Mike Patton/Faith No More--- AXL BASHING back in 92

[waxlrose1987]

remember when AXL threw Faith No More off the summer 92 tour (for 10 minutes but still) here are some inbterview clips of FNM and Mike Patton bashing Axl..This must have hurt AXL seeing as he is a huge Faith No More fan and was responsible for getting them on that tour and getting them at rock n rio 1991.....



NME JUNE 20 1992

Bass player Bill Gould  fingers a 22-date tour itinerary, titled 'GN'FN'R'S: STORMING THE MOTHERLAND'. Among the Gunners' road crew listed are: Personal Assistant to Axl Rose, Assistant to Axl Rose, Assistant to Axl Rose's Assistant, and get this, Witch Doctor.

Keyboard player Roddy Bottum (ex-boyfriend of Courtney Love, trivia fans) tells me that a  female background singer from the expanded GNR stage show employs a crew member specifically to blow cocaine up her anus with a straw.

"It's gossip that keeps this band alive. We're like a bunch of old ladies," muses singer Mike Patton. "It's the only thing that's new when you're traveling in a time capsule. All you can do is talk shit."

FNM have struggled with their reasons for supporting on the GNR tour. Patton will admit openly that he's a "whore." Bill, meanwhile, enjoys an intimate view of the ugly circus: "GNR and their management are like a small government. Axl's the president, and his manager's a personal advisor. A couple of the other more visible band members are vice-presidents. Then there's the little guys who come underneath, to make sure only the right information is leaked out. They're dependent on the band for their living, so they will police themselves. Support bands are like other countries with whom they maintain a diplomatic front. Like, keep your mouth shut, enjoy the ride and everything will be cool. Open your mouth, and jeopardize your own position. It's an interesting thing to experience first hand."

Duff McKagan lopes through the Gunners' terrain backstage. He looks punch-drunk, swollen and decaying. "That's business, man," Patton will comment drily. "You have to hold your hat off to the guy who's done that to him." Duff is hoisted up the back of the stage to watch FNM by two sides of beef in uniform. This is as much as I will see of GNR.

DETAILS SEPTEMBER 1992
 
Faith No More wreak anarchy in the UK. William Shaw reports from London and Manchester.

No one put a pistol to their heads and told them they had to tour with Guns N' Roses. Faith No More thought it would be good for their bank balance. Now, after three weeks of shows, they're bored silly.

Monday they arrive in London from Paris. Tuesday morning, singer Mike Patton gets a phone call in his Kensington hotel room telling him tonight's show in Manchester has been canceled. Axl Rose is suffering from exhaustion. Patton, looking a bit like an auto mechanic no one would trust, howls like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard. Downstairs an unshaven, dispirited bass player sits in the lobby. Unlike Patton, Billy Gould says he was looking forward to tonight's concert, if only because it would give him something to do. "But I can understand how Axl would be kind of exhausted, with this rigorous schedule of ours," he deadpans.

So far, the Guns N' Roses European tour is averaging two concers per week. FNM are used to gigging six nights out of seven.
But FNM don't share a common musical goal so much as a collective loathing for good taste. The whole stadium-tour circus bugs them.

"I wouldn't go to the show," Patton tells me about their upcoming date at Wembley. "It's a spectator sport. If we can be annoying, then we've accomplished something. I think."

 take Gould and Patton for a meal in Portobello Road. They start talking unguardedly about touring with GNR. Out it all pours. Patton claims one crew member got sacked just for bumping into Axl when the singer was changing costumes one night. Warming to the theme, Gould says that he heard Axl hired an exorcist because he believed he was possessed by the spirit of the dead AC/DC singer Bon Scott. (GNR's publicist later denies both of these tales, adding that "it's physically impossible for anyone to bump into Axl.") They paint Axl as a cranky headmaster that everyone's afraid of. But their stories are backstage hearsay. The fact is, they never get to see Axl much at all.

One of Axl's minders has told Patton that Axl really likes Mr. Bungle. The minder says Axl wants to get into something heavier, more industrial. "Industrial," laughs Patton maniacally, banging the table. "That's sick!"

They have sampled Axl's voice and used it a few times in their stage act, but no one seems to notice. GNR don't watch their shows. Patton thinks they may sometimes watch them over the monitors from their backstage area, but he's not sure. "I think watching us might get in the way of snorting coke from some strippers snatch," Pattons says laughing....

