Faith No More's name is a sacking notice. In September 1983 bassist Billy Gould, drummer Mike Bordin and keyboard player Roddy Bottum walked out of Faith. No Man, the post-punk band fronted by singer and guitarist Mike Morris, and a friend called Will Carpmill suggested a new name that rubbed it in: "The Man" was "No More".
It set the tone for everything that followed. Faith No More went on to fire a singer by having the bassist quit, sack a guitarist by fax, turn an album the label had written off into a hit, with a top-ten US single in "Epic", follow it with an album so strange the record company president hoped nobody had bought a house, and split in 1998 with a statement calling the decision mutual. Then they came back, made a seventh album 18 years after the sixth, collapsed again in 2021, and in 2026 announced they would play live in 2027. This is the whole story, era by era.
Faith No More Band Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Origin | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Formed | 1979 as Sharp Young Men; named Faith No More in September 1983 |
| Years active | 1979 to 1998; 2009 to 2021; 2026 to present |
| Original Faith No More lineup | Billy Gould (bass), Mike Bordin (drums), Roddy Bottum (keyboards), with Joe Callahan (vocals) and Jake Smith (guitar) at the first show in October 1983 |
| Classic lineup | Mike Patton, Billy Gould, Mike Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Jim Martin |
| Current lineup | Mike Patton, Billy Gould, Mike Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Jon Hudson (as listed by Wikipedia) |
| Notable past members | Chuck Mosley, Jim Martin, Trey Spruance, Dean Menta, Courtney Love (1984) |
| Labels | Mordam, Slash, Reprise, Reclamation! |
| Genres | Alternative metal, funk metal, experimental rock, alternative rock |
| Studio albums | 7 |
| Key producers | Matt Wallace, Andy Wallace, Roli Mosimann, Billy Gould |
| Certifications | The Real Thing: Platinum in the US, Canada and Australia; Angel Dust: Gold in the US, UK and Germany, Platinum in Canada; Album of the Year: Platinum in Australia |
| Hall of Fame | Not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame |
| Major awards | Three Grammy nominations (1990, 1991, 1993); MTV VMA for Best Visual Effects (Falling to Pieces, 1991); Metal Hammer Golden Gods Best Album (Sol Invictus, 2015) |
| Defining moment | Epic reaching number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990 |
Sharp Young Men to Faith No More: 1979 to 1984
Before there was a Faith No More there was Sharp Young Men, started in 1979 by vocalist and guitarist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington, a trained pianist who had long fancied a Jimmy Smith-style organ-and-drums jazz project. They talked drummer Mike Bordin into joining, and bassist Billy Gould arrived around 1980, having moved up from Los Angeles to start at UC Berkeley. Wikipedia says Gould answered a newspaper ad; Gould's own memory, told to Classic Rock, is of a bulletin board.
"The first thing I did after I unpacked all my stuff in the dorm room," Gould said, "was walk to the record store on Telegraph Avenue, and look on the bulletin boards to get in a new band." Morris called the Sharp Young Men name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time", and the sound leaned on Killing Joke and Theatre of Hate. Between March and August 1982 the band played a 12-show club tour of the Bay Area and put out a three-song demo cassette.
At Bordin's suggestion they became Faith. No Man, full stops and all. Gould spotted a Berkeley flyer for a cheap demo studio run by a producer called Matt Wallace, and the band's single "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty" was cut in Wallace's parents' garage. Wikipedia dates it to 1983 on Ministry of Propaganda Records; Classic Rock's 2014 feature calls it 1982's Song of Liberty. Either way, Gould had pneumonia at the time. "My ears completely plugged up," he said, "so I recorded that record deaf!"
Worthington left soon after and was replaced by Roddy Bottum, who had grown up in Los Angeles with Gould. Bottum later said the pair had been friends since they were "nine or 10 years old". Then the three of them quit on Morris.
"So that's why there was keyboard, bass and drums, and that's why we switched guitarists so much, because it was just us three. The 'Man' was gone – the man was 'No More'."
Mike Bordin, Classic Rock, 2014
Morris said in 2012 that he had not spoken to Gould or Bottum since they walked out. For years afterwards the band fed journalists a fake origin story about a racehorse called Faith No More. The horse only started racing in 1988.
