made a list of things I thought we could do. Exploding piano. A fish flopping around. We literally had one day to pre-produce it. So we handed the fish off to the art department. I can't remember what it was. If it was a carp? It was a fresh water fish. We shot that in London in some studios next to the tour venue. And we wound up letting that fish go into the river when we were finished. We had a couple of them. We would let them flop around, and then we'd swap it over, and we'd shoot another one. I don't remember what kind of fish they were, but the animal handler had brought them in because they were feisty." - Ralph Ziman 2010 Faith No More had already been touring The Real Thing for a year before the tremendous whip-back success of the video and single forced them to continue. “More than anything I remember us being in Europe, and our manager would check in with us maybe once a week. He called and said: ‘Your single is blowing up over here,’ we didn’t believe him. We thought he was buttering us up so he could keep us on the road, and we all wanted to go home. I remember landing in the airport, going to the hotel, turning on the TV by chance and seeing the damn thing and going: ‘Oh shit….the jokes on us!” - Patton 1995 “We toured for about 18 months before ‘Epic’ was even released as a single. It becoming a hit made a big impression on us, because it was something that we chose to release on our own instincts. It worked and it gave us a lot of confidence to do the next record." - Bill 1997 The success of Epic has continued over the year. It was ranked number thirty on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs in 2006, number sixty-seven on their 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders list (unbelievable but understandable to those who go by such statistics) in 2009, it was named the 54th best hard rock song of all time also by VH1, also in 2009 it charted number 46 on the largest music poll in the world Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time . Thirty plus years since the single release of Epic and it is remembered as a ground-breaking moment, in not only FNM's career but in music. It is also a shining example of who FNM were back in 1989 and how a different kind of brilliance shined. It was the starting point for Mike Patton's career with the band, who's later input changed the music as well as the sound - it is a wonderful reminder of youth and enthusiasm. It's It... Check out the Podcast Croissant episode all about Epic.

On January 28th 1993 Faith No More released their home video compilation, Video Croissant. Kerrang! | kkkkk | December 1992 | Chris Watts JUST WHEN you thought it was impossible to buy anything else from Faith No More Ltd, the Christmas Cobbler turns up, late, but in good spirits. Yet more stuff. Yet more pop dollars to spend.Fund the cause and keep everybody smiling. They spoil you. Yes, they really do. 'Video Croissant' is basically a 10-track compilation of Faith No More promos, custom-FXed for the MTV machine. There are few surprises. As you might expect from America's least lumpen, the business of Faith No More is gorgeous and sick. There are snippets of gibberish from their Rock In Rio appearance, and 10 efficient videos for the likes of 'We Care A Lot', 'From Out Of Nowhere' and the maddeningly successful 'Epic'. It's a shame that 'Video Croissant' was completed earlier than the release of 'I'm Easy', because that video is as fresh and funny as anything on offer here, but 'Video Croissant' is still a tribute to the band's black humour, nonetheless. At the end of the day, this compilation is a luxury. Faith No More are too big now to be an entirely believable prank. They have been completely accepted by the industry they still claim to despise, and just such a release must be an exasperating display of buck-f**king on behalf of a band who were once too smart for the downright bleeding obvious. 'Video Croissant' is a rose-tinted package, but ultimately a graceless move.  Raw Magazine | xxxx | December 1992 | Paul Rees THERE CAN be no doubt that Faith No More are sick individuals. Watching Video Croissant is like going through a crash course in black, disturbed humour. This is good news, because it means that the band's promo videos are infinitely better than just about anybody else's you care to mention. With a recurring fetish for fish and paint, 'Epic' and 'Falling To Pieces' throw in enough lasting visual images (the dying fish out of water at the end of the former, Mike Pattern sprayed by a jet-stream of paint during the latter) to complement uniquely brilliant singles. 'Surprise! You're Dead', directed by bassist Bill Gould, is also suitably vile, with its black and white montage of dead meat shots. Indeed, it's only the routine performance clips for 'From Out Of Nowhere' and the Chuck Mosley-era 'We Care A Lot' and 'Anne's Song that fore-sake the twisted approach, and consequently they're Faith No More's least successful videos. The 'Angel Dust' selections, though, are all startling and shocking in their own right. 'Midlife Crisis' has Mike Patton being stretched between tour white horses, 'A Small Victory' mixes grim battlefield shots with a surreal game of chess and, worst of all, 'Everything's Ruined' shows guitarist Jim Martin topless. In between the clips Faith No More fool around on MTV, doggedly pursue helpless old ladies with camcorders, patronise just about everybody in sight, impersonate each other with pinpoint accuracy and perform a pure-noise live version of 'Caffeine'. It's all summed up by keyboardist Roddy Bottum's description of just why a recent gig in Seville was the band's best yet. "Mike Patton picked up this Evian bottle filled with piss," Bottum grins, "opened it and poured it over his head." Barking mad and resolutely strange, Faith No More are the vomit stain on your TV screen.