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Faith No More released the first single from Album Of The Year on May 19th 1997. "It's kind of like when you eat something and all the ingredients fit together. You can't really say why you like it but it's just you know you like it. To me that song has size, it has the scope and it has the melody and it has the impact. It gives me all those things I need that make me feel good." - Bill Gould 2016 1997 was a bit of a dull year for rock and metal music, it was the beginning of a nu metal era with bands trying to re imagine the early 90s movements. Elsewhere electro dance music was interesting, the happy hippy techno beats had been replaced with more brutal and funkier bands like The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and music to do heroin to whilst watching trains. It was the first time since the 60's where being British was cool, Brit pop and The Spice Girls took over the world. There was certainly change in the air. Faith No More had changed. After a brief tour supporting King For A Day... the band had gone separate ways, Mike Patton focusing on Mr. Bungle, Roddy Bottum starting up Imperial Teen and Mike Bordin drumming with Ozzy Osbourne. "I guess the point is try to find new reasons to keep making music. We could have broken up. But when you get to that point you ask yourself, 'Is it worth it or not?'. If the music's still getting you hard, it's worth it." - Mike Patton 1997 Yet, amidst rumours that the band had split up, in 1997 FNM surprised fans by returning with a new guitarist and attitude to producing music. After only around seven years of commercial success FNM were now considered as innovators, fathers of a new breed of metal music and were back to prove they still had one more album of great songs to give. "It takes a lot of work, but the bottom line is that if we weren't totally committed to making music as FNM, we wouldn't still be here today....It's not like we don't have anything else to do." - Bill Gould 1997 Ashes To Ashes was the premier single released from their sixth studio record Album Of The Year. The song performed well in the charts, number 8 in Australia, 7 in Finland, 15 in the U.K. and 23 in the U.S. ATA is less punchy and chaotic than music from KFAD, more polished and refined, whilst retaining the full bodied sound that only FNM can achieve. 'While the Bungle-like experimentalism of the King For A Day album alienated a lot of the band's fans, new and old, the first taste of next month's album (drolly titled Album Of The Year) returns to the musical ethic that won them all those lovely fans in the first place. Expansive, dramatic and swathed in Roddy Bottum's widescreen keyboards, it delivers a killer tune with bite, storming rhythms and the best vocal of Mike Patton's career. Truly, err, epic.' - InPress magazine Jon Hudson's guitar brings the metal riff of Jim Martin's days back to FNM after an album of Trey Spruance's eccentric brand of six string magic. It sets us up for a track we know will fall into the unmistakably FNM category. The sweeping waves of Roddy's keyboard are reminiscent of those found on Angel Dust, and they add colour to Bill and Mike B's ever dependable rhythm section. There is hardly a trace of antagonism in Patton's voice as he croons like Sinatra. The composure of all five musicians make for sophisticated sound to match their pressed tuxedos. The song was written, like most of AOTY, by the band sharing music in the post. In fact no more than two members of FNM were in the studio at the same time. "The bulk of that song was written the first week. We arranged it here, and then we sent Patton a tape. He was in Italy, but he came up with the lyrics and the singing right away. It was one of those songs that just clicked -- one of those songs that we do most naturally. That's our sound." - Bill Gould 1997 The main difference with this music compared to earlier songs was that it was entirely produced by FNM with Bill on engineering duties. Roli Mosimann brought in for advice. "This record took a year and a half to make -serious hard work. I mean, the reason I'm the producer is because I've been living with this thing every step of the way. I couldn't rest until this record was finished. Angel Dust was like a hurricane coming - a big, ugly storm. King for a Day was like when the storm was hitting you, with all this stuff flying all over the place. And this record...this record is kind of like digging through the wreckage and pulling out bodies afterwards." - Bill Gould 1997 The video was directed by the late Tim Royes. It retains the dark themes of fnm's previous film clips but introduces the new suited and booted look that they paraded during this era. Ashes To Ashes remains a fan favourite and it is still a regular song within FNM's set lists. #faithnomore #ashestoashes #albumoftheyear

EPISODE SUMMARY Mike & Jim continue talking about Faith No More's 1995 album 'King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime' EPISODE NOTES It's 1994. Jim Martin has been fired from Faith No More via fax, Mr Bungle's Trey Spruance has taken his place on guitar, Roddy Bottum is absent from most the songwriting and King for a Day is the result. Featuring discussion of: Ugly in the Morning, Digging the Grave & Take This Bottle. KFAD talk begins at 54:36 Email: podcastcroissant@gmail.com facebook.com/podcastcroissant Instagram - @podcastcroissant Twitter - @podcroissant #faithnomore #podcastcroissant

