Faith No More’s Mike Patton Major Soundgarden Reunion Announcement Revealed

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Faith No More singer Mike Patton has announced that he will perform at the ‘I Am The Highway: A Tribute To Chris Cornell’ show in Los Angeles on Wednesday, which will feature the first reunion of Soundgarden’s surviving members since their final show on May 17, 2017 in Detroit. It’s unclear if Patton will perform with the surviving members of Soundgarden, Audioslave, or Temple of a Dog, though Soundgarden would make the most sense with Faith No More’s long history with with the Seattle icons. Foo Fighters and Metallica will also perform, with The Pretty Reckless singer Taylor Momsen expected to attend.

Patton said, “Very honored to be part of the tribute to Chris Cornell, Wednesday night in Los Angeles.”

Soundgarden and Faith No More first played live together in 1986, and Faith No More Followers detailed the connection between Chris Cornell and Mike Patton in a 2017 tribute article.

FNM and Soundgarden would play together in January and March of 1990 when they opened for Voivod in a series of tour dates across Canada and the USA.

 “That was probably one of our best tours ever. It was just so memorable. We loved the bands we were touring with – everyone got along great. At the time, Faith No More was just starting to break – Voivod at the time was the biggest draw. During that tour, Faith No More started to just get mega-huge, so we had to flip the line-up around a few times – depending on what city we were at. I just couldn’t believe how great Voivod was back then. They would just smoke the biggest fatties before they went on stage – the most technical, most involved music you could ever imagine, and it was just spot-on. So they must have learned it that way, y’know? We got along great. I’m still in touch with Mike Bordin. It was just killer. I think Patton and Chris – the two singers were egging each other on each night, who could sing the highest or who could do the craziest acrobatics. I remember once, Patton played before us and he threw the mic cable over the lighting rig, and he said, ‘I predict Chris Comell will do this tonight!’ And he started to crawl up the mic cable and dangle from the lights.” – Matt Cameron | The Faith No More Companion

According to the Soundgarden guys Chris was a major influence on a young Patton, who gained confidence by watching his stage antics.

“When we started that tour, Mike Patton was trying to figure out his stage persona. He kind of seemed to be working on his identity – trying  to figure out who he was. After a while, he was kind of imitating Chris. He wasn’t mocking Chris, because he definitely seemed a little bit like ‘a freshman’ – he seemed a little bit nervous. Here he was, joining a band that was already up and running for a few years – a band that had a history with Chuck Mosley and a number of albums. Mike seemed a little like a fish out of water, trying to get ‘land legs.’ He was kind of awkward for the first few shows – his stage presence wasn’t that great but eventually, he started jumping around stage like Chris did. And Chris would take his shirt off… and then Mike started taking his shirt off. But we didn’t think he was mocking, because he seemed so nervous and insecure. He is an athletic guy, he is in shape, he has a great voice, he had this long beautiful hair – like Chris did. First he started flailing his hair around like Chris did, he started jumping around on stage. But he has a great voice – amazingly versatile and powerful voice. It’s funny, because he was very ‘rock star-ish’ then, which is very different from his Mr. Bungle thing and the other stuff he’s done.”

“If there was any plumbing [in the venue], Chris would climb it or treat it like monkeybars. And eventually, Mike Patton started doing that, as well! And later, in 1992 on Lollapalooza, [Pearl Jam’s] Eddie Vedder started doing that as well. So Chris definitely had a ‘stage antics influence’ on at least Mike Patton then, and Eddie later. But Mike started stomping around and climbing things, and jumping off the stage, and Chris would jump from the stage and stagedive, and do the crowd surfing. When Mike started jumping from the stage and crowd surfing, we were like, ‘Fuck dude. We’re going to go on after them, and Mike’s already doing stuff that Chris does. Is he mocking us?’ Because we got wind that he had a smartass, prankster element to him. But he seemed sort of insecure and nervous about his new gig, so we thought he was trying to figure out how to be a rock star in his band that that already had a history.” – Kim Thayil | The Faith No More Companion