Celebrated composer of film scores Danny Elfman attended the third Mr. Bungle show in Los Angeles on Friday and shared a photo on instagram with some complimentary words on Patton. Mr. Bungle show last night! Really amazing. Mike Patton is insane. (Insanely talented!) I'd love to steal his voice. I know there are others who can sing with the ferocity of an angry grizzly bear seized by the spirit of a psychopathic banshee... and there are others who can also croon with the very best of the crooners and perfectly capture the spirit of 60's Italian pop singers... but seriously, no human can do both. Effortlessly. Not like Patton. I actually think he may not be human. The Melvins also played a scorching set. #mrbungle #mikepatton #dannyelfman

On February 4th 1991 Faith No More released the live recording of their 1990 show at Brixton Academy on audio formats Their are a several dates on which to celebrate this show, February 4th 1991 (audio), April 28th 1990 (the date of the actual perfomance) and August 1st 1990 (the release date of the VHS). The audio release featured The Cowboy Song and The Grade, two out takes from The Real Thing, previously only available on the B-side of From Out Of Nowhere 12". Metal Hammer | February 1991 Last year Faith No More were practically a permanent feature on the U.K. live scene. At times it seemed that as soon as the lights went down on one show there wasn't even time to catch a quick pint before you were screaming for 'War Pigs' at their next. Their audiences were growing at an alarming rate-a couple of years ago their glory was to achieve to consecutive sell-out nights at the marquee. That would have been enough to keep a Cheshire Cat type grin upon their faces for a good month! But a year later that achievement paled before a list of dates that included The Astoria, Brixton Academy, Hammersmith Odeon and the Reading Festival. Popping back and forth across the Atlantic with alarming regularity, they journeyed much over the surface of Britain-wearing out a considerable amount of rubber In the process! And so it was deemed that the rest of '91 will be a Faith No More no more year. Too much touring of Britain. Well we suppose they deserve a break. But don't despair! To satisfy our hunger London have put out a mini live album. Recorded at Brixton Academy in April of last year it features eight live monsters. The CD version includes two extra tracks -'The Cowboy Song' and 'The Grade' which have never before been widely available. Of course no live album from FNM would be complete without their habitual encore and Black Sabbath original 'War Pigs'.It's here, planted firmly at the end of side one, bathing in all its glory. In fact the LP includes most of FNM's finest - 'The Real Thing', 'Epic', 'From Out Of Nowhere' and 'We Care A Lot'. Capturing their essential live sound to a tee, so very well that you just want to throw your body about with the sheer pleasure of it all. We're gonna place our ears between the speakers of two very powerful amps and blast ourselves 'till our heads explode! Then we're off to Faith No More heaven. See ya there! #faithnomore #liveatthebrixtonacademy #fnmhistory

Faith No More will be part of 'One Night Of Galactic Proportion' on May 22nd at the Banc of California Stadium On Friday January 31st FNM shared a cryptic image of an astronaut aimlessly floating in space via their Instagram page with the caption 'Monday...', meanwhile at the same time identical images were posted by several other artists. This post came just a day after Frontier Touring teased that FNM would be returning to Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 2015 with dates to be publicised on Wednesday 5th February. The press jumped on this coordinated social media assault and began to speculate what announcement was imminent. We can reveal that Faith No More, System Of A Down, Korn, Helmet and Russian Circles will play a huge concert on May 22nd at the Banc of California Stadium SOAD have previously toured with Mr. Bungle and are also on the lineup Hellfest 2020 with FNM. Serj Tankian told Artist Direct in 2015, "I love Faith No More and Mike Patton. Patton always pushes boundaries and does something completely different." Members of Korn have expressed their love of FNM many times, they recently released a cover version of We Care A Lot and in 2000 Mike Bordin filled in for drummer David Silveria. Guitarist Munky Shaffer, who played with Bill Gould in Fear and the Nervous System, told Loudwire in 2015, "They inspired Fieldy and I to start a band and start playing". Helmet supported FNM on the Angel Dust tour in 1992. Tickets onsale Friday February 7th 10am PST. #faithnomore #systemofadown #korn #helmet #russiancircles

As a prelude to their current European jaunt, FAITH NO MORE trailed across the states with Voivod and Soundgarden as part of a triple-pronged metal attack. Roy Wilkinson joins them on the road for an exercise in American excess, Ed Sirrs watches them blow the opposition apart Sounds | 03.02.1990 | Ed Sirrs Divide and Conquer LIKE A burst of rock 'n' roll tracer fire, three silver juggernauts fly through the night. Asleep inside these chrome capsules are three consignments of metal from a new forge. Triple-headed, this metallic-hued tour beast sweeps along the North American East coast. The monster tour vehicles are design classics, but inside them are bands from heavy duty rock's cutting edge. Montreal's Voivod headline the package and have the most luxurious road roller to go with their pole position. Seattle's Soundgarden come in second on the bill. but their gear-packed bus earns them last place in the wheels-of-style comfort stakes. Opening the show are San Francisco's Faith No More. Between a gig at Washington's Bayou - a perfect replica of London's Mean Fiddler - and New  York's Ritz the No More nice guys get the best sleep they can in their mobile hotel. At the wheel is Mad Danny, a man famed for his limitless bonhomie and occasional entertainment spot as M'Asshole Marceau, the C&W mime artist. As currently high profile as Faith No More are, they're still a long way from the megabuck status of arena plastimetal godz, from Poison to Bon Jovi. Besides, they're a last minute addition to this tine-up, using the tour substantially as a limber-up for the forthcoming European jaunt. With three bands carving up shows that range between attendances of a few hundred and 2,500, FNM are not coining it here. The drivers net a bigger profit- 150 dollars a night, double that if they can cruise more than 500 miles plus as many Yorkies as they can eat. ALL THREE bands thrive, to a greater or lesser extent, on their ambiguity to heavy metal's motley constituency. In many ways Voivod are the most traditional -the sci-fi imagery, a weird and wonderful guitar collection worthy of Spinal Tap's Nigel Tutnell, tempo changes that conjure images of a jazzfusion Rush. Soundgarden are increasingly puzzling -they're up for mocking metal's sacred codes, as is made dear by the cover of Spinal Tap's 'Big Bottoms' they belt out to straight-faced New Yorkers. But these days, with the 'Louder Than Love' album, their music is a pretty straight angle on tradition. It's Faith No More's mix of stylistic components, personalities and that up American commodity irony that's giving them the edge in the meta-metal stakes. One strength is their mix of mentalities. Generally, they divide into two camps. First, there's guitarist Big Jim Martin and drummer Mike 'Puffy' Bordin. the more traditionally inclined muso-rockheads. In the other camp there's bassist Bill Gould, keyboards man Roddy Bottum and vocalist Michael Patton. The divide doesn't always hold - as highlighted by Jim's continual references to Hell and Satan - but it's Gould, Bottum and Patton who most often have their tongues in their cheeks. Mention lan 'Wolfchild' Astbury and Billy 'Bill' Duffy travelling in separate tour juggernauts and the three are away. "Yay Wolfchild, go Wolfie'" they chorus. "The Wolf child is hot", decides Billy, before Mike P drops some of the irony. "No, we haven't got our own buses yet- not like buttchild." Roddy: "But where does The Cult keyboard player travel? No one knows they've got one except them - they keep him hidden behind curtains onstage." FNM's ridiculing of metal's embarrassing elements extends to their songs. 