Faith No More's North American tour in support of Sol Invictus was five years ago. FNM began their Sol Invictus tour in Japan and Australia, they returned to the USA for the first time since October 1997 in April 2015. The fifteenth date was on Thursday May 14th at Webster Hall in New York. The Waster Faith No More is ready to drop their new album, Sol Invictus, and they celebrated with a run of intimate performances at Webster Hall in New York City. Opening the second night of two sold out shows, Le Butcherettes brought exactly what you need to kick off a Faith No More show – tons of energy, a lot of quirk, and raw emotion. The set featured their signature heavy-driving fusion of post hardcore, punk and riot girl action. Although lacking the former blood-stained stage antics, the powerful guitars, keyboard and of course Teri Gender Bender’s amazing stage presence got the crowd into a frenzy and welcomed Faith No More to the stage in a way few bands could. As Faith No More walked on the stage for their headlining set, the crowd sounded more like teenagers welcoming a boy band, with high pitched screams and over-excitement that only makes sense if you’ve felt what Faith No More delivers. They opened the show with “Motherfucker”, and the floor felt like it could fall through at any moment from the movement of the fans. The alt-metal icons didn’t disappoint, playing all of the hits and causing every person in attendance to leave in a state of voiceless, sweat-drenched awe. Glide Magazine Metal Insider Verbicide Set List Motherfucker Be Aggressive Caffeine Evidence Epic Sunny Side Up Get Out Midlife Crisis Everything's Ruined The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Easy [ Commodores ] We Care a Lot [ with Rahzel ] King for a Day Ashes to Ashes Superhero Matador From Out of Nowhere #faithnomore #solinvictus

Faith No More should be on tour right now in Australia and New Zealand but covid-19 has forced them to postpone dates. Roddy Bottum however is making the most of his time in quarantine and has been busy recording new material with New York musician Joey Holman. The two will be releasing music this week under the moniker Man On Man. "My boyfriend and I drove a truck from NYC to California at the onset of the virus. We wrote and recorded a collection of songs in Oxnard about love and isolation and we're sharing the first one this week. We're calling us MAN ON MAN." - Roddy Instagram "Over the last month, my boyfriend and I have been making music while in quarantine. We're calling the project MAN ON MAN (M.O.M. for short) and the first single will be available this week, with a video to follow soon after. This is the first music project I've been tied to since I played in a Christian band over a decade ago. Being in that band was an experience that taught be so much,but ultimately forced me to hide who I truly was. MAN ON MAN is born from a place of freedom. MAN ON MAN is subjective - it's my gayness, but it could be your queerness, your trans-ness, your blackness, your butchness, your feminism, your non-binary, your fat rolls, your stutter, your freckles, your upbringing... It's the thing that made us feel trapped because the world didn't approve, so we hid it as much as we could. And then one day, we realized the thing we were ashamed of was really our superpower and it was the key to set us free into self love and acceptance." - Joey Holman Instagram As well as this project Roddy has more music on the way, his electro project Crickets with producer and songwriter JD Samson (MEN, Le Tigre) and Michael O'Neill (MEN) is due to release their first album via Muddguts Records anytime soon. Also Hifklub featuring Roddy will release their album Things That Were Lost In The Fire in June. #roddybottum #manonman #hifiklub

On MONDAY, April 20, in a terse three-line statement, Faith Mo More announced that they were breaking up after 17 years together. The curtain had finally come down on one of the most influential rock bands ot the past two decades. Kerrang! | Issue 698 | 09.05.98 Ashes To Ashes by Steffan Chirazi and Paul Elliot The reasons why Faith Mo More chose to split now - preparing as they were for a summer tour supporting Aerosmith and having just completed a highly successful series of festival appearances in Spain and Portugal are hard to ascertain. After putting calls into various parties connected to the band, it's clear that no one is willing to conduct a post mortem just yet. Although Mike Bordin's decision to re-join Ozzy Osbourne's band appears lo be a factor, the split could just as easily be viewed as a product of attrition rather than a single action. Roddy Bottum has his other band Imperial Teen, and frontman Mike Patton has put together various side projects over the years, Mr Bungle being the most notable. Indeed, before the split was announced, unconfirmed rumours were sweeping around the band's hometown of San Francisco that Patton wouldn't be making another album with Faith No More. But how many times has that one done the rounds in the past? Perhaps the saddest aspect of it all, is that Faith No More had rediscovered their touch on last year's 'Album Of The Year', their strongest effort since 1992's brilliant yet underrated 'Angel Dust'. Then again, you could count on Faith No More to never take the easy path... IN THE BEGINNING Faith No More have always been a band populated by intense personalities. Bill Gould and Roddy Bottum might have come from relatively comfortable backgrounds each grew up in Los Angeles' Hancock Park neighbourhood - but they were both drawn to the bizarre and twisted. In the late '70s Gould was in a band called The Animated, for whom a guy he knew (rom the local punk scene, Chuck Mosley, played keyboards. In 1980. Gould and Bottum left LA to attend university in Berkeley. San Francisco, where they became roommates. Once there. Gould responded to an ad in a local record store looking for bassists. It was placed by Mike Bordin. The two ended up in a band called Sharp Young Men, quickly recruiting Bottum and guitarist Mark Bowen and changing their name to Faith No Man. Next they needed to find a singer. In 1983, a young woman called Courtney Love with big ideas and a mouth to match talked her way into the band for either four shows, if you believe them, or longer, if you take her side. The foursome headed back to LA in 1984, where Gould once again stumbled upon Mosley, who by this time was in a band called Haircuts That Kill. By now, Bowen clearly wasn't working out, so on the recommendation of Bordin's friend, Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, Jim Martin joined the band as his replacement. With Mosley also on board, FNM