The first Faith No More show, in October 1983, had Joe Callahan (better known as Joe Pop-o-Pie) singing and Jake Smith on guitar. A self-titled cassette that year paired the live set with a 20-minute instrumental titled "New Love, Same Neuroses; New Hairstyles, Same Minds". By early 1984 Mark Bowen had replaced Smith, and a rotating cast of singers came through, among them Paula Frazer, later of Tarnation, and Courtney Love.
Love joined in February 1984 and was gone by June. "Courtney was one of the revolving singers we had," Bottum told Classic Rock. "She was an awesome performer; she liked to sing in her nightgown, adorned with flowers." Asked later why it ended, Bottum said the band "wanted a male energy".
"We weren't a punk band, so we couldn't do the punk shows. We weren't an alternative band. We were not a metal band in that sense of the word."
Mike Bordin, Metal Hammer, 2015
The Chuck Mosley Era: 1984 to 1988
Gould had known Chuck Mosley since 1977, and the two had played together in a Los Angeles new wave band called The Animated. With a gig booked in LA, Gould handed him the microphone. "He had a couple of 40-ouncers of beer – I don't think he'd ever sung before – he just got on the mic and yelled," Gould remembered. Wikipedia puts Mosley's arrival around August 1984; Mosley's own Wikipedia biography says 1985.
The guitarist arrived the same way most things did in this band, sideways. Mark Bowen left, and Bordin bumped into an old friend, Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, at a Mexican restaurant in the East Bay. Burton told him: "Y'know, you've got to get Jim in your band because he's working a regular job, and it's fucking killing him." Jim Martin had played with Bordin and Burton in EZ Street in the late 1970s.
With no label behind them, the band pooled their money and recorded five songs with Wallace. Gould gave the tape to a friend at a record shop with instructions to play it while people browsed. Ruth Schwartz, who was setting up Mordam Records, heard it and rang two days later. She put up $3,000 to match the band's $3,000, and the finished record cost $6,000. Wallace says it was made over two three-day weekends at Prairie Sound in Cotati, mixing included.
We Care a Lot came out on 30 November 1985, the first release for both band and label. Its title track mocked rock stars' charity drives such as Live Aid, with a chanted chorus Bottum came up with. "I wrote the lyrics to We Care A Lot after listening to a whole lot of Run-DMC," he said.
Anna Statman signed the band to Slash Records in late 1986, and Introduce Yourself followed on 23 April 1987, recorded with Wallace at Studio D in Sausalito and Ground Control in Los Angeles. A re-recorded "We Care a Lot" was released as a single and became a minor MTV success, reaching number 53 in the UK and 40 in New Zealand, while the album reached number 57 in Australia. In 1988 Robert Plant named the Mosley-fronted band among his favourites in Rolling Stone.
The Slash deal brought a tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "We did something like 52 dates in 56 days," Martin said. It was on the band's first European tour in 1988 that Mosley's time ran out. A roadie friend of his got into a fight with Martin on the opening night and Martin broke his hand. "Somebody had to go – it obviously wasn't going to be our guitar player," Gould said. "Chuck took it very personally, sticking up for this roadie." Accounts of the on-stage violence on that tour disagree: Wikipedia says Mosley allegedly punched Gould, while Classic Rock's 2014 feature says Gould punched Mosley. Mosley had also fallen asleep on stage at the Introduce Yourself release party.
Back home, the band repeated the trick they had pulled on Morris.
"The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. Just said: 'I'm done – I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios"
Billy Gould, Classic Rock, 2014
Mosley sued his former bandmates in 1989, claiming a partnership interest; the case was settled, with Mosley giving up his rights to most of the band's works and its name. He went on to sing with Bad Brains from 1990 until January 1992 and then formed Cement.
Mike Patton and The Real Thing: 1988 to 1991
Singerless, the band wrote the music for their third album anyway, in shifts. "Jim was drinking all night with his buddies – he wouldn't go to sleep until seven or eight in the morning," Bordin said. "We didn't even have each other's phone numbers." Gould remembers going to Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell's house to jam, but said: "I don't think that we had a musical connection."
