Videos of last night’s show have been quick to pop on YouTube and here’s our playlist which includes Cone of Shame:
Video
Photo
And there are some great photos again via Getty
Posing with The Gimp
Mike Patton was again in loquacious and entertaining form as he spoke to French magazine Rock Hard in a revealing interview in their May issue which is now on sale.
Mike spoke about songs left over from the Sol Invictus sessions and the length of the album:
“There are a lot of leftover songs to be reused but I do not find the album short on my part. 40 minutes is great. Three of our albums are almost an hour and that was a mistake on our part as we did not want to re-edit them at the end. I love short albums. I remember being completely blown away by Reign in Blood by Slayer which I could put on the side of one C60 cassette. That was cool. I copied it onto two sides and my Walkman turned the loop: when the album finished there was barely one minute blank and then with the autoreverse function the album restarted on the other side…Going back to our album, we made sure to offer a coherent collection of songs and I don’t think that if it had been longer, it would have been better.”
And about his approach to lyrics:
Q: Despite my requests to your French press attaché I could not obtain the lyrics of the album because apparently you do not like to circulate them.
That’s exactly right. All because I don’t like talking about my lyrics because I like people to appropriate them and interpret them in their own way. It is this mystery which is amusing. A lot of groups dissect their lyrics in interviews; I find that a pity. Because if you say too much there is less thinking on the part of the listener. A record, for me, must remain an adventure. You put it in your player and you go and discover it like you walked for the first time in in a forest or visited a new adventure park. That is why am very protective of my lyrics. It is not that important that some of our fans are not Anglophones and and don’t understand anything that I sing; I prefer that they imagine them. When you buy a paintintg to put on your wall, I does not come with a note explaining what signifies this or that colour. It’s exactly the same which whatever piece of art.Q: I was not looking to have an explanation of the lyrics: I am asking just if the lyrics are autobiographical or it they are rather considered little fictions?
The second option! I like creating fictional characters and trying to appropriate their psychology. None of the songs have a relation between them: for me a record is more a succession of scenes in which I will use this or that trick to achieve the desired outcome. They are little films. To be totally frank, I do not know exactly myself what some of my lyrics say because I try before anything else to follow the music. When I discover a new song, I imagine the sounds and the notes on top. Only then do I try to find the words which come the closest as possible to what I have heard in my head. It is almost a serial approach to writing. It’s bizarre (laughs)
There is a lot more from Mike and a great interview with Roddy as well in the six-page feature. Roddy also had this to say about extra material:
“For Sol Invictus we worked really hard; I don’t know if it was the excitement of working together again but we wrote 25 or 30 songs. We took our time. Then once this material was raked in, Mike chose which tracks he wanted to sing and thus was born the definite track-listing of the album.”
There is also a 9/10 review which we’ll add with two other French reviews later.
Both Rock Hard and New Noise also feature a full-page back-page ad for Sol Invictus.
The Big Takeover have spoken to Roddy Bottum about the rebirth of Faith No More.
Roddy stated:
““I had recently gotten married and that really was the first time in years where we were all together again in one space. It was a little tough. Around that time we had been offered some UK festival dates and nobody said no. That’s what really helped open the door again for us to be together.”
And he also speaks several time in the interview about control. He added:
“The time off has really worked to our advantage. We pursued a lot of other projects since then and we have gained all these new perspectives. I feel we’re all much more accountable now and this record, to me, has us taking control of every aspect.”
Roddy Bottum’s latest interview with the Toronto Star might serve as something of a dampener on exlectations of immediate post-Sol Invictus material from the Faith No More.
(via @fnm4ever)
Here’s that reply:
“Q: So do you think there might be another Faith No More album or two lurking in the kitty?
Roddy: Not really. I mean, when we made this record I think there was something like 25 songs and we released 10 of them. I’d like to think if we went and made another record it would not be songs from this session. There’s a lot of material there, honestly, but I don’t really see putting it out other than in some weird, obscure form. If we make another record I would like to go back into the studio with new stuff. This, the Sol Invictus record we just released, is very era-specific.
And Roddy also shares some new insight on Sol Invictus (you know the new album that has not been released yet but some of us – mea culpa – are guilty of looking beyond):
Q: Was there any kind of master plan heading into the new album?
