Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Midlife Crisis (1992)
What do you do when your band finally breaks through with a hit album after a decade of toil? If you're Faith No More, you follow it up with the weirdest and most awesome album you can come up with.
The San Francisco band's roots go back to 1979 with the formation of the group Sharp Young Men by singer Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined later. After recording some songs in their friend Matt Wallace's garage, the band changed its name to Faith No Man and released a single. Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington and then Bottum, Gould and Bordin left and formed Faith No More. There was a revolving door of singers and guitarists, including Courtney Love at one point, until the group settled on Chuck Mosley as vocalist and Jim Martin as guitarist. The band's stock in trade was funk metal, with Martin providing massive riffage to aid in the metal part of its sound.
Faith No More had been around for a few years before scoring a rock radio hit with "We Care a Lot" in 1987, but when Mosley's behavior grew too erratic, the band parted ways with him and eventually hired Mike Patton as his replacement. FNM had auditioned more than 15 singers, including Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, but went with Patton because of his vocal ability and range. Patton dropped out of Humboldt State University and worked with the band on its third album, The Real Thing. The music had already been written and Patton wrote lyrics for the songs in under two weeks.
The Real Thing was released in June 1989, but it didn't enter the Billboard 200 until February 1990 after the second single "Epic" was released. The song's video became a huge hit on MTV and generated all sorts of momentum for the band (although animal rights activists were upset about a shot of a goldfish flopping out of water). The album was heavy, but "Epic" featured Patton's breaking out some Anthony Kiedis-esque punk-funk vocals, so much so that the Chili Peppers started taking shots at FNM in the press. The rest of the album has killer hooks as well as all-out metal songs, but "Epic" got most of the attention. Of course, it also inspired a lot of the nu-metal bands that popped up a decade later like Korn and Limp Bizkit, so, uh, there's that.
The album eventually got to #11 on the Billboard 200 and sold well worldwide. FNM played on Saturday Night Live and the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. In 1991, the band released a live album from that tour and contributed a song to the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack; Martin also made a cameo in the movie. Patton's original band Mr. Bungle signed with Slash Records and recorded an album.
While recording the follow-up, Angel Dust, Martin started to drift apart from the band. He lived in Los Angeles while the rest of the band lived in the Bay Area, but producer Wallace was quoted as saying Martin wasn't enthused about the music, which he started calling "gay disco." Martin finished the record and tour but left the band afterwards.
Angel Dust was much more experimental, completely abandoning the funk-rock sound of the previous albums. It received critical acclaim, but I'm sure the label and radio DJs must have been dumbstruck at the sheer noncommercial nature of the album. There are still metal touches here and there, but the album was a combination of art rock and aggressive avant-garde sounds.
The lead single "Midlife Crisis" was originally called "Madonna," which Patton said was from observing her public image and imagining she was struggling to stay relevant. Patton sings in a menacing fashion, about as far from Kiedis as you can get.
"Go on and wring my neck/Like when a rag gets wet/A little discipline/For my pet genius/My head is like lettuce/Go on, dig your thumbs in/I cannot stop givin'/I'm thirtysomething."
Patton was only in his early 20s when he wrote the song, so he was imagining what a midlife crisis would be for someone a decade (or more) older.
"Sense of security/Like pockets jinglin'/Midlife crisis/Suck ingenuity/Down through the family tree/You're perfect, yes it's true/But without me, you're only you/Your menstruating heart/It ain't bleedin' enough for two."
Released in May 1992, there was enough buzz for Faith No More that "Midlife Crisis" went to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and hit #10 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Meanwhile, the album went to #10 on the Billboard 200 and #2 in the U.K. but it ultimately didn't sell as well as its predecessor.
The band said later in interviews that label execs at Reprise told them that releasing the album would be commercial suicide. Which is understandable when the album includes songs like "Jizzlobber" and "Crack Hitler." The other singles released from the album were "A Small Victory" and "Everything's Ruined," which are brilliantly deranged and catchy at the same time. The band also released a cover of the Commodores' "Easy" that was pretty faithful to the original.
I was a big fan of The Real Thing when it came out and picked up Angel Dust fairly soon after it came out. It was a surprising listen and took a while to sink in, but it's really a terrific album that holds up much better than The Real Thing.
FNM released two more albums before splitting up in 1998. Patton was busy working on a number of side projects including Mr. Bungle, Fantomas and Tomahawk and has worked with everyone from Bjork to Team Sleep to Dillinger Escape Plan and has performed classical and operatic works.
Faith No More's 1998 lineup reunited in 2009 to play festival shows for a few years. Then in 2014, they opened for Black Sabbath and then announced they were making another album, 2015's Sol Invictus, which was a strong effort. In 2016, the band (minus Patton) played two shows with Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot; Mosley died the following year at age 57.
FNM was scheduled to play festival shows in 2020, but those were rescheduled because of the COVID pandemic. Its shows in 2021 were canceled, with Patton citing mental health issues. Nothing has been rescheduled since then.
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