'Surprise! You're Dead' is a cartoon version of speed metal's death obsession. "Yeah, read the lyrics," agrees Mike P. "They're really ridiculous. The song kinda sounded cartoonish so I wrote that kind of lyric to it. Hey, I listen to a lot of Slayer." Billy: "It was pretty much Jim's tune. Basically, I think Jim's dead serious about it - he's a twisted guy. He's a self-parody and himself at the same time. and he gives his music that feeling." DESPITE FNM's duality there are things on a rock tour that can't help but remain traditional. After the Washington show, time-honoured rock characters assemble in the FNM bus-there's Pamela Des Beers, the bargain-basement groupie who is so inherently rock 'n' roll that it takes that rock-archetype gunslinger Big Jim to rise to her challenge. Afterwards he gives his verdict: "Hell, she was a hell of a lot better than last night's. That chick looked like Elvis' sister- and that's Elvis just before he died." Next on the list of requisite rock figures is Dave Bud, the band's King roadie. A generously proportioned, younger version of US comedian Sam Kinnison, Dave is always ready with a one-liner and a bagful of tales of his sexual potency: "Did I ever tell you about that time with the four Poison groupies and the salami..." There's no doubting that FNM have the personnel for serious touring activity. And touring they have been. In the wake of the 'The Real Thing' album Faith No More have fought valiantly to usurp Manowar's road rhetoric anthem 'The Kings Of Metal: 'Manowar, Manowar living on the road/When we're in town speakers explode.! The chant threatens to become "Faith No More, Faith No More. . " Already FNM have two post 'The Real Thing' voyages to England under their belt and, as you read this, they'll be midway through a third. And that's before we've mentioned a month's worth of Metallica support slots in the States. "It seems a lot when you look back over the past six months." groans Billy, his half open eyes bearing testimony to intense sleep deprivation! "I start getting tired simply because I think I should be tired." But after Metallica they must be up to anything. Metallica's American shows are surely the most extreme environment to perform in. Billy: "Their fans are insane. We were pretty worried before we started with them but it wasn't too bad. It took a while to get used to a big stage, though — it was like playing in slow motion." As relaxed as FNM are about it, a full blown American tour can't help but be an exercise in extremity. Travelling the country by bus rams home the sheer scale of the place, state blurring into state. No benign country either -the scariness of the place is emphasised in Washington. First the gig is interrupted by an announcement: DCs Mayor Barry has been arrested, apparently the cops have a video of him smoking crack. The second stun comes as we drive away after the show: a man lies prostrate, seemingly shot, on the sidewalk. "It becomes a haze," drawls Roddy. "I can't  remember cities at all. I try but I can't. These guys are better though -they'll go. Remember Nebraska? I just can't do it." Billy: "It does seem an extreme until you get back and settle in a while and see that nothing's changed. Then you realise that you've been doing something completely different to the way most people live. It becomes a total routine on tour, though - we're almost as adaptable  as cockroaches." "One extremity is the health factor," says Roddy, tackling a subject ably illustrated by Bill's impressive beer belly. "There's too much alcohol availability and never enough good food." Mike Patton is the one No More geezer unaffected by this. A no drinking health freak, Mike's fitness is apparent when he leaps fearlessly into the ultra-violent New York crowd and emerges miraculously unscathed. Big Jim is Mike P's inverse. Billy: "Jim's one out-of-shape motherf**ker. He takes hours to have a shit. He's got the body of a 65-year-old man. We call him grandpa." IN THE face of touring's stress FNM concoct some dumb distractions. The latest is the T-shirt race, a contest based on each night's merchandise sales and designed to wind-up band's more competitive members, Jim and Mike Bordin. Billy: "We keep telling them that it's T-shirts that really decide how good a band is. So when we lose out it's, look guys, the other bands are better people -they're better looking, write better songs. But then when we win we're better." Midway between this buffoonery and the wildness of touring lies Faith No More's oft'-viewed porn vid. Presented to the band by fans, F*** My Boy, features supposed septuagenarian incest sex- and is frequently used as a means of clearing the tour bus of lily-livered guests. Right now, however, another video nasty is occupying the band's mind - an intensely televised spectacle. This year Faith No More have been nominated for a Grammy in the annual American pop awards. In the Heavy Metal category they line up against a list of potential prizewinners that include Soundgarden (on the strength of last year's SST album 'Ultramega OK', Dokken and Metallica. Of course, Metallica were thwarted last year- by Jethro Tull. "Yeah, f***n' Tull!" guffaws Mike Bordin. "That shows right there how ridiculous these awards are. Everybody knew Metallica would win. Man, they just knew!" Mike B: "If Metallica don't win the Grammy I'll f***in' run naked down the street. If Dokken were to win it'd be so ridiculous -  but look what happened last year." Billy: "It's a joke, the whole industry's a joke. I feel sorry for anyone who's taken in by it, who takes it seriously. I feel sorry for my family who think it's an honour to be nominated for a Grammy." Roddy: "It's just the latest in a list of Great Things that've happened to this band. It started with the Metallica tour being the greatest thing. Then we get all these rave reviews in the metal magazines and then all these rock stars declare their undying love for us. Now we're up for a Grammy. We still don't make a penny, we still don't sell any records." Billy: "We feel like total monkeys sometimes, just running on a wheel so all these people can get the energy generated from it and light their homes. "There are so many people who make a living from the Grammys and that kinda shit. In American especially. But, hey, I'm still fooled into being flattered. It makes me smile." Billy knows more about industry lunacy than most - until recently he wasn't getting his ASCAP performance royalties cheque. Instead they were being sent to a songwriter called Barbara Gould. "I didn't even know I should be getting anything until one day Jim told me about these cheques he'd been sent." he shrugs. Ah, the biz - what these boys really need is some sponsorship. Surely they were aiming at a Coke deal when they titled the album 'The Real Thing'? Billy: "Oh yeah, I was thinking, like, a baseball guy or a tennis player in a slow motion shot hitting the ball. while our song plays in the background. But nobody want to sponsor us. "We were thinking we might get some action with Nestles. They're not so popular after selling milk in South Africa, so we thought they might need some kinda hip thing to get the kids on their side." That'd set you up nicely for a tour with Public Enemy. Billy: "The problem is our manager's Jewish and so is our drummer. I think Public Enemy'd prefer a Jew-free tour." Mike P: "I've got my order in for Public Enemy lederhosen though." Billy: "Yeah. have you seen that National Lampoon thing on Public Enemy? It's hilarious. It has this new Public Enemy song called 'Don't Believe The Kike': 'Hymie you couldn't buy me/With a skullcap full o f shekels'." THE JOKES have always flowed with Faith No More, but nowadays the band-has a new ease about it. It's 18 months since Mike Patton stepped in for the ousted Chuck Mosley. At first it seemed the band were less without the deep-seated tension that seemed so crucial to their existence. Now they're a band reborn, having supplanted their original brooding charm with a furious dynamic that's given them a much wider appeal. Dark-edged drama is out, a startling live band having taken its place. "Live we're definitely more focused and more consistent. Before it was always a tittle nerve-racking," understates Roddy. Billy: "At least now you know everybody in the band's doing their best - even if things f*** up you can't get too mad. If you look at my bass I've got all these huge cracks in the neck. That's all from when Chuck was in the band cos every night I'd think about leaving the band. I'd end up either hitting Chuck or the drum riser with my bass. "I've got an ulcer from that- literally. The ulcer's getting better - then I'd be throwing up every morning. I'm getting old. man - I couldn't keep up with that." Mike Bordin selects a CD from an on tour collection that includes Cab Calloway. gospel compilations, Bhangra music and all Roxy's albums alongside the metal: "This is great. I can just get into my own world and cool out." The eclectic essence of Faith No More is to be alive as ever. Only, these days, they can relax while they're at it. #faithnomore #therealthing #mikepatton #billygould #mikebordin #roddybottum #jimmartin

