"Puffy Started It"
A Faith No More collectors guide
In 1981, a 7" single by the name of "All Quiet In Heaven" was released on Propaganda Records by a little known Bay Area, California band Faith No Man. Nobody cared.
This band, at the time consisting of Mike "Puffy" Bordin, Billy Gould, Mike Moris and Wade Worthington, was to become one of the most unique and influential bands in popular music.
1982 saw Roddy Bottum replacing Wade on keys, and the rest of the band "quitting" to escape the dictating Moris. With Mike "The Man" Morris gone, a friend suggested the band become Faith No More, as "The Man" was no more. And so it began.
The band played various gigs with different singers, including a few gigs with Courtney Love, and finally settled with the energetic Chuck Mosely in 1982 [Correction: The biography at fnm.com states this as fact, however their entry at h2g2 states that Courtney Love was tried out as a replacement for Chuck in 1989/1990. A Mike B. interview cleared this up, saying she was the band's singer before Chuck for six months. They never recorded.]. The same year Jim Martin joined the band on guitar, replacing temporary guitarist Mark Bowen, and in 1984 the band recorded a 4 song demo.
The demo subsequently led to the band's first album, the 1985 Mordam Records release, "We Care A Lot". This record did moderately well and the band attracted a large fan base, including James Hetfield of the then very popular Metallica. Slash Records signed the band in 1986 and "Introduce Yourself" was released in 1987 prompting a tour of Europe.
The song "We Care A Lot" was re-recorded for "Introduce Yourself" and released as the first Faith No More single in 1988, closely followed by "Anne's Song". Both songs had videos, We Care A Lot being the more popular of the two.
At the time, Faith No More was receiving quite a bit of good press, gaining a few major music magazine covers, including the UK magazine NME. Live shows received interesting reviews, nearly all able to be summarised by the words, "This band are so bad they are good!". A punk band whose set included covers of T-Rex ("Life's a Gas"), metal band Black Sabbath ("War Pigs"), TV Commercials ("Sweet Dreams" Nestles) and Led Zeppelin ("Stairway to Heaven") can't have helped the media's bewilderment.
On stage it was obvious there were problems between Chuck and the band, Chuck actually falling asleep at the launch of "Introduce Yourself." But the fans and press saw that as part of the band's charm. Being unhappy and angry made Faith No More who they were. Obviously the band didn't see it that way and the end of the Europe tour saw the firing of Chuck, mainly due to his drug and alcohol problem but also due to his very limited vocal capacity.
Faith No More's last release with Chuck Mosely was on a four song 7" released for UK magazine Sounds. With three other bands, Faith No More's song "New Improved Song" was to become "The Morning After" on the bands next release.
The replacement singer, front man of Eureka, California band Mr. Bungle, was suggested by Jim Martin who had heard Mr Bungle's first demo. The demo was very-death-metal and completely unrepresentative of their vocalists talents but Mike Patton was hired in Janurary of 1989 and "The Real Thing" was released 6 months later, Mike having written the lyrics in just two weeks. Around the same time Kerrang magazine readers got to hear the new Faith No More singer's talents on a flexi-disc released with the September 30th 1989 issue including the song "Sweet Emotion". This song was later to become "The Perfect Crime" as released on the "Bill and Ted's" movie soundtrack.
Patton's voice was something very unusual. Mostly a mix of whining and rapping, but with touches of technical brilliance, he was infinitely better than Mosely ever would have been. Producer of "The Real Thing" Matt Walace thought the whine was too much, begging Patton to change his singing methods. Mike refused, claiming that that was his style. Little is known of fans of the time but there is little doubt Patton lost the band a lot of fans, but he was to gain them more than they could have imagined.
Faith No More toured "The Real Thing", opening for Metallica, but it wasn't until the release of the single "Epic" and the mass over-playing of the accompanying video that Faith No More became huge in "the market", the USA. The video for the single, containing the famous "fish out of water", received a lot of news coverage due to animal welfare complaints, but, as the band are sick of being asked, the fish survived. Another popular single and video, "Falling To Pieces" (the video for which was banned on Australia's Rage for the fake bloodied skull seen superimposed over Patton's face in the clip) solidified the band's place at the top of the music charts. The first track from "The Real Thing", "From Out Of Nowhere" was also released as a single and video.
Grammy nominations for Best Heavy Metal / Hard Rock performance followed, "The Real Thing" eventually going platinum at the end of 1990.
It was a very short time in the spotlight before singer Mike Patton began to feel the heat. Not ever really feeling Faith No More was his main priority, he preferred to put his efforts into Mr. Bungle, but tour schedules and other commitments made his wishes impossible. Already repulsed by the poster-boy image he was thrown into by music magazines, Mike did his best to become the bad boy of rock. Scaffold climbing, deliberate bad TV miming and bizarre clothes became the norm. These antics only proved to increase the band's media attention, rather than throwing them off the scent as Patton had hoped.
