‘I was the only out queer guy in rock’: Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum Speaks Out.
As Roddy Bottum began crafting his remarkable autobiography The Royal We, the keyboard player for Faith No More had a definite idea of the sort of book he did not wish to create. “The kind that has pictures in the middle,” he notes, in a video call from Oxnard, California, where he is completing a new album with his band Imperial Teen. “I don’t care much for rock memoirs – they’re the most predictable, name-droppy, sub-literature experiences.”
The Royal We avoids being name-droppy – Bottum leaves out the surnames of his bandmates. And while he describes the group’s origins and initial growth, this plays a lesser role to his “adventures as a young person” in San Francisco, “in an era pre-internet, when the city was still untouched.” Much of the focus is on his sexual awakening, and how the associated hiddenness and shame have influenced his life. “From a young age, around 13 or 14, I engaged in sexual relations with men,” he explains. “It was such a taboo, and that set the tone of my life.” In the memoir, incidents involving his seeking encounters in restrooms and parks as a teenager are narrated unflinchingly and unapologetically. “Intimate moments occurred with older men in outdoor hideaways,” he records. “Shamefully at first, proudly later. Get lost.”
“During presentations, I open with that segment,” he declares. “I recognize the inflammatory nature of such remarks; it’s so inappropriate. But I have no regret. With Trump in power, my truth needs to be shouted loud, to oppose the bigotry, the anti-transgender and discriminatory views.” He halts. “I aim to stir controversy. My relatives include religious conservatives, and it’s absolutely my intention to ruin their Thanksgiving dinner with this book. Because they’ll all read it.”
The memoir opens on the teenage Bottum shifting from his birthplace Los Angeles. “San Francisco offered a sharp contrast to LA’s glossy surface,” he says. “Chilly. Dark. People with dyed black hair and white faces, individuals using hard drugs like meth and heroin. The LGBTQ+ scene in San Francisco stood in stark contrast to LA’s. It was inspiring.”
Joining Faith No More
In 1981, Bottum became a member of Faith No Man, which evolved into Faith No More with Billy Gould and Mike Bordin, accenting their “powerful bass and drums” with “an element of grace over the gloom. Keyboards were rare in rock groups at the time.” They rotate vocalists, including – temporarily – Courtney Love, the memoir’s most striking figure, an fearless source of disorder lighting homes on fire and alienating people constantly.
“Courtney and I both knew right away that we were soulmates,” Bottum states. Their non-romantic relationship briefly blurred into a sexual relationship, leading to pregnancy and abortion; later, Bottum became a trusted confidant of Love and her husband, Kurt Cobain. Contrary to the negative stereotypes, Bottum describes Love as someone with wit, energy and agency.
“Courtney faced many challenges,” he nods. “An influential yet disputed individual, and incredibly bright. And that’s a very attractive, exciting person to write about. Her nature is caring and understanding, and many fail to see that side. Yet we shared a deep bond and supported one another.”
The Band’s Beginnings
The early Faith No More were, Bottum confesses, “completely ridiculous.” Their music focused on insistent, weighty rhythms played freely while under the influence of multiple substances, including MDMA, while their frontman, alcoholic oddball Chuck Mosley, “lacked vocal talent.” But they had aspiration. “The local music community preferred dark aesthetics, but we adored mainstream media and artists. In some crazy way, we imagined we were part of that mix. However, we lacked any pop charm or allure.”
But their ironic hybrid track We Care a Lot became a modest television favorite in 1988, Mosley ceded the mic to the camera-friendly Mike Patton (who did have a good singing voice), and by 1990 Faith No More’s third album was a genuine, award-recognized success. As usual, The Royal We doesn’t dwell on this triumph, jump-cutting instead to their unsuccessful period on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s 1992 stadium tour.
“The heroin was me self-medicating, so I could feel OK about living all these secrets.”
On the Road with Legends
It was, Bottum remarks, “the biggest tour that had ever happened.” But Faith No More were quickly distanced by the “toxic” rock’n’roll circus they’d clambered aboard; in the memoir, he tells an disturbing encounter with groupies recruited for GN’R’s entertainment. “The sexism and arrogance from Guns N’ Roses felt overwhelming,” he states. “They had that song One In a Million, with the N word and the F word [faggot], and that reflected the atmosphere offstage. I wanted no involvement. We declined to contribute our identity to such toxicity.”
The tour – from which Faith No More were sacked two weeks early, for criticizing GN’R in the press – marked a pivotal moment for Bottum. “I needed to be who I was,” he declares, “to talk about being gay, to distance myself from this harmful atmosphere.” Against his managers’ advice, he publicly revealed his sexuality in the pages of the Advocate the following year. “I stood alone as an openly gay man in rock music,” he states. “Freddie Mercury hadn’t come out before he died. Michael Stipe remained silent on the topic, nor Judas Priest’s frontman, nor the alternative rock figure. This fueled my frustration. I needed to put myself on that page of history, to get people to accept a queer person in music. Many queer youth expressed how my openness impacted them positively.”
Overcoming Addiction
Bottum hadn’t even discussed his sexuality with his fellow members, even though he journeyed with his boyfriend on the tourbus. “Their tolerant attitudes meant they’d have understood,” he notes. “The trauma of growing up gay during that time, the damage of the shame and homophobia.” He found instant acceptance from Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was the clear opposite of the sexism and anti-gay sentiment that had marred the GN’R tour. “Kurt was a rare find,” Bottum whispers. “He wanted to be gay – Kurt loved the provocation of that. This connected us deeply. My sexuality was something he valued. He stood out as extraordinary.”
Bottum became intimate to Cobain and Love, the trio bonded at the time by heroin addiction. Bottum