was complete. A year later, they released their debut album 'We Care A Lot' an Bay Area independent label Mordam Records. The ensuing US club tour during which the band lived in their van - established the pattern for much of what was to follow: the members using a vicious form of sarcasm to communicate with each other. At the the end of the trek, Faith No More signed to Slash Records, an offshoot of major label Warner Bros and took out a series of personal loans from various sources to extricate themselves from their first management company and hook up with Warren Entner. Entner had been in a successful '60s band called The Grass Roots. As a manager, he had guided cock rockers Quiet Riot to multi-million sales in the US. He and his partner John Vassiliou saw something unique in Faith No More. On tour, it had become apparent that Mosley was a wildly unpredictable character. His increasing belligerence and erratic moods pushed relations within the group to breaking point, but they also helped to make their second album, 'Introduce Yourself', such an intoxicating experience. MTV picked up on the album's outstanding track, a re-recorded version of 'We Care A Lot', and Faith No More backed this exposure up with a ground-breaking US tour with an underground LA outfit called The Red Hot Chili Peppers. 'Introduce Yourself' also brought them over to the UK for the first time, where in a perverse and occasionally volatile round of interviews they traded insults, barbs and various slanders, taking great delight in watching journalists' reactions. Mosley's behaviour had by now alienated him from everybody else in the band, and he was fired when Faith No More returned home. His replacement was a young man from Humboldt County, the pot-growing region of California. Twenty-year-old Mike Patton had first come to Faith No More's attention singing a song called 'The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny' with a bunch of weirdos called Mr Bungle. The new line-up quickly went to work on what was to be their break-through album, 'The Real Thing'. Released in July '89, 'The Real Thing' went on to sell more than a million copies in the US and spawned a smash hit single in 'Epic'. The band took off on a back-breaking world tour to promote the album which was to last two years. Their success and the patronage of MTV caused new tensions in the band. Patton in particular was sickened at becoming rock's newest poster boy. His response was to hack his hair off. "Ninety per cent of what we do is bullshit," he said. "Your duty as a musician is to be a stupid, pathetic fucking loser." When 'The Real Thing' tour finally concluded in 1991, Patton re-joined his old males Mr Bungle to make an album and guested with jazz experimentalist John Zorn's Naked City. "I'm leaving Faith No More and Bungle for Naked City," he joked at the time. Patton's work load was intensified by Faith No More's decision to begin writing their next album almost as soon as they were off the road. They took a break from these sessions to undertake a month-long tour of South America. On this trek a further, more damaging rift developed in the ranks between Jim Martin and the rest of the band. Each factor stayed as far apart as possible and a mutual feeling of distaste began to build. The 'Angel Dust' album emerged in June '92. It captured Faith No More at their most daring, extreme and creative, and is the album that both Korn and the Deftones cite as a major influence. Martin hated it, and was very vocal about saying so. The band supported Guns N' Roses and Metallica on their obscenely overblown US stadia tour that summer. Martin was the only member of the band who could stomach the tour's grotesque rock star excesses. "Jim works really hard at being the official party animal for Faith No More," Patton told Kerrang! with barely suppressed disgust. "What a guy!" Martin responded: "It's four of them against one of me. Sometimes I hate those f**kers." Jim Martin played his final gig with the band at the Phoenix Festival. It was a wretched show, and it was no surprise to anyone when the guitarist was given his marching orders in December '93. It was a bitter, rancorous split. Last year. Bill Gould reflected: "One of the things I liked about it when Jim joined the band was that It put us in a space that was so different to where we'd been before that we thought it was humorous. When the humour wasn't funny any more, we had to re-assess what we were doing." As Faith No More began writing their new album, Roddy Bottum was battling a drug problem. The resulting record, 'King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime', missed this unique keyboard flourishes. Mr Bungle's Trey Spruance played guitar on the album, but abruptly announced that he couldn't tour with the band once it was completed. The band's former keyboard tech Dean Menta filled his shoes on tour. 'King For A Day...' proved to be a creative and commercial disappointment. On tour, renewed tensions riddled the band's relationships with each other This time, the only casualty was Menta. LAST CUP Of SORROW When the time came to write 'Album Of The Year', Faith No More's future prospects looked grim. Patton had moved to Italy with his wife and immersed himself in ever more strange and off kilter side-projects. Bottum had formed - and enjoyed critical acclaim with - a pop band called Imperial Teen. Mike Bordin had toured with Ozzy Osbourne's hand. Gould and Bordin made up some demos of new material and sent them to Patton. The singer's response was less than enthusiastic. "I wasn't around for the first batch of songs and I didn't relate to them in any way," he said later. "So I came back and said, 'What the hell is this? I got stuck into this album, more than any other because there was a lot of music on the table that I didn't like; I felt like I had to for us to continue at all. I didn't see myself in those songs: it was just middle of the road and it wasn't balanced enough. Some uglier stuff was necessary from : my perspective." But once everyone had written their parts and recorded