Roddy: The only design was kind of getting back to our roots and addressing what we started with. We didn’t have any motive to get on the radio or play into today’s standards or work within the spectrum of corporate-rock America. The intent was just to address who we are as people and what we’ve done in our past. It was overthought but never over-spoken. Maybe people were thinking about stuff going to sleep at night, but there was no grand design. It was nothing that we came together and talked about or anything.
French magazine New Noise has pulled off quite a coup with arguably the best Faith No More interview so far in 2015. The publication devotes 11 pages to the band in its must-buy latest edition, with long interviews with Mike Patton, Bill Gould and Roddy Bottum, a cover and a 9.5/10 album review.
And Mike is especially engaging and talkative in his Q and A with on-form interviewer Olivier Drago. He says: “There will be more, other Faith No More records when I don’t know.”
There interview is a virtual goldmine but here are some of the best bits which I have translated so far. (Thanks to Stevens Drean for sending the mag my way)
“One evening I passed by Billy’s place and right in the middle of a conversation he told me that he had composed a new track and asked if I wanted to hear it. And there I found that it sounded really good. I had not really expected something so good. I asked him what he wanted to do with it and he replied to me: “It’s for Faith No More, you want to sing on it?” I was a thousand miles from suspecting that. In fact, it was very different from the last time when we had composed together. This time I was not involved from the start, at that time I was working on something else. In the 90s, it was more “Right, it’s time to make a new album”, and we all put it together. We are older, we are different people, open to new ways of working. That’s what’s funny with Faith No More…no that’s what’s great rather, the creative process. That’s what I love, more than the final result even.
You did not participate in composing the tracks, you were content to sing and write some lyrics?
When Billy made me listen to the tracks, they were already well advanced, well structured, but all the same we all worked together on them later. I did not say that I was less involved in the creative process this time but that I approached it from a different angle as I wasn’t present from the start. Suddenly I arrived with a fresh ear. I remember that when we had mixed the album I heard things that the others could not hear as they had been working on it for a longer time. I brought an other perspective.The only reproach that I could make concerning the album is the length: only 10 tracks in less than 40 minutes. Have you used everything?
Oh no, far from it. We have put aside a nice bunch of tracks! I do not know what we are going to do with them but there are plenty of others…I could not say exactly how many but at least enough to constitute an album. Those that we selected were those that fit the best…You created a label Reclamation Recordings to release the singles and the album. Why not do that simply with Ipecac? Because it is your label and you wanted a structure which appealed to everyone?
Yes, the group needed a house of its own. For many years, with Ipecac, I had my own house. There, we discussed it all together and this is what seemed better. This label, it’s a start. There will be more, other Faith No More records when I don’t know. In any case, its motivating.You are telling that there will be other Faith No More albums?
We hope so. But it is hard to say, and the new record has not even been released yet, so let us breathe man (laughs)
Cuepoint, the leading music magazine on Medium, has just published an in-depth feature on Faith No More’s return and Sol Invictus which features quotes from both Roddy Bottum and Bill Gould.
It’s a tremendous piece of work, very music in the US long-read music journalism style so any snippets inevitably lose something out of context but here are a few choice cuts in any case:
“Billy: ““I brought the song ‘Matador’ to people and they liked it,” he said. “It’s one of the things that kind of opened the door. I think what happened [is Bordin] and I went into our rehearsal room. I had all my recording gear there. We mic’ed up the drums and started making some sounds. It was very natural and it sounded good enough that we looked at each other like, ‘We can make an album here.’”
“This hasn’t been an outfit, though, that has been historically interested in retreading ground. The closest any song in the Faith No More canon ever got to wallowing in nostalgia was maybe The Real Thing’s “Edge of the World.” It’s an old-school jazzy torch song. About a pedophile. “Kindergarten,”off Angel Dust, is literally about the futility of living in the past. Proustian, they are not.”
“Gould scoffs at the idea that just because you get older you need to stop rocking your ass off, but this album does feel different than the ones that came before it. There’s still menace, but it’s more contained. The Lynchian juxtapositions of ugliness pushing up against a kind of surface beauty give more benefit of the doubt to the beautiful this time around.”
““We’re just kind of discovering this thing,” Gould said. “We don’t have an endgame. It’s working right now, and we’re just going with it. I’d like to discover what happens.”