The answer came from Eureka in Northern California. Mike Patton, who sang in his high-school band Mr. Bungle, had met the band at a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his home town, and Martin pushed for him after hearing Mr. Bungle's demo The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. Bordin liked the tape too. Bottum did not: "not my cup of tea." Martin remembered Patton hesitating over the phone, and telling the singer he "was at a crossroads in life – one way was to become a singer, the other way was to be a record store clerk in a shitty little town in Northern California."
The music was finished before Patton arrived, and when he asked to make parts longer or shorter, the band said no. Wallace says Patton wrote all the lyrics and melodies within 12 days. The Real Thing came out on 20 June 1989 on Slash and Reprise, a record that, as Classic Rock put it, covered rap (Epic), pop (Underwater Love), prog (Woodpecker From Mars), piano jazz (Edge of the World) and thrash (Surprise! You're Dead!). On the second show of the tour, filmed at the I-Beam for the "From Out of Nowhere" video, Patton had a beer bottle smashed over his right hand.
America ignored it at first. The album did not enter the Billboard 200 until February 1990, and according to Classic Rock the label had written it off and allowed the band one last video. They chose "Epic", released as a single on 30 January 1990. Gould has said that after "From Out of Nowhere" disappointed, the label had low expectations and let the band pick the next video. Ralph Ziman's video, with the band drenched in artificial rain, a fish flapping on dry land and Bottum's piano exploding in slow motion, went into heavy MTV rotation. The fish angered animal rights activists; Ziman said in 2010 that several were used and released afterwards.
"Epic" reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, their only US top-ten single, spent three weeks at number one in Australia and reached number two in New Zealand. The Real Thing climbed to number 11 in the US in October 1990, went Platinum in the US and Canada, and Wikipedia puts its worldwide sales "well above 4 million". The band were in Europe when it happened.
"I remember landing in the airport, going to a hotel, turning on the TV by chance and seeing the damn video and going: 'Oh shit... the joke's on us!'."
Mike Patton, Classic Rock, 2014
The rest of 1990 was a lap of honour. Faith No More played the MTV Video Music Awards on 6 September and Saturday Night Live on 1 December, supported Billy Idol on his Charmed Life tour, and recorded a sold-out show at London's Brixton Academy on 28 April, released as a video in September 1990 and as the audio album Live at the Brixton Academy on 4 February 1991. It remains their only official live album. The Real Thing earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, "Epic" another for Best Hard Rock Performance, and "Falling to Pieces" won an MTV award for Best Visual Effects in 1991.
Martin got a film cameo out of it too, appearing as "Sir James Martin" of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center" in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which also used the band's song "The Perfect Crime". By the end, though, two years on the road with a small catalogue had left them bored of their own songs, one of the reasons the next record sounded so different.
Angel Dust, Guns N' Roses and the Fax: 1991 to 1993
Patton spent part of the break making Mr. Bungle's debut, released in August 1991, then wrote with Faith No More for the first time. The band decided not to play it safe. Bottum chose the title Angel Dust because "it's a really beautiful name for a really hideous drug and that should make people think", and the sleeve matched it: Werner Krutein's photograph of a great egret on the front, a cow hanging on a meat hook on the back. At one point the album was going to be called Crack Hitler, after the label's view that it was commercial suicide.
Martin hated it. Wallace says the guitarist "kept referring to the music as 'gay disco'", and Martin recalled the label boss's verdict: "After listening to some of the rough tracks, the president of Slash Records said: 'I hope nobody bought any houses'." Martin's father had died just before the sessions, which Wallace believes played a part.
Angel Dust was released on 8 June 1992 and debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the band's only US top-ten album, and reached number two in the UK. It sold less than The Real Thing in America but outsold it in much of the world. The sales figures disagree depending on which page you read: Wikipedia's Faith No More article gives 665,000 US copies and around 3.1 million worldwide, while its Angel Dust article says roughly 500,000 in the US at first and over 2.5 million worldwide.
