Tag Archives: faith no more

Since I started thinking about this 365 Days of Mike Patton journey, I’ve had plenty of serendipitous encounters with Patton projects in the real world. There was a Mr. Bungle song played during a commercial bumper at the Grammy’s. Patton, for seemingly no rhyme or reason, was supposed to sing the national anthem at an NFL playoff game in L.A. (at the last minute, he had to cancel because he was sick).

And on Sunday night, it was probably the most random moment of all. I went with a buddy to an independent wrestling show in Austin—I haven’t seen live pro wrestling in more than 15 years—and as one of the participants was strutting his way to the ring, Faith No More’s “The Perfect Crime” was bleeding from the speakers.

The tune was never released on a Faith No More studio album, but it got some attention for its inclusion on the soundtrack for Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. Patton’s singing makes it sound like an outtake from The Real Thing because he’s a little nasally. But in reality, he was in the middle of making his transition to the more well-rounded singer he’d become on the Angel Dust album.

I wasn’t a Faith No More fan at the time, so I don’t remember the song coming out or why it was a big deal to FNM fans, but Metal Sucks has an interesting take on it …

[It] popped up on the Bill & Ted’s II soundtrack among a great Megadeth song, a ghastly Kiss song, and Steve Vai’s “The Reaper Rap.” Having arrived amid dim company and at a moment of FNM scarcity, “Crime” may’ve seemed awesomer than its actual awesomeness; also, the absence of another FNM song after it might’ve accounted for my tendency to rewind and repeat “Crime” a bunch. But the context, the timing, and the lack of competition were beside the point cuz the reason I never listen to it only once is that the shit is awesome beyond all reasonable measure.

Kerrang called the song a “punk, funk fusion of Simple Minds and the Talking Heads.”

Meanwhile, FNM bassist Billy Gould’s younger brother took home video of the mixing of “The Perfect Crime” (though Patton wasn’t in the studio that day). It’s a video I’d never seen. And I probably would never have known about it if I hadn’t gone to an independent wrestling show on a Sunday night.

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Straight out of the late 1990s, when people were just beginning to embrace the internet and email and all the possibilities of both, this song on Faith No More’s Album of the Year record was written solely by Patton (a rather rare accomplishment for this band). He apparently was fascinated by the power of being online.

“Actually, this song is about email,” FNM bassist Billy Gould told Keyboard Magazine in 1997. “Patton is kind of obsessed with the idea of how people can communicate and have relationships over the computer without talking or ever meeting. So this is an extreme version of that concept. Funny thing is … the image of someone sitting naked in front of a computer might not have made sense to people a few years ago, but now everybody knows what it means. It’s become part of our culture.”

Yes, and you probably don’t need me to spell out what Gould (and Patton) are talking about. After all, there aren’t too many reasons to be nude in front of your laptop screen.

A number of reviews for Album of the Year—which was the band’s last for 18 years—were not kind, and it’s hard to blame them. It’s my least favorite Patton-led FNM album, and Rolling Stone wrote, “All in all, Faith No More are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant.”

Maybe FNM was (slightly) irrelevant at the time, but the song’s title and subject matter have not gone out of style. These days, everybody knows what sitting naked in front of your computer means.

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After the astonishing success of The Real Thing album—Mike Patton’s first effort with Faith No More and a certified hit, thanks in large part to the single “Epic”—the band had to figure out what to accomplish on their follow-up album, Angel Dust. Aside from perhaps guitarist Jim Martin, nobody wanted a repeat of their rap/funk/rock sound from The Real Thing. The band wanted something different.

“If you just look at the transition from The Real Thing to Angel Dust, that’s a band that’s absolutely willing to let go of something that was really successful,” producer Andy Wallace told Diffuser. “They could’ve done The Real Thing Pt. 2 and probably made a really nice living, but they decided to really distance themselves from that sound that they helped create and move in a completely different direction. And their instincts were right: Angel Dust stands the test of time.”

Aside from the music video that was released (more on that in a sec), there’s not much strange about “Everything’s Ruined.” It feels like a straight-ahead rock number with a fairly straight-ahead vocal performance from Patton.

Even keyboardist Roddy Bottum once called it “radio friendly” and a “pop song.” In fact, the working title for the song was reportedly “The Carpenters,” because it was such an easy listening tune.

