FAITH NO MORE | 30.11.1990 | Circus Magazine
Circus Magazine | 30.11.1990 | Issue 369
Faith No More: Inside the insatiable Mike Patton
By Gary Cee
Faith No More has a gold album, The Real Thing, in the top
20 of Billboard's LP chart. Their wildly imaginative video, "Epic,"
is all over MTV. These supremely proficient musicians upend audiences all over
the globe with an unbounded frenzy of metal, rap and funk that leaves even the
most durable stage divers out of breath. From out of nowhere, they've become
one of a handful of bands playing what's left of genuinely exciting hard rock
& roll.
But for lead singer Mike Patton, Faith's not enough. The
fiery-eyed hellraiser still holds a huge place in his heart for his first band
back home in Eureka, California - a powerfunk posse called Mr. Bungle.
"I'm gonna make myself" lead both bands, Patton
promises. Even if his record company, Slash, forces him to drop all side
projects to keep the Faith. "If you heard Mr. Bungle, you'd fall down the
stairs," he says. "With Faith No More, you just, maybe, run."
That is a Mr. Bungle T-shirt Patton wears in the "Epic" video.
"When I'm not around, they're still working without me.
There's no records yet, just demo tapes." But Patton swears his first band
will "absolutely" score a record contract.
Mike Patton was born January 27th, 1968 and grew up in a
modest household with his parents and younger brother. He graduated from Eureka
High in 1986 and began studying English - "only because I like to
write" - at Humboldt State University in Arcata, just down the road from
Eureka. "I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was completely lost,"
he says.
Mike will never forget the first time he and the Bungle boys
saw Faith No More at Humboldt. Patton was so impressed with guitarist Jim
Martin, bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Roddy Bottum, drummer Mike Bordin and
singer Chuck Mosley, he dropped a Mr. Bungle demo into Jim's hands.
The second time Patton caught Faith, it turned into the most
chaotic weekend of his life. Maybe this was an omen.
"Eureka is a really small town," he remembers.
"So me and the Bungle guys thought, gee, we're gonna go see Faith No More
and the Red Hot Chili Peppers at this club in San Francisco. It's like this big
event. We have to organize it with our parents. We drive a few hours down to
the city, to the Fillmore. We're just stupid kids, and it's only our second
time in San Francisco. We get there, go see the show, and when we come out, our
tires are slashed.
"Then we fix the tires. We end up staying at Mr.
Bungle's guitarist grandma's house. We park the car in someone's driveway, not
thinking, and we come out the next day and it's been towed. What an unbelievable
hassle. We swore we'd never come to San Francisco again."
Patton would have to return. The summer before his junior
year at Humboldt, he received a phone call from big Jim Martin. Singer Chuck Mosley wasn't working out anymore. Would Patton be interested in joining the
Faith?
"I had met Jim once before," Patton recalls,
"and I never met Chuck at all. From what I understand, his attitude was
getting worse. They were moving in two different directions.
"When I first got the offer, I was a little hesitant.
My first inclination was, nah, I can't do this. I was really tied up in my
little 'go to work, go to school' thing. I was working at a record store,
wow..."
Mike's impetuous stage gymnastics, crazy facial contortions
and multi octave vocal range were a strong shot in the arm to Faith's live set.
His performance was so over-the-top, it nearly came off as parody. But Patton
brought more than a huge set of lungs to the show. The band took a liking to
his lyrics, and Mike ended up writing all the words to the ten original songs
on Faith's third LP, The Real Thing, in one week. Recording commenced in
December of 1988. The album was released in June of '89.
"Was it that long ago?" the malcontent asks. The
Real Thing doesn't sound fresh at all to him these days. "It was old and
boring long ago."
At the time of this interview, Patton had mixed feelings
about opening up an arena tour with Billy Idol. It's not the first time Faith
has played the big rooms. They canvassed the West Coast with Metallica a couple
of years back.
"I really want to see what kind of people come to these
shows," he wonders. "It's probably just gonna be lame MTV people. And
I'm really curious to see how Billy Idol is as a person. He's probably gonna be
real easy to torment. We're gonna try to find the quickest possible avenue to
torture that fucker."
There's no rest for Patton. Just five days after coming off
the Billy Idol tour, Mike and Faith will open a month of dates for AC/DC.
"You can see why I'm not really all that stoked on
it," he drones. "It's good for the band, but man, I'm gonna be so
fucked up by that point."
But eager to reunite with Mr. Bungle. Faith No More will
just have to wait.
"Not only do we have zero new songs written," he
says, "and I don't know about them, but I'm gonna need some time away from
those bastards."
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