FAITH NO MORE | January 1995 | Metal Hammer
Metal Hammer | January 1995 | Martin Carlsson
"We don't screw groupies or take ecstacy,"
declares Bill Gould, bassist with San Francisco's most twisted quintet. But
then again FAITH NO MORE have never played by anyone's rules. With Mr. Bungle
guitarist Trey Spruance on board and the Big Sick one out of the picture, Mike
Patton and co. spill their guts to Martin Carlsson about the 'difficult' times
and their shockingly aggressive fifth album.
Life has not been easy on the Frisco bunch. Following years
of arguments and rumors, Big Sick Ugly Jim finally got the boot in December
1993. Even though there's a new album in the pipeline, 'King for a Day ... Fool
for a Lifetime', at this point there's a lot of interest in the far from
amicable split.
"Jim had a real big image," says Bill. "He
had a cowboy hat, a cigar and a beard. In a way we had to make a decision,
because he had an image, and a lot of people associated the band with his
image. You have to choose if you wanna put up with this fucking shit for the
style or sacrifice the image for the substance. You're gonna be like Whitesnake
and Poison or you're gonna be real? A lot of people were telling us that we
were doing a lot of stupid things. We had a hard time convincing people that we
knew what the fuck we were doing."
To outsiders, the entire circus surrounding the Jim Martin
'situation' seemed absurd. Both parties used the media to blast each other in a
fashion that brought back memories of the hateful relationship that Don Dokken
and George Lynch shared in Dokken.
"Our mental health is the most important thing,"
Bill continues. "If we're gonna do something, we have to be somewhat
mentally healthy. I think it's a lot healthier to deal with problems with anger
instead of burying them. There was a lot of humour and ridicule in there too.
It's just the way we operate. If we didn't we wouldn't exist."
"That was the point," agrees drummer Mike Bordin.
"It was like digging a trench around your garden because your toilet
overflowed, and letting the shit run somewhere else rather than pollute your fucking
food!"
Hard words indeed. However, they don't even come close to
the verbal abuse that outspoken vocalist Mike Patton threw at Jim Martin on
stage. At concerts he declared his hatred for the Big One and even went as far
as throwing the mic at him.
"You fuck someone and you have an orgasm," says
Mike Patton, trying to explain his behaviour. "Then you fart and cry and
everything just kinda comes out. That's what it's like sometimes on stage. It
feels good to talk shit on stage, and afterwards, I'm going, 'Oh shit, what did
I do? That was really stupid.' This definitely worsened our relationship. But
you gotta do what you gotta do. We're not so good at communicating. We're
getting better, because it used to be really bad. You hear things and there was
never any real confrontation. I think towards the end we should've had more of
that. The stage was almost this playground where anyone could say anything and
it would be okay. That's bullshit, because you're supposed to be up there
playing, not fighting."
The massive tension was already out in the open at the time
of the release of FNM's last album, 'Angel Dust,' in June 1992. So why did they
prolong the misery if they knew that the inevitable was to come?
"Jim *had* to be in the band for that record," believes
Bill. "We wrote the record under a lot of difficulty, but we had to do two
years worth of touring. It's tough then! Let's say that we knew that it wasn't
working."
Did Faith No More really give it their best shot though? Jim
Martin has explained that he felt the others gave up too easily. So had the
relationship deteriorated to a point where all hope was gone for a
reconciliation?
"We really gave it every attempt," responds Bordin.
"The last gig we did was the Phoenix festival. When we came home, especially
me, Bill, and Mike realized that what we'd done on 'Angel Dust' was actually
pretty cool and it worked really good. There was stuff we could continue doing.
We wrote some songs, and a couple months after that we played them to Jim. We
asked him, 'Hey, what are you gonna put on this?' It's always been us writing a
framework and he's thrown parts on top of it. It was obvious that it wasn't
working. It was impossible, but we gave it a chance to see what would happen.
Because we knew it would be a big hassle to do this, not only legally but
time-wise."
When Jim was finally fired, was there a time when you had to
re-examine what Faith No More was all about?
"Yeah, in a way we did without thinking about it,"
nods Bill. "We'd been playing with each other for so long that we assumed
we could just get another guitar player who would think like we do. We've
always considered ourselves a band that doesn't have any kind of sound or
image, we can do what we want. So we couldn't figure out why it was difficult to
find people to jump in and do it. We started realizing that we *do* have a
style. We don't know what it is, but it definitely is a language that we
communicate with."
