ZOMBIE EATERS

Rip It Up, Issue 156, 1 July 1990, Page 14

ZOMBIE EATERS

Faith No More

Faith No More are a “sensation”. Whether they like it or not they are hit-picked and bound for success. They've been voted Band of the Year in British heavy metal bible Kerrang, received accolades from critics worldwide and, more importantly, from worldwide crowds. The reason being The Real Thing, a monstrous, fresh beast of an album, as diverse as the five weirdos whomadeit. |

The band have been around since the early 80s. Initially as Faith No Man, who booted out theirlead singer and evolved into Faith No

More. Nothing like the fight ensemble they are now, they were “more of a performance thing than anything else.” Eventually vocalist

Chuck Mosely began singing rather than screaming and they picked up guitarist Jim Martin (not yet Big Sick Ugly Jim) who had been gigging with Metallica’s Cliff Burton. They got themselves signed to Mordam Records and released ‘We Care A Lot'. Then Slash records released ‘lntroduce Yourself in 1987 and things started getting serious. A remixed version of 'We Care A Lot starfed scoring big on US college stations and even on European pop charts. Butinternal strife was messing up the band and Chuck Mosely was dumped on a European tour. Basssist and cool dude Bill Gould explains.

“Chuck was never really asinger, he sort of became one by default. He was a keyboard playerthat we had sing ‘cos he was a friend of ours. We weren't popular then, it was just a fun thing to do. We started becoming popular sort of against our own .

efforts, we startéd becoming a real band and one of the pressures that came with that was to play more shows. Thatturned into making a record and that turned into doing a tour and the more that pressure came on, the less Chuck was cut out forit. lt gotsol couldn't stand looking atthe guy, we couldn’ttour with him so we fired him ‘cos he wasn't about toquit.” e - Enter Mike Patton, a vocalist whose voice is as acrobatic as his stage act. Sometime frontman for the brilliantly named Mr Bungle he joined up with the Faith No More circus and the show was on the road again with a new album and some serious touring (including dates with Metallica). Touring seems - remarkably importantin the scheme of things for a band like FNM and for aband like Metallica, for that matter, orany other non-mainstream act. “Itisimportant because the record industry-is so conservative. It's getting alittle easier for a metal band now butin Metallica’s day it was impossible, the only way they got anywhere was by touring. Actually, if we wanted to be advertised and marketed as a metal band we

wouldn't have to tour so much but we're our own band. We're unique, we don’twant to be a metal band. Metal people can like us. We like metal — Slayer, Metallica, Napalm Death—it's great, but we're

ourselves, we do whatwe do and the only way we're going to get across these barriers, this stereotyping and categorisation, is getting in people’s faces and having them see us. Because a record companyina

country as large as this, selling as - many Madonna and Prince records asitdoes, isn't going to take the fime - to go through all the different markets and sell us like that. They like tofind a category so they can runiit like a computer programme. So really it's up to us fo tour and build some of our own identity. Weplay metal shows with Metallica but we do othershows with othertypesof - bands. We have to, it's our own survival we're talking about.” Categorisation is something causing problems with a lot of bands nowdays, especially with metal orientated, hard rock type bands. Long the most blinkered of genres, it'snow becoming the most

experimental. For every Skid Row or Guns n'Roses there seems to be ten new bands challenging the status quo, from the Faith No Mores down tothe likes of Scatterbrain, Bad -

Mutha Goose, Underdog and dozens of others who are mixing Parliament with the Black Sabbath, playing hardcore riffs on keyboards orusing a string section to achieve a new sound and a new approach. But what happens? A new category — funk metal —is born and the whole thingisindanger of being conveniently pigeonholed and

forgotten. G “Yeah, funk metal is a word | keep hearing. I think the reason people do thisis conditioning. People have been conditioned to think in

categories and there’s been some very greedy bands who have just accepteditto further their lives and careers. And the industry on their - parthave been targeting bandsin - categories, condifioning people to think that way. It's unfortunate and it makes things difficultfor any band that has any kind of individuality aboutthem. But | suppose the good thing is that when a band like us get attention hopefully a dooris opening foralot of otherinteresting bands fo come through.” It seems strange that a band can go from being deemed “alternative metal” and thus unpalatable to being “funk metal” and hugely hip inthe eyes of the press and the music establishment. :

“Well, as the old saying goes, let ‘em call us what they want as long as they call us. If's sort of that any publicity deal, as long as it works in our favour and we can do what we wantto doit's fine. Fuck ‘em.”

Categorisation aside, the term “funk” does spring to mind with Faith No More’s sound. There's definite hints of itin the firsttwo albums but on The Real Thing it all seems to come together. Largely courtesy of Gould

and drummer Mike Bordin’s rhythm section, who lay down the definitive hard funk sound for the rest of the bandto work over. It seems like ll the elements have finally come together in the three year space between albums. “Ithink in the two years of touring we did on the Infroduce Yourself album we learnt how to play our instruments better and with the progress we made we convinced the record company fo give us more budget money which meant we could spend more time in the studio and get more sound out of our instruments. Like we were able fo spend a day and a half on the guitar sound whereas before, who has a day and a halfto dick around with the guitar sounds?” For a supposedly left-field outfit, Faith No More have been getting an impressive amount of attention, especially in Europe, and they're damned near cult heroes in England. “Well, nobody can play music like white trash Americans and although the English are too civilised to be white trash, they seemtolikethe sound and they respect true white trash when they see it, you know, they appreciate pure scum.” Actually, scumis fartoo strong a term for Faith No More. Sure, they're notyourtypical pout'n cheekbones rockers and they are a little, well, eclectic Bill's a big fan of organised crime and mass murderers. We filled each otherin one some good books andhe told me some truely gruesome stories. Allin good fun, though). Butscum or not they've definitely made rock music sound greatagain. But why take my word forite They play Auckland July 27 and we should be guaranteed an awesome show, the full crazy Faith - No More rock monster unleashed at last. The real thing.

KIRK GEE