“It’s one of the more straight-forward rockers we have on this album,” Patton said, via Faith No More Followers. “Compare it to something like “Surprise You’re Dead” (we’ll get there) from the last album. I think you’ll see how we’ve changed. You can’t put your finger on it, but it’s there. We’re getting better at playing what we’re visualizing.”

The music video, on the other hand, is strange.

It features the band (and other random people) playing in front of B-roll like video footage (a bride and groom walking, pigs in a pen, men riding horses, two people sunbathing, etc.).

The reason for the amateurish video was simple. According to bassist Billy Gould, it had to be low budget.

“The easy answer is, Warner [the band’s music label had] spent the video budget on “A Small Victory” and “Midlife Crisis” so that when it came time to “Everything’s Ruined,” there wasn’t much left,” Gould told the Faith No More Blog in 2012. “It was our idea to take this further and make a video as cheap as humanly possible, in one of those video booths like they had at county fairs, where you sing and dance in front of a blue screen. We didn’t quite get to do that, but we got it as close as possible.”

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If you once enjoyed Faith No More and yet stopped paying attention after its biggest hit “Epic” was released in 1990, you might remember the guitarist with the long black frizzy hair and the long black beard who looked to be about 20 years older than the rest of the band.

You know, this guy on the right.

https://twitter.com/KenPark81536571/status/1066909888381624320

That’s Jim Martin, and he played on the first four Faith No More albums (two of which were not fronted by Mike Patton and which we are completely ignoring on the 365 Days of Mike Patton (well, there might be a few exceptions to that because, in reality, we care a lot)). He managed some great guitar work on The Real Thing and Angel Dust albums, but he was kicked out of the band in 1993. The problem apparently was that Martin didn’t want to adapt to playing new music. The line on Martin has always been that he wanted to keep making The Real Thing over and over again and balked at the new direction the band was taking with the Angel Dust follow up. So, keyboardist Roddy Bottum fired him by fax.

“Getting rid of him was a real cleansing exercise,” Bottum said, via Metal Hammer. “There’s no point keeping someone in the band who’s only there for the money or something. Jim wasn’t committed to what the band wanted to do. I’m good at sacking band members. And by fax was such a… 90s way of doing things.”

Patton apparently did not enjoy his time with Martin at the end.

“Mike HATED Jim, wouldn’t even look at him on stage unless he was about to throw something at him,” Bottum said.

That was apparently the inspiration for the country-tinged song “Take This Bottle” from the King For a Day album. It’s because Patton apparently used to throw bottles at Martin while on stage.

“We weren’t having a good time together and it was pretty obvious,” Patton said in that Metal Hammer interview. “We saw it coming for too long, while we were making the Angel Dust album. The whole time for two years while we were touring, we kept hoping it would get better. After that much time you can’t help but feel like an idiot for feeling that way. Basically, what it came down to was that he couldn’t hold up his weight musically.

“When The Real Thing broke out, it was a shock. It’s kinda like being around somebody you don’t like, like a co-worker or family, somebody you’ve known for a long time but you realize you don’t like them. You get to know them, everything’s OK, you move in with them, everything’s fine but then all of a sudden, you realize what’s going on. You realize you don’t like them, so you HATE them, you know. You waste all your energy hating them, you hate them and hate them. So you kick them OUT of your house to pacify this hate.”

I don’t particularly love “Take This Bottle,” but when I saw FNM live in 1997 with my buddy Jeremy and his brother Mike, we had a cool tale to tell from that show.

In the last minute or so of this song, Patton retrieved a bottle of red wine and began shaking it at the crowd so it would splatter on anybody who was close enough to the stage. Mike was close enough, and I remember him coming up to us after the show, a sweaty beast with red streaks on his white undershirt. He had a big smile on his face. He had taken (what was inside) the bottle, and he had walked away loving it.

At least Patton didn’t throw it at him.

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After my three-part series on Faith No More’s “Epic,” I wasn’t planning on writing more than a single post of anything else from Mike Patton’s discography. But after posting my take on “Ricochet” earlier this week, my Twitter buddy @d2k2d2k2 reminded me of something I very vaguely remembered from FNM’s performance on Conan’s old late-night show in 1995.

