Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum Says ’90s Tour with Guns N’ Roses Was “Offensive Turning Point”
Looking back at some of the more infamous moments in heavy metal history, and there are many, one that particularly stands out is a tour that happened many years ago that came with many problems. Back in the day, in 1991 specifically, Faith No More opened the co-headlining tour of Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, called the “Use Your Illusion” tour.
Roddy Bottum, the co-founding keyboardist in Faith No More, wrote about some instances on that tour among other things in his recent memoire The Royal We, discussing some of it in a recent interview with 60 Minutes or Less podcast. Host Andy Hughes inquired with Bottum further about how he felt about that tour, considering all the bullshit surrounding it (property damage, fights, riots, tons of arrests—you name it).
Bottum responded:
“I think it was a challenge, but honestly, only for me. It was very much the rock and roll norm at that point. Misogyny, male aggression [and] toxic masculinity was all just part of the equation at that time. Everyone was on board for it. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t, honestly. . . . [Most of Faith No More] were leftist-leaning, progressive, weird and . . . liberal-minded. Billy [Gould, bass], Mike [Bordin, drums] and Mike [Patton, vocals]. We were all like, ‘Oh, my god.’ Kinda blown away by the audacity of that environment. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
“But we were very much alone in that mindset. Everyone on that tour – the Guns N’ Roses people, the crew, the Metallica people, their crew, Jim [Martin] [and] probably a lot of our crew – were down with the hedonism. They were okay with it, and it was just an era in which people got on board. Me, being the gay man, was sort of like – I grew up with three sisters, you know, basically. That was just, like, offensive and wild and ‘What the fuck?’ to me more than anyone else, for sure.”
Bottum then elaborated more by referencing something he says in his memoir:
“Seeing the potential association of us as a band – and me in that band – being sort of regarded as that was, like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Up to that point, I hadn’t really been open about my sexuality in the press, so it kind of did stir me onto making that declaration in the press and talking about being gay.
“There was definitely solitude in sort of my perspective and who I was, like being the gay person. For sure, in that camp, in that world, in that rock and roll circus, there were no gay people. No way. Like, I was the only one for certain, and in that way, certainly so much alone. I didn’t do that interview [in which he came out] until the end of that tour, when something comes up in that circus that I see and it’s like, ‘Oh, my god.’ It’s kind of like the turning point for me.”
I mean, just seeing how Axl Rose has conducted himself in recent years while on stage, it makes sense that he at the band’s heyday was an absolute disaster. So, I guess it was a turning point in the right direction for Roddy?