On 13 August 2019, it was announced that Mr. Bungle would perform in February 2020. Original members Patton, Spruance & Dunn would be joined by Dave Lombardo and Anthrax's Scott Ian to perform the first demo The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny in its entirety. Mr Bungle released their first demo in 1986. The songs show potential, the performances carry hints of talent, the inaudible lyrics are immature attempts at inevitable future genius and the overall audio quality is frankly, lousy. We hope that by dissecting the band and the demo, listener's get a better sense of the February shows ahead. Listen to all Podcast Croissant episodes here. Download MP3 (146 MB) Email: podcastcroissant@gmail.com facebook.com/podcastcroissant Instagram - @podcastcroissant Twitter - @podcroissant fnmlive.com faithnomorebook.com douglasesper.com Deaf To All But Metal Careless Whispod

Faith No More's smash single from 'The Real Thing' was released 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. 95.5 KLOS Sessions | Epic 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.’ Sounding Off with Rick Beato Episode 171: What Makes This Song Great? Ep.53 FAITH NO MORE 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 years since the single release of Epic and it is remembered as a groundbreaking 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. #faithnomore #epic #therealthing #mikepatton #billygould #roddybottum #mikebordin #jimmartin #epic30 #fnmhistory

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. #faithnomore #videocroissant

In July 2019 we spoke with Jason Dummeldinger the director of Baseball Furies, an upcoming documentary which looks at the unlikely but strong connection between counter-culture musicians and baseball. The film features interviews with Mike Patton, Mike Bordin, Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and many more. The official trailer was screened on Sunday to a select lucky few at GMan Tavern in Chicago. You can now watch the full preview below, and see Mike B thumbing through his collection of vintage baseball cards, plus live footage of The Melvins. #mikepatton #mikebordin #

Today we wish Mike Patton, the man of a thousand voices, a very happy 52nd birthday. The last decade has been a thrilling time to be a Patton-fan. A decade which featured the Resurrection of Faith No More and Tomahawk. The introduction of new projects such as Nevermen, Dead Cross and tētēma - to name a few. A decade which witnessed Patton’s mastery of film soundtrack compositions. A decade of countless memorable live perfomances. 2019 to 2019 was exceptionally Patton-tastic and Mike has remained the most hardworking and busiest he could possibly be. To celebrate his 52nd birthday and recent career in music we have selected some highlights from the last ten years. 1. Faith No More Reunited (2009) On February 24th 2009 Faith No More announced they were to return. Patton - who had previously been dismissive of the band, sometimes even disgusted at the idea of a reformation - embraced his reaffirmation with FNM and took to the stage with the perfect balance of passion and mischief. There are so many outstanding moments from the Second Coming Tour, from scaling the stage constructs to regurgitating shoelaces, from commandeering cameras to wrestling security. "I think that this Faith No More reunion taught me a pretty good lesson: 'Hey, these things that you've done in the past aren't your enemies.' They're not something to run away from but rather something to just understand. If I'm going to write a piece of music tomorrow, I'm not really going to understand it for another 10 years -maybe, if I'm lucky! The reunion with Faith No More was a really eye-opening experience because it taught me how to appreciate the music that I've done from a distance. When you're in it, you're too close. When you're writing it, it's still like a part of you." - Patton 2013 You can read in detail our article A Decade Of Faith No More 2009 - 2019 2. Mondo Cane (2010) In 2010 Patton and his label Ipecac Recordings released the maestro’s most ambitious project. The Mondo Cane album involved an orchestra, a fifteen-piece band and a choir. The ensemble recorded a collection of Italian pop songs over which Patton would exercise his skills singing in a second language. Patton's 'love letter' to the country he had spent much time in during the late 90's was first realised in 2007 with three live performances in Italy. It was from the audio of these shows that the album was pieced together. "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 Patton would perform Mondo Cane at various concerts in European and South American countries over the next decade. All of these concerts were spectacular, however special moments were at Teatro Caupolicán in Chile (2011) and at Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Italy (2019). 3. La Chanson de Jacky (2012) Scott Walker‘s cover of Jacques Brel‘s La Chanson de Jacky was re-recorded by Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists and released as a 7" single, before appearing of the album Book Of Souls: Folio A in 2013. This wonderfully slick and chest-puffed out version illustrates Patton’s ability to deliver a flawless performance without taking himself too seriously. Trey Spruance’s label Web Of Mimicry describes the release: It's a stunt simultaneously ill-advised and absolutely necessary for a band like Secret Chiefs 3: Traditionalists to undertake -- and one that could only be pulled off with someone uniquely qualified to take command of the vocals. Who other than the maestro Mike Patton, in this day and age, to do justice (and then some) without insult to such a preposterously Spartan legacy? 4. Tomahawk - Oddfellows (2013) With countless projects on the go 2013 was indeed a special year for Patton-fans. Tomahawk’s future was uncertain after the band released Anonymous in 2007. However in 2013 Patton, Duane Denison, John Stanier and Trevor Dunn made a comeback with their fourth studio album Oddfellows. It was a return to more traditional song formats but with that touch of weirdness we learned to expect from this outfit. Intricate off-beat rhythms, schizophrenic vocals, killer riffs and dark sounds - an amazing addition to their catalogue. "... a kind of first-take urgency, a feeling that, whenever you get these guys in the same room, this music-- this lurid, thorny, profoundly weird music-- just comes tearing out." - Pitchfork During 2013 Tomahawk embarked on a social media documented world tour which included a rare live TV performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. 