The questionable release of the live CD and video "Live at Brixton" and "You Fat Bastards" so early in the band's career showed Patton's amazing stage presence, but also showed just how far the band still had to go before becoming truly great. The CD contained two new studio tracks, the solo acoustic "The Grade" and the very "Real Thing" era "The Cowboy Song". The video contained more live tracks than the CD, but was still not the entire Brixton concert, missing their cover of the Commodore's "Easy" and the "Nestles" commercial theme.
The tour of Australia in 1990 was not uneventful. A "riot" at The Palace in Melbourne when the stage barrier broke made news headlines. The band also played a live set at JJJ Studios at which, during "War Pigs" Puffy walked out, in pain from a bungie jumping accident and sick of the rest of the band's teasing.
A short tour of South America in 1991 saw the debut of some new songs including an early version of "Caffeine" with different lyrics, "RV" and "The World Is Yours", at the time known only as "The Sample Song" due to the distinct samples used at the beginning of the song.
Only the first two songs made in onto 1992's "Angel Dust", the band's 4th studio album. So different was this album that apparently the record company demanded a remix the moment they heard it. "Midlife Crisis" was released and the video received good airplay. The single was released in Australia with b-side "As the Worm Turns", a reworking of the song from the band's first album, "We Care A Lot". This single, along with the Japanese pressing of "Angel Dust" is the only place to hear this song. This remains the only pre-Patton song the band re-recorded with Patton on vocals despite playing "Death March", "The Crab Song", "Chinese Arithmetic", "Introduce Yourself", "We Care A Lot", "Blood", "Mark Bowen" and other pre-Patton songs at many of their shows, right up until the end.
Singles for "A Small Victory", "Everything's Ruined" and the previously overlooked "Easy" were released, all being popular but none gained the massive success of "Epic", possibly due to them not fitting with the band's "metal" image.
This image was well and truly broken during their tour with Metallica and Gun's and Roses at which Faith No More were booed from the stage nearly every night by the heavy metal crowds.
The single for "Small Victory" contained a cover / re-working of the Dead Kennedy's song, "Let's Lynch The Landlord", a song that had begun to creep into the band's live set.
"Video Croissant", a compilation of all the band's videos, including the world wide banned "Surprise! Your Dead!" in which the band kills a chicken with an axe, was released around this time. The US version of this video did not contain "Everything's Ruined", possibly due to the stock footage in the background including a graphic image of an operation on an arm. Special versions of this video also contained the new video, "Easy". The video also included many news reports, some bizarre footage of the band from the early 80's and a live version of "Caffeine" from the Hangin' with MTV performance.
The band, having gained confidence in the writing of Angel Dust, decided the guitar heavy Jim Martin was holding them back and told him, via fax, to leave the band in November 1993.
The last single before Jim left the band was "Another Body Murdered", a collaboration between Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. for the "Judgment Night" soundtrack. Jim had no part in the recording of this single, with Bill writing all the guitar parts.
Its ironic that the next album, "King for a Day, Fool For A Lifetime", was mainly guitar heavy and contained very few keyboards at all. After the loss of Jim, breakup rumors flooded the press and the then very young Faith No More internet fan base. The mailing list Caca Volante was established in November 1994 within these rumours and started the tradition of Faith No More fans on the internet.
In 1995, Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle was called in to help write "King For A Day". This largely guitar based album was seen as a massive disappointment to many fans but, as all their albums seem to do, it also gained the band many new fans. Singles for "Evidence" and "Digging the Grave" were both very popular in Australia. A five track version of "Digging the Grave" released here with 3 non-album tracks is one of the most sort after Faith No More collectibles in the world, containing "Absolute Zero" and two covers "I Started A Joke", Bee Gees and "Greenfields" by The Brothers Four. "Evidence", with its sleazy jazz-bar video was released as a video single in Australia, the CD single containing another cover, "Spanish Eyes".
The tour for KFAD saw the dropping of Spruance in favour of ex-Faith No More roadie Dean Menta. The band claims Spruance would not commit to touring the album, while Spruance claims the band just didn't think he was right for the band.
Faith No More came to Australia twice in 1995, once for the "Alternative Nation" tour, which included bands such as Tool, The Tea Party, Nine Inch Nails, Bodycount, Powderfinger, Regurgitator, Live and more, and once for a very successful solo tour. Keeping up their tradition of wacky covers the band added Portished's "Glory Box", Take That's "Back For Good" and The Cranberries "Zombie" to their set along with the released "I Started A Joke". The old Chuck-era album "We Care A Lot" was released by Mushroom records on CD to coincide with the tour.
Although their tour of Australia was very successful, the band canceled the second half of their European tour due to bad responses at UK shows and a very weak response to the album in the US. The band claimed it was an excellent chance for them to work on the next album, but it only fueled the now staple break-up rumors and annoyed a lot of European fans.
The last single for the "King For A Day" album was "Ricochet", released in Australia with two live tracks and the G.G.Allin cover, "I Wanna F*ck Myself". The cover was true to the original, recorded as a tribute to the classic punker's death in 1995.
Over the next two years the band spent time with their various side projects. Mike Patton toured with Mr. Bungle to support their new album and recorded two solo efforts. Roddy Bottum found success with his band "Imperial Teen" and Mike Bordin toured with his hero Ozzy Osbourne.