In the restaurant, Patton shares a secret. Axl has TV screens on stage that display the song words in case he forgets them. On the last night of the tour, Mike Patton tells me he wants "to take a shit right on top of those TV screens, in front of tens of thousands of people."

Mike "Puffy" Bordin confides to me he's worried FNM will get thrown off this tour because of the way the band is behaving. They're too unguarded about slagging GNR.

When I tell Patton this, he wheezes with laughter. "See?" he says. "That's what he's frightened of, but that's what excites me the most." Mike's eyes shine. "Three weeks into the tour and we're already pushing it. We're going to spend the summer with these guys. To me there's nothing... no real reason why we're doing this tour. I mean, it makes real business sense, but on a personal level we have to provoke. To me, that's our duty."


The Wembley show is in a couple hours. Patton changes into a shirt that features the Route 666 logo of a Texas noise band. Jim martin puts on one that sports the moniker of his favorite defunct metal band, the Mentors.

Slash, Duff, and Matt from GNR appear in a rehearsal room down the corridor and start jamming. Slash is wearing a t-shirt that says "Fuck." A cigarette pokes out through a mass of hair.

Queen's Brian May appears, looking sheepish in white clogs and a loud shirt. He plugs in a guitar and joins in the jam, rehearsing a GNR encore he's going to play on.

Jim watches them rehearse. "What's up, Satan?" he calls to Slash.

Slash looks up. "Hey," he waves at Jim, "where'd you get that shirt?"

FNM don't get a soundcheck. They haven't had one all tour. Behind the stacks of gear, they wait to go on. One GNR flight case lays open, drawers marked with roadie jokes like "Lesbian Awareness Literature" or "Spare Panties." Billy lolls his head around, looking depressed. "People ask, 'Don't you get excited when you get onstage?'" he tells me. "For these gigs, it's more like I finally get to the head of the line in the department of motor vehicles."

Roddy, chain-smoking, explains that at concerts like this, even the audience knows how to perform. "They cheer the first group a little, the next band more, and so on."

Afterward, the group sit backstage in painful silence. After cooling their heels for a week, and pulling a hundred stupid stunts to pass the time before their show, they come away hating the set. They thought they performed abysmally.

Kerry, the pierced fan, disagrees, swearing it was a great show. The band's reaction to the show has more to do with their own depressed state of mind than anything else. In reality it was a riveting performance, dominated by Patton's frantic charisma. He'll crouch down on his haunches like a medieval gargoyle, then spring up and fling himself forward until his feet sail over his head and he'll slap back down on the stage, barking out dementedly the whole time. Before launching into a song, he'll boom out at the crowd of 70,000, "I bet you feel pretty stupid out there."

"Actually," Roddy says, in the dressing room post-match analysis, "I've got to say, Sometimes, Mike, you come off a little arrogant."


GEE I WONDER WHY AXL HAD THEM THROWN OFF THE TOUR

[ARC]

I don't care how many people tell me how great and "cutting-edge" Faith No More were...

.... their music still cannot hold my attention.

[WARose]

fuckheads...

[DeN]

faith no more were brilliant, and mike patton is a fucking great artist and singer.
i understand both sides, and i agree guns n'roses was a big pathetic circus sometimes.

anyway, the music of the two bands was great, and that's the important point.

[Butch Français]

Mike Patton is a well known as an asshole

[Walapino]

hahahahaha  those articles rocked, damn i miss FNM. 

[mrlee]

mike patton has alot of caffene lol...hes like a mad hyper kid on stage, tis funny. like on the DVD, he farts into the microphone 

[GNROSAS]

Faith No More are quite unique musically and have influnced a lot of modern groups and possible Axl too..

Mike Patton is a phenomenal singer who can sing everything..

Now about the bashing if you read the official FNM book you would understand why they made such comments and actually
thay say some nice things about Axl. They admit that they went over the top with their comments spometimes and that they were just reacting to a situation ?that they couldn't relate to.. Some of their points are quite valid and i believe they were more mature and clear headed than GNR at that time....

One thing that characterises FNM is sarscasm not only about others but about themselves too...They pass their messages in that way... It is like Brain interviews who says a lot of things with sarcasm and you can't distinguish easily if he is joking or not...