5. Live with Björk (2013) During the 2010s Patton toured not only with his group arrangements but also made many one off appearances with other artists. Patton performed Laborintus II with Luciano Berio and Ictus Ensemble in 2010. In 2011 he joined Sepultura onstage in Brazil at Rock In Rio 4. He collaborated with Eyvind Kang at Sacrum Profanum Festival in 2016. Patton joined the Cavalera brothers and The Dillinger Escape Plan for a shows in 2017. In 2018 he performed Forgotten Songs with pianist Uri Caine on two nights in Modena, Italy. In 2019 Patton and DJ Qbert were guests at David Lynch's Festival of Disruption. The list goes on... However the guest performance that has made it into this list occurred in 2013 at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond. On this unprecedented occasion Patton joined Björk for the first (and only) time onstage to perform their duet Where Is The Line?. 6. Zorn @ 60 (2013) During the last decade Patton collaborated on various recordings and made various appearances with his mentor John Zorn. In 2010 original Mr. Bungle members Patton, Trevor Dunn and Trey Spruance were coerced by Zorn to form a group under the name of Cobra who performed in San Francisco. In May 2013 Mike joined Zorn’s 60th birthday celebrations at Warsaw Jazz Festival in Poland and Moers Festival in Germany. Each night had a performance from The Song Project and Moonchild, both featuring Patton. In September of the same year Zorn presented Patton's solo voice performance Six Litanies for Heliogabalus Litany IV at the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 7. Fantômas RockOut Festival (2014) It seems that the lucky people of Chile get all the extraordinary shows, from FNM presenting King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime in full to Mondo Cane back to back shows. December 2014 saw Fantômas reform after a five year absence and join Primus and Devo at RockOut Festival in Santiago. Patton's band performed The Director’s Cut in full. Buzz Osbourne, Dave Crover (filling in for Dave Lombardo) Patton and Dunn also joined Tool, Primus and Clutch for a one off show in San Bernardino in 2017. 8. Faith No More - Sol Invictus (2015) After six years of live shows with little evidence of new material FNM finally released their seventh studio album on May 19th 2015. Sol Invictus was FNM's first album in eighteen years and was arguably the most anticipated recording of Patton's career. "There were times in the past 10 years when I definitely thought that would never be the case," he continues. "I'm sure you could pull up all sorts of quotes from me where I'm saying, 'We'll never make another record again, I never want to be a part of that ever again.' But, you know, circumstances change. And it's nice to be wrong; it's nice to admit when you're wrong. And I was wrong! I did not know that this band had more statements in them. Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone when I heard this music and realised that I wanted to be a part of it." - Patton 2015 9. Kaada/Patton - Bacteria Cult (2016) Collaborations have always been an important weapon in Patton's arsenal, he seems to always find the perfect companion to enter the battlefield alongside. After a seven year break from such partnerships in 2012 Mike recorded Laborintus II with Ictus Ensemble. In 2014 he released the album Geocidal under the name tētēma with Australian composer Anthony Pateras, and the long awaited Nevermen record - with Tunde Adebimpe and Doseone - followed. In 2019 Patton explored French mood music with Jean-Claude Vannier on the album Corpse Flower. Our pick for this list is the second record with Norwegian songwriter Kaada. Bacteria Cult was the follow up to 2004 album Romances. It warranted only rave reviews with it's majestic and often terrifying cinematic tones. "...it dwells in The Twilight Zone where spooky and seductive meet." - John Kaada 10. Dead Cross (2017) Patton ascended to the ranks of Dead Cross  - joining Lombardo, Justin Pearson and Mike Crain - replacing original singer Gabe Serbian. The band's self-titled debut album was released in 2017. The whole album has a retro thrash metal vibe with a modern twist, it is an exhilarating punch in the throat that leaves you with a satisfying bruise or two. Enough to please hardcore and Patton fans alike. "The players in this group fit together like a bizarre music puzzle coming together to make one chaotic, beautiful music masterpiece." - Chuck Vans Radio A world tour followed throughout 2017 and 2018. Patton proved at 50 he could still destroy a stage delivering both an energetic and brutal performance. Even an altercation with a skateboard - which resulted in Patton being hospitalised and proved to be one of the biggest stories of the decade - didn't stop him. 11. 1922 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2018) This decade has seen Mike Patton's talent as a composer of film scores flourish. He began in 2009 with the Fantomas-esque soundtrack to Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Crank 2: High Voltage. In 2011 Patton provided music for The Solitude of Prime Numbers, an Italian drama directed by Saverio Costanzo. Patton followed with the musical accompaniment to 2013 crime tragedy film directed by Derek Cianfrance, The Place Beyond The Pines. Our choice for soundtrack of the decade is the collection of creepy sounds Patton wrote for Netflix's adaption of Stephen King Novella 1922 directed by Zak Hilditch. It would seem the more films Patton scores the better he gets. Here is our playlist of some the best Mike Patton recordings from the last ten years. #mikepatton #faithnomore #mondocane #tomahawk #bjork #johnzorn #fantomas #kaada #deadcross

Should MIKE PATTON cut the crap? Does RODDY BOTTUM need to come out of the closet? Does BIG JIM MARTIN treat women like dirt? And are FAITH NO MORE a mess of insecurities, attitudes and extravagant contrasts congealing into a thrilling whole... or just another rock band? Not an 'Easy' question to answer, reckons GINA MORRIS, as she spends a week in France with America's premier scatological strew-ups and wonders why such a nice boy like Mike Patton feels the need to swig his own piss and shit in a hair dryer. NME | 03.01.1993 | Gina Morris Faecal Attraction Mike Patton is urinating. Not into a urinal, not on the street and not in private. Mike Patton is pissing onstage - in front of thousands of people - into his shoe. Then, with a coy smile, he lifts the brimming vessel to his lips, opens his mouth and drinks the boot dry. Less than two weeks later, in the small village of Besancon, France. Patton is casually making coffee on stage. Freshly percolated cups of coffee for his sweat-sodden, dehydrated crowd. Faith No More are all about extremes. Severe extremes. Faith No More - an archetypal rock band? - release an opulent new single and it's a straight-faced, straight-up cover of The Commodores' 'Easy', so beautifully unscathed that it stupefies the majority of the audience every time they play it. FNM are a twisted fairy tale with no real plot and no conclusion, just a dense subtext of symbolism and a multitude of characters. No-one has ever managed to disentangle them, to go beyond their reputations, to de-mystify them. It's a daunting task. FNM thrive on tortuous perplexity, to the degree that it has become both their drug and the only unifying factor in the band. It's a bind so tight, it hurts - hurts itself. And it's ugly. The rock pigs, the perpetrators of myths, the groupie- shaggers, the dumb fuckers, the lads. It's all there if you want to see it. The band themselves have surpassed all hope of ever being truthfully represented. Now they're just enjoying the ride. They've perfected the art of confusion. So Patton will continue to be the jerk who grew up into a wanker, Jim Martin will continue 'abusing' women, and nobody will ever even think about asking keyboardist Roddy Bottum what it's like to be a gay man in a rock band. Right? "To me," he says calmly, "throughout our career, the representation of the band and the way I've been portrayed everything has been so homosexual every we've ever done. I've portrayed some absolute blatant, stereotyped homosexual. I've been the boy in bondage, the sado-masochistic cop, the homo-cowboy. I mean. I've been so blatant about it - it just blows me away that people don't pick up on something like that. Y'know. what am I supposed to do? Hit people over the head with this? That hurts, right? It hurts your head and it's an insult to people's intelligence." Roddy and I are having lunch in a hotel restaurant in Paris. The idea is to interview each member of the band separately, because, as Patton later confirms: "We wouldn't communicate. It would be a lot of