Biography of Faith No More

Faith No More began in the early '80s in San Francisco under the name Faith No Man, which featured vocalist Courtney Love. With the rest of the band not pleased with her style she was let go, making Love move down to Los Angeles (where she eventaully formed the punk band Hole.) With shows becoming their main source of income a lady by the name of Ruth Schwartz asked the band, now Faith No More and with Chuck Mosely as the new vocalist, to do an album for her brand new label, Mordam. We Care a Lot was released in 1985 as Mordam's debut release, and with word of mouth the album sold quite a few copies. Slash Records, an independent label with distribution through Warner Bros., found interest in them and chose to sign them. Introduce Yourself was merely songs from the debut album redone, but it was this version of We Care a Lot that got them some airtime on MTV, making a few to compare their metal and funk mixture comparable to Fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The video was strong enough for the album to sell well, and from then on those three bands (FNM, Fishbone, and Peppers) were always linked together despite being totally different from each other. Many enjoyed the guitar work of Jim Martin, who could play beautiful chords in one song and dark, morbid sounds in another, but they were never a "guitar player and a band," but rather a five piece band with a lot of creativity.In 1988 vocalist Mosely was causing friction within the rest of the band and quietly he was let go. The hunt for a new singer was on, and they found it in one Michael Patton, from another Bay Area band, Mr. Bungle. Mr. Bungle's style was anything but describable -- funk, thrash, carousel, soul, they could do it all and Patton had a versatile voice the best of the band could adapt, and thus he was made a new member.1989 saw the release of album number three, The Real Thing, which wasn't recorded in a typical fashion. The music was already recorded and done, Patton's role was to write lyrics to the music and to sing on it. Surprisingly the album didn't take off immediately, but a late 1990 tour with Metallica did help things, and by the time 1990 came around this band was on everybody's mind, courtesy of the song and video "Epic." FNM were soon doing TV appearances and could be found in a lot of magazines. Since Patton never actually left them, Mr. Bungle recorded an album in 1991 and with the bonus of being in a band on a major label their self-titled debut was released on Warner Bros. It was one of the most demented albums of the new decade. FMN also supplied a song to the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey in the meantime, and, at the same time, recorded album number four. ~ John Book