"No, it was our evolution. We made Angel Dust and we were fucking excited to share it with everybody. We thought it was great. And every other fucker said: 'What the fuck is this? Where's Epic? Where's From Out Of Nowhere?' Except in the UK, and you must get credit for that."
Mike Bordin, Metal Hammer, 2015
The rescue came from a joke. Faith No More had been segueing from "War Pigs" into a note-for-note cover of the Commodores' "Easy" on tour, and it did not go down well. "Just to see the amount of middle fingers go up when we go into Easy is amazing," Gould told Billboard in 1993. They recorded it as a B-side; Warner put it out as an A-side on 29 December 1992. It went to number one in Australia, number three in the UK (their highest UK placing) and was later added to Angel Dust. Lionel Richie, who wrote it, told the Washington Post in 2001: "Yes, I loved it."
In 1992 the band toured Europe with Guns N' Roses and Soundgarden; Axl Rose had said in 1990 that Faith No More were the only band he was "jealous of". They then replaced Nirvana, after Kurt Cobain refused to play with Guns N' Roses, on the North American stadium tour with Metallica. They were at the 26 August 1992 Montreal show where James Hetfield was badly burned by pyrotechnics and Guns N' Roses incited a riot after going on hours late and leaving early. After the band kept mocking their hosts in the press, they were fired from the tour in September 1992.
The strain between guitarist and singer spilled into the press. A Melody Maker feature in August 1992 caught it in print, with Martin complaining that modern music lacked guitar solos and Patton replying: "I hate guitar solos. Every time our guitarist tries to do one, we stand in front of him." In 1993 Bottum came out as gay in an interview with Lance Loud for The Advocate, and the band recorded "Another Body Murdered" with Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. for the Judgment Night soundtrack, with Gould playing the guitar parts.
Faith No More fired Jim Martin by fax on 30 November 1993. Bottum says the fax was how it happened; Martin maintains leaving was his decision. Godflesh's Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke's Geordie Walker were both reportedly asked to replace him and declined.
"I felt relieved; a great pressure had been removed and the pain began to leave my body."
Jim Martin, Classic Rock, 2014
King for a Day, Album of the Year and the Split: 1994 to 1998
Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance took the guitar job for the next record. King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime was made at Bearsville Studios in New York, the only Faith No More album not recorded in California, with Andy Wallace producing; despite the surname, he is no relation to Matt. It was a fraught session. Bottum was largely absent, dealing with heroin addiction and the deaths of his father and of his friend Kurt Cobain, so the album was written mostly without keyboards. During recording the band were also in a car accident with Patton at the wheel and Spruance and Bordin on board.
Gould sounded liberated all the same. "It's heavier, it's more direct and it's the first record where we had the guitar the way we wanted it," he said. "Now it feels we're a dog who's been let off the leash." The album, released on 13 March 1995, jumped between punk, country, bossa nova, gospel and thrash, reached number five in the UK and two in Australia but only 31 in the US, and Wikipedia puts its sales at around 1.5 million. Its cover art came from Eric Drooker's graphic novel Flood.
Spruance left before the tour. The band said he would not commit to the road; Spruance says he was never meant to be permanent, and remembers Gould calling him a "spoilt rich kid" in a magazine he could not afford to buy. The keyboard roadie, Dean Menta, filled in. "They talked shit behind each other's backs constantly and avoided each other... pretty much as they always did," Menta said. The tour was cut short and Menta was let go.
Album of the Year was nearly the record that never happened. After Menta left, the momentum "just shut down", as Gould put it. Bottum toured with his new band Imperial Teen, Bordin spent six months on the road with Black Sabbath, and Patton went to Italy to be with his wife. Gould wrote "Mouth to Mouth" in Albania and came home to work on the songs with a new guitarist, his former roommate Jon Hudson, formerly of Oakland's Systems Collapse. Gould and the Swiss producer Roli Mosimann co-produced the result.
Released on 3 June 1997, Album of the Year went to number one in Australia and New Zealand, number two in Germany and number seven in the UK, but peaked at 41 in the US, where reviews were largely negative. Rolling Stone said the band were "floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant". Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit that year, and Limp Bizkit were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon on 7 April 1998, cancelled a planned support tour with Aerosmith, and on 20 April Gould sent out a statement by email and fax saying "the decision among the members is mutual" and that the split would let each member "pursue his individual project(s) unhindered". Patton says he was the one who raised it: "Everyone just looked and laughed, and went, 'Man, we feel the same way.'"