Faith No More and Koolarrow have today confirmed that Flattbush and Mexican Dubwiser will be the support acts for their 24 April shows at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.
Roddy Bottum has given his latest interview to KQED though the article focuses more on the past than on the new album. But here’s the key takeaway:
“Turns out, it was a worthwhile dare. Sol Invictus is a true reinvigoration of the creative arc of Faith No More, a step forward that acknowledges what endures about their sound without clinging to what doesn’t. With its assured balance of multiple atmospheres and sonic ecosystems, it may be their best record since 1992’s seminal Angel Dust. It’s the intangible sound of a band that just works, unmediated aural chemistry. “There’s nothing worse than sounding like you’re trying too hard,” Bottum insists. “We’re pretty lucky that we were able to salvage our friendship and our creative relationship. I don’t know of anyone who gets to enjoy that opportunity.”
The top quality tour posters keep on coming. Artist Zoltron has produced the striking poster for the first Warfield show and explained the concept to Inside the Rock Poster Frame.
“A few years ago, during the Fukushima crisis, I made a poster for Devo at the Warfield in SF. It was part of the Firehouse/Goldenvoice series. The Japanese girl in the poster was called Sue Nami and somewhere along the way, she took on a life of her own.
Secret Serpents invited me to make a poster for Faith No More and I kept going back to this photo I took of Ruby and Molly, who dressed up as Sue Nami (and Katrina) for Halloween. I’ve been wanting to use them on a poster for years. The design itself is based on those distressed, hand printed, turn of the century, Japanese Matchbook designs.
Mauz at Monolith Press did a great job printing these. Very happy with how they turned out.”
As usual the poster will be on sale at Secret Serpents – at 9:00 AM (PST) on 23 April.
Meanwhile Guy Burwell produced the poster for the Portland how. It is already on sale at Secret Serpents
And the frankly stunning John Howard Seattle poster which FNM 2.0 has just ordered is also still on sale at Secret Serpents – complete with these Faith No More 3D glasses.
The reviews for the Sol Invictus tour shows so far have been universally positive.
Rice and Bread on the Vancouver opener:
“A second, single-song encore of the last song on their new album, “From the Dead,” which Patton referred to as their “first ever hippy jam,” was a bold choice, ending the nearly two-hour set with class and enough confidence to hint that maybe Faith No More are really back for a second run of brilliance. Fingers and toes crossed. Oh, yes, as I hinted at earlier, the sound at the PNE Forum was absolute garbage. Only Faith No More could push through a wall of mud that thick. Fuck.”
Seattle Sound Live on the Seattle show
“Two songs that really showcased the groups diversity landed smack dab next to each other mid set. First in line was ‘Epic‘ which is probably, or arguably the most “Mainstream” Faith No More song out there followed by ‘Sunny Side Up’ off of their newest effort ‘Sol Invictus‘. You could not ask for a better compilation of songs. This was indisputably, far and away, one of the most unique and interesting setlists of the year thus far and it was that aspect of the show that only added to the bands momentous return to the stage that was 18 years in the making.”
On Tour Monthly on Seattle show
“A few more songs followed before they wrapped their 68-minute long set in the same fashion they had begun it: with a new song, namely, “Superhero”. With such a diverse palette, it has no trouble fitting into the Faith No More repertoire, even sounding like the classics of theirs do; and once it was all said and done, the entire band stayed on stage for a few moments, bowing and expressing their gratitude before taking their leave.”
There may be election fever in the UK and lukewarm election warmth in the US but Faith No More needs your vote more than Call Me Dave, Gideon and the Clinton and Bush duopoly dynasty.
You can still vote for Faith No More in almost any category in the Kerrang! awards.
And you can vainly try to propel Faith No More above Babymetal in the Loudwire Most Anticipated Albums in May poll.
Slovenian site Rock on Net has preemptively acclaimed Sol Invictus as the album of the year, making it the band’s second such album.
Faith No More keyboardist and much more Roddy Bottum has tweeted a great photo of him and his Faith No Man predecessor/counterpart Wade Worthington from the Portland show.
this is me and early FN Man kybd player Wade in Portland. such a cool show, guys, thanks… pic.twitter.com/OkfIGUvUeA
— Roddy Bottum (@roddybottum) April 18, 2015
Here’s Wade in his Faith No Man days.