The next night, FNM was in a sketch featuring O’Brien and former band leader/drummer Max Weinberg. Conan started it off by saying Weinberg had been jealous at FNM’s reception for its performance the night before. Weinberg denied it. And then Conan showed Weinberg not-so-subtly trying to disrupt FNM during the course of “Ricochet.”

Naturally, a brawl between FNM and Conan’s band then broke out.

Good stuff from 24 years ago. The funniest parts for me were Weinberg going after FNM’s Mike Bordin in a battle of the drummers and that, unlike the real performance, Patton didn’t forget his opening cue. This time, he sang the song right on time.

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I didn’t really get into Faith No More and Mike Patton until my buddy Jeremy, who worked with me at a restaurant in the Atlanta suburbs, invited me to see an FNM show in 1995. I, of course, knew the band from “Epic,” but I hadn’t kept up with it. So, to prepare for the show at the Masquerade in Atlanta, I listened to plenty of King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime, FNM’s new album at the time, to get myself familiar with the material. “Ricochet” is the second song of the 1-2 absolute firepunch combination that opens the record after album opener “Get Out.”

It’s an absolute blaster of a song—which apparently was written on the day of Kurt Cobain’s suicide (it’s rumored that the code word for “Ricochet” on the FNM setlist was “Nirvana,” though it’s unclear why FNM needed code words for its setlists).

It’s funny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the music video above, but apparently, it was shot before and during a concert in Paris. I love the KFAD album, and “Ricochet” is one of my favorites from the record (and the song is probably one of the reasons I grew to love the band so much). Rolling Stone agrees, saying it was “a portentous anthem reminiscent of ‘Epic.’”

But what I’ll remember most about this tune is watching FNM perform it on Conan’s old late night show. I recorded it on a VHS tape and watched it on my VCR over and over again. It’s awesome in every way, from Patton’s shirt to him forgetting to sing at the beginning (watch as drummer Mike Bordin quizzically looks at him when Patton forgets his cue and then watch Patton smile and nod after he realizes his mistake).

This is Patton at his absolute coolest.

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Today is my favorite singer’s birthday. His name is Mike Patton, and he has a bit of a cult following. He’s best known as the lead singer of Faith No More—which is best known for the 1989 hit “Epic“ where Patton continuously asks the question “What is it?”—but he’s sung for countless other bands and musicians, including his most famous side projects Mr. Bungle and Tomahawk. The people who frantically follow him from project to project are die-hard, and when they recognize one another in public, the image is lasting.

An example: The other day I went into a Mediterranean place near work for lunch. The guy behind the counter who was about to cut some lamb for me looked in my eyes and said, “Hey, weren’t you the guy who likes Mr. Bungle?“ He knew that because about a year ago (or more), I wore a Mr. Bungle T-shirt while ordering lunch from him and we spent a good 10 minutes talking about Mike Patton. I hadn’t seen him since. But we remembered.

On New Year’s Day, I was looking at Twitter, and a baseball writer I follow named Al Mechior announced a new project. I guess he’s a big fan of the Grammy-winning rock band Toto, so he opened a new Twitter account called @ThoughtsToto, where he’s in the process of drowning himself in each of the band’s albums and writing about each song in the band’s catalog. I thought that was a good idea. So, I kind of borrowed it. But I’m not opening a new Twitter account. Instead, I’m writing it here at joshkatzowitz.com.

For the next year or so, I’m going to write (most) every weekday about Patton’s songs and why we love when he sings them. Maybe there will be some anecdotes. Maybe there will be some history. Maybe there will be explanations on the ridiculousness of Patton’s vocal range.

Who knows.

Anyway, today is Patton’s 51st birthday, so today is the day I’m unveiling my 365 Days of Mike Patton. I’ll write about his songs. I’ll probably post some videos. I’ll talk about why I love them both. These won’t be long posts. I’ll get in and get out, so you and I can move on with our days. We love Patton, but goddamn, we don’t have to obsess about him for more than a few minutes at a time. I’ll plan to go for 365 days, but honestly, I don’t even know if he has 365 recorded songs. I guess we’ll figure it out as we go.

If you’re a die-hard Patton fan (and really, why else would you be here?), maybe you don’t love the idea of brevity. Maybe, like Patton sings in “Epic,” you want it all. But true to form, you can’t have it.

To follow along on the 365 days of Patton, click here for a list of each day’s post.