Faith No More: News, History & Updates

Faith No More Biography

By RODDY BOTTUM, exclusively for Alternative Nation

Courtney Love as Faith No More’s Singer

Well, we were super scrappy back then. And we were very provocative, and sort of like I laid out in my book [2025’s “The Royal We“], sort of clearly what the direction that we were going in was like. We were sort of like an art ensemble more than anything. And we just created these crazy sort of musical loops that we would do over and over. And we met Courtney, and she was really young, and we were really young, and we had great chemistry.

And she came on board at the point when we were bringing on singers one after another to just be the front person of the band. And honestly, we didn’t put that much credibility in sort of the role of the lead singer. But Courtney did an amazing job. She’s an amazing poet, and she’s got an incredible presence, and she was fantastic. And we played together probably six months and played a bunch of shows. It was good times. She’s one of my favorite people.

Chuck Mosley as Faith No More’s Singer

Chuck was equally as unconventional, I think, as we were when we were sort of starting and doing what we were doing. It made sense that we would choose such a radical, intensely provocative singer, as we did in Chuck. His voice was absolutely really just unorthodox and weird and rough and ragged. And his lyrics were really different, too. I think more than anything, his was an energy, a sort of alive energy that we were banking on. It was fun to have someone with his caliber. I think he considered himself sort of a comedian, almost, in a lot of ways. It was a lot of years we played with Chuck, and I think a lot of it was kind of drunkenly. And that was a weird mix for us. We weren’t really a drinking kind of band, so it was a weird combination, us and Chuck. But I love his singing.

I think we as a world have become a little bit open-minded to take on and appreciate more unconventional voices, like his. Sometimes, I acknowledge it’s a stretch. His voice was a stretch. It was really hard to digest, and unlike anything you’d ever heard before. He’s not a good singer, in any sort of conventional way. But he had something about him that was fascinating. And I think that was the takeaway. He was a fascinating person, and his spirit was really a beautiful spirit. And I think we made two really incredible records with him [1985’s We Care a Lot and 1987’s Introduce Yourself].

Mike Patton’s Vocal Versatility

I think we’d been doing a lot of touring by ourselves, and having a go at it, in terms of it takes a long time to get things going on as a band. And with Chuck, I think there was a limit to the amount of things we were able to accomplish. And when we parted ways with Chuck [in 1988], I think that was a sort of impetus for getting someone involved that did have a lot of versatility. And Mike Patton, for sure, has that. He’s really able to sing in a lot of different styles. He could emulate a lot of different voices, and he did. And that was, for sure, part of the attraction in him getting on board. He was really versatile and has an amazing voice.

Faith No More Tours with Soundgarden Before Mainstream Success

That’s not really my cup of tea, so much. That’s not my music that I would listen to. But it was fun. [Chris Cornell] had a really high voice, and he sang kind of like Robert Plant, kind of like crazy energy in a sort of, “grunge male dude with long shorts and Doc Martens boots.” It was almost competitive I think amongst us and Soundgarden, maybe on that tour. We were opening up. I think we were playing first, maybe, and then Soundgarden played, and then Voivod.

I remember a couple times…it was a long tour – we would leave and we would go to Europe or England and play some shows that we had booked, and then come back to the tour. So it was kind of like a crazy mind fuck, because we would go to England, and we had gained a lot of notoriety in England at that point. We were kind of like a big deal in England, and we were playing big theaters for the first time, and stuff was really taking off over there. So it was like this weird rollercoaster of we’d play these big shows by ourselves headlining in England, and then we’d come back, and we’d open this tour with Voivod and Soundgarden.

Voivod were really interesting. They were sort of a weird science fiction band or something. I never really understood what those people were. They were French Canadian. They were really odd balls. There’s something about them that’s fascinating. I’m gonna go back and listen to him after this interview. They were cool. I liked them. One of their names was Piggy, another was Away – they had really weird names.

The Real Thing Breaks big in the UK Before the USA

It was always sort of enlightening to come to Europe and come to England. And it felt like the kids and sort of music lovers in England had a different relationship with music than kids in America did. I feel like people in London, England, treat music a lot more seriously. And it’s sort of a “family sport.” In that even the grandmothers and the mothers and the fathers and the young kids, they’ll all watch Top of the Pops together.

So, music is sort of like a different thing for people in the UK. It was a neat place to go to and get accepted as a valid, sort of musical statement, when we’d been touring in America for so long, and it didn’t really take off until there was some success in England. But yeah, there was some fondness for sure with those countries that embraced us first.

Faith No More Merges Rap and Rock on the Songs ‘We Care A Lot’ and ‘Epic’

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were happening, for sure, and they had a similar thing going. I think, sort of like in that era, a lot of white boys were getting into rap music. So, it wasn’t that odd. To emulate it, that was something new that happened. Yeah, it was sort of a new music form, I guess.

Faith No More’s Classic Album, Angel Dust

I mean, we had a lot to prove. I don’t think it was just me, but I think it was the whole band. Suddenly, we were regarded as this “rock band,” which was sort of odd. Because I don’t think we all set out to sort of be specifically that. But suddenly, we had these fans like, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses talking about us [in the press] and liking us.

And at some point, I think it was important for us to sort of prove what we were not. Which, was your typical rock band. So, I think we worked really hard at sort of presenting a body of work that didn’t follow any rules and wasn’t a typical sort of rock record. I think if we had wanted to play it safe, we could have made a very different record. But none of us are the type of people that played it safe.

Faith No More Reunites: 2009-2021

When we did the first reunion tour, we had broken up for like…almost 15 years. And it was kind of like, I used to have dreams when I was younger – I get to school and, “Oh my God, I forgot to study for the test!” And then the test is right then, and I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m gonna fail!” At some point after Faith No More broke up, I kept having these dreams that I would show up, “Oh my God. Faith No More was doing a reunion tour, and I forgot to learn the songs!” It became this thing that sort of replaced that dream scenario for me. So, I kept having these dreams. That was a nightmare I kept having.

And then we structured a whole tour and learned the songs and played the songs and did the tour, and it’s like, I was able to address that nightmare in a real, actual physical sense. And I think it was key in moving forward in my life in some weird way. Plus, it was just really fun. Billy [Gould] and I have been friends since we were, like, I don’t know, 9 or 10 years old. So, it was fun to sort of tap back into that friendship and just hang out.

The Musical Variety of Faith No More

I think it was a conscious decision. Like, when we made that Angel Dust record, I think we were already at the speed of making challenging music and not repeating what we were doing. I think sort of like the core of us, we were always very provocative. And we always aimed to sort of push buttons with people, and we always aimed to “ruffle the feathers,” if you will. That’s what I grew up doing, Billy and I grew up as kids, and that’s what we did as kids. And starting the band and doing what we were doing as a band was sort of an extension of that. We were just fucking with people, constantly. And that fuckery is a real challenge for people.

Roddy Bottum interview conducted exclusively by Greg Prato for Alternative Nation