misfiring, uncomfortable jokes and a lot of sarcasm." He's dead right When they're all Together, they whine on in nonsensical gibberish which makes it impossible to glimpse anything like a stereotype. So I've stolen Roddy and he's stealing a forkful of my creamed potato and, in his soft, laid-back, winsome American drawl, continues to talk about his sexuality for the first time into a tape recorder. "If I'd ever been asked about this before, l'm sure I would have been completely open about it. I mean, I cannot be embarrassed about this. I told the others I was gonna talk about this as soon as I knew you were gonna ask me about it. I told them I was going to be upfront and they said, 'OK. do what you gotta do'." So do you think the reason it's been ignored is because homosexuality isn't supposed to have a place in 'rock' music? "Maybe. The thing is. rock stereotypes are so ugly. Pop stereotypes are not so bad but rock ones are hideous. It's like the Queen thing - I don't know how old I was when I started listening to Queen, but even back then it was so apparent to me. There's these four guys playing in a band calling themselves Queen and singing opera music, pretty much, and then people have the audacity, years later, to say Freddie Mercury never came out of the closet. "Y'know, it's like, get with it. I think it's a symbolic thing, people are not picking up on those symbols, I don't think that's so wrong either. I think people can get away with seeing a movie that's chock full of intense symbolism and deal with it on a strict pleasure level. It's just a different level. "I mean, if people don't pick up on the band's subtleties or the band's jokes or whatever we put across and they're enjoying it for other reasons, then I'm not sure if that's wrong. In an ideal world I'd love to think people understood what we're doing, but it's not going to be like that. I'm flattered that people like it on a gut level." Are you aware of the power you have being a gay person in a rock band, particularly when you consider the genre's ignorant and archaic values? "I guess so, but there's a certain disgust in me about wearing my heart on my sleeve and being as blatant as that. I think it's an insult to peoples intelligence. I absolutely understand and sympathise with the gay community against backwards views on homosexuality in this day and age, but in Los Angeles, where I come from, it's so liberal, open-minded and experimental. I forget what an island it is and how spoilt we are. I guess I just take it for granted. " You were pretty blatant when you wrote the lyrics to 'Be Aggressive'. "Ejaculation. Tribulation.  I SWALLOW. I SWALLOW." "Yeah! I mean, HELLO, WAKE UP! When we wrote that song we were all very aware of the lyrics, we had it all in check and then the issue has never come up. It's so funny, no-one ever even asked us about it. It's the same thing, we just expect a lot more from people." Roddy Bottum is charming and sincere but, like the rest of the band, he'll occasionally seize the opportunity to wind up a susceptible victim - and this causes problems. Maybe some people don't get the message, because FNM tend to respond to people like a mirror image, reflecting dubious personality traits and firing them back. It's a way of dealing with the adulation bestowed upon them. "I just have to be as down-to-earth as possible," admits Roddy, "I sometimes catch myself being so absolutely stupid to these people, just to get the point across that I am nothing you are everything. OK? Realise that." Is it tricky keeping your feet on the ground? "Well, that's one of the  good things about the band, we all have strong sensibilities, probably because we re all so fucking sarcastic. We're pretty hard on ourselves and I guess everyone has that in check." Faith No More are not the egomaniacs they've often been made out to be. There's a reason behind, for instance, much of Patton's extreme behaviour. When he joined the band almost four years ago he'd never been away from home. He was a geeky. non-smoking, virgin teetotaller with appalling dress sense. A kid who did what he was told, played basketball for his college team and looked forward to his summer vacations. Going straight from home comforts to road traumas, he's had to grow up fast. This may not excuse puerile antics like shitting in a hotel hair dryer but, then again, he hasn't turned into a pompous asshole like Axl Rose. Patton means no harm really - unless it's to himself. "We're a band that encourages extremes." laughs Roddy, "so when anyone is doing things like that. I think: Well whatever you wanna do, whatever you wanna try - no matter how outlandish - just make yourself happy. Which is a healthy environment. I'm very proud of the extremes that go on in our band, I'm proud of the fact that Mike is like that. I'm proud that he carries a doll around a voodoo doll called Toodles and I'm proud that Mike Bordin would have us believe for two years that one of his best friends was killed (it was a lie!). That's such a bizarre thing, but extremes are what we're about." FNM also provoke a massive amount of misunderstanding. Earlier this morning, the band were handed the letters page of a rock magazine full of outraged letters in relation to a FNM feature, in which the journalist had translated Mike's comments on a child porn video (that he'd been given by a fan) as an endorsement of paedophilia. "It's kinda our own fault," shrugs Roddy wearily. "We assume too much. I mean, it's 1993 - don't you understand this? And the bottom line is a lot of people don't, and that bugs me. It's like, who do you cater your ideals to? Do you cater your ideals to a lower mentality or a mentality like your own, y'know? The worst thing is to have to simplify your values and act in a different way just so simpler people can relate to you. You can't do that, right? It's not optimistic, it's a backwards way of thinking." Mike Patton is slumped in a fake leather armchair backstage at the gig in Lyon. In one hand he holds a Martin Amis book, in the other he clutches a control console. Every few seconds a green light flickers across it and he flinches slightly. He's wired up to electric shock pads... switched to full power. This is Mike Patton's pre-gig relaxation period. Bassist Billy Gould is in the dressing room, alone, playing a guitar. He hears the door open, turns his head and smiles, "You wanna talk now? OK." Roddy and Billy have known each other for almost 20 years it was the two of them that decided to form the band. As kids Bill and Roddy would ride their bikes around the roughest, sleaziest parts of Hollywood Boulevard, trying to look cool. Two nice middle-class kids trying to live on the edge. Nothing much has changed now they just have further to fall. Do you miss Chuck Mosley at all? "No." Chuck was FNM's old singer. In his days, the band were closely linked to rap/thrash music. Then, he lost control, was replaced by Patton and the band released the more mainstream 'The Real Thing' LP. Hell immediately beckoned in the form of a Guns N' Roses support slot and - hey! - suddenly they were Rock. They did, however, escape hell with their souls intact. "I hate rock music." Bill spits. "I've always hated it. Like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that. I mean, my dad used to listen to that shit. It's the least interesting thing in the world, the excess and all that stuff, it's so boring. The world has gone through its period of exploration in that area. A stadium gig is fun to do once in a while, but that Guns N' Roses thing really got me down because it's as rock as it gets. It's the mentality I don't understand. I think it's disgusting. It's not natural, it's all role-playing. complete bullshit and I hate it when our band reflects things like that. "I mean, we do whatever we want to do and 'The Real Thing' was like an exercise in that. But we're still figuring ourselves out. We don't really know who we are yet, we're still learning. Hopefully, we're not burning too many bridges in the process." So how do you view the band? Is it like four of you against Jim Martin, the real rock element? "It gets more and more like that. I can see it more and more every month. I don't know how long you can