the tracks, it was mostly left to Gould to fit it all together. While everyone else pursued other projects he took on the producer's role, pulling in The Young Gods' Roli Mosimann to help him guide the album to a conclusion. It was immediately obvious that FNM's core audience was significantly smaller when 'Album Of The Year' was released in the US. But a sell-out theatre tour suggested that they still had a productive future. "It's good to be in a comfortable spot," opined Gould, "where you can go onstage, do a confident show, and get respect from people. I don't think it's necessarily important to sell five million records or play to 30,000 people. It's down to liking what you do". This summer, Faith No More were due to support Aerosmith on their European tour, for which they'd reportedly been guaranteed half a million dollars. They were evidently by no means a spent force. But as far back as last autumn, Mike Patton was refusing to be drawn on how long they would go on. "I can't even digest thinking about it right now" he said. Jim Martin saw the press release announcing Faith No More's final split on the Internet. He offered his reaction to the news via e-mail. "The inability of the remaining members to hang on to FNM, the fact that they allowed it to slip away, is evidence of their lack of commitment to the group," he notes. "Faith No More was always shrouded in smoke: the truth was something that was always denied and still is." His former colleagues are still uncomfortable about discussing the details of, and reasons for their break-up at present. But Bill Gould spontaneously agreed to make statement when contacted at home. "However many records we sold or didn't, we maintained over a long period of time a high standard of music that we're proud of, and we never sucked," he says. "Whatever shit that happened to us on the way thank God it didn't get in the way of the music. "I'm keeping my options open for the future. I'm definitely going to be doing music in the future, but l'm producing a lot of bands right now. Roli definitely influenced me wanting to get into remixes; and remixing makes you think about music differently, which is a really good thing. I did a Rammstein remix which was fun, and I'm taking on some production stuff for the rest of the year. I'm going to Finland to produce a band called CMX and there's other stuff I'm setting up right now. I'll be working my ass off. I'm coming out of an experience where I was in a band situation for 17 years My main focus was that band. So what I'm doing now is putting that same amount of energy I put into Faith No More into my own thing." Mike Patton is forming a new band called Fantomas with a Melvins guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osbourne, exSlayer drummer Dave Lombardo and Mr Bungle's Trevor Dunn. Roddy Bottum's Imperial Teen will release their second album very shortly. Bordin will drum with Ozzy Osbourne's band on their upcoming Ozzfest dates. Puffy' has the last word. "I'd just like to say thanks, man," he says. "Thanks to everyone who supported Faith No More. Thanks to everyone in the UK and to everyone at Kerrang!. I really appreciate it, and I know Billy does too. Your support's been amazing over the years. We really couldn't have asked for more. Sorry it had to end this way." They will be sorely missed. #faithnomore #albumoftheyear

All five members of FNM have shared their own quarantine playlists on Apple Music. Check out what they are listening to. Hey guys... We were so looking forward to seeing you this Summer, but like you, we are following the guidelines to keep everyone safe. Here's some music we have been listening to while in quarantine - FNM Roddy Bottum's Lady Rona Playlist Mike Bordin's We are all in this together, even though many of us don't wanna admit it playlist Billy Gould's Power and Beauty of Streaming playlist Jon Hudson's Bleach Bottle Babylon playlist Mike Patton's Pandemic Soul Crisis #faithnomore

One of Mike Patton's most adventurous and extravagant recordings The Mondo Cane album was released on May 4th, 2010. "A period piece love letter to Italy." How the Mondo Cane album was realised is a touching story, a record almost 16 years in the making. It all started in 1994 when Patton met and married the Italian artist Cristina Titi Zuccatosta. Patton moved with her to Bologna, soon became immersed in the local Italian culture and he began to learn the language. “The great thing about Italy [is that] if you just say two words, like ‘ciao bello,’ [they say], ‘Wow, that’s amazing! You sound just like an Italian!’ It really boosts your confidence. The whole attitude [in Italy is] toward acceptance and tolerance. The reason that I learned the language and did it so fast…is because the people were so amazing." - Patton 2010 During this time Patton discovered Italian/Greek vocalist Demetrio Stratosl, a 1970s prog-rock revolutionary who explored the limits of the human voice. Stratosl helped inspire Patton to create his first solo album Adult Themes For Voice. Whilst in Italy he also befriended Italian trio Zu, who he would sign to his own label Ipecac. It wasn't just the language that Patton became familiar with, after recommendations from friends and browsing record stores he fell in love with classic 50's and 60's Italian pop music. "I lived there for a number of years and got enamoured with the music. It was none of the modern music, oddly enough. I found this radio station that played oldies, and it inspired me to think of a new way of interpreting them. The music made sense to me immediately, and I knew that some day I would do my interpretation of this kind of music." - Patton 2010 He envisioned playing this style of music in clubs with a small band. "When I first had the impudence to do this, I thought I would be doing it with a five-piece band, and I would just do it around town in Rome and just be done with it. And that just didn’t…well, I threw it against the wall and it just didn’t stick." - Patton 2010 Over the next few years writing and touring with Faith No More and Mr. Bungle meant