After going through lots of hopefuls, the diminished group
eventually hooked up with Geordie, from the legendary Killing Joke. And for a
while early last year, the guitarist looked set to join.
"He was a member in my mind," confesses Bordin.
"I really wanted him to be in the band. We all really liked that band
(Killing Joke), that was a *great* band. In their day, that was the fucking
shit! It was really cool to play with him."
So what was the problem then?
"It's weird," muses Bill. "Geordie hasn't
played with a lot of other bands, and he came into a situation where we had a
lot of songs already written. It would've taken a lot of time to work things
out, and we just wanted to move ahead and get a record out."
"Geordie's thing is that he did this amazing fucking
thing, but it was like one thing," clarifies Bordin.
Enter Trey Spruance, the wild and wicked one who'd been
lurking in the shadows ever since the spot was vacant. At first, however, his
association with Mike Patton did not work to his advantage.
"You kinda complicate things with me and Mike being in
another band together," thinks the newcomer. "And I don't necessarily
want to spend every waking hour with him, ha ha!"
"Mr. Bungle are slowly taking over our band,"
jokes Bill.
"I was actually against it," reveals Patton.
"You don't wanna be too much with someone. It gets a little incestuous. It
was like we'd been married for a few years and now we could go and fuck our
brains out and play with some other people. It was like being reborn. It was liberating.
I'd had some bad water under the bridge wtih him and I didn't wanna be in
another aggravating situation. But you do what's best for the music."
Bearing this in mind, is there a risk for yet another
explosive situation to loom? Faith No More's volatile background does hint in
that direction, especially when you're virtually sleeping on top of each other
on tour.
"Sure," agrees Patton. "But anything could be
a problem when you're on the road for two years. Are you gonna go to sleep
every night and wonder if there's gonna be an earthquake? Maybe, but you just
have to deal with it. We're grown-ups."
Really? When I ask if they had some kind of ritual to
welcome the arrival of Trey, the reply surely casts a doubt over their sanity.
"It's funny that you mention that," smiles an
amused Bill. "I don't know if we should talk about it. We have this ring,
like a 'circle of protection.' On a full moon we made him strip down naked, and
we had this circle of candles. This *is* serious. It happened to Trey. Were you
pretty scared when we did that?"
"I'm still kinda scared, because it makes you question
everything," Trey responds, almost philosophically. "The ground under
your feet is stolen by a bunch of guys that you don't really know. It's
frightening, and you have to reassemble the world and rebuild yourself. So I'm
kinda on my way back to the world."
So, it would seem, are the rest of the guys. After
"being locked up in a cabin" for a few months, they're feeling a bit
out of touch. It was new producer Andy Wallace who insisted on the band
deserting San Francisco for the remote Bearsville Studios in upstate New York.
Twenty songs were recorded, of which 14 made the album. Faith No More hope to
release the other material, including "some really heavy ones that would
suit a soundtrack to an action movie," as a mini-album later.
"We've actually only joked about it once in the
studio," says Bordin of the irony in finally replacing long-time producer
Matt Wallace with yet another Wallace (though not related).
The outcome of this clean break (new line-up, new
surroundings, new producer) is Faith No More's boldest recording yet. At times
shockingly aggressive, 'King for a Day .... Fool for a Lifetime' still
possesses -- and expands -- the unmistakable honey-sweet melodies.
"To me there was more frivolous stuff on 'Angel
Dust'," says Bordin. "We had some difficult times, and we knew that
if and when we did it, this was gonna be the record of our lives. It had that
all-or-nothing feel to us. I don't wanna sound like it's dead serious, but it's
*not* a joke!"
In many respects the new album is a continuation of 'Angel
Dust,' a record that they amazingly brand their first good one! However, things
are taken to a much more extreme, with Patton frequently screaming like Donald
Duck on speed and then suddenly adopting a soothing lullaby-style voice. And
interestingly, some songs, like "What a Day" and "Digging the
Grave," take on an almost poppy direction.
"Instead of putting everything into every song, we
wanted to take things out and make them a bit simpler," explains Bordin.
