Faith No More

Faith No More

Faith No More was an American alternative metal band that formed in San Francisco, California from 1982 to 1998. Faith No More combined elements of heavy metal, funk, punk rock, progressive rock, hip hop, and jazz, among many others, and have been hailed as an influential rock band.

History

Early days

Originally billed as Faith No Man, the group formed in 1982 with original members Mike "The Man" Morris, Mark Bowen, Roddy Bottum, Bill Gould, and Mike Bordin (who received the nickname "Puffy" for his hair). When the band decided to fire Morris due to his dictator-like behavior, they renamed themselves Faith No More, seeing as how "The Man" was no longer present in the group.

The band ended up playing with Bowen for a very short period before he was replaced with Jim Martin. A number of singers were tried, including a six-month stint by Courtney Love, who was fired after only four gigs. Eventually, Chuck Mosely was hired as the band's vocalist. Their self-financed debut We Care a Lot came in 1985 on Mordam Records in the US, which led to a deal with Slash Records. Introduce Yourself was released in 1987, and the single "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV.

During this period, the band gained a reputation for serious infighting and friction. There were frequent rumours of physical confrontations between band members. Indeed, in a short history of the band in one issue, the British music newspaper Melody Maker observed that the band's internal relationships had descended into "pathological hatred". Bordin in particular seemed to be very much the "whipping boy" of the band and the butt of numerous cruel pranks and practical jokes.

Height of success

Mosely was fired in 1988 due to his erratic behavior during sessions and at shows and the release party for the album Introduce Yourself. He was replaced with singer Mike Patton. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle's long-over death metal days . Patton dropped out of Humboldt State University to join Faith No More, and in two weeks, had written all the lyrics for the songs that would make up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing.

The music video for "Epic" received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, despite provoking anger from animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water. That same year, Faith No More gave memorable performances at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1).

"From out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" saw releases as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was also produced during the recording sessions. In 1990, the band went on a extensive US tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the US, and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, UK, and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4.0 million worldwide.

In 1991, the band contributed what is probably the most popular track from the motion picture soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey with the song "The Perfect Crime". Jim Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" and head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center".

Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "A Small Victory", which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers … reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Sample box end

Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores classic "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the U.S., sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK.

After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin exited the band due to internal conflicts. It has been said he was fired, although Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. He was replaced by Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance, who also left soon after; just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's guitar roadie.

Final releases

1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime was a less experimental album, nevertheless varying in styles and moods from heavy and slow to jazzy. In the U.S., the album failed to get any sort of mainstream following, slipping out of the charts quickly. Singles included "Digging The Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". "I Started a Joke" was also released as a single around that time, even though it is only available on certain versions of the album as a bonus track. The record did manage to go Gold in some countries like the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million. However, this was significantly less than their previous albums, and the band accordingly decided to cut their world tour short by 4 months. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.

Album of the Year was released in 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former room mate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at #2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to #1 and was certified Platinum.The album charted in many countries in Europe.To date Album Of The Year has sold around 1.5 million worldwide. The singles "Ashes To Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow" was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and UK).

Faith No More’s end

In early 1998 the new flaring of break-up rumours on the Internet began. Starting with a rumour posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumour, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 19, 1998 Billy Gould began spreading the following by email and fax:

After 15 long and fruitful years, Faith No More have decided to put an end to speculation regarding their imminent break up... by breaking up. The decision among the members is mutual, and there will be no pointing of fingers, no naming of names, other than stating, for the record, that "Puffy started it". Furthermore, the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered. Lastly, and most importantly, the band would like to thank all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history.

Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. When Mike Patton was questioned in 2008 by co-hosts of Fuse TV's Talking Metal if a Faith No More reunion was a possibility, Patton responded "I highly doubt it", but also stated in a January 2008 interview with Artisan News that he "wouldn't rule it out", adding "I don't think we would need to reform the band, but maybe there's other things we could do together."

Post-breakup

After the dissolution of Faith No More, the members have gone on to numerous different projects.

Mike Patton went on to form his own record label, Ipecac Recordings, and returned to work with his band Mr. Bungle (which he had been playing with before FNM). Later, he worked with producer Dan The Automator on various albums, including Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. Other projects included collaborations with John Zorn, Björk, Rahzel, and Imani Coppola. He has also been active fronting several groups, including Tomahawk, Fantômas, and Peeping Tom.

