TOP FAITH NO MORE VIDEOS

With Faith No More releasing their first official video to accompany a song in 17 years (the last being I Started A Joke in 1998) we thought it a great time to revisit some of their greatest video clips.

Small Victory 1992

Faith No More's stylistic and cinematic video was directed by Marcus Nispel who recently directed the remakes of Friday the 13th and Conan The Barbarian. The video is packed with striking imagery of war and torture and is the first to feature a full cast of background actors.

On September 2, 1993 the music video was nominated for the MTV Video Music Awards for Best Art Direction, but lost to Madonna's song Rain from her album Erotica.

Extract from The Long + Dusty Road | Marina Zogbi | 1992 

Bill, "It's totally different than any video we've ever done; 'A Small Victory' is pretty much of a dance song more than anything, it's the furthest we've ever taken that, so we had to have a visual to complement it." Adds Mike, "We also wanted something very slick, something that looked really well-done, no tricks. The last video ('Midlife Crisis') was beautiful looking but it had a weird photography style and a weird kind of color." The new clip features no performance footage (a first for FNM), several bizarrely outfitted extras, and the band themselves looking very sharp in Italian suits. Bill sums up: "Think of a Madonna video but see us in it instead. It doesn't make any sense, but at the same time it's perfect." Look for FNM--minus the suits--on tour this fall and beyond.

Anne's Song 1988

The second film made to accompany a Faith No More song was directed and produced by Tamra Davis, also her second music video. She went on to direct for NWA, Sonic Youth and....erm....Hanson! She also directed the movie Billy Madison starring Adam Sandler, Crossroads starring Britney Spears and various American TV shows. 

According to Anne herself no actors were used in the video, only her and friends of the band. Also Chuck Mosley revealed that it was Jim Martin and James Hetfield jabbing at him through the cage!

Anne D'Agnillo | 2013

"When I think of Anne's Song, I never really hear the song . I lived the song. I think about the nite of the filming of our NYC part of the Anne's Song video, here in this apartment, where I still reside today, and write this from my iphone. I think about all my friends and family together, crowded around and wildly dancing to the Village Drums calypso song " In The Groove", because that's the song we used to dance in the video to instead of Anne's Song! Poor Tamra , and Lisa , working around Chuck's thick NY posse. But when I hear that song, all I do is see that video, and see my friends, and see my beautiful cousin and sister, both who have passed away since then. My sister's birthday is today. But everyone else is alive and doing the best they can, and I love them all, and Chuck for making it happen. Now when I listen to Chuck, it's VUA, and it's Come Around and it's Bob Forest.....and I like to think of Bob Forest as the sequel to Anne's Song."

Falling To Pieces 1990

Following the success of the Epic video Faith No More turned to same director Ralph Ziman to produce the video for the next single. Like Epic it is a grand concept with an abundance of vivid imagery including eyeball hands and fish. Mike Patton's extensive wardrobe is the focal point with references to Alfred Hitchcock, the movie A Clockwork orange and others.

Life In Gold Fish Bowl | Select Magazine | 1990 | Neil Perry

With the camera trained on him, he picks up a bowl of fake gore and methodically daubs 'PIG' - the calling card left by Charles Manson's murderous followers, daubed in their victims' blood - on the wall of the video set.Behind Patton the rest of Faith No More - drummer Mike Bordin, guitarist Jim Martin, keyboard player Roddy Bottum and bassist Bill Gould - go through the motions of miming to their latest single, 'Falling to Pieces'. Half an hour later Patton is dressed in lederhosen and full German trad dress, and this time the film crew wince slightly as the singer attempts to turn a chair and table into firewood on the spur of the moment."It's good we have a bit of violence and horror," nods Roddy approvingly, "because it's such a poppy and horribly upbeat song.""Okay guys!" cries the tirelessly enthusiastic producer, "one more time, let's go!""Er, can't do it man," mutters Jim, desperately looking for an excuse, "we've taken acid.""That's OK,"comes the reply, "you'll fit in with everything else we've shot."

Last Cup Of Sorrow 1997

The second video from Album of The Year was directed by Joseph Kahn who recently won a string of awards for his Taylor Swift videos. This video is a homage to the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo replicating certain pivotal scenes. The members of FNM play characters from the film alongside Hollywood actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Billboard | June 1998 | Gina Van Der Vliet