keep going on like this, really. It's kinda ridiculous, it's like, what's the point, y'know? Actually, for all the shit I give Jim - and he deserves it - he's only doing his job." As if on cue, Jim enters the room. Billy smiles at him. It's a healthy animosity he has towards him, like when a friend tells you that you've got bad breath. Jim exits. Is Bill happy with Mike fronting the band? "Yeah. I think he's doing great. When he joined, he was living with his parents, he was 21 and had never been in a bar before. He didn't even like the taste of alcohol so, in three years or so, he's come a hell of a long way. I remember we were about to go on tour and he said: 'Look guys. I'd better get my summer vacation this year or I'm going to be real pissed off.' We were like. sorry but we're adults now, we work all year round, this isn't high school. He's kinda eccentric, y 'know?" Oedipus was the mythical Greek king who slayed his father and screwed his mother. It's also Jim Martin's nickname. And he's sat opposite me, chain-smoking, on the bottom deck of FNM's luxury coach heading towards Besancon and another show. Patton calls him a timepiece, a representation of an era, a broken record. Big Jim Martin, visually at least, is rock personified. He's the one the rock mags turn to. He's the living proof... and he's living at home - with his mother. "We have a whole house to ourselves," he explains. "She lives at one end and I live at the other. We pretty much do as we please, we eat dinner together, she comes home and fixes it." Don't you ever cook for her? "No, she cooks better than I do." Jim has the worst rock'n'roll reputation of them all. Does he consciously perpetuate it? "To a degree. If someone wants to exaggerate it, I don't tell them not to... Anyway, what is my reputation?" Y'know, chicks and pool. "Well. I do like those things." Big Jim Martin, the band feel, is more naive than malicious. He became close friends with L7 during their tour together and there's no way they would let him get away with any sexist bullshit Patton reckons: "He has a sharpened point to his personality that nobody else agrees with, but sometimes y'gotta eat shit and like it." So has Jim really ever taken advantage of women? "Certainly not. To take advantage would be a discredit to the girls, it would be like saying they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Y'know, we're all intellectual people and I would have to assume the women knew what they were doing." Have you ever felt that maybe they didn't? "Well. I always explain carefully: I'm here this evening to play a concert and I'm leaving tomorrow morning." Does it bother you that these women may only be sleeping with you because you're famous? "No, it's pretty much the case... though of course it's not always the case. It's difficult to tell." Would you prefer it if people wanted to sleep with you because you're you? "Absolutely not. If I wanna sleep with them. I'll do my best to get them in the sack. I mean, I haven't always been famous. You better your chances, sure, but it isn't always easy." I found a present for Mike Bordin in a post office in Lyon. It's a stamp. A stamp with one of Francis Bacon's self Portraits on it. He's ecstatic - we're friends for life. But Puffy isn't a get-together kinda bloke. He's amiable and affable just like the rest of them - he just goes to bed earlier, that's all. The band are about to go on stage. Bill is throwing up in the toilet. Jim is completely engrossed in his Game Boy. Roddy is sprawled full out on the floor with his eyes closed, Mike's strolling in and out of the dressing room pointlessly and Puffy is thrashing his sticks against a lump of silly putty stuck on to the edge of a table. How do five such different people work together? "Well, if you have people that are very different and very strong, then it's definitely a strength and it can make it a more interesting or more challenging brew," Puffy remarks without dropping a single beat. "That's not to say it can't work when everybody is the same, but we don't have that, so why pretend?" So how come people still assume you're a 'rock' band? "Well, forget about the inverts. We play rock music, in our way, that's the way it is. A lot of the others are uncomfortable with the position of being a rock band. Like a night like tonight will make some of them feel uncomfortable and guilty in a way." But you're happy with it? "l'm happy that we're playing our music to a lot of people and we didn't have to suck a dick. If that's all you wanted you could put together a band tomorrow - if you were conniving enough — but to get there in the car that you designed and built and laboured over, that's the satisfaction." Are you different when you're not with the rest of the band? "Oh sure, definitely, by definition, I don't spit as much." "OK, WHO SHAT IN THE ORANGE JUICE?" It is hard to find the art in Mike Patton's antics. To appreciate the beauty when the beast is shitting in your beverage. "Oh god, oh Jesus, I'm sorry," he wails. "It wasn't meant for you." Mike had been accused of "not fucking shit up" on the tour by L7. So he, erm, did. Mike and I are slouching on the sofa in the 'techno section' of the tour bus, on our way back to the hotel for the last time. It's 1 am, post-gig, and Patton's eating raw meat out of a plastic container and indulging in his favourite drug - coffee. The Cardiacs are blasting out of the speakers and Patton is highly amused how similar they sound to his other band, Mr Bungle. Mike has been avoiding my tape recorder for four days now. He doesn't believe there's much point discussing anything other than his various obsessions. He's become accustomed to being misunderstood by the press. "Writers paint pictures and they leave colours out, and what can I do about that? I can get upset and smash the painting, but that doesn't achieve anything. You gotta take it and you can't take it too personally because it's impersonal. It's very easy to get upset, but no-one feels better for it. Maybe if we beat up all journalists, we'd be good guys. How'd we ever become bad guys?" He chuckles, with a mouthful of beef. "There's just too many channels. I mean, we're doing an interview here. how are we really supposed to communicate any information to anyone? We re not talking to anyone, we're not looking anyone in the eye, this is almost cowardly really. "I don't think any of us have any desire to explain ourselves or be understood, it's no comfort, it doesn't make you sleep better at night, it's not what we're in this for. "The child pom thing? Well someone probably asked me what's the weirdest thing you've seen or what's the strangest thing a fan has given you, and that's indeed what it was. It was such a shock that something like that was handed to me by a little petite Japanese girl. But it's not about understanding, there's too many avenues, y'know. the story never gets told the same way twice." At least when you do disgusting stuff, like drinking your own piss, you generally only do it to yourself. "Yeah. Oh, I dunno. there's no logic behind it. I don't know who I am or what I'm doing here, that's what that is, it's the absence of logic. It's not something that's too easy to rationalise." .....Even if you wanted to. "Sure. I don't know how I can make anyone feel any better. We don't even know what the hell we're doing, we haven't even figured out what it is we do. We don't even know how we even relate to each other really, and maybe we'll learn, maybe we'll become great salesmen someday, but now it just doesn't compute. You should have to answer for what you do - you may not be able to articulate it - it's not a playpen where you get to do whatever you want and never take responsibility." Was it hard growing up in a band like this? "Yeah. I was a real terrified kinda student, so I always did what I was told. I still do." He smiles wryly, like we're supposed to believe him. Mike loves winding people up. He's into shocking people with his various obsessions his voodoo doll, his S&M fetish wear and his  weird books. If there's a target - he'll hit the bullseye. "Some people are easy targets and some people ask for it, so if you have a particular interest and you want to use it against