Keyboardist Roddy Bottum formed Imperial Teen in 1996. Jim Martin has made guest appearances including Antipop by Primus, on Metallica's 1998 Garage Inc. playing with several other musicians on their cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone", as well as having released a solo album entitled Milk and Blood in 1996. He also appeared on Echobrain's self-titled debut album alongside former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted. Mike Bordin regularly performs as a member of Ozzy Osbourne's band, as well as Black Sabbath, and performed with Korn for a tour when their drummer David Silveria had suffered a broken wrist. He played drums on Jerry Cantrell's album Degradation Trip.

Billy Gould was a member of Brujeria, as well as founder of Koolarrow Records, and has also overseen the releases of various Faith No More compilations. He also played bass on Fear Factory's 2005 album Transgression. In 1998, Billy Gould produced the album Vainajala (1998) by the Finnish rock band CMX. He also toured with the German band Harmful, throughout Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and the Balkans in 2007. He produced their album 7, available on Koolarrow Records. In June 2008, Billy played a two night show with Jello Biafra (vocals), Ralph Spight (guitar) and Jon Weiss (drums)in celebration of Jello's 50th birthday.

Music and Popular Culture

"Midlife Crisis" has been used in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Tony Hawk's Underground 2, and "From out of Nowhere" was featured in EA Sports' Madden NFL 2005 and NHL 2005. "Epic" is featured in the new "Street Fighter IV" trailer. "Epic" and "We Care a Lot" are playable tracks in Rock Band, the latter being a downloadable track.

"Easy" was subsequently used in a commercial for Levi's in 2006. A portion of the chorus from "We Care a Lot" has been used as the theme song for the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs. The lyrics to "Epic" were also featured in the Manga graphic novel The Dirty Pair: A Plague of Angels, as characters recite lines from the song. "Falling to Pieces" was featured in Ridley Scott's 2001 war movie Black Hawk Down, as background music while soldiers prepare for their mission. According to the Mark Bowden book upon which the film is based, when the soldiers were preparing for the actual 1993 mission, Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" was playing on the loudspeakers; however, Axl Rose refused to let the song be used in the film, so "Falling to Pieces" was used as a substitute. "Epic" was also covered by Atreyu on the re-released version of their album, Lead Sails Paper Anchor as one of three songs added.

Collaborations

Faith No More collaborated with the Boo-Yaa TRIBE for the song "Another Body Murdered" on the 1993 Judgment Night soundtrack. In 1998, the Sparks album Plagiarism was released featuring two collaborations with Faith No More ("This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us" and "Something for the Girl with Everything"). They also have collaborations with German industrial metal band Rammstein on two occasions (both on b-sides).

Legacy

Faith No More has been credited for influencing many of the nu metal bands of the 90s (such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, Linkin Park, among others) primarily due to "Epic"'s popularity and its rap and rock crossover. Bands rising at their prime, such as Metallica, Anthrax and Guns 'N Roses, have picked Faith No More as one of their favorite bands. They were voted #52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".

Faith No More also became underground and alternative superstars and has also been covered on many occasions. The band Atreyu covered "Epic" in 2008. Their song Midlife Crisis is also featured as a b-side track of the band Disturbed's new album, Indestructible. Ill Niño covered Zombie Eaters on their The Under Cover Sessions EP . "Mouth To Mouth" has been covered as well by the band Tub Ring on their Book Of Water album. Brazilian band El Perro Satanas is also known for playing "Everything's Ruined" on their live sets.

Band members

as Faith No Man (1981)	Mike Morris – vocals, guitar Billy Gould – bass Wade Worthington – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
as Faith No Man (1981–1982)	Mike Morris – vocals, guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
(1982–1983)	Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums The guitarist and vocalist changed frequently during this period. They were as follows: Vocalists: Joe Pye Walter Paula Frazer Courtney Love Guitarists: Jake Crucifix Mark Stewart Desmond Trial Scott Colbertson Mark Bowen
(1984–1988)	Chuck Mosely – vocals Jim Martin – guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums

The “Patton era”

(1988–1993)	Mike Patton – vocals Jim Martin – guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
(1994)	Mike Patton – vocals Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
(1995)	Mike Patton – vocals Trey Spruance – guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
(1995–1996)	Mike Patton – vocals Dean Menta – guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums
(1997–1998)	Mike Patton – vocals Jon Hudson – guitar Billy Gould – bass Roddy Bottum – keyboard Mike Bordin – drums

Discography

Main article: Faith No More discography

• 1985: We Care a Lot
• 1987: Introduce Yourself
• 1989: The Real Thing
• 1992: Angel Dust
• 1995: King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime
• 1997: Album of the Year

External links

• FNM.com – home to FAQ, band history
• Faith No More Discography - Full Discography, Pressing Info And Full Colour Images.