"I think it was the right time to turn off the lights before we became a pathetic band. Creatively, we hit the wall as a band and it was important to some of us that we end it with integrity."
Mike Patton, Classic Rock, 2014
Faith No More Studio Albums
| # | Album | Year | Label | Vocalist / lineup note | Peak chart | Certification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | We Care a Lot | 1985 | Mordam | Chuck Mosley; Jim Martin on guitar | Did not chart | |
| 2 | Introduce Yourself | 1987 | Slash | Chuck Mosley's last album | AUS 57 | |
| 3 | The Real Thing | 1989 | Slash / Reprise | Mike Patton's first album | US 11, UK 30, AUS 2 | RIAA Platinum, ARIA Platinum, MC Platinum, BPI Silver |
| 4 | Angel Dust | 1992 | Slash / Reprise | Jim Martin's last album | US 10, UK 2, AUS 4 | RIAA Gold, BPI Gold, ARIA Gold, BVMI Gold, MC Platinum |
| 5 | King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime | 1995 | Slash / Reprise | Trey Spruance on guitar | US 31, UK 5, AUS 2 | ARIA Gold, BPI Gold, RMNZ Gold |
| 6 | Album of the Year | 1997 | Slash / Reprise | Jon Hudson's first album | US 41, UK 7, AUS 1 | ARIA Platinum |
| 7 | Sol Invictus | 2015 | Reclamation! | Same lineup as Album of the Year | US 15, UK 6, AUS 2 |
The one official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy, reached number 20 in the UK in 1991.
Faith No More Members Through the Years
| Member | Instrument | Years | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billy Gould | Bass | 1979-1998, 2009-2021, 2026- | Joined Sharp Young Men around 1980; co-produced Album of the Year and produced Sol Invictus |
| Mike Bordin | Drums | 1979-1998, 2009-2021, 2026- | Suggested the name Faith. No Man |
| Roddy Bottum | Keyboards, rhythm guitar | 1983-1998, 2009-2021, 2026- | Replaced Wade Worthington; chose the title Angel Dust |
| Chuck Mosley | Vocals | 1984-1988 | Sang on the first two albums; died in 2017 |
| Jim Martin | Guitar | 1984-1993 | Played on the first four albums; fired by fax |
| Mike Patton | Vocals | 1988-1998, 2009-2021, 2026- | Recruited from Mr. Bungle |
| Trey Spruance | Guitar | 1993-1995 | Played on King for a Day; rejoined for one 2011 show |
| Dean Menta | Guitar | 1995-1996 | Former keyboard roadie; played the King for a Day tour |
| Jon Hudson | Guitar | 1996-1998, 2009-2021, 2026- | Gould's former roommate |
| Courtney Love | Vocals | 1984 | Sang with the band from February to roughly June 1984 |
Dates follow Wikipedia's membership list. Before the Faith No More name, Mike Morris (vocals, guitar) and Wade Worthington (keyboards) led Sharp Young Men and Faith. No Man, and Joe Callahan, Jake Smith, Mark Bowen and Paula Frazer all passed through in 1983 and 1984.
The Second Coming and Sol Invictus: 2009 to 2016
The reunion grew out of a wedding. Patton and Bordin turned up at Bottum's, and Gould, who was out of the country, heard they had been hanging out. "The first thing that comes to mind with something like that is, 'Someone needs money,'" he told Metal Hammer. "I had a very negative gut feeling about it." A lunch in Los Angeles, the first time they had all been in the same room since 1999, changed his mind. Gould had publicly dismissed the rumours in November 2008, but on 24 February 2009 Faith No More announced they were reforming with the Album of the Year lineup for The Second Coming Tour. Jim Martin had been approached, but the band went with Hudson.
Gould's announcement described the band as "some sort of unique beast; part dog, part cat".
"When it all worked, it worked really well, even if the chemistry was always volatile."