much travelling back and forth to the States, and his idea was shelved. However there are hints at his new found obsession with Italian pop on both Disco Volante and California. Fantômas and building the independent record company Ipecac were Patton's next projects and after about six years commuting between SF and Bologna he decided to leave Italy behind, but the time he lived there had been important to him. "I have a strong personal connection to it. My wife is Italian and I lived there for six years. Even more than music, it was a really exciting period in my life when a lot of things were new. I was learning a new language, and living in a place that was new to me, and I was surrounded by all this incredible music. I developed a real bond with, not only the place and the people, but the music of that region." - Patton 2010 Mike has said that he will return, it's the place he'd like to go to die! In 2007 Patton was offered a chance to perform with an orchestra by a friend which was funded by the AngelicA festival in Bologna, "Hey, I have this orchestra that's going to be working with my festival this year, do you want to write something for it? And I was like, wow! Y'know? Been waiting for that call for a long time." This led to three Italian concerts in May 2007 but Patton now had to decide which songs to include in the set. "I had a gigantic list of really great songs and I had to sort of wind them down to what I could sing, what I could translate, what I could pull off. Anyone can put together a list of favorite tunes, but the real trick is — and the key is — to come up with something you can pull off and interpret in your own way. Not all of my favorite tunes would I want to touch. If it’s perfect already, why f— it up?" - Patton 2010 Mondo Cane is an Italian phrase that means 'the world is going to the dogs', and although there is no direct connection the 1960's Italian shockumentary of the same name, Patton appreciated the reference. "...of course I was familiar with the movie and all its connotations so I wanted to give a little bit of a – how would you say – unexpected twist to a record like this, which is pretty easy on the ears and pretty linear. I needed to balance that out with a provocative title." - Patton 2010 These concerts were a huge undertaking with months of preparation. The was music on a grand scale including a 10-piece band, and a 40-piece orchestra. Italian producer/composer Daniele Luppi helped with the arrangements, a different orchestra was employed for each of the concerts with a host of talented musicians. (The band would progress in 2012 to include some of his regular collaborators such as Trevor Dunn and William Winant.) "It was fun. It was new. It was interesting. Orchestral musicians have a different approach than we do, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean musicians who don’t know what they are doing. I let the conductor deal with the orchestra, and I dealt with the band. The band is 12-13 people, yes, but I know how to deal with a band. But there were some different moods that an orchestra has that I am not used to, having played in rock bands." - Patton 2010 Over three new concerts in 2008, the group took part in live recordings that would be assembled into the Mondo Cane album, released in May of 2010. "I took a bunch of live recordings that we did and realized what I wanted to do, which was make a sort of…”illusion” record. Something that was basically based on live recordings, but sounded like a studio recording. That took a lot of time, you know, editing recordings. [I had] three concerts, and I took the best of the best, from bar to bar, from note to note, and second to second. So that was a whole lot of surgery. [I also had to bring] it up to the level where I wanted it to be. I couldn’t, at the time, when we were doing the concerts. We either didn’t have the time or the manpower to recreate all the arrangements and all the ideas that I had." - Patton 2010 The opening track Il cielo in una stanza, was written by Gino Paoli and originally recorded by Italian singer Mina. It was a commercial success in the early 60's and some may recognise it from the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas (1990). "The reason I opened the record with it is that I thought it was one of the strongest songs that I had, one of the best sets of material that I was given to work with. It also happened to be a huge hit in Italy. Here, you know, I’m not so sure. I think it charted on the Billboard charts back in the day. Now, yeah, people know it as the Goodfellas song. But if they know it for anything, that’s not a bad association. I’m happy that people know it for anything. I’ve had to explain to [American] journalists that very fact, that this is not just some unknown… I’ve had to tell them, “No, this song was really big and even used in this film by Martin Scorsese, this certain scene where the guy walks into the room with his friends, explaining who Johnny Two Times is.” A lot of people don’t know that." - Patton 2010 An true inspiration for Patton during the arrangement of this album was legendary composer Ennio Morricone. Two of his songs feature on the album Down Down from the Mario Bava film Danger: Diabolik (1968) and Quello che conta. Patton grew up with Morricone's work but it wasn't until his mid-twenties that he realised quite how deep the maestro's music. "What I am really inspired by right now is The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. It’s a Dario Argento film — one of his early films and a great one. Morricone did the soundtrack, and it’s just absolutely, mind-blowingly complex, and really fun. Really amazing. The instrumentation is just gorgeous — tons of shit going on, super dense. It makes what would normally be a slasher film into a really elegant affair. That’s a wonderful example of how influential a soundtrack can be." - Patton 2010 Patton returned to Mondo Cane for shows in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018 and 2019. #mikepatton #mondocane #ipecac