Faith No More's New Vid To Give Viewers Vertigo

LOS ANGELES—As a homage to Alfred Hitchcock, Faith No More's  new video "Last Cup Of Sorrow" shows the band in a parody of the legendary director's 1958 movie "Vertigo." "I always thought 'Vertigo' had an interesting music video feel to it because of the [rich Graphics] in the film," says GMS director Joseph Kahn. "Also the of idea of FNM's Mike Patton playing Jimmy Stewart seemed funny to me. Basically you're taking this really subversive person and putting him in this clean, sterile, technicolor 50s world, yet pieces of the subversiveness of his persona keep coming through this world. It's like blending an old film with this totally weird 90s type of guy."One of the moments Kahn is hinting at is a scene showing Patton hiding a porno magazine from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays the dual roles originally portrayed by Kim Novak. As in the movie. Patton rescues Leigh's character from drowning and brings her back to his apartment.Leigh's second character is not as clean cut as in Hitchcock movie. After the blond character supposedly falls to her death, the actress returns as a sado masochist call girl in a black wig who attacks Patton's character. Ironically, she uses as a weapon the same stool that Patton was unable to stand on earlier in the video due to his fear of heights."That's the type of subversive stuff I liked doing, without disrespecting the film," Kahn explains. "But personally I think Hitchcock would have liked the sense of humour."Like the movie, which was recently re-released in U.S. theatres, the video was shot in San Francisco—Faith No More's home town—often at many of the same original locations used forthe film. For example, the Supper Club. formerly known as Ernie's, was the restaurant that Hitchcock was originally trying to depict in his film. The filmed movie scenes however, were shot on a movie set built to look like the restaurant. To create an authentic touch, Kahn, Leigh, and the band managed to shoot the scene inside the actual restaurant, which had just reopened it's doors.Throughout the video, the band members—Patton, vocals; Billy Gould, bass; Roddy Bottum, keyboards; Mike Bordin, drums; and John Hudson, guitars—are shown in cameo roles assigned by Kahn."At first I was kind of bummed because I [was asked to portray] the lady in the painting, which I didn't really wanna do," Gould says with a laugh. "But it all worked out good."According to Gould, picking a video treatment is often a tedious processfor the band, since there are seldom treatments the members can collectively get enthusiastic about "We Usually pick the one that's the least bad," Gould says. "But in this case (the idea) sounded pretty good. And when we got to the shoot and met Joseph we knew it was a good thing. He's a cool dude. We very much had the same vision, which is  really rare. It made for a situation in which we felt we were actually creating something together."'Last Cup Of Sorrow' premiered May 18 on MTV's "120 Minutes"and is anticipated to go into active rotation by the week of June 16, according to Wendy Griffith.Says Gould, "It doesn't look like an MTV video, which I like, it's definitely different."

Everything's Ruined 1992

Is this Faith No More's worst or bet video? Fans are divided! Directed by Kevin Kerslake, a director who's skills were used by almost all rock bands in the 90's and who is also responsible for the video for Midlife Crisis and Mr Bungle Quote Unquote. The simplest of ideas.....FNM goofing off in front of a green screen whilst images of wildlife and baseball amongst others play out behind them.

Bill Gould Q+A | 2012

The Videos for "Midlife Crisis" and "A Small Victory" seem to have both have high concepts and big budgets while the video for "Everything's Ruined" does not. Why was it that the video for "Everything's Ruined" (arguably the best song on the album) was so goofy and easy to produce? Bill: The easy answer is, Warner's spent the video budget on "Small V" and "Midlife" so that when it came time to "Everything's Ruined" there's wasn't much left (!!). It was our idea to take this further and make a video as cheap as humanly possible, in one of those video booths like they had at county fairs, where you sing and dance in front of a blue screen. We didn't quite get to do that, but we got it as close as possible.

Stripsearch 1997

The video was filmed in Berlin and was directed by Philip Stolzt, who is most well known for his work in opera. The film is based on a screenplay written by Billy Gould and filmed with stark lighting and very little colour so that the result is one of the most dramatic and gritty Faith No More videos. Mike Patton takes the lead role with the other band members cameoing throughout. 

wikipedia

In the video, Mike Patton walks through parts of the city. At about half way through he arrives at a military checkpoint and stands at the back of a queue also containing the other members of the band. When he reaches the front, he hands over his passport for inspection. The man inspecting it finds something wrong with the papers and calls the guards on Patton, who tries to get away and is pinned to the floor at gunpoint and arrested. The video then shows still images set earlier in the day, highlighting previously unseen details that point to Patton being a criminal. 

Surprise! You're Dead! 1990

Directed by Bill Gould and featuring footage shot in Europe during The Real Thing Tour in 1989 and 1990. The video never saw release as an official single and the video wasn't released until its appearance on Video Croissant in 1993.

Mike Patton | Kerrang | 1990

Mike Patton has to find new ways to amuse himself on tour. "We had this 8mm camera on tour with us filming any shit that went down," He smiles, "I'm sure I got the drummer barfing over a dead chicken at some point. Anyway the locals were really shy, wouldn't say hello to the crazy American guy with long hair pointing a camera down her throat."

Evidence 1995

The smoothest and least genre stylised Faith No More video directed by Walter Stern. Stern is an English director whose work includes some of the grittiest, urban and memorable videos of the 90's for bands like The Prodigy and The Verve.

Filmed at Club 181 in San Francisco the band portray a super cool lounge band whose performance goes largely unnoticed with the exception of one enraged vixen. The harsh and extreme lighting adds to the atmosphere recreating the conditions of a police line up.

Sunny Side Up 2015