being me, an unfortunate dedicated fan who has never seen a live show due to his idiocy, it would seem very hard to write a biography of the so-called "magnificent bastards." but here is my best shot, having gathered all my knowledge of faith no more.
faith no more consisted of approximately three core members to begin with. bassist billy gould, keyboardist roddy bottum, and drummer mike bordin. there were several people that hung around before big jim martin joined as guitarist (one of which was the biggest bitch of them all courtney love), but other than that roddy (an ex-male prostitute), billy and mike were the three. chuck mosely, who's singing i find appauling, was around for a while on introduce himself, and thank satan they fired him due to his drinking problem. jim martin suggested michael patton,
who was much younger than the other members, to sing for the band. and so mike joined, unbeknown to the rest that he would send the band on a very turbulent career, and quite rightly so. on the release of epic, and the real thing in 1989-90, they became the biggest thing MTV had ever seen, but mike was obviously so unhappy with his situation as a rock star so a dramatic change underwent on 1992's release of Angel Dust. He must have obviously learnt to blow his nose, because hey presto, the awesome nasal twang he had when he sang suddenly disappeared, never to be found again.
what replaced this style was a diverse, hauntingly dazzlement of a voice which could change from black metal screaming to a crooning, lounge music style. jim martin's unhappiness with the band's direction became apparent, so he got fired. ironically, the very man he suggested join faith no more was the very reason he left.
following this turbulence in angel dust, which by the way carried the more excellent songs midlife crisis, everything's ruined, kindergarten, a small victory, caffeine and a cover of easy, the faith no more storm hit with 1994's king for a day, fool for a lifetime. produced by (slayer/silverchair/nirvana) andy wallace, this epic spans over 14 tracks and contained the excellent songs evidence, ricochet, digging the grave and the gentle art of making enemies.
their guitarist at this point, mike's friend from his weird band mr bungle, trey spruance, recorded all the guitar parts but then didn't want to tour which meant they needed a guitarist to tour with them, hence dean menta. when it came time to write and record 1997's album of the year, dean proved to have different songwriting ideas, so he was given the arse. along comes billy gould's friend jon hudson, who contributed in writing songs on album of the year,
and also said he would play live for them.
having toured after this album, and finally enjoying themselves, faith no more decided it was time to give it all away. all the bickering and fighting had finally toned down a little, so, being just like faith no more were, that is unpredictable, they gave it away. roddy's side project imperial teen, mike 'puffy' bordin's tour with ozzy ozbourne, mike patton's mr bungle and other numerous projects all lead to the ultimate demise of faith no more, because faith no more was simply a job that needed to be done, the passion lied with their side projects. but the memory of faith no more
lives on in their music.
left to right: trey spruance, mike bordin, mike patton, billy gould, roddy bottum