someone then... here's a funny example. Jesus, God. See now, I'll talk about this and it's similar to the child porn story, basically it's like bad shit and I have it... oh f— it! I'm not gonna talk about it, it's too stupid. There's no morality in anything, y'know? What matters? That*s what I want to know - what matters? Does our personal life have anything to do with our music, however much seeps in? I mean, I don't even know, so how can I tell you?" Mike looks slightly flustered, even nervous. I've spent nine days in total with Faith No More, both in Britain and Europe, and he still doesn't trust me? "I do trust you. that's why I'm telling you this much. Okay, basically I think defensiveness or humiliation is a motivating factor in the way we behave, in the way we make music, in the way we relate to each other. Sometimes I think the way we manoeuvre is in a defensive way, rather than an offensive way. So all these people are saying, 'You're so offensive and you're trying to shock people to make a point and use it as a weapon, and it's not. It's not a step forwards, it's a diversion. We have no harmful intent." Mike looks down into his dinner. "It's really not even worth talking about. "It's just. when I'm on stage sometimes the mouth opens and, y'know. diarrhoea flows out. Anything I can do not to think on stage, I will do. Why? Because I don't think it belongs there. I've said some really bad things and gotten us into some really awkward situations and there are responsibilities." So you do care about Faith No More? "Yeah, I'm learning to. I didn't for a long time. I thought, what a horrible situation, it's candy coated, take it with a smile - for what it is - you can't take your time card and punch it out at the end of the day. You can't. I tried it and you can't." The bus pulls up outside the hotel and the rest of the band file into reception. Patton doesn't move. "No matter what you do." he says sternly. "You can't win." You can go now. "Arrh!" he cries. "The sense of finality!" #faithnomore #angeldust #roddybottum #mikepatton #mikebordin #billygould #jimmartin

The dance floor heavy metal of FAITH NO MORE makes them one of the prime contenders for '88 and the lyrics of vocalist Chuck Mosley penetrate deep into the human psyche. NEIL PERRY meets up with the Californian quintet on the Atlanta leg of their American tour. Making tracks MARY SCANLON. Sounds Magazine | 23.01.1988 | Neil Perry Hear My Train A'comin' Faith No More's wiry drummer, Mike Bordin, cuts himself off in mid-sentence as he surrenders to the dominating roar and clank of a huge locomotive which crawls past just a few yards away. From dusk to dawn you can hear the goods trains, ponderous heavy metal behemoths, as they punctuate the night with mournful wails from their horns. Mike watches as container after container rattles by, thick dyed dreadlocks bouncing as he walks, his mind more concerned with downing a few pre-gig drinks. "We got stuck here for ten days once," he resumes, "but we never ran out of guitar picks. We'd sit by the rails, putting coins on. Man, the train squashes 'em. flattens 'em right out.. ." The last wheels roll by, shaking the foundations of this modern American city. Trains or no trains, when you're in a band called Faith No More ten days is a long time. Late November '87, and the Californian based quintet have just arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, one date on a six week US tour supporting zany homegrown funksters The Red Hot Chili Peppers. 'Introduce Yourself', Faith No More's second LP (their debut unavailable in the UK) was released over here last October. A breathtaking harmonisation of molten metal guitar, deadly dance rhythms and poignant, pointed lyrics it was the sound of a band with no precedent. Introduce yourself, with a threat and a promise. Faith No More like playing in Atlanta. Much of the city was razed to the ground in the American Civil War, and - during the band's two day visit - smoke colours the sweet Georgia air once again, as Atlanta State Penitentiary is burned during the third day at a prisoners' riot. It was poetic justice indeed that the town's brothel was one of the few buildings to survive the Civil War unscathed and logical that when the world's oldest profession moved out rock 'n' rod should move in. Now it's a graffiti covered club called The Metroplex, and as far as Faith No More are concerned it is a spiritual home and their hotel for the night. They still have to prove themselves to their financiers before such a luxury as bed and breakfast is provided. As midnight approaches. Faith No More take the stage to what looks like a capacity crowd inside the dingy Metroplex. Live, they are energy, movement, malice. Within the space of two songs there is more sweat and lust and desire in the air than the building's former clientele could have mustered up in a week. Singer Chuck Mosley croons, cries and howls over juggernaut rhythms, exploding riffs and strands of hypnotic synth. From the opening 'Chinese Arithmetic' - a love song of dark splendour - to the closing insanity of Black Sabbath's classic 'War Pigs', the gathered Atlanta fans make a concerted attempt to injure themselves. As one so succinctly puts it, "F***, man! That band kick ass!" As the Chili Peppers boom above their heads, Faith No More - minus Chuck - gather in a dusty cellar. There's guitarist Jim Martin, professional drunk and party animal, Furry Freak Brother meets the ghost of Zappa past, Mr Deranged; keyboards player Roddy Bottum, the watcher, tall, handsome and dry, Mr Unflappable; bassist Billy Gould, amino-acid, pill popping soul-food fan, Mr Spaceball and drummer Mike, dark hawk features, wary and - as the others insist on pointing out gleefully - prone to bouts of deep bitterness, Mr Revenge. The band's history is the usual convoluted tale of comings and goings and various dodgy outfits, although Jim and Mike were in a band with the late Cliff Burton in his pre-Metallica days; it was he who gave vital encouragement and liquor when Faith No More took serious shape several years ago, and now this gaggle of disparate individuals find things are beginning to happen. Roddy leans against a pillar while the others sit, Jim swiftly relieving a beer can of its contents before speaking, eyes playful. "There's a story, the story, And you've got to tell it because I'm not qualified." But just as the going looked good after ten minutes of jokes, accusations and unhinged laughter-Jim berates Mike for knocking the tape recorder with his foot, and they fly into a brief and irrelevant verbal battle. Roddy and Billy look on, amused. "It's because we're sitting in this van every day hating each other," says Roddy, "and when we play it all comes out. We're not really nice people or anything,.. we just try real hard." Roddy occasionally helps Chuck out with the lyrics, such as on the twisted social conscience anthem 'We Care A Lot', a fine line between sincerity and sarcasm. "Yeah, are you full of shit or what?" chides Jim, eager to hear an explanation. "It is absolutely verbatim, liberal," says Roddy, unruffled. "It goes to the borders of what you would and wouldn't care about. It's what I cared about, at that time." Billy sits cross-legged on his chair, scratching at an exposed knee in jeans made more of air than denim. "On MTV there's certain videos I watch.. ." he says before trailing off, having possibly forgotten what he meant to say next. "Lack of sense of humour, that really pisses me off - that's good inspiration," continues Roddy. "People who are too stuck up to have a good time. They can laugh at us or with us, I don't really care." "F*** it man, there is no laughter!" screams Jim, his corkscrew mane jiggling wildly. "Billy, Mike and Roddy got together cos they were feeling down, so they could pool their strength and feel like big shots and laugh at measly shit. They asked Chuck to sing, who said. Just one show, which shows you how easily Chuck can be sucked in. .. He's yours depending on how well you tell the story. "I was in a shitty faggot rock band who sang about their dicks (Jim's previous bands include Pigs Of Death, Agents Of Misfortune and Vicious Hatred), I went to a Faith No More show and it was a