And here is some video from 1983.
The excellent Faith No Man site has an excellent resumé of the Faith No Man era:
“Faith. No Man was created in 1979 by M Morris and Wade Worthington. Drummer xtraordinare Mike Bordin was recruited next followed much later by Bill Gould. (To go back even further, the original name was ‘Sharp Young Men’ as a piss-take on all the ‘elegant’ 80s groups at the time.) Originally Morris proposed ‘Faith In No Man’ but after much back and forth, Bordin rightfully suggested ‘Faith. No Man’. Morris became very hard on Gould which eventually caused a rift in the band. Worthington left the group because of the tensions and because he felt unsatisfied with his own contributions.
It was mutually decided Gould’s childhood friend Roddy Bottum was to became the new member. At that time, being fully aware of the rift, Bottom quickly fell inline with the three and eventually plans were afoot as to how to carry on without Morris because it was his band and he was now the sole songwriter and singer within the group. After the final show, there was no communication again between the three and Morris for six months. Bordin then contacted Morris and though not in touch regularly, they have been able to remain friendly over the years. So rather un-dramatically, the band simply broke up. Anything else is just post-split invented angst. Morris was never called ‘The Man’.”
And Mike Morris spoke about Wade’s musical talent on the site: “I met Wade in 1978. We worked together until the split of F.NM. He is a trained pianist who rarely plays piano. His first love seems to be the Hammond organ. For years he has been wanting to do a sort of Jimmy Smith jazz thing with just him on the organ and a drummer.
Roddy Bottum has done yet another interesting review – this time with local paper the San Francisco Chronicle. The article is behind a paywall (although you may be able to access it free on your smartphone) so we’ll limit our highlights to just this:
“Longevity and timelessness are universal qualities that we wanted to address. We’re not going to do something that’s disposable and will withstand the ever-changing eras.”
“It’s very thematic to me in a way that other records were not. I think we have a history of doing variety and a mixed bag. This record to me is way more specific.”
As we posted in the round-up, artists Mick Gray and Sinclair Klugarsh have created a wonderful poster for the Vancouver show and we can look forward to yet more great Faith No More tour posters in 2015. According to Inside the Rock Poster Frame the poster was “signed by the band and only around 100 were for sale.
On Thursday 16 April at 9am PDT time Secret Serpents will have the regular edition signed and numbered by the artists (115) and a pink variant (20) posters measuring 18 x 24 inches on sale.
Here’s a peak at what was on sale last night courtesy of Ryan on Twitter
First night of @FaithNoMore North American tour & look at the merch. #faithnomore pic.twitter.com/6sL2zQjmdt
— Ryan J. Hobson (@RyanJHobson) April 16, 2015
We’ll give this the full post it deserves in due course but here’s a shout out that Matt Jacob’s Faith No More/Mr Bungle is now available for pre-order.
#GoodNews! ALL WORLDWIDE #FaithNoMore #MrBungle comic orders can be made~BY APRIL 23rd!~HERE http://t.co/U8bRc28EiK pic.twitter.com/neEIlvXfzD — Matt Jacobs (@mattjacobsart) April 15, 2015
Get it here for the ridiculous sum of just $4.99.
Let the dead live. Make the dead live! The former forum for all things faith No More and Patton Mouth of the Ocean lives again! There’s a good discussion of the forthcoming album there now.
Now that more people have heard the forthcoming new album, some early reviews have begun to spring up online. The Russian version of Rolling Stone even gave it a 5/5. Here are some Google Translated excerpts:
” It is more smooth and homogeneous than previous albums from the Californian band.”
“This album sounds at the same time comfortable and threatening.”
“Cone Of Shame” begins with poisonous guitar but the track itself is wrapped almost in gothic Americana with a mysterious hypnotist stage whisper from Patton.”
“Brilliant musicians again managed on a short leash.”
Wish I had a proper translation of that because it sounds like an interesting review.
The Five10 also give a glowing review: “Yes it’s very good. Very good. No, it doesn’t sound like “old Faith No More” or anything like that. It’s definitely it’s own body of work that stands out in their lineup of releases. Many of the tracks have a lower-key, haunting feel with singer Mike Patton choosing a bassy growl over soaring melodies.”