By the way i really enjoyed these interviews...I couldn't stop laughing

[Olorin]

You will be hard pushed to find anyone who has a good word to say about GN'R throughout that era.
Most of the Axl Hating all stems from his behaviour from these times.
GN'R were a fucking joke in 92.

Things improved in 93, I always thought Axl's "Dust in the Wind" performances were a statement, almost like an acknowledgment in recognition of ?being as asshole sometimes.

By all accounts GN'R were a much better unit in 93 and Axl seemed more content.

But he has been labeled the biggest prick in rock ever since.

[Elle]

lets face it they were all most likely drunk n drugged off their faces and pissed off with the sight of each other. So I can sorta understand the bitchin!

[Mr.Intensity]

I never was a huge Faith No More fan... but Patton has a great voice and is a pretty funny guy.

[The Dog]

I find it funny for all the bands/artists who have done their fair share of Axl/GNR bashing that none of them come close to the legacy that GNR has.  I doubt todays music fans would even know who half those bands/people are.

I wonder if a large part of all the shit talking was pure jealousy.

[SLCPUNK]

Breaking news: Somebody said something "bad" about Axl 14 years ago.

Zzzzzzzz............................

[waxlrose1987]

Patton has a rep for getting into feuds with many singers....He and Anthony Kieidis have gone to war several times.....I have a lot of Faith No More bootlegs from when they opened for GNR and every concert Patton would talk shit about GNR on stage!! Like him or not that takes balls......At the Wembley show he told people to phone in a bomb threat when GNR would take the stage, he would say shit about Axl giving him head before the shows, saying that the feebdack from his mic would sound better than anything the crowd would hear the rest of the night....Funny thing is in Sevilla Spain FNM say that was the best show they ever played--the crowd was insane and Patton told the 60,000 people to throw bottles at the stage during the FNM set----so of course the fans did it to AXL and he went nuts threatening to stop the show..haha

[badintentions]

that's some funny stuff. Patton is a very talented individual. He puts out like 4 albums a year with different projects and they are always quality.

its no wonder he talked so much shit at this time about GNR and Axl. They had become a parody of themselves and rock and roll in general. I agree with one of the above posters that said this period is why Axl is so hated and made fun of nowadays.

[Gunner80]

that's some funny stuff. Patton is a very talented individual. He puts out like 4 albums a year with different projects and they are always quality.

its no wonder he talked so much shit at this time about GNR and Axl. They had become a parody of themselves and rock and roll in general. I agree with one of the above posters that said this period is why Axl is so hated and made fun of nowadays.

Yeah, and that's why the greatest hits moves 16,000 copies a week.

[W. Botaxl Rose]

FNM was great. The funny thing is although I loved Jim Martin, my favorite songs were made after he left. Weird.

Funny how Slash still seemed to get along with them. 

[badintentions]

that's some funny stuff. Patton is a very talented individual. He puts out like 4 albums a year with different projects and they are always quality.

its no wonder he talked so much shit at this time about GNR and Axl. They had become a parody of themselves and rock and roll in general. I agree with one of the above posters that said this period is why Axl is so hated and made fun of nowadays.

Yeah, and that's why the greatest hits moves 16,000 copies a week.

i didn't say that gnr wasn't popular. believe me i am a huge fan and recognize they have and continue to sell many records. but if you don't recognize how much Axl gets made fun of in the media and how a lot of people really hate him (check out the sludge boards etc. someday) you are blind. i am guessing the reason for most of that negativity is because of axl's actions during the time period around the FNM tour. let's take fred durst for example (one of my least favorite people ever). his band has sold a lot of records, but he gets made fun of and is hated by a lot of people including the media. same for scott stapp, lots of records sold, hated and made fun of by millions. btw, i hate scott stapp and fred, and am a huge fan of axl, but can you understand the comparison just in those regards?

[mikegiuliana]

Mike Patton tells me he wants "to take a shit right on top of those TV screens, in front of tens of thousands of people."

:hihi:just made me laugh

[KeVoRkIaN]

FNM also wanted to get kicked off the tour as the rescheduled dates after the Hetfield incident was screwing up their planned North American headlining tour for Angel Dust (which in the end - never happened)