"Perhaps that's what you'd call a 'pop' or lighter feel."
These extremes are the reason why Faith No More sell albums.
Paradoxically, that's also why they *don't* sell albums. In a world increasingly
full of pretenders who make it and then disappear, Faith No More is one of the
few bands that boasts a truly unique and challenging style. This has proved a
touch too much for some.
"We are just bums who play music," declares Bill.
"We definitely don't subscribe to the American 'Keep repeating the same
fucking thing and you'll sell millions of records' ethic which seems to be the
way things work. People think we're weird because of that; we're weird because
we try to make things interesting to ourselves. We don't screw groupies or take
ecstacy.
"Take 'Velvet Hammer' for instance," he continues,
all fired up. "We've never done anything like that before. The same with
'Take this Bottle.' It's so fucking simple that it sounds like a folk/cowboy
song. 'Star AD' has that Las Vegas feel that's so beautiful to get into. It's
cool to do something like that and hear all the other shit bounce around
it."
"This time we actually followed our impulses,"
says Patton. "We did what was in our heads. I don't know if we should've
done it, but at least we did it. I think this is a pop record."
Lyrically, Patton is as twisted and bizarre as ever. "
A line like 'If you wanna open the hole, just put your head down and go' (from
the dreamy "Evidence," which the record company hopes to get on a big
soundtrack in the fall), shows what goes on inside *his* head.
Then there's "Star AD," which states: 'Your body's
dry like a fact of history. When you die you become someone worse than dead.
You become a legend.' A reference to Kurt Cobain perhaps?
"Kurt?" asks Patton. "God no! It's about a
phenomenon. And if that guy happened to be one, I don't know. It's one of those
things that happen; it's a Vegas thing. What could be more shameful than having
to change your colostomy bag on stage?! Vegas is great, though. I love it.
Welcome to America."
Perhaps the most interesting piece is "The Gentle Art
of Making Enemies." A vocally distorted Patton seems to be barking, 'I
deserve a reward cos I'm the best fuck that you've ever had. And if I came on
my horn you may never see the fight again.' This mis absorption on my part
actually proves to hold the key to his entire weird lyricism.
"Ha ha. Oh my god! My favourite thing, especially on
this record, is to write lyrics and not tell the band what I'm singing, and
then have them guess what I'm singing. Usually they go, 'Are you saying what I
think you're saying?' and it's better than what I wrote. So I just use what
they wrote instead. Instead of the word 'horn' it's supposed to be 'hole', and
'came' is not in there either. But I didn't wanna correct you, because it's
just too beautiful."
On this cold day in San Francisco, Mike Patton looks
absolutely dreadful. His teeth are yellow and covered in plaque and he seems to
be quite beat. Has it been a tough year?
"It's been a little tough with a lot of unknowns; a lot
of problems in the band, a lot of insecurity and wondering *if* we were gonna
make this record. Really."
Was it that serious?
"Yeah," he answers. "You lose a guy and maybe
you can continue or maybe you can't. There were some problems with Roddy
(Bottum, keyboards), but this one ... We weren't a band for a while. Of course
we wanted to continue, but there are other circumstances that play a part.
We're getting old (*Patton is, wow, 26!*). You can only put up a facade for so
long. You get a new guy after new guy, and it's like, how many facelifts can
you get?"
Listening to Patton talk (or in your case reading between
the lines), it's easy to get a feeling that he doesn't really believe in a
long, prosperous career.
"Well, y'know," he drawls, "We're not gonna
have guys drop off and get new ones, and then have Faith No More reunite in the
year 2000. The way we do it and the way we tour, it's gonna be tough to do this
for another 15 years. We do a record and then tour for two years, and I don't
think we can do that for 15 years. Maybe we'll find an easier way and perhaps
don't have to tour. Wow, that would be nice! Even if we were R.E.M. and had a
big record, I'm not sure if we could *not* tour."
The fifth album, 'King for a Day ... Fool for a Lifetime',
hasn't even been released yet and already Patton appears to be despondent! To
liven up the somewhat gloomy atmosphere, Mike Bordin comes to the rescue with a
witty comment: "We only kick people out on the even number records.
Haven't you figured that out yet?"
Faith No More are back and intact -- at least for another
couple years.
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