Faith No More played some of the biggest shows of its career in 1992 when the band took the opening slot on the Guns N’ Roses/Metallica co-headlining tour. FNM had its biggest hit with “Epic” off The Real Thing album a few years earlier, and in 1992, it had released the Angel Dust follow up. To celebrate that album, FNM played for two months with two of the biggest bands in the world.
I was reminded of that on Tuesday when I went to a relatively small outdoor venue to watch GNR bassist Duff McKagan play his new Americana-sounding, slight country-twanging album, along side a few GNR deep cuts. It was a great show, but there had to be less than 1,000 people there—a long way from when I saw GNR play stadium shows in Houston (in 2016) and in San Antonio (in 2017).
And it was a long way from the GNR/Metallica/FNM tour that was awfully unenjoyable for FNM.
As noted by Faith No More Followers, Slash and Axl Rose loved The Real Thing, and FNM knew how big a shot it was getting to tour with GNR and Metallica.
“It’s fucking amazing that we even got on the tour, one of the biggest tours in the world,” bassist Billy Gould said in 1992…. “I mean, aesthetically we’re different. I think it’s good though. I’ve gotta give Guns N’ Roses credit and give Metallica credit, too. Right now it’s really responsible of them to pick bands that are different because they didn’t have to do that. They could pretty much tour with anybody.”
But it wasn’t always so great for FNM. During the tour, Gould expressed how uncomfortable he felt with the intense atmosphere backstage.
“I hate the whole circus thing, we all hate it,” he said. “But at the moment we don’t have the power to do what we want to do, so we still have to eat a little bit of shit. We almost have the power to control what we do, but not quite, so we’re just gritting our teeth and getting through it best we can. Every band in the world might think they want to open for Guns N’ Roses, but lemme tell you, it’s been a real ugly personal experience, having to deal with all the shit that surrounds this fucking circus. I’ve always hated that aspect of rock music and I’ve never wanted to be part of it, so to find myself being associated with a tour this big kinda sucks.”
Plus, FNM wasn’t always so well received by the GNR and Metallica fans.
“I’d thought our presence there would be totally misplaced,” Patton said in 1992. “We said: we may not like GNR, we may not like playing in open air stadiums in broad daylight, where we sound like shit and look like shit on a much too large stage that wasn’t built for us, and we may not like the fact that people are paying too much money for a ticket…that’s all true. But the fact is: it’s a very good opportunity to reach a large audience that otherwise wouldn’t have come to see us. And that’s good. The other side of it is that we want to headline again. It will happen in October. Playing with a roof over our heads. We’re at our best like that.”
McKagan and Patton, as far as I know, never played together (though McKagan played the role of the “Gimp” at an L.A. FNM show in 2015). Patton was rumored to have received an invitation to audition to be the lead singer of Velvet Revolver—a Slash/McKagan/Matt Sorum post-GNR band. Patton declined.
Anywhere, here’s “A Small Victory,” a song that’s not exactly a favorite of mine from Angel Dust. But that’s OK. Nobody who went to see GNR and Metallica in 1992 heard that tune either. According to setlist.fm, FNM didn’t play the song at all during that monster stadium tour.
Previously from Angel Dust:
- “RV” (Day 30)
- “Everything’s Ruined” (Day 15)
To follow along on the 365 days of Patton, click here for a list of each day’s post.
Josh Katzowitz - Sports Writer/Author/Editor 