Ho-hum. But listen up, suckers! Are you tired of lifeless, bloodless interviews? Fed up with tales of studios and producers, record company and management politics? Do you thirst for tales of organised crime, government corruption and mass murderers? Thought so... Pull up a chair then and make yourself comfortable because FNM bassman Bill Gould has put on his best Mac Bygraves voice to say.... Kerrang! | Issue 287 | April 28th 1990 I Wanna Tell You A Story by Steffan Chirazi As I watch Faith No More's sell-out show at LA's Palace, the thought sort of flows into my mind and stops there for the rest of the night. The baby is no longer, the youngster doesn't pee it's nappies anymore. Faith No More are an improper adult. From being a band that no one wanted to know, FNM have grown into one of the biggest in Britain and Europe - and a band that are finally turning the more ignorant in their native America onto the Real Thing. Tonight's Palace show is the best this band has played since Mike Patton joined the ranks. Playing athletic, crunchy, wide, mobile music on springs. Faith No More take the crowd through the real world with superb pace and order, the whole show climaxing gloriously in 'Epic' . The LA crowd seem to actually have it all upstairs for once, choosing to focus on their own instinctive reactions instead of their buddies. The result is a Palace heaving and wobbling like some giant amoeba ... although amoebae don't stage dive to the best of my knowledge. All this off the back of two ferocious, sweaty and triumphant hometown San Franciscan affairs at the Stone and the Omni, where floorboards and PA's found it tough to take the immense strain and I found it hard to peel the sopped shirt off my drowning back. Each cog of Faith No More is currently operating at it's peak: Patton is nothing short of amazing, Mike 'Puffster' Bordin simply one if the best drummers you'll see, Roddy Bottum continues to be the fastest developing member in terms of overall presence and his willingness to take some stage spotlight, and amidst all the fuss is the one member who has probably changed the least—Jim 'Shirt' Martin. Even if he shaved his head (or just cut it off) he'd still be the same. Then there's Bill Gould: more buried than ever in his basswork. Just before the Palace show I sit down with him to talk. A founder-member of the band, it strikes me that despite my lengthy documentation of Faith No More, Gould is one pocket I was always either too scared or too wary to delve into. As nice a fellow as Bill is, he is a constant threat to security. Gould was the child with the child with the nice smile who spat in the headmaster's tea, the child who wondered what would happen with certain chemical combinations in the school laboratory. And Bill Gould reads. His mind is constantly lubricated by the exact thought that "they" don't want you to have. "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' which is just fair and there's this new one called... Jesus Christ I can't remember the title now..." (Gould looks genuinely pained) "...but anyway it's 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." Is it the evils in organised government that make this stuff so appealing? "I'm just fascinated by it, and in case music doesn't work out then I'd like to feel that I know something about the apparatus of the business world... the musician's career can be very short-lived." What has viewing that business world made Gould think about the music biz? "It's very interesting because before we had a deal the record companies were just some kind of monolith, this unattainable, unapproachable mega machine. But then I read books about CIA/government bribery and I realise that record company people are small fish who could end up in suitcases. Even the president of Warner Bros could end up in the trunk of a car at anytime... which I of course would never want to wish upon anyone, but you realise that these things could happen". Could it ever happen to you Bill? "I'm not worth anything to anybody so I'm not worried about it personally. Generally I don't think anyone in the record industry is worth it because the money that the industry generates is just small change to even a single Colombian gold-carrying coke dealing outfit." I remind Bill that Faith No More seem to be worth something to the people of Britain right now, with 'From Out Of Nowhere' at Number 30 and rising (?), a slot on 'Top Of The Pops', Hammersmith Odeon sell-outs. "Yeah, true, but that's all based much more on a communicative and cultural basis. It has nothing to do with money or power or that side of things, and let's be serious, if I wanted to make money and be on that side I'd be smuggling cocaine because that's where the big money seems to be at." Gould elaborates further the money game. "Pornography isn't as hot as it used to be, but maybe gay pornography because many homosexuals have been buying gay pornography due to the whole AIDS situation. Although having said that many heterosexuals too would rather sit in their house and wank off than risk disease, the country as a whole is turning to pornography much more." Despite all attempts by Thatcher the differences between Britain and America remain numerous. For a start. Faith No More are huge in Britain. What are the differences through Gould's eyes, and why? "I think it's down to three things. One is that the British audience takes less bullshit in their music. Case in point is the first time we played there, they'd play Slayer before the show and kids would be jumping around and getting into it. You'd just never see that in the US with a band that's so heavy and unconventional, not with masses of people anyway, so in Britain there's a more open frame of mind. "Second, the business is just different in Britain and the third is communications where you can have magazines that come out once a week going all over the country. "In the USA the only one that even comes out every two weeks is Rolling Stone and by the time you're in Rolling Stone you've already hit the masses, so in Britain that communication means a lot. Then Rolling Stone