At the end of it all, Faith No More had gained yet another guitarist, Bill's old friend and former Systems Collapse member Jon Hudson. Dean Menta had worked well with the band during the KFAD tour but they found it impossible to write with him.
The sixth studio album was released in June of 1997 along with singles and videos for "Ashes to Ashes" in Australia and Europe and "Last Cup Of Sorrow" in the US, the two versions of "Ashes to Ashes" containing two non-album tracks, "Light Up and Let Go" and "The Big Kahuna".
The release of "Album Of The Year", deliberately titled to annoy journalists, indicated how large the fan-base for the band had grown on the internet. Partly due to a very early release of the album on promo and partly due to very sloppy radio DJs, samples from the entire album made it onto the internet months before the album was to be released, intensely annoying the band.
Also, a few months before the release of the album saw the debut of the very popular "Website of the Year", recently renamed "fnm.com". This webpage became the most extensive public resource of Faith No More information ever, and spawned from it many other fan pages. "Album Of The Year" was not released with lyrics but fnm.com was sent the official lyrics by net savvy Bill Gould and it remains the only place to find them.
Successful tours of the US, Australian and Europe followed the release of the album. The tour of Australia was as popular as ever, seeing two shows in Sydney and Melbourne, the Melbourne show ending up being the only show at which the song "Helpless" was played. Two new covers were added to the set including a short version of Deep Purple's "Highway Star" and Burt Bacharach's tune "This Guy's In Love With You." The band also dragged out the classic cover of "Midnight Cowboy", as released on "Angel Dust", to play live, with Patton playing the melody on a melodica, again showing the diversity for which the band was loved.
The single "Stripsearch" was released followed by possibly one of the band's best videos, including the band acting out the capture of a terrorist about to leave the country. Before this the band was involved with Sparks new record, "Plagiarism" re-recording two of the band's tracks with Sparks, "This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both Of Us" and "Something For The Girl With Everything". "This Town" was released as a single in the UK and Australia with both with-Faith No More songs included on it. Sparks came out and played the song with the band in London on November 29th 1997.
In early 1998 the new flaring of break-up rumours on the internet began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favour of side projects, this rumor, 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 Bill 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 7th.
To fulfill their contract with Reprise Records, Faith No More released a "best-of" album, entitled "Who Cares A Lot", in November 1998 along with a single and video for "I Started A Joke", the band's previously released b-side cover of the Bee Gee's classic. The video, not featuring Faith No More, includes a man in a karaoke bar singing the song, at first to the mirth of the crowd, but at the end they are awed by his awesome voice.
This final release included an eight track bonus CD with four unreleased songs, including the 1991 played "The World Is Yours", the instrumental, snappily titled, "Instrumental" and two completely unknown songs "Hippie Jam Song" and "I Won't Forget You". Also on this CD are three live tracks including the 1997 covers of "Highway Star" and "This Guy's In Love With You" and a horrible shortened-by-MTV version of "Midnight Cowboy". A demo, mislabeled as having been recorded in 1996, from the original Faith No More 4 song demo was included. "Introduce Yourself" is an interesting listen in its pre-album form.
"Who Cares A Lot" also comes in video format. The video is essentially a direct copy of "Video Croissant" with the new videos pasted on the end. The back is mislabeled, missing "Stripsearch" and "This Guy's In Love" live on MTV. This video contains all the bands videos except "Ricochet" and "Another Body Murdered".
Bill Gould is interested to note after all these years of being asked if they were breaking up, that his most common question from fans is now "have you really broken up?". It's ironic that fans, so quick to believe the break-up rumours that plagued the band throughout nearly their entire existence, are so reluctant to believe it is finally true.
R.I.P. Faith No More.
Andrew Bowie
Most of the information for this article was sourced, with permission of all involved, from the webpage www.fnm.com.
[List of Australia album and single releases removed]
Other Collectable Items
All Quiet In Heaven 7" - Faith No Man
Ministry of Propaganda Records (USA)
Sounds - Waves 2 7"
Sounds magazine 1988? ("New Improved Song")
Kerrang! Flexible Fiend 7"
Kerrang! Issue 258, 30th September 1989 ("Sweet Emotion")
You Fat B**tards (live video)
Slash/Liberation 82239
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - Music from the Motion Picture
Interscope 7 91725-2 ("Perfect Crime")
A Small Victory (Remixed By Youth)
CD5 Slash/London LASCD40/869 885-2 (UK/International)
Video Croissant (video compilation)
Slash/London/PolyGram Video 086 980-3 (UK)
KFAD...FFAL 7" Collectors Box
Slash/London 850-228-7 (UK)
KFAD/FFAL Argentinean release
CD Slash/PolyGram 828 671-2 (spanish "Evidence")
Metallurgy 1
CD Vol. VMETCD1 (France) ("Engove")
Evidence /Digging the Grave (video single)
Slash/Liberation V972 (Australia)
Ashes To Ashes / The Big Kahuna / Mouth To Mouth / Ashes to Ashes (remix)
Slash/London LACDP61/850 907-2 (UK/International)
Who Cares A Lot (video compilation)
Slash/London/PolyGram Video 0597463 (Australia)