Billy Gould, statement to Blabbermouth, 2009
In June 2009, two nights after a show at Brixton Academy, they walked onto the Download Festival stage in front of 80,000 people, four of them in matching black suits, and opened with a straight cover of Peaches & Herb's "Reunited" before Patton appeared in red, leaning on a cane. "It was very, very surreal," Gould said. The tour ran through European festivals, Soundwave in Australia in 2010 and South America in 2011, where at the Maquinaria Festival in Chile they played King for a Day in full with Spruance back on guitar.
After Sonisphere France in July 2012 the band went quiet; Patton toured with Tomahawk in 2013. Then on 4 July 2014 they supported Black Sabbath in London's Hyde Park and played two new songs, "Motherfucker" and "Superhero". In September Gould told Rolling Stone they had started a new album. Bordin called it a "fucking 'Oops Baby'".
Sol Invictus came out on 19 May 2015 on Reclamation! Records, 18 years after Album of the Year. Gould produced it, with Matt Wallace helping on the final mix in his fifth collaboration with the band. It reached number 15 in the US, their best placing since Angel Dust, number six in the UK and two in Australia, and won Best Album at the 2015 Metal Hammer Golden Gods. "This band was buried," Patton said. "And we dug it up."
In August 2016 the band played two shows, in San Francisco and West Hollywood, billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" to mark the reissue of We Care a Lot, with Mosley singing alongside Bordin, Gould, Hudson and Bottum. Mosley died on 9 November 2017, aged 57; the cause was given as "the disease of addiction".
Cancellations, Side Projects and the 2027 Return
On 26 November 2019 Faith No More announced their first shows in five years, for summer 2020, along with two Los Angeles stadium dates with System of a Down. COVID-19 pushed most of them back, and in September 2021 Patton cancelled everything, citing mental health. He later told Rolling Stone he had been diagnosed with agoraphobia. "I just freaked out," he said. "I just said, 'I can't do it.' They had been rehearsing so [pauses] if I were them I'd be really pissed off at me."
Bordin's version, given on Dean Delray's podcast in April 2025, was that the gear was already rolling to Chicago 36 hours before the first show when Patton missed rehearsal, and that the band chose to cancel around 75 shows rather than push him.
"So it's my take, my position, my statement on it is that he's gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that's heavy."
Mike Bordin, Let There Be Talk podcast, 2025
Bottum called it a "semi-permanent hiatus" in October 2024 and a year later said, "I just don't see it happening again, honestly." Early in 2026 Patton said the band's last tour had felt final: "I think that we all kind of felt it, but it was unspoken." Then, on 16 June 2026, the band posted their eight-pointed star logo with "2027" over a crowd shot and signed a touring deal with the Brazilian promoter 30e. Gould confirmed it the next day.
"Our music is very physical, and a big concern is, like, pretty soon we're not gonna be able to do this the way we wrote it," he said. "I think that we can do it for a few more years, and we can do it the right way, so we're gonna give it a go." The first dates announced are as special guests to System of a Down: Sydney on 22 January 2027, Melbourne on 27 January, Brisbane on 1 February and Wellington on 7 February. Wikipedia lists Patton as a current member, but none of the tour announcements reviewed for this piece confirm who will be singing.
The gaps between Faith No More records were filled by a remarkable spread of other work:
- Mike Patton: Mr. Bungle, Fantomas (formed 1998 with Buzz Osborne, Trevor Dunn and Dave Lombardo), Tomahawk (formed 1999 with Duane Denison), Dead Cross, Peeping Tom, and Ipecac Recordings, the label he co-founded with Greg Werckman in 1999.
- Roddy Bottum: Imperial Teen, formed with Lynn Perko in the mid-1990s, plus film scores including Adam & Steve.
- Billy Gould: Koolarrow Records, which he has run since 1999, and the original lineup of grindcore band Brujeria.
- Mike Bordin: Ozzy Osbourne's band from 1996, stints with Black Sabbath, and roughly seven months and nearly 100 shows filling in for Korn in 2000.
- Jim Martin: the solo album Milk and Blood (1997), which includes a cover of "Surprise! You're Dead!".