And they conclude: “Sol Invictus is like a classy, creepy cowboy dinner party in a haunted mansion. Interesting, tense and uncomfortable in between bursts of violent ghost attacks. Despite the time off, Faith No More has returned after 18 years with a sound more inventive and insane than ever. And I think that’s the statement we were all hoping to hear. Rating: 9/10.”
The Guardian has stepped up its metal and rock reviewing in recent years with Dom Lawson, Editor-At-Large at Metal Hammer, added to their reviews team. And he has given Superhero and Sol Invictus rave reviews in the Playlist feature published yesterday:
“Sol Invictus is an absolute rip snorter. Superhero, one of the record’s more immediate and accessible tunes, confirms that age has not diminished FNM’s power to startle and delight.”
Flattbush have prepared two cool posters to promote their support slot with Faith No More on 24 April at the Wiltern.
And the Faith No More news continue apace on the week of the official Superhero release. We’re down ill so here’s a quick recap.
The Alexander Hacke remix of Superhero, Superhero Battaglia, can now be heard on YouTube for those who have not yet been able to pick up their vinyl copy.
Matt Jacob’s Faith No More/Mr Bungle comic book will be released in June and judging by the trailer he has recently posted, this is going to look amazing.
The book is written by Mike Wellman (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and World of Warcraft graphic novels) and illustrated by Matt (animator of Tomahawk’s “Oddfellows” video). Available June 24, 2015. Order from your local comic shop – item code: APR150955
The busiest man in music Roddy Bottum is set for his opera debut next week. Here is Roddy on Sasquatch:
Story Binge – ‘SASQUATCH: The Opera’ by Roddy Bottum from Experiments in Opera on Vimeo.
And here’s what Roddy had to say to the Faith No More blog earlier this week: “Hey guys. it’s Roddy. for those of you in NYC, my short form opera, Sasquatch, The Opera, premieres April 2 in Brooklyn. I’m planning on taking it for a longer and more elaborate run at some point so the rest of yous, hang tight if interested. big hug.”
Roddy also spoke with great insight about Sasquatch in his Noisey interview. It was fascinating to learn he moved to New York to work in opera:
You recently wrote an opera called Sasquatch: The Opera. We’re gonna need the full rundown on that.
[Laughs] It’s not a traditional opera—it’s more like weird little operettas. I grew up in L.A., but I moved to New York specifically to get into opera, and I had this preposterous idea for a Sasquatch love story. I wrote the story, I wrote the music, and we’re gonna premiere it next month. It’s just gonna be three scenes from the opera, but then I’m gonna elaborate on it and build it into a bigger production.
Why Sasquatch?
You know, my favorite characters are the kind of gentle giants like Frankenstein or the Elephant Man—a misunderstood monster who it turns out is very sensitive and has a high intellect. That always gets me. It felt like Sasquatch could satisfy that really well. I’m moved by the big thug who has a heart of gold.
Here’s all the details you need from Roulette.
Just as Faith No More version 2.0 kicks into overdrive, check out this well-written take on version 1.1 and Angel Dust from Bloody Disgusting.
And via Ben in Comments, this even better article from the one and only Mick Wall on FNM 1.0 Introduce Yourself. Contains some brilliant passages such as: “Faith No More at the Town & Country Club in London. I did not regret it. They started the way most bands started their encores, with the place already insane, the band already much higher. And they just kept climbing. For the real encores, Chuck came on in a gold tinsel wig, alone, just him and an acoustic guitar – they’d been fighting backstage, didn’t want him to do it – to sing ‘Life’s A Gas’ by T. Rex. Epiphany. Then blast off as the rest of the band joined him for a version of ‘War Pigs’ that made the original – which Ozzy had also started doing again that summer now Geezer was in his solo band – taste like old farts and string vests.”
As well as their cover article on Revolver, Faith No More also feature in the latest edition of Kerrang. Here’s a preview from Faith No More Followers
@FaithNoMore | Issue 1561 | @KerrangMagazine #FaithNoMore #Solinvictus @DownloadFest pic.twitter.com/pV5Z5o56V3
— FaithNoMoreFollowers (@FnmFollowers) March 25, 2015
A new look for the ultimate Faith No More live resource – the aussiemusicfan Gig database.