Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. The band rose to prominence with the lineup of bassist Billy Gould, drummer Mike Bordin, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum, guitarist Jim Martin – who all played on the debut album – and vocalist Mike Patton, who joined in 1988.
Before September 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith. No Man. The band's first two albums, We Care a Lot (1985) and Introduce Yourself (1987), featured singer Chuck Mosley. With Patton's addition, Faith No More broke through with the platinum-selling The Real Thing (1989) and gold-selling Angel Dust (1992). The band recorded hit singles such as "Epic", which reached No. 9 in the U.S., and a cover of the Commodores' "Easy", which was a worldwide hit in Australia and Europe. Martin left the band in 1993. After two temporary replacements, Trey Spruance and Dean Menta, Jon Hudson joined as Faith No More's guitarist in 1996.
The band broke up in 1998 after six albums, but reunited in 2009 to begin The Second Coming Tour before releasing Sol Invictus, their first record in 18 years, in 2015. Faith No More attempted to tour in 2020, which was first derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and later canceled because of Patton's mental health, resulting in the band's second hiatus. In June 2026, Gould confirmed that Faith No More plans to tour in 2027.
History
Early days as Sharp Young Men and Faith. No Man (1979–1983) The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist/guitarist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Worthington was a trained pianist and first met Morris in 1978. For years, Worthington had been interested in forming a Jimmy Smith-style jazz project, with just him on organs and a drummer. When a previous musical group of theirs fell apart due to a lack of shows, Morris convinced Worthington to instead become part of a new band idea he had called Sharp Young Men. Morris had long been a fan of pop music, but this new project was inspired by post-punk artists he had recently started listening to.
Having heard about drummer Mike Bordin, who had played in local San Francisco bands, Morris and Worthington talked him into joining Sharp Young Men. According to Morris, it took significantly longer for them to find a bassist, with the band eventually recruiting Billy Gould via a newspaper ad around 1980. Gould had moved from Los Angeles to begin his first year at the UC Berkeley, which put him in the same area as the other members. Between March 1982 and August 1982, Sharp Young Men did a 12 show club tour of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1982, a three-song demo cassette was also released under the Sharp Young Men name, which featured the songs "Alive", "Decay" and "Life Is Tough for Me". Morris called the Sharp Young Men name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time", and claimed on their early music he was influenced by Killing Joke, Theatre of Hate and The Blackouts. Later in 1983, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith. No Man. (stylized with either two full stops or two bullet points).
Faith. No Man released their debut 7-inch vinyl single, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", in 1983 via Ministry of Propaganda Records. Both songs were recorded in producer Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men. The band's name was Faith. No Man. for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage. Worthington left shortly thereafter, and was replaced on keyboards by Roddy Bottum, who had grown up in Los Angeles with Billy Gould. Bottum, Gould and Bordin soon quit the band together and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in September 1983 after it was suggested to them by a friend named Will Carpmill, who believed it accentuated the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More".
In 2012, Morris said he had not spoken to Gould or Bottum since they quit Faith No Man in 1983, and that he also had not spoken to Bordin in many years, having only kept in regular contact with Worthington. During later interviews, the members gave reporters a fake story about the Faith No More name's origin, claiming that it was inspired by a real racehorse of the same name. The horse only began racing in 1988, five years after the band chose the name Faith No More.
Initial Faith No More lineups (1983–1984) The band's first show as Faith No More, in October 1983, featured vocalist Joe Callahan (known as Joe Pop-o-Pie) and Jake Smith on guitar. The first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured their first live performance as Faith No More on Side A, and a 20-minute instrumental track on Side B, titled "New Love, Same Neuroses; New Hairstyles, Same Minds". By the beginning of 1984, Mark Bowen had replaced Smith on guitar. Throughout 1984, the band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including brief stints with vocalists Paula Frazer and Courtney Love. Frazer was originally from Arkansas and she went on to front the alt-country band Tarnation, which released music through Warner/Reprise Records in the 1990s. Love's stint as Faith No More vocalist began in February 1984, with Love having recently moved to San Francisco after living in Japan during the early 1980s. Love was dating Bottum while in Faith No More. When the two first met, they initially bonded over their shared zodiac sign, with Bottum claiming that she went on to "talk her way" into the band.Behind the Music episode on Courtney Love VH1, 2010. Despite dating Love around this time, Bottum later came out as homosexual in 1993. One of Love's performances with Faith No More in San Francisco was taped and broadcast during the spring of 1984 on Viacom Public Access on Channel 25. Both Love and guitarist Mark Bowen had both left the band by June 1984. Regarding her departure, Love said in a 2010 VH1 interview that "Faith No More didn't want to have the image of a chick singer anymore", while Bottum claimed, "we wanted a male energy. That was sort of just the direction we needed to go in as a band."
The band eventually settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley around August 1984, with guitarist Jim Martin also joining during this period. Mosley had known Billy Gould since 1977, and previously performed with him in a Los Angeles new wave band called The Animated, which Gould was in prior to joining Sharp Young Men. Mosley appeared as Faith No More's vocalist on a 1984 self-titled demo cassette, which also featured earlier demos recorded with Frazer and Love. Martin had previously been a bandmate of Bordin during the late 1970s in EZ Street along with future Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, and had also been in a short-lived thrash metal project with Burton named Vicious Hatred.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
The band initially started recording the album We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to Polygram subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behavior had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard Mr. Bungle's first demo tape, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written the lyrics to the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top-10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow-motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band did extensive touring in North America, and supported Billy Idol on his Charmed Life tour. That year, they played additional shows in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This helped send The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide. In 1991, the band played their first shows in South America and Japan, before focusing on recording another studio album.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)