isn't so much a magazine as a symbol which represents what is doing well and is telling you this is it. A magazine like Kerrang! might do a feature on an unsigned band that nobody's heard of but because of that story they will and people will check 'em out. Maybe they suck, but maybe they don't..." What about the cultural differences? "Well. I must say I think British people seem very hung-up on sex," he starts in earnest, "they're fascinated by it, seem to tolerate it in softcore yet totally reject it in hardcore formats. Americans are totally the opposite. If the supervisor of a council is having an affair with another member's wife, it's not much, unless he's running for president. You just don't get front page coverage in the US simply because you are a city council member who had an affair that included getting whipped and chained! But then there's no denying that when it comes to good ol' white trash, America leads the way, they really like to cook it up." I wonder if the deep traditional British religious foundations have a bearing on these differences through Gould's eyes? "I don't think so actually, because I feel the heavy protestant ethic is deeper in America because all the extremists and psychopaths got out of Britain and came here!" Why is it then, that a country so sexually repressed can find the extra energy American audiences lack? "I'm really not sure," concedes Bill before voicing a theory. "It might have something to do with releasing built-up frustrations and being able to just let them go at one time. "Americans have many more opportunities to relieve stress especially through stress-relieving toys such as Nintendo games and consumer items that are only just available in Britain now. In the US these things have been around for quite a while so people are maybe less stressed? I dunno, who can Be sure." We decide to move on to musical matters, (Shame, I liked that bit about whips and chains -Ed.) and the fact that many FNM songs these days boast a newer, brighter arrangement. Does this come from playing too much and getting bored, or just becoming better musicians? "It has much more to do with our improving abilities as musicians. You don't get bored playing the same songs because basically the physical set becomes a challenge. It's like meditation, you sink into it and the whole thing just gets better the more you do it. But what actually brings the thought into your head to rearrange something? "I dunno," concedes Gould, "that's a good question. With 'Chinese Arithmetic' for example, we tried something that seemed like fun and it worked out. If the show's going real good we sometimes just try things out and make stuff up on our own. There are certain nights where you know it's gonna work because everybody's 'on'. It just sorta mutates out of situations." When Gould adds his touch to tunes, are they the result of his personal fascinations? "Only in as much as reading's great for focusing in and keeping interest on whatever's being done. So when I write stuff sure, my mind's more able to focus but I don't think about coke dealers while I write bass lines! However, the intensity of, being so interested in, something reflects onto other things, it's like an exercise." How much thought and pressure is there going into Faith No More right now as a result of the rapidly rising profile? Is writing a new album a weight "Every once in a while I suppose," sighs Gould, "but when we kicked out Chuck...(Mosley, former FNM singer)... we hadn't written one new song for this record, we had no idea what we were gonna do, we'd toured the last album for two years and I personally thought we were all used up. But then when you get off this touring thing, you look at the music in a different frame of mind and you can put your time into song writing and it happens just fine. Having a record company that's pledging full support and what have you isn't pressure, it's confidence, it feels good. Anyway, that sort of pressure is something this band's never really taken to heart, because we just do our own thing. If we were one of those bands that worried about what companies and people thought, we wouldn't have fired Chuck would we? But we aren't like that." I Suddenly remember Bill's interest in mass murderers and note that he hasn't mentioned this so far. "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." You have to wonder just what a chap like William Gould could possibly be scared by. Body fat maybe? "Ummm... I m not sure. Maybe the only thing is that somebody in the band will fuck up and not do their job properly, I mean that's the thing that scares me, but I feel that problem's largely been alleviated. We're signed up for a long time. It's like there's a limited amount of oxygen and you're in a small tank, and if everybody watches their breath, breathes lightly and co-operates, then everybody will be fine and you can open up the tank and walk out: like an experiment. But if somebody panics, it'll take everybody's oxygen away from them..." Bill Gould, murderous flickering eye and all, will be on the next edition of 'Jackanory'. #faithnomore #therealthing #kerrang #billygould

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

Thirty years ago Faith No More played at The Brixton Academy in London as part of their second UK tour of 1990 supporting The Real Thing. This momentous show was filmed and released as You Fat Bastards in 1991. RIP Magazine | 1990 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. Set List From Out Of Nowhere Falling To Pieces Introduce Yourself The Real Thing Underwater Love As The Worm Turns The Crab Song Edge Of The World The Morning After Chinese Arithmetic We Care A Lot Surprise! You're Dead! Epic Woodpecker From Mars Zombie Eaters Why Do You Bother? War Pigs [ Black Sabbath ] Easy [ Commodores ] #faithnomore #therealthing #brixton

