Faith No More’s Mike Bordin Says Mike Patton is “Unwilling to Do Shows With Us”
Mental health and addiction issues are some of the hardest things to deal with as a human being. Shit goes sideways for some people and you want to help those close to you get through the bad times and hopefully come out the other side in a better place. Such was the official story of Mike Patton and the Faith No More tour that ultimately got cancelled following the pandemic.
The story went something like this: the pandemic threw everyone into lockdown and Mike Patton, who was so used to running around and being busy all the time, developed agoraphobia and began struggling with alcoholism. By the time Faith No More’s tour was coming up, he wasn’t capable as a performer and went on record saying “something really bad could have happened” had the band’s 75 dates — as well as those with Mr. Bungle — hadn’t been canceled.
Ever since, the rest of Faith No More and Patton apparently haven’t been on the best terms, leaving some to suspect they’re on a “semi-permanent hiatus”. In the years that followed, Patton’s gone all over the world touring with the thrash version of Mr. Bungle. Meanwhile, the dudes in Faith No More have been on the sidelines doing their own thing and not really talking about what went down.
That all changed, however, during a recent interview between comedian Dean Delray and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin on the latest episode of Let There Be Talk (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). And from what it sounds like, he feels like it wasn’t that after a certain point Patton wasn’t able to play with Faith No More — it’s that he didn’t want to.
“We’d been rehearsing for six months for these dates [in September/October 2021]. We’d been rehearsing instrumentally and we incredibly sounded phenomenal. I mean, the bass player said, ‘I’ve never heard us sound this good. This is how these songs sounded in my mind.’ And we’ve never gotten that on album, on live, whatever. I mean, we were ready, we were prepared. And it came to pass that when the gear was in the truck, when it was rolling to Chicago, 36 hours before we were supposed to be on stage, and our guy [Mike Patton] doesn’t show for the rehearsal, the one rehearsal that we’re gonna do. And we go to go see him and see what’s going on. ‘What the hell’s going on here? Our gear’s rolling already to the gig.’ And it was very clear that he was unable at that point to physically do it.
“We made the decision that, ‘Look, we’ve gotta support our guy.’ It’s gonna be a shit storm canceling fucking 75 shows, but none of us wants to be the guy that breaks his back and forces him to do something that he’s not in the position to be able to do. It wasn’t even an argument. The only argument was, ‘How the fuck did we logistically do this? Because we have to.’ I mean, we did support him in our way, and whether that’s perceived or not is beyond — I can’t control it. So we pull these shows and just wait to see. Hopefully things are better, and try to find out what we can around the edges.
“But ultimately shows get started to get booked with another band, and that’s continued to this day. So it’s my take, my position, my statement on it is that he’s gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that’s heavy. That’s a big difference. That’s a big difference. And we haven’t really had much dialogue on it.”
That last bit, about “shows get started to get booked with another band” is key there. He’s referencing the Mr. Bungle tour and how Patton was able to perform again but apparently never reached out to Faith No More to reschedule the canceled dates. It’s then reasonable to conclude, if everything Bordin says is 100% accurate, that Patton was just moving on.
“It doesn’t feel great to me. It honestly kind of hurts my feelings a little bit, but that’s personal. That’s a private thing. It’s business. We were never gonna force somebody to do something that they weren’t able to do. And now, as I say, it looks like it’s more really about being willing to do it.”
That’s gotta be a hard pill to swallow after all those years. Remember, they’d recorded Sol Invictus and toured the world again, killing it as a unit for the first time in a very long time.
Eventually, Bordin said he was thankful for having been able to perform with talents like Patton, late Faith No More vocalist Chuck Mosley, and even Courtney Love, who’d performed with the band in the very early days. But he acknowledges that at the end of the day, the rest of the band can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do.
“I can’t force him [Patton] to do something that he, from where I’m sitting, doesn’t seem to wanna do. That’s all I can say. And I don’t wanna be controversial. I’m not looking for a fucking headline — I’m really not. I’m just trying to tell you sort of what it looks like from here.”