pretty weird, ugly experience. I figured they could use my help." And yet for all their flippancy, sleeping rough and touring the States for six weeks in a cramped hire-van - with just Joe the all-purpose roadie to help out is not something you take on without some sort of faith. "We are absolutely f***ing serious! " Jim explains, with his best wide-eyed face on. "I really hate it when I go to do something," he continues, "and I'm stopped cold by some measly shit. Like, you go to fix the pipe and you haven't got the wrench! But we want to play bad enough, we'll do whatever we have to, you just go on stage and hurt yourself. I just want the heaviest sound possible. Oh, and unlimited everything. . , for ever." Jim and Mike claim absolute ignorance where Chuck's lyrics are concerned, and neither intend to change, both (un)happily immersed in their chosen roles. "Chuck's vocals aren't in my monitor? on stage, that's for sure," deadpans Mike. "I learnt drums from this guy, he had this philosophy, he gave me a different way of looking at drumming. I put a lot of hatred into it." Goaded by Jim, he sighs irritably Before Continuing. "The story? Well. . . things are a lot worse than they seem, you're all deluding yourselves, you may as well give it up. Slide down the ladder, give it all up." "You see, Mike's a bitter tittle man," says Jim, "but that's the first time I've heard that. I'm frightened! Chuck's pretty riled up all the time but he's like a poodle — highly strung." Roddy then tells of his and Bill's Catholic school upbringing, an experience they found so unpleasant that the two still find time, when at home, to pay the old nuns a visit, heads filled with thoughts of tyre-slashing vengeance. "I still hate them enough to go and torture them. Faith No More. . . it comes down to a lot of frustration." "I don't think there's any moral lesson to be learned from us," says Billy, grinning slightly. "We're pretty rotten people really. Assholes." Separating the truth from the humour is all part of the game, part of the band's voodoo charm. Watching these four screwy but hungry musicians - together one of the most exciting rock bands to emerge from America, period - cope with their oddball coupling is a story worth telling. "You know, it's a real pity you can't travel in the truck with us," says Mike, as the lure of the bar becomes too great to ignore any longer. "Yeah," enthuses Jim? "then you could really feel the bitterness. How bad do you want to suffer?" Mid-morning after the night before, and Chuck Mosley sits alone in The Metroplex, maybe wishing he'd stopped partying earlier and grabbed more than two hours sleep. He sucks on the soggy remains of a joint, trying to take the edge off the day, before ploughing through a sea of beer cans and paper plates in search of a more comfortable place to feel grotty. "Man, these rock stars who do coke for ten years, get shit-faced drunk every night and still get up and play. They get called assholes but I call them supermen - I couldn't do it." Chuck Mosley, cool but mischievous, keen on loud tartan suits, with features which could easily be described as beautiful: Mr Sensitive. He slumps by an upstairs porthole window and looks down on the railway line, behind the club at another monster engine creeping along the track. Part American Indian, part Jewish, Chuck was raised by foster parents, his first interest in music being a desire to play the Batman theme on a piano when he was four years old. "My natural parents? My Mum was 17. my Dad was 20—they lived in the valley, one of the white communities in LA. He was a musician, and her family had a Jewish doth business. This was 1959. one of the worst times to have an inter-racial kid. "I don't know how much they were in love, that's why I'd like to meet them. So they don't go through life with a problem in the back of their heads." Chuck's lyrics are a trip into the human psyche, and more often than not they deal with relationships, where the distinction between love and hate it is next to nothing. Onstage he will intimidate to get a reaction, his solo acoustic spot the night before being a perfect wind-up for the band's eventual electric detonation. "'Chinese Arithmetic', that's an obsession song. 'The Crab Song' they're different stories, stuff that people are thinking a lot conversations. The lyrics often come from listening to the music - like 'Death March', that had the music and title before the words. "A friend of mine, doing a lot of drugs, just went out in the ocean and drowned. I used to be on the beach all the time and I got the feeling that he was so f***ed up when he drowned that he doesn't even realise he's dead. He's out there, still swimming around. 'Death March' is someone talking to their dead lover, the soul lingering on." In common with the rest of the band, Chuck is more than quick to point out his own failings as well as those of his colleagues. "I'm probably capable of the worst things. I get really hard when people kiss up to me. I turn it around, I'm real mean. Anything can be true, I'll give them five different answers. But if I do something real bad I'll tell people, so it's off my chest. I was the class clown and all that shit, I don't have much confidence but i can act like I do. I'm too freaked out to have a girlfriend for a long time because of a love gone bad, gone sour. Like a scaredy-cat, I get possessive, paranoid. "Like this saving the world stuff, the only attitude I know is from personal experience." It was Roddy who suggested that without his hour on stage every night, Chuck would flip. He suddenly forgets his Budweiser sponsored headache, and quickly dismisses the bassist's accusations. "Shit! That's bullshit Bill doesn't know what he'd do, Mike would abuse his girlfriend - mentally, without even touching her - Jim would abuse everybody's girlfriends, physically and mentally. Roddy would go out, have a good time. I'd go skating, go to Europe see my friends. Play in my other band, ha! "Jim will tell you, my bitterness is that I gave up another band to be in this one for promises of millions just around the corner. Not that I was stupid enough to believe it, my only other option was moving furniture. And Mike, Bill and even Roddy will worry way too much about my shit when it comes to studio time." It's as if Faith No More is an endurance test, a big game of chicken; a fatalistic beast founded on mutual mistrust and alcohol abuse that should have chewed its own head off before a song was ever written. "Everyone's totally different," laughs Chuck, "even though we fight I'm closest to Jim because I can't stand phoney politician types. Roddy has a high, high, high boiling point. They hold their anger in too much. Jim lets it out on a regular basis, Mike will hold it in for ever- He is bitter, he wants to bring you down into his doldrums. "Mike and Billy are so tense! When I first Joined this band Billy would just rock out - I just bang my head because I don't know what else to do - and now he bangs his head. He stands like this (feet turned out, heels together, legs bent), his butt is so tight you can see his cheeks. Tight sphincter rock 'n roll! "He wants to construct things, he wants discipline. He's funny and I really love him. He's perpetually tortured by demons." As for whatever holds this zoo together. Chuck spends a while staring out of the window before answering. "Oppression. There is no soul. . . a band without a brain. If there's a soul it's a fight that guides me. It's people's miserable lives and stuff, mine included, when it's miserable it's a joke. "I'm proud of being part American Indian but I've got bitterness towards blacks as much as towards whites. I'm half Jewish but I hate Jews. I give out my love and hate equally." By midday Faith No More had emerged from The Metroplex, and it was the same band who made the most of the November sunshine, letting off fireworks and leaping onto passing trains before heading off to find some essential soul food. Faith No More have a good time they party, they fight, sometimes they laugh until it hurts - they are the furious sound of five worlds colliding. That's the story. #faithnomore #billygould #roddybottum #mikebordin #chuckmosley #introduceyourself