A busy night of Faith No More activity commenced with the expected first play of new single Superhero on the BBC Radio 1 Rock Show and the simultaneous announcement of the Marvel tie-up for the aptly-named song – with the song also making its YouTube bow.

Here is the song:

On Radio 1, the song was played twice just after 1930 UK time and in between Bill Gould spoke about the song and the new album – presenter and obvious fan Daniel P Carter ramping up the tension with his go-slow delivery. Bill’s most revealing insight was that fans were more anxious about music than the band itself. He also alluded to the similarities between the song’s riff and the iconic Batman TV series theme tune.
(You should be able to re-listen to the Radio 1 Rock Show here)

Faith No More’s own Silver Surfer Bill also spoke in detail to Marvel.com in a unique tie-up obviously inspired by the song’s title. Marvel explained the rationale behind the partnership:
“But, you may say, “why debut this song on Marvel.com?” First off, the song is titled “Superhero.” Methinks we know a bit about super heroes. Secondly, Faith No More bassist Bill Gould grew up reading Marvel comics, with his love for Silver Surfer and the art of Jack Kirby being key talking points when I was pitched this idea. That’s good enough for me!”

Bill revealed more: “Superhero” actually just started from the sound of the song, where it has these pounding drums and it has like this throbbing kind of pulse, and we just called it the “Superhero” song. Because, a lot of the ways we write we visualize things.

Actually this is kind of interesting because we’re probably a unique band in a way. While we write music we’re talking about chord changes and different things like that. What we do is we describe scenes together, and we can visualize the scene and the music kind of comes. We kind of make movie scenes for movies that don’t exist. “Superhero” was one of those where it was definitely a superhero comic, I mean that was just the vibe of the song, and when Mike came to me writing words about it, we were already calling it “Superhero.” So it’s kind of like in the DNA; it’s a comic strip.”

Bill also reveals the remarkable story of his comic collection and lifts the lid on the album’s production in the excellent interview.

 

 

Here is the official information on the release:

Revealing the cover art for Sol Invictus, which features an image from Ossian Brown, a member of Coil and Cyclobe, who also published the book “Haunted Air” in 2010. 

Sol Invictus digital pre-orders, which feature an instant download of the single as well as the previously released song, “Motherfucker,” are available now via iTunes.

“Superhero” will be available as a limited edition 7-inch single on March 17. 

(We haven’t found this in US or Swiss iTunes yet)

 The Bay Area band recently announced their first North American tour since 2010, with all dates sold out upon on-sale.