Thirty years ago Faith No More played at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, UK. Audio from the sold out show was captured on bootleg recordings and made available on vinyl. Raw Magazine | Maura Sutton SO FAITH No More have proven that they can sell out the major venues in this country; now they have to show that they can perform on the big stages. Judged on tonight's showing they've still got some way to go in this department. Sure, the initial reception was as rapturous one might expect, the capacity crowd mouthing every syllable of 'From Out Of Nowhere'. But the show seemed to lose momentum soon afterwards. And things didn't really get interesting until vocalist Mike Patton stripped off his shirt during 'The Morning After', proceeding to get a little mad and dangerous, even introducing a snippet of Technotronic's 'Pump Up The Jam' Full marks for bravery! Musically, the five-piece were of course quite breathtaking. The rhythm section alone ( Bill Gould on bass and Mike Bordin on drums) was worth the price of admission, in particular 'The Real Thing'. However the overall presentation - including a truly crappy lighting rig - reflected a band handicapped by their clubland roots. Moreover, whilst keyboardsman Roddy Bottum made a valiant effort, guitarist 'Big' Jim Martin, seemed content to be just 'Big' and did little else. Patton, meantime, began well as he bounded on sporting a toy policeman's helmet, silly glasses and a 'right on' Niggers With Attitude T-shirt. But he spoilt it all by continually aping the moves of the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, thereby inviting unfavourable comparisons with the latter. And some of the singer's antics bordered on the brattish, what with moaning at the crowd that he wanted a better response and hamming it up with a giant willy (laugh? Thought I'd never start) during a jokey encore rendition of The Commodores' 'I'm Easy'. Now goofy fun is fine, yet by the end of the evening it was all becoming a tad tiresome. Frankly I was surprised. I was starting to believe that Faith No More were something akin to the Second Coming. Now I find they have feet of clay. Let's hope it was just a bad night. #faithnomore #therealthing

Faith No More founder and CEO of Koolarrow Records celebrates his 57th birthday. Faith No More Followers team would personally like to thank Bill for all his help, he is always ready to answer our 'fan boy' questions and, when his memory serves him right, help with facts for us to post. He has been a fantastic support to our work and that of other fan pages. Thank you. Bass Guitar Magazine | 2013 “When I first started playing I was about 12 or 13. I liked progressive rock – Yes in particular – and in fact my tone is like Chris Squire’s, in a strange kind of way. I always liked that aggressive kind of tone. I had a Rickenbacker when I was a little kid and I was in a band that was a bit like the Buzzcocks – very fast, sixteenth-note type stuff. Then, when I moved to San Francisco when I was 18, I met Bordin, whose drumming style was totally different to any other drummer I’d known before that. He really got me thinking, because his strengths and weaknesses are different than the average drummer. I learned to work with the way that he works, and we found a way to work together. Even to this day I have a hard time playing with other drummers, because they’re on a different cycle and a different rhythm. He definitely accents things differently. He hits hard, too, and he has a little bit of a delay in his hits which I’ve made part of my rhythm as well. If you delay things and hold them back, they’ll come off a little heavier, and we got into similar stuff together. Even though I’d been in bands for five or six years I’d say that these were still my formative years when I was 18. I was still discovering dub music, for example. Public Image was the first album to me which was groundbreaking.” “I can’t do what Flea or Les Claypool can do, although I can do some of it. Louis Johnson would kick the crap out of me, ha ha! But the truth is that’s not what I’m looking for. I see making music as street fighting. It’s like kickboxing, it’s not like painting a picture. I’m not interested in that.” Machine Music | April 2015 "I think what really did it for me was there was a couple of albums that I heard that kind of gave me a strange…opened my eyes to what music was and what music could do, they were two albums of my father's. One album was Space Oddity by David Bowie and the other one was Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon. Those two albums were pretty radical, and I was about nine years old and they made a big impact as far as how I looked at the world and what I thought music should do." Consequence Of Sound | October 2010 “I feel sorry for this generation of kids because they don’t go out to shows and make them events where things can happen. The unpredictability and liability is really the thing, the spark… you know people wanted to see Jerry Lee Lewis, it was a bit of a wild thing, and it’s become very, very controlled now.” Bassist Magazine | March 1995 "I think being in a band that is successful is like having a higher limit on your credit card. You get a little buying power, but you get locked into the system a lot more as well, and the things that can come easy at first actually have tentacles that try to keep you in. The longer you're in and the better you do, the more indebted you are to the system that's slowly suffocating you." Kerrang! | 1989 "It has nothing to do with money or power or that side of things, and let's be serious, if I wanted to make money and be on that side I'd be smuggling cocaine because that's where the big money seems to be at." Kerrang! | 1989 "I have this really bad ulcer and when I see a thing that I truly hate, all I can do to soften the blow is face it and come to terms with it. To prevent a flare-up I have to use these methods of understanding and compromise. I can honestly say that Milli Vanilli are helping me cope with life." Koolarrow Interview | 2016 "Making music is always the most exciting, this is really what I was made to do, and I don’t see that part of me stopping. However, I like a good fight, and a victory here and there for one of my bands is a great feeling." #faithnomore #koolarrowrecords