- Chuck Mosley: Bad Brains (1990 to 1992), Cement, and later Chuck Mosley and VUA.
Feuds and Controversies
The longest-running feud was with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who had toured with the Mosley lineup. After "Epic", Anthony Kiedis accused Patton of copying his mannerisms and image, and told Kerrang! in 1990 that his drummer planned to "kidnap [Patton], shave his hair off and cut off one of his feet, just so he'll be forced to find a style of his own." Patton said he "got a real big kick out of it". Flea later dismissed the whole thing as "a bunch of bullshit created by the media", and at a 2014 show in Brooklyn the Chili Peppers played part of "We Care a Lot".
The Guns N' Roses sacking, the Martin fax and the Mosley lawsuit are covered above. There was a long legal tail, too: when Mosley died, Faith No More and Manifesto Records were still in dispute over the rights to reissue We Care a Lot.
Riffology Podcast Episodes on Faith No More
Two Faith No More albums have a full Riffology podcast episode. Follow the album to listen.
| Album | Year | On the Riffology podcast |
|---|---|---|
| The Real Thing | 1989 | Mike Patton's first album with the band, and the home of Epic. |
| Angel Dust | 1992 | The record the label feared was commercial suicide. |
Faith No More Legacy and Influence
Faith No More are widely credited with helping to invent alternative metal; About.com's Tim Grierson said they "helped put alternative metal on the map". Metal Hammer argued in 2015 that, pre-Nirvana, they "brought together rock's different subcultures: the thrashers, the glam metal fans, the alt-rock kids". Nirvana's Krist Novoselic said they "paved the way for Nirvana", and the rap and rock crossover of "Epic" is credited with influencing nu metal bands including Korn, Limp Bizkit and Sevendust.
The most striking testimony comes from Corey Taylor. While recovering from a suicide attempt at his grandmother's house, he watched Faith No More play "Epic" at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and it got him writing and performing again; he told Loudwire in 2015 that without them he "wouldn't be here today". Ghost's Tobias Forge summed up the problem every genre label has had with them: "It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
VH1 ranked them number 52 among the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, and "Epic" has turned up on one-hit-wonder lists, number 67 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders. That label only works in America. Elsewhere "Easy", Angel Dust and Album of the Year all charted high, and as Bordin pointed out, the UK got Angel Dust when the US did not.
Things You Might Not Know About Faith No More
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| A fake racehorse | The band used to tell reporters they were named after a racehorse called Faith No More; the horse only began racing in 1988, five years after the name was chosen. |
| Cliff Burton's tip | Metallica's Cliff Burton told Mike Bordin to hire Jim Martin, who had played with both of them in EZ Street. |
| Recorded deaf | Billy Gould had pneumonia and blocked ears when Faith. No Man recorded Song of Liberty, so he played on it unable to hear. |
| A $6,000 debut | We Care a Lot cost $6,000, split evenly between the band and Mordam's Ruth Schwartz. |
| The Cornell jam | Before Patton joined, Billy Gould went to Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell's house to jam, but felt they had no musical connection. |
| Twelve days | Matt Wallace says Mike Patton wrote all the lyrics and melodies for The Real Thing within 12 days. |
| Sir James Martin | Martin has a cameo in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey as "Sir James Martin", head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". |
| Crack Hitler | Angel Dust was nearly titled Crack Hitler; the name ended up on one of its songs instead. |
| Best UK hit | Their highest UK chart placing came with a Commodores cover: Easy, released with Be Aggressive, reached number three. |
| Corey Taylor's turning point | Seeing Faith No More play Epic at the 1990 MTV VMAs inspired a recovering Corey Taylor to start making music again. |
| Reunited, literally | Faith No More opened their 2009 Download comeback with Peaches & Herb's "Reunited". |
| Grammy record | Three Grammy nominations, for The Real Thing, Epic and Angel Dust, and no wins. |
If this has sent you back to the records, the Riffology podcast goes deeper on The Real Thing and Angel Dust, and you will find it on all the major podcast platforms. We'd love to hear which Faith No More era you would defend to the death, and whether you will be at one of those 2027 shows.
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